She ran out the back door, a quick glance at the digital clock on the desk of the cabin. She’d killed two men in two minutes. There had to be a record in that.
But she wasn’t free yet.
She slipped off her spiked heels as soon as she hit the sand and ran down the beach, away from the cabin, toward the pier in the distance. She paused half a minute to pull her red dress off and stuff it into the side pocket of her oversized purse. She wore a one-piece red swim-suit underneath. It was dark and moonless and no one was this far down the beach, though she heard a group of people in the distance. The tide was coming in, wetting her bare feet.
She bent down and scooped up the ocean water with her arms, splashing it over her body, wetting her hair, washing the blood off her hands and face. She rubbed the saltwater all over her. A larger wave crashed right in front of her, drenching her, and she laughed at the night.
Sirens whirled in the distance. She looked back at the resort hotel, the entire place ablaze with light as the floodlights snapped on. She’d run farther than she’d first thought. A distant whirl of police lights caught her eye as they stopped near the row of cabins.
Her heart raced, her mind awhirl. It had worked out even better than she’d planned. She’d been able to seduce Lyle Hackett instead of drugging him. The thrill of seducing a man to his death exhilarated her.
When she’d first conceived of this plan, she’d felt a bit guilty that the trained psycho had to die, but after Ethan had killed those people at the rest stop, she lost that guilt. He should have been dead years ago. His botched suicide attempts were pathetic. If he’d
She pulled a sealed gallon-sized plastic bag from her purse and removed a black-and-red-flowered sarong. The plastic had kept blood and evidence off her clothing. She tied the skirt around her waist, draped the bag over her shoulder, and walked casually toward the pier. Toward freedom, toward revenge and final justice.
It was time to start the endgame. This was the part of the plan she’d never told Ethan about. She had known he’d be dead before it started.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
When Megan checked into the motel she had a message that Hans wanted to see her ASAP. She glanced at Jack, uncertain about what had happened between them on the plane. He avoided her eyes and for a moment she thought she’d imagined the whole thing. Or that she had been the aggressor and Jack was embarrassed.
But the truth was he’d kissed her and she kissed him back. And then some.
“I need to talk to Hans,” she said, her voice thick. She handed him his jacket.
He took it, but didn’t seem to know what to do with it. “I’m going for a run.”
He looked like he wanted to kiss her again, then he stepped back. “See you in the morning, Blondie.”
She watched him pick up his duffel bag and walk out of the lobby without looking back. She released a pent- up breath. How could one kiss leave her so disoriented?
She walked through the same doors. Jack was in the room right next to hers. Hans’s room was across the corridor. She was not going to chase after Jack. No matter how incredible that kiss had been, it was just one kiss, and she had work to do. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly midnight.
Maybe Hans was asleep. She’d done everything she could since leaving Colorado-called Quantico’s Assistant Director Rick Stockton himself about Price and Rosemont after getting his home number from her boss, who she quickly briefed. Richardson also had news from Detective Black in Sacramento-the van, where John Doe had been tortured, had been found abandoned in a remote area of Placer County, off Interstate-80.
Which made sense to Megan. Price’s dog tag had been sent to her from Reno. I-80 went through Reno. The killers could have gone almost anywhere after that, but instead took a straight course down to south Texas and killed Lawrence “Scout” Bartleton.
So far, no useful evidence had been collected off the van, but it was being processed in the FBI garage by their trace evidence experts.
When Megan finally talked to Stockton, he assured her that he would take a personal interest in reexamining the Russo case and pull the tapes from the interview Price mentioned. He would also get a warrant for Rosemont’s medical records. He ordered her to sleep. “An exhausted agent makes mistakes, Agent Elliott.”
Except she hadn’t yet connected with Hans, and he’d left her the message. She’d slept two hours during the flight to Colorado. She could spare another hour.
Hans opened the door seconds after she knocked. He held the door open for her to enter, but said nothing, shutting it firmly behind her. He walked over to the desk where papers and crime scene photos were spread, but he didn’t sit down.
The cliche “death warmed over” fit Hans. His skin was too pale, his eyes bloodshot, and he seemed to have aged ten years since she’d last seen him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“What did you think you were doing tonight?”
“Excuse me? Didn’t you get my message? Rick Stockton said he would call you and-”
“Yes,” Hans interrupted, “but that doesn’t excuse you for going after a suspect on your own.”
“Jack Kin-”
“I don’t care!” Hans crossed over to the dresser and put his palms down on the top, not looking at her. “You know better than this. What about a warrant? What about backup?” He turned and stared at her. “You’ve fucked this up from the beginning.”
She blinked. Hans didn’t swear. Not like this. Did he really think she’d screwed up the case?
She had assumed the first victim was George Price, but the more she’d thought about it that night, the more she realized that if she thought he was a John Doe from the beginning, they’d never have made the connection to the army or Delta Force or the dead soldiers so quickly. Jack had concurred. With the incompetent police chief in the Bartleton investigation, and the lack of communication between the different agencies until the FBI showed interest, they certainly wouldn’t have teamed up with Jack and Padre and had the information about the Delta ops that led to a possible suspect-the reporter, Barry Rosemont. And no way would they have found Price without Padre’s connection. At least not tonight.
Yes, she made a poor assumption, but it had ended up being beneficial.
“Warrant?” she said, not knowing what part of Hans’s verbal attack to address first. “I didn’t need a warrant. I was talking to a potential witness-”
“Witness? Is that what you’re calling killers these days?”
“You’ve lost me, Hans. Where do you think I’ve been?”
“Hunting down George Price. And if he’s-”
“He’s not the killer.”
“And you know this how? Because he told you?”
Her mouth dropped open. “I- He didn’t have motive or opportunity.”
“And you were able to ascertain this in a few hours?”
Megan didn’t know what she’d done to warrant such a dressing down. She straightened her back and said, “Let me explain from the beginning. I think you must have misinformation or something-”
“I talked to Father Francis. He tracked down George Price like that.” Hans snapped his fingers. “We find out the real George Price isn’t dead, and less than twelve hours later the only other surviving Delta team member hands you his location on a silver platter?”
“It’s a close-knit group. They know people. I don’t understand your point.”
“Maybe Frank Cardenas isn’t the good priest everyone thinks he is.”
“This doesn’t sound like you-”
“You don’t know me, then.”
Hans might as well have slapped her. Megan had met Hans three months after her father was killed in Desert
