Ultimate Kill (Book 1 Ultimate CORE Trilogy) (CORE Series) (38 page)

“So how do we use laptop as leverage and not go to FBI? How does Harry plan to disarm bombs and not go to FBI?” Vlad released a deep sigh. “We need good plan.”

“I know,” Harrison said, his mind turning in a million directions and zeroing in on one. “What we need is to know what the Feds are planning to do with Hunnicutt first.”

*

Christian Hunnicutt adjusted the ill-fitting jumpsuit he’d been forced to don upon his arrival to the FBI’s Norfolk Division. Never in his life had he worn something so cheaply made and…orange. Not that it mattered. Soon enough he’d be on his way. The FBI had already held him in custody for five hours. Knowing his rights, unless they charged him with something, they’d have to release him. Once that happened, he’d return to his plantation home, take a long hot shower and put on something more respectable.
 

 
The door to the interrogation room he’d been led into thirty minutes ago opened. He quickly stood and offered his hand. “Martin, thank God,” he said to his longtime friend and the Director of the FBI. “What’s happening? Why am
I
being detained?”

“I apologize for the delay,” the director said, his expression grim, his eyes filled with sympathy. “Considering our history and the gravity of our investigation, I won’t be taking part in your questioning.” Two other men entered the room. “These are Agents Suts and Hicks.”

“Yes, I remember Agent Suts from the warehouse.” He nodded to the agent, who looked as if he’d graduated from Quantico while still sucking on a pacifier. Hicks was older, heavier and balding. “Thank you for your help today. I…” He looked to the stark white wall. “This afternoon was disturbing and terrifying,” he said, making sure the sincerity weighed heavy on each of his words. “The woman, Rose. Is she okay?”

Martin headed toward the door. “I’m going to let my agents answer that for you.”

“Wait,” he said, approaching the director.
 

The agents moved to stop him, but Martin held up a hand. “It’s okay. What is it, Christian?” he asked, weariness in his tone, the strain of today’s events etched on his face.
 

The United States’ top cop had definitely had a bad day. Which was a shame. He actually liked Martin.
 

“Suts and Hicks,” he began, keeping his voice low and for Martin’s ears only, “I’m sure they’re good agents, but I expected you to send in men with more experience.” He was Christian Hunnicutt, after all, not some street punk being questioned about a misdemeanor offense.
 

Martin sent him a tired smile, while his eyes held hints of conflict and apology. “They’re good agents. Hicks has been one of the leads during this investigation. Trust me, they have plenty of experience.” He reached for the door handle. “I’ll speak with you soon,” he said, and left the room.

Maybe this was Martin’s way of helping him out of the current situation—not that he needed any help. Still, considering his importance and, as Martin had put it, the gravity of the investigation, he would have liked one of the agents to have had
Special
added to their title.
 

“Please take a seat, Mr. Hunnicutt,” Agent Suts said.

He sat across from the two men, a metal table, made to look as if it were wood, separating them. “Can you tell me about Rose? Is she okay?”

“Have you ever met her?” Suts asked instead.

“One night, years ago, Ric Mancini and I had been out with business associates and he picked her up at a club. Honestly, I’d forgotten all about Rose. When I saw the woman in my warehouse, I didn’t recognize her until Ric reintroduced us.”

“She claims otherwise.” Suts looked down at the opened file in front of him. “She says she had a relationship with
you
.”

“What? That’s preposterous. When Ric was with her, I had just started dating my wife, Liliana, and was busy trying to convince her father that I was good enough for his daughter.” It hadn’t taken much to convince the old fool of anything. Money was an excellent motivator. “Speaking of which, I really wish you’d let me call my wife. I’m sure she’s worried sick.”

“Your wife is fine. As you know, our agents met with her in New York.”

“But the press. I’m concerned for my wife and kids and how all of this is affecting them.” “Your name hasn’t been mentioned to the media,” Hicks said, then added, “Not yet.”

Even though he wanted to wipe the smug look off of Hicks’s face with the bottom of the shitty slipper-like shoe they’d forced him to wear, he feigned relief. “Thank God. If my children thought…” He wiped a hand down his face, then pressed his index finger and thumb against his closed eyes. “I don’t want them questioning, or thinking I’m capable of being involved with what Ric has done to all of those people.”
 

“Let’s go back to that,” Suts said. “Starting with why you think Ric had anything to do with the bombings.”

Christian dropped his hand in his lap. “He’d been acting…off the past week. If I caught him on the phone, he’d quickly end the call.”

“What’s suspicious about that?” Hicks asked.

“I didn’t think it was suspicious—at first. Then my bodyguard, Santiago Ramirez, disappeared for the entire week. He claimed he had the flu, but then one day I happened to hear Ric on the phone, and after listening to his half of the conversation, I realized he was talking to Santiago.”

“It’s our understanding that Ric was in charge of your employees,” Suts said.

Christian nodded. “True. Only I heard Ric tell Santiago something like, once he leaves Leavenworth, there’d be a plane waiting for him in St. Louis.”

The two agents glanced at each other, then Hicks pulled out a large photo from his file and slid it across the table. “Do you know a man named Michael Fairclough? Goes by Mickey?”

When he glanced down at Mickey’s prison photo, he furrowed his brows and pretended to think. “No. I have thousands of employees. Does he work for my company?”

“We’ve checked your employee records and found that he applied. One of our agents interviewed some of your employees who remembered Fairclough. They said he was in a local bar near one of your docks getting drunk and talking about his time in prison. They also said he’d spoken with Ric that night.”

“That was ten days ago,” Suts added.

“What does this Michael Fairclough have to do with anything?” he asked. “Was he working for Ric?”

“We believe so. Unfortunately, he’s dead.” Hicks slid another photo across the table. “Is this jogging your memory?”

He looked to the picture, then quickly turned away and covered his mouth.

“Michael Fairclough had been shot in the leg, stabbed in the eye and had the name Rose Wood carved into his stomach,” Suts said.

“He’d been tortured, Mr. Hunnicutt.” Hicks took the photo back. “We found him in the back end of the Yukon registered to Santiago Ramirez.”

“You mean…the same SUV that Santiago drove into my warehouse garage?” Christian asked, widening his eyes to make sure his shock was apparent. “Oh, my God. Do you think Ric or Santiago killed this man?”

The bald agent nodded. “The bullets we found lodged in Fairclough’s leg and head, along with the one removed from Santiago, are an exact ballistic fingerprint to the bullets fired from Ric’s gun.”

“Oh, my God,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I…I just can’t believe it.”

“Mr. Hunnicutt,” Suts said, folding his hands together and resting them on the table. “When agents found you, they said you were on your cell phone and running through the room. They said it appeared as if you were searching for something.”

“Your men took my phone. I’m sure they’ve found that the call I was making was to Martin Fitzgerald.” Thanks to Liliana, he’d suspected the FBI might knock on the door of his warehouse apartment, which was why he’d disposed of Ric and Santiago when he had. As for calling Martin, he’d wanted to make sure there’d been a record of his reporting the double murders. After all,
he
was the victim.
 

“Yes, we know.”

“And I was searching for Rose. Ric had her tied to the chair and I—”

“Ms. McCall said
you
tied her to the chair,” Hicks said, his tone laced with allegation.

Christian glanced between both men. “McCall?”

“Naomi McCall is Rose Wood,” Suts clarified.

“What are you talking about? Are you telling me this woman has two identities?”

Suts nodded. “She claims she changed her name to stop
you
from being able to find her.”

“That’s ridiculous. Anyone can change their name, but they can’t change their social security number without leaving a paper trail. And before you ask me how I know this, I had a paranoid schizophrenic second cousin who tried. My great-uncle was able to find him like that,” he said and snapped his fingers. “If her accusations are true, I could have hired someone to track her down. But I didn’t because
I
haven’t seen or thought about the woman in nearly a decade. And why would I? She was Ric’s girlfriend or one-night stand, or whatever she’d meant to him.”

“Unfortunately, he’s not here to verify that,” Hicks said.

“Unfortunately, he’s not.” Christian honed in on his acting skills and played the part of a grieving friend. “Neither is Santiago. Both men had been with me for fifteen years. They weren’t just employees to me.” He met Hicks gaze and laid it on thick. “I have very few people that I can trust. Those men were my friends. I trusted Ric with my business and Santiago with my life.”
 

“Mr. Hunnicutt,” Suts interjected, “start at the beginning. What happened at the warehouse? How is it that we found blood spattered on your clothes and gunpowder residue on your hand?”

He ignored the accusation in the agent’s eyes and thought back to the day he’d discovered there was no treasure in the center of the labyrinth he’d worked so hard to find. He hadn’t been lying to Rose when he’d told her he had wanted to possess the unabashed innocence that had first drawn him to her. Eight years ago, cynicism had been weighing him down. He’d just killed his father and had a business to run. The daily pressure had begun to take its toll on his nerves. Meanwhile, he’d been courting Liliana. That, in and of itself, had been hell. With her need to be pampered and doted upon, he’d hated the woman on sight. Couple that with having to deal with her pain-in-the-ass father, he’d been at his wit’s end. With the agent staring at him, waiting for him to slip, he went back to the nine-year-old child he’d once been and tapped into those long forgotten emotions, and,
voilà
, his eyes misted with unshed tears.

Damn, he should have been an actor.
 

He cleared his throat and acted as if he was trying to pull himself together. “I’m sure you know, after the explosion in Denver, I gave a press conference. Ric set it up and was with me.”

“We’re fully aware,” Suts said, looking down at the file on the desk.
 

“When we finished there and I learned of yet another bombing, I told Ric I didn’t want to go back to the corporate offices. Losing those two pilots…did you know that the one pilot, Jerry Rose, not only left behind two young children, but a wife battling breast cancer?” He stared off to the wall behind Hicks. “It’s only a matter of time before those kids are orphans.”

Suts looked to Hicks. “We didn’t know that.”
 

“I didn’t either until he was killed. The news hit me hard and I wanted to go to the warehouse and take time to draft the plans I’d spoken about during my press conference. I made it public that I intend to aid those who had been effected by today’s bombings.” He manufactured one of the looks of grief and sadness he’d practiced in front of the mirror before giving the press conference. “I still intend to do just that.” He wiped at his eyes. “When Ric and I arrived at my warehouse apartment, I closeted myself in my office.”

“What time was that?” Hicks asked, his pen poised over a notepad.

“About one-thirty, I think.” He looked between the men. “Why?”

“We’ll get to that.” Hicks jotted something down. “What happened next?”

He shook his head. “I don’t recall the exact times, but I spoke with my wife, my secretary and my minister.” Too bad he’d had to kill Ric. The man had been great at his job and had brilliantly suggested he make those calls, should there ever be a need for an alibi. “I had a headache and tried to sleep it off in my room, but I found myself glued to the TV, anxious to learn about what was happening.”

“We found blood evidence in the guest room next to your office.” Hicks tapped his pen against the table. “You said you’ve never heard of or met Michael Fairclough and yet his DNA is all over that room. How is it that you didn’t know he was there?”

“
Was
he there when I was in residence?” he asked with exasperation. “Agent Hicks, when I had the third floor of the warehouse converted into a private apartment, I also had the walls soundproofed. I’m not suggesting that I wouldn’t hear a man scream— Look, I don’t go into that room. It’s for guests. Is it possible Ric had him in that room while I was there? Maybe. I don’t know. What I
do
know?” He slammed his palm against the metal table. “I. Didn’t. See. Him. Here’s another thing you should know. I told you Santiago claimed to have the flu. The first time I saw him in over a week was at my warehouse apartment.
After
I arrived from the press conference.”