Cold Snap (34 page)

Charlie moved the bomb. Every time he got near it, Lucy’s heart raced. She’d been stabbed and shot and knew what that felt like. She didn’t want to know what it was like to be caught in an explosion. She didn’t want to die. He’d asked why she wasn’t scared, and she’d been honest with him. She was. But fear wouldn’t help her resolve this situation. The panic attacks that had plagued her for so many years had almost disappeared. She still had claustrophobia, but had learned to control the physical reaction after years of practice and therapy with her brother Dillon.

Charlie looked at her. “I have to do this.”

“We all have choices.”

He pulled up Kristan and held her in front of him. The gun was at the back of her head.

“Go.”

Lucy stepped out. Down the hall she saw several SWAT team members with guns pointed in her direction. A cop dressed as a lab tech wheeled over a cart. It had everything she needed to confirm the tests, except for the equipment that couldn’t be moved. Basically, it was a microscope and some test strips.

She brought it inside and Kristan continued to sob. Charlie told Lucy to lock the door. She did. She set up the equipment on the autopsy table. Charlie ordered Kristan back to the floor, then replaced the bomb.

“Here’s the printout from the lab,” she said, and handed it to Charlie. “They tested for all standard toxins, and the tests came back negative.”

“What about other things? Like overdoses of her medicine? A wrong medicine?”

“Labs have to know what to look for, then they are extremely accurate. But if they don’t know they’re looking for a specific type of drug, they’ll never find it. Most drugs will still be present in the blood or liver even after a few days. Because I think she died of respiratory failure—though I’m not an ME and I can’t swear to it—I asked them to run screens for any neuromuscular blocking agents. These are the types of drugs available in a hospital that have medical uses, but in the wrong person or in too high of a dose or mixed with the wrong medication, they can be fatal. But they can’t run those tests in an hour, or even a day. The samples will need to be sent to an outside lab that has the capacity to run these specialized tests. The lab here in the hospital can’t do anything beyond basic screenings.”

“So what are you doing?” Charlie said. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I wanted to show you the process, so you understand.”

“But you’re telling me you can’t give me answers.”

“No. I can’t. Not with the limited equipment. I thought you would want to see what a lab needs to do. I filled out all the paperwork, told them the types of drugs to screen for—” She stopped. Charlie was pacing and growing agitated. She didn’t want him to think she was trying to deceive him.

“Hypothetically,” she asked him, “if we could have tested for those drugs, and they came back positive, what would you do?”

“I would know how my sister died.”

“But you’re holding the three nurses who were on duty that night.”

“Because one of them did it.”

“And if the tests came back negative?”

“Then it would be a trick.” He stared at her, and in his eyes she saw the truth.

“Charlie, what do you know that you haven’t told me?”

He reached into his pocket and handed her a piece of paper with names and dates. It was written in flowery script, likely by a woman.

“Who are these people?”

“Women who died when they shouldn’t have. The same way that Sarah died. When these three nurses were on duty.”

“Why didn’t you take this to the police?”

“Because they wouldn’t have done anything! And it would have given the hospital time to cover it up.” He was upset. “This was supposed to be easy. Why can’t you just look and see?”

She had to remain calm to keep him calm. “Because only specialized lab tests can register most of the drugs that would trigger the asphyxiation that caused your sister’s death.”

“Then we’ll wait for the results.” He stared at her. “I don’t like being made a fool of.”

“That’s not what I intended to do, Charlie. I wanted to show you what has been done and what still needs to be done.” She pulled out the lab chart. She stared at it and frowned.

The lab had run all the tests. They’d just told Charlie everything came back negative. Had they even looked at the results?

She double-checked the name and numbers at the top and they correlated to Sarah Peterson.

“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.

“I think the police—who don’t know how to read these types of reports—didn’t understand what this meant.” She pointed to a line item. “This is a standard screening. Her histamine levels were high. That indicates there may have been a neuromuscular blocker administered. Not for certain, but it’s one indication.”

“What are all these
X
s here?”

“Those tests weren’t run. They don’t have the capabilities in this lab.”

“Then I want those tests run. You asked for them, they run them, or we’re staying.”

Lucy put down the chart and looked Charlie in the eye. “I promise you, I will follow through on this. I will make sure all these tests are done. If anyone accidentally or intentionally poisoned Sarah, I will prove it.”

He believed her. She could see it in his eyes. “You keep your promises.”

“Always. You’re going to need to face the consequences of your actions, but no one died here today. That means something. It means something to me, and it will mean something to the court.”

“I just want to know the truth,” he said quietly.

“I have a friend who works in the FBI lab in Quantico. I’ll pack these samples up myself and make sure he gets them. We’ll find out what happened to Sarah. I’m truly sorry for your loss.”

Charlie reached into his pocket and pulled out the detonator. He typed in a code and the light went off. He put it down on the table. “Go.”

Lucy nodded to the three hostages. They slowly rose. Rena helped support Brian’s weight as he limped across the room. Kristan practically ran to the door. She opened the door without thinking, and Lucy cringed, expecting an explosion. There was nothing.

Kristan ran out, crying.

Rena and Brian stumbled and collapsed against the autopsy table. Lucy turned in time to see all the trays crash to the floor.

Charlie’s eyes widened. “You did that on purpose. You destroyed evidence because it was you—”

He raised his gun.

“No, Charlie, it was an accident!” Lucy shouted. But she didn’t know that. The autopsy table was heavy, it was bolted to the ground. They would have had to bump it extremely hard to cause the trays to fall. But Brian weighed over two hundred pounds, if he fell against it he could have …

Rena screamed as Charlie aimed the gun at her.

SWAT stormed in, guns pointing at Charlie.

“Drop your weapon!”

Charlie stared at the destruction in front of him. His sister’s chart, the lab results, the slides and samples.

“Down, down, down!”

“Charlie, lower your weapon,” Lucy said. If he would only look at her, she knew she could get through to him.

“They did it on purpose,” Charlie said. He still held his gun, but his hand started to dip down.

“Give me your gun,” Lucy said.

He stood there as if he didn’t know what to do.

Rena screamed again.

Then there was gunfire and Lucy hit the ground as Charlie collapsed in a heap.

“No!” she cried. She crawled over to him. Tom Blade was at her side as another pair of SWAT team members got Rena and Brian out.

“Come now!” he ordered her.

“He has a vest! Get a medic, he’s bleeding!”

He’d been shot in the upper torso multiple times. He was bleeding profusely.

There was chaos all around her. She tried to stop the bleeding. Charlie was mouthing something, and she felt his hand in hers. She squeezed.

The SWAT leader picked her up and carried her out, even as she fought him. She had to help Charlie. Save him.

“Put me down!”

Tom Blade put her down and pushed her against the wall. “Agent Kincaid, get hold of yourself! That man shot two people and would have killed you.”

“He was giving himself up.”

“He had a gun on the hostages.”

“He was lowering it.”

But he had been so shocked when the blood and tissue samples had been knocked to the floor. Would he have killed the hostages? Lucy didn’t know for certain.

“I will not put the hostages or my team at greater risk. He was a threat, we took the threat out. If you have a problem with it, take it up with my superiors.”

Lucy shook her head and closed her eyes. Tom was right. They had done what they had to do. But something was going on, something she was only beginning to see. She squeezed her hand and felt the paper in her grip.

So much loss, so much death, and all for nothing. She was going to find out what these names meant.

CHAPTER 32

Lucy washed her hands in hot, soapy water in the bathroom, tears streaming down her face as Charlie’s blood flowed down the drain.

It wasn’t supposed to have happened like that. He was going to turn himself in.

She kicked the tile wall, then put her forehead on the mirror and took several deep breaths.

Get it together, Kincaid. You need to give your statement. You need to be professional.

It seemed like such a waste.

The door opened, and she thought it would be Kate or Carina.

It was Sean. She didn’t even tease him about being in the women’s bathroom.

He went to her and wrapped his arms around her. She held on tight, crying into his shoulder.

“He wasn’t going to shoot. His gun was coming down,” she sobbed.

Sean didn’t try to tell her she was right or wrong, or he was glad Charlie was down, he just held her. He gave her what she needed, his unconditional support.

It was several minutes later when she felt she could face Tom Blade and the debriefing.

“I want to see him,” Lucy said.

“He’s in surgery.”

“It shouldn’t have happened.”

“Lucy, you did everything you could. The hostages are all alive, thanks to you.”

But it didn’t feel like she’d done everything she could.

Sean said, “Kate’s here with the ASAC of San Diego. They need to talk to you. Are you up for it?”

“Yes.” She reached into her pocket and handed Sean the paper Charlie had given her. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“After Peterson went down, when I was at his side, he put this paper in my hand. I have no idea who these women are, but he made it clear he wants me to have this.”

Sean didn’t say anything for a long minute. “I don’t want you to get in trouble, Lucy.”

“I have no idea how Sarah Peterson died. But I owe it not only to her brother, but to Sarah herself, to find out what happened. Charlie came in with a mission. A purpose. He’s certain one of those nurses killed his sister. Accident or not, he knew something he didn’t share with me or Carina, something that he believed an autopsy would reveal.”

There was a knock on the door. “Lucy, it’s Kate. We need you.”

“I’m coming,” she called.

Sean took the paper and pocketed it. “I have the security feed that shows him talking to a nurse late last night. Wendy Parsons. She gave him something. No one can find her.”

“An accomplice?”

“Most likely.” Sean patted his pocket. “Maybe this was it.”

Kate said, “Lucy, now.”

Sean opened the door and Kate frowned when he walked out. “We don’t have time for games,” she told him.

“This isn’t a game,” he said gravely, and walked away.

Lucy followed Kate to a conference room that had been taken over by security and SWAT. Will Hooper was there, and Tom Blade, and two people Lucy didn’t know, a man and woman, both in suits.

They introduced themselves as SSA Ken Swan and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Danielle Richardson.

Lucy went through the entire afternoon from the time Hooper and Blade asked her to go in and perform the autopsy in order to buy time, to why she negotiated a trade with her sister, to her reasoning behind asking for the portable lab.

“He’d grown extremely agitated when the results came back negative. I wanted to show him that they did everything they could with the equipment they had.”

“But he’d said if you did the autopsy, he would let everyone go,” ASAC Richardson said. “Yet you fed into his delusions.”

“No, he had information that made him believe that the lab tests were inaccurate. I showed him that not all tests could be run on-site.”

“Again, he was delusional,” Swan said.

“No, he wasn’t,” Lucy said. “He was grieving. He believed that his sister’s death wasn’t natural, based on information Wendy Parsons, the missing nurse, gave him.”

“What missing nurse?” Richardson turned to Hooper.

Will seemed irritated with Lucy for revealing that intel. “We have a security camera showing that Peterson was talking to a nurse, Wendy Parsons, last night after midnight. We haven’t been able to find her.”

“An accomplice?”

“We don’t know,” Will said. “We haven’t spoken to her. But I have a warrant to search her house and bank records, and we’re also checking airports, train stations, buses. Her car was found in the employee parking area, and records of her employee pass showed she arrived at work at eleven forty-five last night, but there’s no indication that she ever left work. We’re also checking with cab services.”

“Did you find Peterson’s vehicle?” Richardson asked.

“Yes, ma’am, we have it secure and will be taking it to impound for a thorough search.

To Lucy, ASAC Richardson said, “We’ve reviewed some of the audio and video footage from the morgue, and preliminarily we don’t believe you acted inappropriately, but I need to send a report to your SAC in San Antonio.”

Lucy nodded, though she felt like she was in a bad dream. She hadn’t even started her new assignment, and her record would already be cloudy because of what happened here.

Except, she didn’t see how she could have done anything different.

“My one concern was your interference with SWAT when they breached the morgue. You put your life in jeopardy.”