“Gotcha. Okay, let’s do it,” Mike said.
“This is a family in danger, Mike.”
“Yep, I agree. Like I said—let’s do it.”
Craig strode out of the room to find the police officer in charge; he didn’t tell him where they were going. He wasn’t bringing backup.
He hoped to hell that he wasn’t making a mistake.
And that ruthless killers weren’t already one step ahead.
* * *
Officers Harding and Chopra were, Kieran determined, just about the best possible bodyguards one could hope to have. Kieran was completely honest with them and explained what she wanted to do. They understood. June Chopra told her, “Kieran, honey, you’re not a prisoner. It’s easier, of course, to guard you here—but we know what we’re doing. If there is something important for you to do, let’s do it.”
“You might want to let Agent Frasier know what’s up,” Harding said.
“Or we can call our boss,” Chopra said.
“It’s just a suggestion,” Harding said.
“Not to worry. I have no problem calling Craig or Mike or even Egan,” Kieran assured him.
But she did have a problem—a technical one. Neither Craig nor Mike answered their phones. She tried Egan. It still always surprised and pleased her that he was so ready to accept her calls. She wasn’t one of his agents. She wasn’t even a cop. She just sometimes wound up in a situation where she could try to help.
She explained about her connection to the INS worker.
“Any lead is wonderful,” Egan said. “I can have some agents or a police officer go by and leave a message for her if she isn’t there.”
“I’d rather just try. I’m restless. And this is a loose, loose connection. A wild card. Still, a bunch of cops at her door could scare her. I think it’s okay if I just go.”
“Not alone.”
“No, of course not,” Kieran assured him. “I’ve got my protection detail. I don’t want to bring a lot of people with me—we’re just going to have a casual chat with this woman, and I hope she might have a clue in tracing the baby’s mother, Yulia Decebel.”
“Keep in contact with me, then. And if you get something—something physical—please bring it here, to our offices. Good luck.”
Harding and Chopra had politely waited for her to finish her conversation.
“A few ground rules when we’re moving about,” Harding told her. “One of us is slightly ahead of you, one slightly behind, and you listen to every word we say. If we ask you to drop to the ground—”
“I drop,” Kieran agreed.
“Slide to cover,” Chopra said.
“Whatever you say—it’s my wish to obey,” she assured them. “Come on, guys, I kind of know this drill.”
As soon as they left her building, they had her flanked. Harding was slightly in front of her. Chopra was slightly behind her. They were well trained.
They even understood that she didn’t know exactly what they were going to find once they reached the address that Esperanza Rodriguez had given Kieran. They knew that they were going to try to find someone who couldn’t be reached by phone. And if they were concerned that something might have happened to Alyssa Ryan, they didn’t show it.
Then again, why should they be concerned?
And that was probably the sane way to see things. It was possible—maybe even likely—that the woman wasn’t going to be home. People went out. And while people rarely left their phones at home these days, sometimes it happened. The woman had a two-year-old—that often meant that a phone was forgotten, or hidden even—lest little fingers find every kid’s video possible, call someone by accident, or even order an Uber.
Alyssa Ryan lived in a building in Midtown, not far from Times Square. Harding drove fluidly through the streets of the city, unfazed by whatever traffic they encountered. Kieran was aware that both her escorts were taking notice of everyone around them.
Chopra would mention a vehicle; Harding would study it in the rearview mirror. They were obviously talking about cars that might bear suspicious passengers. After consulting each other each time, it appeared that none of them really seemed to offer a threat.
Kieran was anxious to be out of the car when they drew up near the building’s entry, but she bit her lip and forced herself to wait until both Chopra and Harding were properly positioned. Outside the door, they noted twenty call boxes and found the one for the Ryan residence. They rang a couple times...and no one responded.
Kieran tried dialing Alyssa Ryan’s cell phone number again. There was no answer. As Kieran listened to the sound of the unanswered call ringing and ringing, she gazed about the street. She looked down.
There was blood on the concrete.
Little droplets of something dark red and shiny.
They led to the door going into the building.
“Oh, Lord!” she cried.
Clay and Harding were at her side. Kieran began to pull at the handle and shake the door.
“Kieran, please stand back!” Harding said.
She stepped away. Harding had her by a good hundred pounds. Definitely had much better shoulders.
And he wasn’t holding back.
He slammed his shoulder against the door. Again and again.
It gave way with a sharp snap, the lock breaking, and then they were in.
Before the door, there were more spots. Leading down the hall to the apartments, a trail of blood.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Craig was a good driver—a skill honed over the years. He was capable of being a good fast driver, as well. He was intent on reaching the address they had discovered on the receipt—hiding in plain sight at the Baron home—as quickly as possible.
Once they were out of the city, the roads were dark.
Darker still as the roads became smaller and narrower, until Craig followed nothing but a trail of dirt up toward a cabin sitting in the midst of a small clearing and surrounded by pines. The trees seemed to hug the little building like a protective cape.
Craig could have sworn he’d seen a light in the cabin through the trees when they first came around on the dirt trail leading to it. But when they reached the rocky dirt driveway in front of the house, it was pitch-black. Only the car’s headlamps gave any glow at all, other than a smattering of stars above them. Even the moon had hidden, so it seemed.
Craig looked at Mike. Mike groaned softly, then shrugged. “Let’s check it out. At worst? They can arrest us for breaking and entering.”
Craig nodded and grinned. Mike had Craig’s back anytime—even if he liked to make a show of warning against anything that wasn’t completely within legal limits.
“I saw a light,” Craig said quietly. “I’m certain of it.”
“You think we scared them?”
“Possibly. But that’s better than...”
“Than?”
“Better than us getting here and them already dead.”
Craig opened the car door, leaving the keys hanging in the ignition and the lights on. He walked around to the trunk and drew out two of the flashlights they kept there, tossing one to Mike as he emerged from the car, as well. He aimed the light at the wooden porch steps and then the main door of the cabin. He walked up and tried the door—certain it would be locked, but testing it, anyway.
It didn’t budge.
Mike came up behind him, prepared with a little tool he carried that wasn’t exactly FBI issue. In a matter of seconds, he’d jimmied the lock open. They slowly swung open the door and stepped cautiously into the pitch-black cabin.
Craig threw the glow of his flashlight over the living room.
There was a needle-hook rug on the floor between a large fireplace and a worn leather sofa with matching side chairs. On the rug was a dollhouse and various figurines. A copy of a well-loved
children’s book lay open beside it. A sippy cup was on a table by the sofa.
Someone had just been there.
Someone had just run.
“Outside,” Mike told Craig.
“Rooms, attic, basement,” Craig said.
They both nodded. Mike headed out.
Craig started out quickly moving to the left—dining room and kitchen—and then through the living room to the right—two bedrooms, one with a full-sized bed and the other with a twin bed and bunk beds.
The cabin was warm. It had heating; it had water and electric. He was willing to bet that it had cable, and that all of it was held and paid under an assumed name.
The place seemed to have what was needed for day-to-day use—even for three girls. It had been there for some time, Craig thought.
Waiting—prepared.
Lily Baron had known that her husband might well wind up in trouble. And he had been honest enough to try to make sure that if sacrificing his own life didn’t work, she’d still be safe with their girls.
But Lily clearly also knew that her husband’s enemies were many, that they were cunning, and that they wielded great power.
That they might find her.
Maybe they had.
He refused to believe that. Jimmy Baron was in the hospital, most probably dying. Maybe it was just too much to think that his whole family might have been killed, as well.
The rooms were empty.
He found the one ladder to the attic next, pulled it down, and climbed up. It wasn’t much of an attic; it was really a crawl space that held a few boxes.
No one was hiding up there. The dust was undisturbed. No one had been there.
As he came down the ladder, he softly called Lily’s name. “I’m Special Agent Craig Frasier. I’m with the FBI. You don’t need to be afraid of me.”
There was no answer. He didn’t really expect one.
Only one place was left inside—the basement. He found stairs that led down into what was basically little more than a plastered-over foundation. It was full of barrels and boxes and chests—all manner of storage.
“Lily, please, if you’re here, let me help you,” he said.
Nothing.
But then he heard a sniffle.
And then a soft cry.
And one little voice that urged another to be quiet.
He didn’t realize how hard his heart had been beating until he felt it then; one slam against his chest and it started to slow.
“Lily, please, I’m with the FBI. I’m here to see that you and your children are safe—really safe.” He pulled out his wallet and his credentials. “Not sure where you are in here, but I hope you can see these. I don’t want the girls to be unduly frightened.”
She stood then.
She had been taking refuge behind one of the storage chests.
Lily Baron was a slender woman of medium height. She had pale blond hair, a color echoed in the three little heads that soon appeared near her, one popping out from behind the dressmaker’s dummy, and two of them arising from behind trunks.
She would have been very pretty if she didn’t wear such a weary look of concern and worry.
“Really, Lily, it’s okay. You’re safe,” he said, and she began to cry.
* * *
It was a crime scene. Kieran prayed that she wasn’t going to find a dead woman. She knew she shouldn’t go rushing through the apartment; she wasn’t armed in case there was still a threat, and she might contaminate the scene if she didn’t move carefully.
Life was most important.
She prayed Alyssa was alive.
And she had a child...
No one in the living room. Chopra and Harding were with her—armed protectors—and she should have let them go first.
Later, she would admit that.
But in the moment, she just rushed through. Ran at full speed through to the back, and there, on the kitchen floor, she found Alyssa Ryan.
Alyssa had huge dark eyes. She looked lost and afraid and completely bewildered as she cradled a bundle in her bloody arms.
“Help!” she whispered.
“Help is here, hold on, hold on...”
Kieran reached for the bundle.
Alyssa Ryan’s little two-year-old. “I have him, I have him, help is coming!” She could hear June Chopra on her radio; an ambulance was on the way, cops were on the way.
As if she instinctively believed that Kieran was real help, she nodded.
Her eyes closed and she fell still.
Again, with more urgency, Kieran prayed that she wasn’t dead.
* * *
Craig called Richard Egan to let him know that they had found Lily Baron and her daughters—alive. He didn’t intend to tell anyone else, though, and he let Egan know why.
“Slippery slope there, my friend, thinking some kind of law enforcement agent or officer might be involved,” Egan said. “Then again, I have nothing against keeping information on a need-to-know basis.” He was quiet for a minute. “You’re aware that either McBride or Kendall or Beard or his partner, Holmes, have been at the hospital continually. Not the marshals, of course. Their one job—”
“Keep Riley and Tanya safe, yeah,” Craig said.
He was standing just inside the front door of the little cabin. Mike had taken the car around back—a precaution—while Craig kept watch on the road. Craig had no desire to see anyone arrive as he and Mike tried to get the Baron family secretly to safety.
“They haven’t been alone there, have they?” he asked. “I don’t mean alone—obviously, there are doctors and nurses and hospital personnel, but it never occurred to me that our explosion victim might be left alone with...with cops,” he said, finishing a little lamely.
“You’ve worked with me a long time,” Egan said. There might have been amusement in his voice; there might have been reproach. “Do you really think that I wouldn’t be looking out for our interests? I’ve had an agent in there 24/7. We’ve been keeping our eye on the cops. Oh, and, I guess, the cops have been keeping an eye on us.”
“In what way?”
“Your new friend—or Mike’s old friend. Jacob Wolff. It’s too dangerous for him to go undercover again. His superiors have agreed, however, that he can pinch-hit with the US Marshals when it comes to watching over Tanya and Riley. Or our man in the hospital.”
“What about the fellow who was followed to his apartment? Who was in the waiting room the other night?” Craig asked.
“Ah, him. Hmm. You know, it was odd. The whole building was checked out. We have not been able to find anyone legally in that building who matches the man’s description. How he got in—and out again—we don’t know. Whoever he was, no one has been able to ascertain—not any of the best research guys from the federal or local agencies,” Egan said.
“So he must have been there because he suspected something. Because he was trying to see if the place would crawl with cops.”
“Highly likely,” Egan said. “Then again, the man, thus far—should we figure out who he is—has not done anything illegal. It isn’t against the law to sit in a hospital waiting room.” Egan let out something of a frustrated and weary sigh. “With this gang, we need an entire squad room to watch everyone involved all of the time. Anyway, get that woman and her kids here, to safety, ASAP. I’ll let the US Marshals office know that we’re about to add to their burden.” He was quiet for a minute. “A miracle if that man pulls through. If he does, he’s going to have to make one hell of a deal with the state’s attorney. Don’t that really beat all, huh? The man manages to control his personal and physical demons, and then the poor bastard is burned nearly to death. Good thing is, if he gets a new life, he will live it well.”
“I’ve met his wife and kids. He’s got something to live for,” Craig said. They ended the ca
ll.
All of a sudden, Craig could see lights on the road. He frowned. There wasn’t much out this way. Was someone headed here?
His phone rang. It was Mike.
“We’re ready here. Mom and kids tucked into the back of the car. Let’s go.”
Craig hesitated.
What if someone was coming out here to kill the Baron family?
“Craig?”
Didn’t matter; there was nothing else he could do right now. He couldn’t leave Mike alone to defend the family if something happened in the car.
“On my way.”
He hurried through the house. Out back, he quickly slipped into the car. He glanced around. Lily Baron sat white-faced, her oldest and youngest daughters to her left, her middle child to the right. They were only more or less in seat belts, but, at that moment, they had to do a little minor lawbreaking.
He smiled at Lily. He hoped it was a reassuring smile. She tried to smile back. It had to be hard as hell for her.
She needed to hold it together for the kids.
She knew that her husband was lying in the hospital on the verge of death.
He hadn’t found out much about her yet, but he admired her. She had known about her husband’s fall into addiction; she knew about his struggle out. She also knew the cost they were all paying. And she still loved him.
“We’re going to be fine,” he assured her.
Mike was driving; Craig tried to settle back. They drove around the house. Whatever car had been on the road, it was gone now. It had most likely just driven on by.