But Neil Browne still wasn’t getting off so easily. He’d been seen by dozens of people wielding a gun and threatening death.
Dan smiled and leaned back. “Pretty sure I’ve been right so far. Your new identities, they were stolen from the Baton Rouge couple, but live by the sword, die by the sword. So, before New Orleans, you were a lovely little group of six. Killing goats for fun when human beings weren’t on the agenda. But it was you and Jennie, we’ll say, and the Baton Rouge couple. Now there’s also the big he and one other. That one other would be...well, someone here. Someone in New Orleans planned the murders, and you think they’re all part of some cosmic grand plan. I think they’re revenge. Your big he wanted to kill Lou Delaney, and it just fell in with all this. You all started killing and believed you were immortal and special. And it became a game. But now, it’s just you and the big he and one other...unless Nathan Lawrence became part of your little group. You’re still short.”
“I think I may take that offer for an attorney,” Browne said and yawned.
Dan leaned closer again. “Why has it taken you so long to ask? Was your immortal leader supposed to send you one? But he’d be afraid of an association with you, wouldn’t he? I mean, he had you kill Jennie, and now he’s denying you an attorney!”
“I’ll take the lawyer,” Browne said flatly. He wasn’t smiling. He glared at Dan, and Dan was glad—he had hit a nerve.
Dan nodded. “Think about helping us, though. Keeping that mortal shell of yours. I know you all are careful. Gloves, hair caps probably. You leave nothing behind. But you see, you weren’t wearing gloves the whole time you were with Jennie, and there’s this amazing way of getting fingerprints off a body now. I believe they found yours, and that puts you with her—”
“Yes, so? That doesn’t prove I killed her!”
“Well, yes, it does.” He was playing, grabbing at straws, but good ones, Dan hoped. “Because you didn’t want to kill Jennie, you were just terrified not to do it. And you touched her face, you had your gloves off, and you touched her face. So you see, there’s blood on those prints we’re going to get. Won’t matter if we know who you really are or not. Your fingerprints here, same prints on Jennie’s corpse...”
He let his voice trail.
“Lawyer!” Browne said. His voice had changed.
“Suit yourself,” Dan said, standing. Ryder followed suit. He pretended to be oblivious to the fact that Browne was listening as he spoke to Ryder. “We need to figure out that sixth person, and I don’t think it will be that hard. We have records on the Baton Rouge couple, and we have Browne’s phone now... We can trace some calls. When we don’t need this asshole anymore, we won’t have to worry about trying to get the federal and state prosecutors to make any kind of concessions.”
He let the door close on his last words, feeling just a little bit triumphant.
But that feeling was quickly gone.
Axel and Andre were looking at him and Ryder with grim expressions, and Dan knew; Browne was going to be able to make people doubt his guilt when it came to the axe murders.
Because someone else had been attacked.
“Who? Where?” he asked, feeling his heart sink. “When was it called in. How fast can we get there?”
“The Bywater area. The victims are Jillian and Andy Dean, and Andy’s sister Ashley,” Axel said. They started walking quickly down the hall away from the interrogation room.
“But,” Andre said, keeping pace easily, “here’s the good part—”
“There’s a good part to axe murders?” Dan asked, feeling numb.
“They’re not dead,” Andre said. “Seriously injured, but it was almost as if—”
“As if the Axeman’s Protégé was never out to kill them?” Dan asked. “They were victims because this group needed something to happen. Something that might help make Neil Browne appear to be different, not one of them, a gun-toting wannabe.”
“Dammit!” Ryder hammered his fist against the wall. “We didn’t stop him. Agents and officers are combing the city and environs, and we didn’t stop this attack.” He frowned. “Are any of them conscious? Did they identify anything about the Axeman?”
“Yes,” Axel said dryly. “Big tall man, slouch hat, boots, dark coat to his feet.”
“The description we already received,” Axel said. “This guy wants everyone in the city to believe the Axeman is immortal and he’s back.”
Katie was waiting in the reception area. She stood as she saw them all coming. Her face paled. “Has there been another attack?”
“Katie, stay here,” Dan said.
“Was there another attack while Neil Browne was in custody?”
Dan caught her by the shoulders. “Yes. We’re going there now. You need to stay here. Right here. It’s safe, Katie.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said.
“Katie, you’re a civilian—” Dan said.
“So are you!” she exclaimed.
“You don’t want to see...” Dan realized that his excuse was a poor one, considering all that Katie had already seen.
“Ambulances will already be on scene, so there won’t be much to see,” Axel explained. “But Katie, we’ll have to leave you with one of the patrol officers. The crime-scene investigators won’t want any of us destroying possible evidence, so we’ll need to tread carefully.”
Dan started moving toward the exit. “All right, Katie’s in. Let’s just get there!”
Axel had a big Bureau SUV; he drove with Andre Broussard in the passenger seat. Dan sat in the back with Katie. Ryder followed in his own vehicle.
When they arrived at the scene, Dan hopped out quickly—an ambulance was about to leave the scene.
“I’m heading in with it!” he said.
“Go,” Axel agreed.
Dan left the car, called out to one of the officers to stay with Katie and leaped into the ambulance, surprising the EMT on the scene.
“I’m with the FBI,” he said. He looked at the stretcher in place in the ambulance. She was a pretty young
