Cut & Run (56 page)

Sears nodded without looking up from her writing.

Zane paged through some more with his good hand. “There’s one.

William Wilson
,” he said. “A man kills his double. That explains the twins.”

He continued to scan and passed on story after story. “There’s a classic,” he murmured to himself. “
The Raven
,” he mused. He made to turn the page to go to the next page of the index.

“Wait,” Sears said as she reached out and took Zane’s hand. “Bird flu,” she whispered.

Ross paused in his pacing, still messing with his phone, and he looked over at them sardonically. “Well, that’s sort of clever,” he commented before tossing his phone onto the couch and pulling Sears’ off the strap of her purse.

Zane’s face was grim. “That’s all of them. There’s got to be twenty more stories in here that he can play with.”

“Now what? So we’ve figured out the pattern, but it doesn’t get us closer to him,” Sears protested in disgust.

“It helps us understand how he thinks,” Zane pointed out.

“Until your profiling buddy comes back, that doesn’t do us much good,” Ross pointed out as he paced and waited for the call to go through.

“We still know next to nothing about him,” Sears pointed out. “Even if we did, we can’t leave you alone here to go do anything about it.”

“Yes, you most certainly fucking can,” Zane insisted. “I don’t need a babysitter, and Grady and Henninger are going to need backup. Call for someone.”

“We can’t call anyone from here. Something in the building’s blocking cell service,” Ross informed them in frustration as he waved the useless cell phone.

“Use Henninger’s phone,” Sears suggested logically.

Except Henninger didn’t have a landline.

“I’m going down to the garage and then up to the front of the 342 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

building, okay? I’ll be back,” Ross declared, and he was out the door.

Zane nodded and pushed himself out of the chair to grab one of the personnel files. “Christ. There’s got to be some way to find this asshole,” he muttered.

SPECIAL Agent Gary Ross hadn’t gone far into the darkened parking deck when he stumbled over something on the ground as he jogged with his phone held out in front of him, and he almost went sprawling. He righted himself and turned to look, cursing creatively when he realized that it was a man on the ground. He knelt beside him and felt his pulse.

“Fuck,” he hissed, recognizing Henninger’s dark, curly hair, now matted down with blood. “Tim?” he murmured as the man groaned. “Why the hell don’t you have a fucking phone?” he asked in annoyance as he began to gather the man off the ground. He glanced toward the exit signs attached to the ceilings of the parking deck, knowing that just a few more steps would give him a signal, but he needed to get Henninger inside and safe before he could go call for help.

“Phone?” Henninger mumbled weakly as he stirred.

“Come on,” Ross grunted, hefting Henninger up and dragging him back toward the elevators.

Sears was pacing and Zane would have been as well had he been able to walk, waiting for Ross to return. “How do we find him?” Zane muttered from where he leaned awkwardly to one side, trying to keep the pressure off his broken ribs. “We need another murder, another city he lived in. Some dots to connect.”

“He’s got to slip up sometime, especially since we know what to look for now,” Sears assured. “The net’s closing on him.”

“Which only makes him more dangerous,” Zane gritted out through the pain.

A thump on the door interrupted them. Zane glanced to Sears, who pulled her gun out from under her jacket and nodded toward the door. She carefully walked to the side of the door until she was right up against it before looking through the peephole. “Shit!” she yelled, throwing the door open.

Ross was panting as Henninger tried and failed to stand. They staggered through the door together. Ross dumped the man on the couch with Cut & Run | 343

a gasp, and Sears kicked the door closed as she rushed to help them.

“What happened?” she demanded as she knelt next to Henninger on the couch, trying to check the head wound.

“We got jumped,” Henninger croaked in answer as he winced away from her touch. It looked as if someone had hit him in the side of the head with something nice and blunt. There was enough blood that it had caked down the side of his face, and it would probably hurt like hell, but he was in no mortal danger. “I saw him take Grady down with a cloth or something and then the lights went out. There must have been two of them.”

“Cloth?” Zane breathed. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“Chloroform,” he groaned. They had been right about that aspect, anyway.

“Henninger,” he said thickly. “We need to call the Bureau.”

“What?” Henninger asked dazedly.

“He’s so out of it, he won’t have a clue what you’re talking about,”

Ross muttered, walking over to the window to peer out as if someone might be out there now, looking guilty. Sears sniffed and went to the kitchen for ice.

“Focus, Henninger,” Zane tried desperately, not even able to think about Ty being at the hands of this monster.

“Okay,” Henninger mumbled as he sat up and held his head, squinting at them all. He seemed to be having difficulty comprehending the urgency of a phone. Their need was even more urgent now; they needed every unit in the city on the lookout for Ty and his captor.

“We need to call out. How the hell do you get any of your messages?”

Ross asked him testily as he jabbed at his phone again.

Henninger swallowed and rubbed at his ribs gingerly as he looked up at the other agent. “I turn off the signal blocker on the window,” he answered flatly.

Ross turned to him, confusion flitting over his features, and Sears stepped back into the room to look at them oddly. Henninger shrugged apologetically to them both before pulling a silenced gun from under his jacket. With two quick, quiet pops the gun sent both agents to the hardwood floor. He stood quickly and turned to Zane, who’d only had time to scramble out of the chair and get a few steps away.

“You son of a bitch,” Zane whispered through a sudden stupor.

Henninger gave a lopsided shrug and a small smile, the gun trained on Zane unerringly.

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Zane remained motionless, hand lowered out to his side, injured right arm useless in its sling. “Where’s Ty?” he rasped.

“Dying,” Henninger answered bluntly, his head cocking to the side with the word.

It took everything Zane had to hold it together as agony ripped through him. “Why?”

Henninger laughed softly, amusement written all over his slightly bloody face. “You know, Grady had the good sense not to ask me such a stupid question.”

Zane let out a shaky breath. Dying meant not dead yet. He held onto that thought tightly. “He’s a smart man.”

“He
was,
indeed,” Henninger drawled. “And so are you. If you two were a little less smart we’d not have two dead agents on our hands,” he told Zane with a nod of his head at the two bodies on the floor. “Had you found my file amongst the stack, yet?” he asked.

“We got too close,” Zane realized aloud. “Just like Reilly and Sanchez. You killed them in their hotel room. You were meeting with them, weren’t you? About the case. They trusted you,” he ground out. “
We
trusted you.”

“Look at me,” Henninger laughed. “
Everyone
trusts me, Garrett. Even strangers,” he grinned impishly.

Zane shook his head slowly, hefting his hurt arm up against him with a wince. “Why all the murders? You’re too sane for this.”

“Stop moving, Garrett,” Henninger ordered seriously. “You know, every time someone’s asked me that I gave them the answer they wanted. It’s such a trite question, really, but it’s the only thing a dying person can think of, apparently. But you,” he went on as he began stepping a little closer, “you, I can’t read well enough to give you an answer. I’m not sure what it is you want to hear.”

“How nice for you,” Zane snarled, pushing aside desperation for anger. “Put down the goddamn gun.”

“You’re not really in a position to be giving orders, Special Agent Garrett,” Henninger murmured. “Any more questions before I kill you? I’m rather short on time, you see, having all these unexpected dead bodies lying around,” he said in amusement.

“What do you need from me to give me the answer?” Zane tried, Cut & Run | 345

wincing and gasping in pain as he bumped back against the door with his injured arm. He could feel the gun Ty had given him resting heavily in his sling, though he’d have to use his left hand to shoot.

Henninger tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, intrigued by the challenge. “Why did you come back?” he asked finally, the amusement and enjoyment clear in his voice. “Why did you come back with that asshole for a partner and the very real probability that you would die? Grady, he came back for revenge. But you? Why didn’t you just stay away? Stay away and drink and drug yourself to a quiet death?”

Zane jerked backward in apparent surprise, slamming his useless arm against the door. He yelped and grabbed for his elbow, his good hand sliding under the sling to support it. He made a conscious decision to let the pain show clearly on his face. He was going to need his strength for other things …

he hoped.

Weighing his options as Henninger watched in lurid amusement, Zane tried to decide what to say to get the most reaction. Enough reaction. He drew a breath. “I love him.”

At that, Henninger stopped short in surprise. Then he began to chuckle. “
Love
him?” he echoed with a gleeful laugh. “Oh, that is rich! No wonder he looked so crushed when I told him it was his fault you were going to die.”

The chilling edge of Henninger’s words cut through him, and Zane drew another breath. “I love him,” he repeated, voice stronger.

Henninger laughed harder in the face of Zane’s conviction. Within a heartbeat’s time, Zane snapped his left arm out away from him, sending the slim stiletto from its sheath hurtling toward the killer with enough speed that Henninger couldn’t dodge it. The knife buried deep into his upper chest, close to the shoulder of his gun arm.

Crying out in anger and surprise, Henninger jerked to one side as the knife hit, his gun firing uselessly off to the side, giving Zane just enough time to pull out his own gun and fire. The shot hit him in the gut—the perfect wound since Zane wanted to interrogate him as he died a slow, painful death.

Henninger staggered back, looking down at the burgeoning stain of blood in shock. Slowly his knees gave out, and he began to sink to the floor.

Arm shaking, Zane kept the gun trained on him as he stalked over and kicked the weapon out of Henninger’s hand, sending it sliding to wedge under the couch. He crouched down in front of him, took hold of the hilt of the knife sticking from Henninger’s shoulder, and twisted it hard.

346 | Madeleine Urban & Abigail Roux

Henninger cried out in shock and pain and struck out, hitting Zane’s injured hip with as much force as a fatally wounded man could muster. Zane gritted his teeth as his entire leg exploded into fire, but he kept twisting.

“Where is he?” he ground out. “Tell me where he is, and I’ll call you an ambulance.”

The blood drained from Henninger’s face as the pain took him over.

“You’re so smart,” he slurred as he struggled weakly. “Figure it out,” he rasped.

“Talk or you can bleed out here.”

Henninger merely laughed at him hoarsely. Growling, Zane drew back his fist and hit Henninger in the gut, close to the gunshot wound.

The edges of Henninger’s vision darkened as he gurgled and gasped, but when the pain receded he managed another laugh. “He said you’d kill me,” he murmured as blood began to dribble out of the corner of his mouth.

“He said you’d make it hurt,” he told Zane tauntingly.

Anger and terror building equally, Zane stood up and yanked the knife out of Henninger’s shoulder, ignoring the agonized cry of pain. He lifted the gun and pushed it to the killer’s forehead, staring down at the man who knelt before him. “He’s right. Where is he?”

Henninger closed his eyes and shook his head. He knew he would be handed the death penalty if they found Grady alive. He also knew, deep down, that Garrett was going to kill him even if he did tell him where Grady was.

Garrett was just that kind of guy. Grady had too much honor to do it, but Garrett would pull the trigger in a heartbeat. He probably should have taken Garrett out first, now that he thought of it.

It was too late now, considering there was also the surprising factor of the fact that he had been gut shot and was going to die a slow, painful death if Garrett didn’t do it fast. He preferred fast. It wouldn’t be difficult to get Garrett angry and make him lose his temper, and then ... sweet oblivion.

Henninger’s lips twitched in a slow, amused smile. “You’ve thought about what happens when I die, haven’t you?” he asked in a weak, pained voice. He would win either way, even in death. “No one will believe you.

You’ll become Suspect Number One without Grady to back you up,” he said with a quiet confidence. “How will you live with knowing that it wasn’t
love
that made you so desperate to find him?” he asked as he opened his black eyes. “How will you remain sober?” he asked with a disdainful sneer.

“Knowing it’s only self-preservation that’s making you so desperate?”

Cut & Run | 347

Zane’s face went very still as his emotions settled into solid certainty, momentarily blocking out the pain. He used the gun barrel to nudge Henninger’s chin up so he could see his eyes, and he put the gun back to the other man’s forehead. Then he smiled coldly.

Henninger’s eyes flickered open, filled with a sudden doubt that quickly faded back into the depths. Out of them all, Garrett had turned out to be the biggest problem for him; like a chameleon who couldn’t decide on his color. He had been predictable at first, but then had begun to change to the point that Henninger couldn’t decide what to do with him. Even now, Henninger wasn’t sure what to do with him. As Garrett looked down at him, Henninger could feel, for the first time, the possibility of defeat creeping in on him.