Eye of the Storm (22 page)

Jimmy shrugged. “Not sure how that would make a difference. Gangsters are gangsters.”

“All those women he killed when he was younger. It’s been bothering me—they all look like Rosa. The way he tortured them, it was like it was personal.”

“Or like he’s a sadistic psycho nut job.”

Drake buried his face in his hands, his fingers raking through his hair as he strained to remember everything Hart had told him about Rosa.

Think, Drake, think
. He closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered Hart smoothing his hand over Rosa’s quilt, her voice hypnotic, boring its way into his soul as she told the story of how the quilt saved her grandmother’s life. A warm tingling flowed through him just as it had that night, from Hart’s hand into his heart. But the details—they were vague.

Another memory hit him with jackhammer ferocity. Hart, naked in bed, still flushed with their lovemaking, embarrassed that she’d hurled a Gypsy—no, Roma, she’d called it Roma—curse at him earlier when they’d been arguing. He couldn’t even remember now what the fight was about, it had ended like all of their fights—in bed with no one losing, a satisfying resolution for all parties.

Drake shook his head in frustration. He couldn’t remember the words, just the images—the delicate flush of Hart’s skin as she blushed in embarrassment, the crooked smile she’d given him, the gleam in her eyes as she’d defended her grandmother despite the fact that Rosa’s people had cast her out, shunned her.

What else, what else? There was more, he knew it. He just couldn’t force the memories to the surface right now, not with everything else clouding his mind. Including that last image of Hart, head turned to look over her naked shoulder, smiling at him, making him feel like he was the only man in creation.

“What if this is really about Hart? And her grandmother?” he asked Jimmy. “Nothing to do with me or my being a cop.”

“Then what the hell has Anton’s death or Alicia or the fact that you were named in his case file have to do with anything?”

“I was the detective on call that weekend. Maybe the whole thing was a set up?”

“To what end? If Kasanov wanted Hart, he could have taken her at any time. Ditto for you or Alicia. And why kill his own grandson, the one he was depending on to save the family business? It doesn’t make sense.”

They sped across the Hot Metal Bridge. “You’re right. I just feel like we’re missing something.” He broke off as they pulled into the federal building. A few minutes later, they were back in the situation room with Prescott, Taylor, and Texas.

“Do you have anything?” Drake asked. They all looked up with bleary eyes, each shaking their heads. Even Prescott appeared less than dapper, his suit jacket wrinkled and creased, a coffee stain marring his silk tie.

“Medical examiner wasn’t much help,” Texas started. “Said Anton was definitely alive when he was run over and his tox screen was negative. But there are a ton of things they don’t test for on the routine tox screen that could have incapacitated him. Also, he didn’t have the typical pattern of injuries resulting from being thrown up onto the car on impact, so it is possible that he was already down when struck, but there’s no way to prove it.”

“How about you two?” Prescott asked Drake and Jimmy. “Did you find anything at the warehouse where they left your mother? Has she remembered anything helpful?”

“No, but I might have. Those women Kasanov killed when he was younger, were any of them gypsy? Roma?” Drake asked.

Prescott frowned at him as if he’d begun speaking in tongues, but Taylor jerked his head up from his computer. “How’d you know that? They all were—and so were some other deaths I found attributed to Kasanov. They weren’t all women, some were men. Signs of torture as well as signs of someone searching for something at their crime scenes.”

Drake exchanged glances with Jimmy. “Rosa Costello Hart—Cassie’s grandmother,” he began, his voice gaining breakneck speed as he tried to tell them everything he could remember. “She was a Kalderasha gypsy. Hart told me when she was young, in—” he searched his memory, listened for her voice in his memory, “1936, there was a meeting of the gypsy families. They were going to travel together, protect each other, and escape from Hitler. But their camp was attacked. Rosa and a few other women—no one else from her clan,” he frowned, that wasn’t the word Hart had used, but close enough, “survived. They took Rosa to a work farm but she escaped to,” he stumbled, “Budapest. Then she travelled across Europe and eventually joined the French Resistance. She met her husband, Padraic Hart, when she rescued him after his ship was sunk by a U-boat off the French coast.”

Texas held up a hand, scribbling furiously. Drake noted that the agent also had a tape recorder going.

Prescott rocked forward with anticipation. “Good, what else? Any mention of Kasanov?”

“None that I heard of. They got married, moved to Pennsylvania after the war and lived happily ever after.” He frowned. “Hart told me once that Rosa was shunned, declared unclean, by her people because she married an outsider.”

“Did she give you any details? Names? Places? Dates?”

“No—to her it was ancient family history—stories to pass on to her own kids someday…” His voice trailed off as he finished that thought to its logical conclusion.

To Hart’s conclusion—dead and buried, no kids. She would have made a wonderful mother. He had to swallow hard before he could face the others.

“Does Hart have anything of her grandmother’s?” Prescott persisted, unwilling to drop any investigative thread, no matter how flimsy. “Journals? Photos?”

“No.” The single syllable was all Drake could manage.

“Cassie lost everything when her house burned down this summer,” Jimmy finished for him.

Prescott looked up at that. “Arson?” he asked, an eager gleam in his eye.

“Yes, but the actor wasn’t Kasanov,” Jimmy assured him.

“So we need to find friends of Rosa Costello, people she may have confided in. Somewhere she and Kasanov must have crossed paths. He’s looking for something, something important enough to keep him searching for all these years.”

“A quest,” Drake whispered.

Jimmy nodded eagerly. “Maybe not one of his own choosing either. Maybe something passed down generations, even.”

“Like a blood feud? Until it found the twisted, sick sonofabitch willing to see it through to the bitter end.”

Prescott was nodding in unison with them. “God help us, it makes sense in a warped sort of way.”

“How does this help us find him now? And Hart?” Drake asked, feeling more frustrated than ever.

“Maybe it doesn’t, but this might,” Taylor said. “Here’s a list of properties held by the same LLC as the house Anton Lavelle lived in.” Several photos and satellite imagery popped up on the screen. All businesses that would make it easy to launder cash the old-fashioned way, without computer manipulation: a dry cleaner, convenience store, used car dealership turned salvage yard, and a fast food restaurant.

“There. Where’s that one at?” Drake said, pointing to the salvage operation. It was perfect. Secluded, off the main highway, fenced in with security that wouldn’t draw any undue attention. Perfect location to hide vehicles—or a hostage.

“Off Noblestown Road, southwest of Carnegie,” Taylor answered.

“Out of our jurisdiction,” Jimmy said.

“But not ours,” Prescott put in. “Taylor, start working on warrants. Call the locals, arrange for a drive by of each of these properties.”

“Call the sheriff’s department,” Drake added. “They have FLIR on their helicopter, can use the infrared to see if anyone is inside any of those buildings. It will be faster and safer than sending patrol cars.” He headed toward the door. No more sitting and watching while others did the work of saving Hart.

“Wait,” Prescott called after him. “Hart could be at any one of them. If we can’t pinpoint which one, then the only way to make sure they don’t know we’re coming is to arrange to hit them simultaneously.”

Drake ignored him. Done with waiting, he was already out the door, Jimmy hard on his heels.

AS DRAKE DROVE
to the old car dealership, Jimmy called for backup from the sheriff’s department and filled them in. He never questioned Drake’s actions—that was the great thing about Jimmy, he trusted Drake’s gut almost as much as Drake himself did.

“They’re twenty minutes out on the copter,” he said as he hung up.

“We’re closer than that.” Drake twisted the wheel and headed down an unmarked side street that, in typical Carnegie fashion, seemed to lead right off the edge of a ravine before making an abrupt turn. Streets around here would go from two lanes to a single lane to gravel and back to cobblestone or pavement without warning. It was a maze that few ventured, but the fastest way to get to Noblestown Road from the federal building. Much faster than the main highways the patrol cars would be following.

They’d just turned on to Noblestown when Drake’s phone rang. Jimmy answered for him. “It’s dispatch. They say some kid called in, told them Hart’s at the scrapyard.”

“I knew it. Where is this kid? We need to know what we’re walking in on.”

“Slow down—he’s waiting for us at that Sheetz up ahead.”

Drake hit the brakes while Jimmy listened some more then hung up. “The sheriff’s department is mobilizing.”

“Mobilizing who? SWAT?” Last thing he needed was for a bunch of cowboys to rush in and get Hart killed.

Jimmy glanced at him, lips pressed together. “And the bomb squad.”

<<<>>>

THE KID WAS
maybe twelve, scrawny, dark-haired, wearing filthy jeans, and a windbreaker two sizes too large. He sat in a booth of the brightly lit convenience store devouring his second chili-cheese dog with all the trimmings while Drake went over a sketch of the scrapyard’s layout with him.

“So you saw them bury bombs here, here, and here?”

The kid, Vincent was his name, nodded, chili juice running down his chin. He ate like he hadn’t had a decent meal in months.

“And there are motion detectors here and here?”

“They’re probably wired as well,” Jimmy said. “Guy’s got the whole damn place covered. There’s no way to get an assault team in there. And with the wrecks all around it, no sight lines for a sniper.”

Vincent gulped and swallowed. “Cassie climbed the magnet—it’s on a crane. Goes real high. Would that help?”

“If we can get past the guards—you said there were four? We have to assume they all carry detonators as well as guns.” Jimmy scowled at the map as only a former marine could. He shook his head. “Maybe rope down from the copter?”

“What if he has the roof rigged as well?” Drake argued. “That’s what I would do.” He thought about it. “It’s a one-man job. Go in, take out the guards—”

“With what? If they have dead man switches—”

A SUV screeched into the parking lot and came to a stop. Drake glanced out the window. Sheriff’s department. A woman wearing a tactical uniform hopped out and strode into the store. He smiled as he recognized her: Amanda Devlin, the lead bomb squad technician.

“Mandy, just the person we need.”

“My guys are on the way with the disposal unit, but I live nearby, so came ahead. What’s up?”

Drake filled her in. “A full assault is out—we don’t know what kind of manual trigger the bombs have. But I think I can get in there if we have some way to take out the possibility of remote detonation.”

She raised an eyebrow at that. “Not your jurisdiction, so forget that. But come with me. I’ve got your remote detonation problem solved.”

They left the boy in the care of the clerk and went out to her SUV. She opened the rear. “Meet ACE, boys. Our Alleghany County Emergency UAV. Equipped with radio and cell jamming capabilities as well as thermal and infrared cameras and omnidirectional microphones.”

“What are we waiting for?” Drake said.

“You are waiting for me to get the rest of my team, brief them, and take care of bringing the hostages out safely. Go back inside and grab some coffee while I update my guys and the SWAT boys. Don’t worry. This will all be over before you know it.”

Drake glared at her. She was right. It wasn’t his jurisdiction, wasn’t protocol to go in before the team was deployed. The protocol existed to prevent loss of life.

It also wasn’t the woman she loved trapped inside there with a madman, surrounded by bombs—at least five that the kid knew about, who knew how many more?

He spun on his heel and strode past Mandy to his car, Jimmy on his heels.

“Drake,” she shouted. “Damn it! Don’t you—”

Her words were cut out as he slammed the car door and started the engine. Jimmy hopped in the other side and they sped out of the parking lot. “Hope you know what you’re doing,” Jimmy said. “Remember, it’s not just Hart in there. Vincent said there were kids as well.”

“There’s a way in, but it’s a one man job,” Drake argued as they raced down the road. Lights appeared behind them, but Mandy’s Tahoe was no match for Drake’s Mustang.

“If Vincent’s intel is accurate. He’s just a kid, wouldn’t have access to all of their perimeter defenses.”

“I can handle the guys on the ground. You just make sure Mandy gets that drone deployed.”

Drake spotted the turn off for the scrapyard. He cut his lights and slowed down as the Mustang bounced onto the dirt road. He pulled off the road and into a clearing—if he did his job right, there would be plenty of other vehicles needing to use this road later tonight.

He popped the trunk and grabbed his ballistic vest along with the Remington 700 pump action shotgun he stored there.

“Once Mandy jams the radio and cell phones, we won’t be able to talk,” Jimmy reminded him.

“I thought of that,” Drake said, grabbing one last thing from the trunk. A can of fluorescent spray paint.

Mandy’s SUV, its lights out, pulled in behind them.

“That’s my cue.” Drake ran into the trees, heading for the break in the fence Vincent had told them about. Behind him, he heard Mandy and Jimmy arguing, but their voices were low and soon faded into the night.