The Killing Season (29 page)

“That’s about the size of it,” I agreed.

“Then we have to forget about the motive for just now and come at it from the other angle. Who might be next?”

“And as we said, we have some candidates, given what day tomorrow is.”

“Good candidates,” Banner said. “With money and power and influence. And one of them as good as challenged Wardell to a fight yesterday.”

I nodded. “So how do we get a meeting with the governor on election day?”

61

9:07 p.m.

Banner and Blake touched down at O’Hare a little after nine p.m., the beginnings of a plan for the following day agreed. Blake had reclined his seat and caught a catnap, while Banner made a few more calls in-flight, talking to agents she trusted to keep quiet about her inquiries and getting updates on arrangements across the states in Wardell’s predicted path.

Unsurprisingly, the search had yet to turn up any sign of Wardell after the graveyard. Going by his track record so far, he could be traveling by bus or another stolen car. A car was the more likely option, given that they now had a much better idea of his current appearance and a pretty good composite had been splashed all over the news. They were chasing up all reported vehicle thefts within four hundred miles of Rapid City. No firm leads as of yet, although one report of a car stolen from a truck stop outside of Sioux Falls sounded promising.

The bulk of Banner’s phone time had been consumed secur­ing a brief slot to meet with the governor. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d managed to get ten minutes with him before the rally. Naturally, she’d omitted to mention the fact that she was not officially on the case anymore.

They landed at one of the outlying runways, far from the terminal, and climbed into the back of a waiting sedan. The driver of the sedan was Kelly Paxon, who was officially off duty for the night. Banner made brief introductions, last names only. Paxon smiled thinly in acknowledgment and shut the hell up.

“You got a place to stay?” Banner asked as the sedan pulled out and headed for the security check.

Blake paused in the middle of fastening his seat belt, as though he hadn’t considered the matter, then said, “I think I’ll find someplace that serves coffee and doesn’t close, go through some of the background on Randall and the other guy. Congressional candidates too—I’ll see if anything chimes with Wardell. You should go home, get some sleep.”

Banner smiled and shook her head.

“The office, then?” he asked.

She shook her head again. “I’m on leave, remember? We’ll go to my place.” She paused. “Don’t worry. I have a comfy couch.”

62

10:31 p.m.

As Banner turned the key in the lock of her apartment, she silently gave thanks that the cleaner’s day was a Friday and that she hadn’t been home since. It meant she avoided the embarrassment of empty pizza boxes in the kitchen and a teetering ironing pile.

She kicked off her shoes and turned on the lights in each room of the apartment—habit, ever since she’d been living apart from Mark.

“Nice place,” Blake said, hovering in the doorway.

“Thanks. Feels like I’m barely here, even in a normal week. Have a seat,” she said, indicating the living room.

She went through to the bedroom, quickly changing out
of her suit and into sweatpants and a gray Northwestern University T-shirt. When she went back to the living room, Blake was on the leather couch by the window. Looking at him, she remembered it was only a two-seater, which meant that while it was indeed comfortable, it was probably better if you were five six or shorter. Blake had picked up the framed photo from the table beside the couch. The one that showed her—smiling, with her hair down—shoulder to shoulder with Mark—tall, serious-looking, dark suit—each of them with a hand on their daughter’s shoulders.

“That’s Annie,” she said.

He looked up. “She’s beautiful.”

Banner swallowed. All of a sudden an urge hit her like a physical blow, the urge to drop everything, to forget about Wardell and go and be with her daughter. Forget about protecting the city and focus on protecting Annie.

Blake caught the look on her face. “You okay?”

“Fine. It just feels like I’m barely here for her, either.”

“Is she with her father right now?”

Banner shook her head. “My sister. She’s been really great. Oh
shit
.”

“What?”

“I’m going to miss her school play.
Calamity Jane
. Annie’s playing Adelaid Adams. I said I’d try to be there.”

Blake looked sympathetic, but like he didn’t know exactly what to say. It was the look of someone who’d never had a family. Banner decided to test the waters again, see if he was ready to open up a little more.

“How about you, Blake? Any kids? Anybody special?” As she said the words, she remembered Blake’s involuntary smile four days before, when she’d asked him if there was anything he didn’t know. There was somebody special, all
right. Somebody in the past, Banner thought. But if she was a memory, it was a fond one.

He didn’t answer for a second, thought about it, then shook his head and looked away again. “Nobody special. Free agent, remember?”

“Makes work easier, I guess.”

“I guess.”

Blake put the photo down next to a glass paperweight Annie had brought back from a school trip to the Museum of Science. He glanced out of the window at the view. He didn’t volunteer any personal information whatsoever.

“So where do you live, Blake?” she asked, needling him just to try and get a rise. “You got an apartment somewhere? A house? Motor home perhaps?”

“I move around a lot.”

Banner waited for elaboration. When none was forthcoming, she shook her head. “You are
impossible
.”

He turned back to her, looked honestly confused. “What?”

“Fine, let’s talk about the damn case.” Banner reached for the remote and turned on
CNN
, muting the sound. The Wardell mug shot stared back as though taunting them.

Blake’s eyes narrowed, then he turned his head from the screen. “Wardell’s coming back to Chicago and he’ll be arriv­ing tomorrow.”

“If you’re right.”

“I’m right. It’s election day and he wants to make an impact. That’s why Governor Randall is the most likely target.”

Banner sat down beside him. “And we have a six o’clock appointment with him. But what if it’s not him? What about the challenger, Robert Weir? Or the congressional candidates, for that matter?”

“It’s a possibility, but I’m factoring in Wardell’s history. Randall was pretty visible during the original manhunt and the trial. He was scheduled to attend the execution, in fact. He’s like the next level up after John Hatcher.”

“How does this fit in with your theory? About someone using Wardell, I mean?” It was the first time she’d brought it up since the plane. They’d both found it easier to focus on Randall as a likely target than banging their heads against the brick wall of figuring out the motivation behind Wardell’s escape.

“Randall makes a lot of sense as a planned assassination. He’s not like the other people Wardell’s killed up until now. We’re talking about a man of consequence. You remove a governor from the equation and somebody somewhere will benefit.”

Banner shook her head. “I don’t buy it.”

“You don’t?”

“I mean yes, I agree he’s the most likely target, assuming Wardell is coming to Chicago on this day of all days. But it doesn’t solve the major problem with this theory: Wardell’s unpredictability.”

Blake sighed in frustration. “It’s like we can see the left side and the right side of the puzzle, but we have a bunch of pieces missing from the middle.”

Neither of them spoke for a full minute. The news switched to an interview with
SAC
Donaldson from earlier in the day. He looked calm, but Banner knew his body language well enough to see he was making some kind of forceful point to the interviewer. She turned her head from the screen and gazed out of the window at the lights of some faraway vessel on the surface of Lake Michigan. She turned to Blake when she realized he was looking at her, those searching green eyes alighting on the curve of her neck. He looked away and looked back, as though catching himself out.

“Hey,” she said.

Blake opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by her cell phone ringing. Both of them cleared their throats and sat up straight. Banner got up and walked across to the table where she’d left the phone and checked the display. It was Donaldson, and she knew whatever it was, it wouldn’t be welcome news. She hit the button and said her name.

“Banner, it’s Donaldson.” There was a pause. Something in his voice that she didn’t like. “I know Edwards has recom­mended you take a couple of days . . .”

“What’s wrong? Is it Castle?”

There was another pause that confirmed what she was about to hear.

“Castle went into cardiac arrest forty minutes ago. He died on the table.”

“God . . .”

“Banner, this doesn’t change anything. I don’t want you—”

She swallowed. “It’s okay. I won’t do anything stupid. Thanks for letting me know.”

There was another pause, a different kind of pause, and she could tell he was weighing up whether to say more. Eventually he just said, “Bad situation, Banner. Take it easy and we’ll talk soon.”

Banner hung up. Blake was staring at her.

“I’m sorry. He was a good man.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, turned to look out the window at the lights of the city and the black void of Lake Michigan beyond. She said the name quietly, so quietly that Blake had to ask her to repeat it.

“Eric Markow,” she said again. “You know who he is?”

Blake thought about it for a second. “The guy who kidnapped Ashley Greenwood.”

“The guy who murdered Ashley Greenwood,” she corrected.

It had been the big news story of last year, the biggest to hit Chicago since Caleb Wardell, in fact. A photogenic millionaire heiress abducted and ransomed for two million dollars. The father paid up, but Greenwood wasn’t released. The
FBI
tracked them down, but Markow had already killed her, cutting her throat. He blew his brains out when he knew he was cornered.

“You worked the case,” Blake said. “I remember Donaldson mentioning it in the briefing.”

“You asked me why Castle doesn’t—didn’t—like me. Markow’s the reason.”

Blake didn’t say anything, just let her talk. Banner’s throat dried up as she remembered that rain-soaked night. It was the first time she’d spoken about it out loud to anyone, other than in the dry, official context of a formal report.

“He was running the task force on the kidnapping. Castle was, I mean. We supervised the drop of the ransom. Markow was pretty clever about it, very well organized. He led us a merry chase through the city. My job was to tail the father as he made the trade, but not to be seen.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Greenwood was eventually instructed to get on the last carriage of a train at the station on Ninety-Fifth Street, leave the bag, and step off right as the doors closed. He was supposed to get the location of his daughter after that—instead, nothing. Castle thinks Markow made me. He’d said no cops.”

“What do you think?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t see me. The inquiry confirmed that later on, but it wasn’t good enough for Castle. Either Markow changed his mind and wanted more money, or something went wrong. We nailed him a couple of weeks later. I got a big promotion out of it. But of course we were too late for Ashley Greenwood.” She swallowed and blinked a tear out of her eye. “Too late,” she said again, thinking about the present now.

“We’ll get him, Banner,” Blake said quietly.

“You sound so sure.”

“I am sure. We’ll do whatever it takes to run Wardell down.”

“You mean you will. You’ll do whatever it takes.”

“I will.”

Banner tossed the phone on the coffee table and sat down on the couch, next to him. “Why are you still here? You’re not getting paid. You can just walk away. Why put yourself in harm’s way for no reward?”

“I can’t for the same reason he can’t.”

Banner watched him, but he avoided her eyes. Hiding something? Still?

“You prefer it this way, don’t you? No rules, no pro­cedure. You don’t understand what it’s like for—”

“I understand rules fine. I understand why they have to be there. And when they have to be broken.”

There was another long pause, but neither of them looked away this time. As though impelled by magnetic attraction, their faces had moved closer together, their lips almost touching now.

“Blake . . .”

He pulled back from her at the last second. “This is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“I’m not here to stay. I’ve seen this one before: We get close, things happen, then we stop the bad guy and I’m gone before the dust settles.”

Banner said nothing for a second, then smiled out of the corner of her mouth. “Promise?”

Blake blinked.

“I’m not looking for a lifelong commitment, Blake. I’m not searching for a new father for my daughter, and if I were, no offense, but . . .”

“None taken.”

“I need to keep my real life separate. I need to keep Annie away from . . . all of this.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I just want . . .”

“Want?” Blake whispered.

“To break the rules.”

Their lips met, and Banner felt an electric jolt go through her body as Blake pulled her close. They kept kissing as their hands explored up and down and around. After a minute Banner broke the kiss and opened her eyes. She tugged Blake’s shirt up and he raised his arms to let her haul it over his head. The long white scar caught her eye again. She put the tip of her middle finger on the raised tissue, traced it from his upper chest down to where it disappeared beneath his belt. Her eyes moved up and met his. He didn’t say anything. If she’d expected an explanation for the scar, she should have known better by now. She pulled her own T-shirt over her head, and Blake moved in again, hands around her ribs, picking her up and pushing her gently but firmly back on the couch.