Cold Snap (33 page)

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Sean wasn’t pleased that he had two cops assigned to him—hospital security and one of Tom Blade’s SWAT guys. It was clear Blade told his man to babysit Sean. But he’d worked around smarter tech guys and still gotten what he wanted.

Sean hated working on any medical system. They were often convoluted, and unless it was a state-of-the-art facility, they’d layer new systems on top of the old, ultimately spending more to force everything to work, rather than using that money on the front end to get a new, better system that would save time and money in the future.

This was one of those troublesome layered systems.

He plugged his tablet into the mainframe and rewrote a search program to pull down targeted information.

“What are you doing?” the security guy asked, suspicious.

“Running a program to locate the correct computer,” he lied. He didn’t need his tablet to do that. He needed the tablet to download the personnel files of the hostages so he could run faster background checks on them than SDPD could. While SWAT was looking into the hostages, their priority was the rescue, not the whys. He also told the computer to pull down everything on Wendy Parsons and the head nurse, Marilyn Todd. Parsons might be an accomplice, or she might simply have shared information with Peterson to help him with his grief.

It took him only a few minutes to identify the computers on the network and locate the specific unit in the morgue. Because he was on the mainframe and the computer was hardwired into the system, it was easy to access the hard drive and look at the specs. There was no active camera, but the computer had a dormant web cam built into the monitor. He first disabled the light on the terminal that indicated the camera was active, then he initiated the web cam.

He sent the feed to his tablet and the mainframe terminal, plus to the SWAT truck. Blade wanted the intel, so maybe he wouldn’t be so irritated that Sean had hacked into the SWAT system.

SWAT had one objective: rescue the hostages. They didn’t care, at this point, whether Sarah’s death was natural or murder. They only cared that no one lost their life. He had to trust them to protect Lucy, and trust Peterson when he told Carina that he wouldn’t hurt Lucy. But anything could happen—there were three innocent people in that room with his girlfriend, dozens of cops swarming the place, and a live bomb.

But answers … those Sean could find.

He informed the SWAT officer that Blade would have access to the computer feed in the truck. The officer seemed pleased—and surprised—and stepped out to call his boss.

Sean looked at the terminal in the security office. The morgue computer was on a desk in the corner, at an angle so the door couldn’t be seen. The three hostages were partly visible sitting on the floor. Lucy was sitting in the chair. She wasn’t handcuffed, which relieved Sean. Peterson was leaning against the desk, part of his arm visible but that was it. Sean had no audio because the audio had been disabled on the user’s end. He would have had to be at the computer physically to turn it on.

He hit a button and the screen went blank.

“Hmm, I don’t know what happened. Give me a minute.” He made sure all the data and security logs he needed had downloaded to his tablet, then disconnected it, typed a code, and the feed came back.

“There we go,” he said and winked. His phone rang. “Hold on.” He answered the call.

It was Patrick.

“Where are you?” he asked.

“We just hit the L.A. County line. Jack is hauling ass, but it’s going to be another two hours minimum. What the hell’s going on? First it’s Dad with a heart attack, now Carina is a hostage?”

“Lucy traded herself for Carina.”

“What the hell?”

Sean filled Patrick in on the situation, as much as he could with the cop listening in.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“I can’t really say, Patrick.” He hoped his former partner understood.

“Oh. Are you in trouble?”

“No.”
Not yet.

“Do you have anything?”

“Just a theory, but I’ll know more when Dillon and Carina’s partner, Will Hooper, get back from interviewing a nurse who knows Peterson.” Sean wasn’t ready to share anything, not until he dug deeper into the three hostages’ backgrounds and any deaths that might have occurred at hospitals where they worked previously.

“Why would Lucy trade herself for Carina?”

“Carina’s pregnant.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t his secret to tell, but then again everyone here knew.

“Oh God, I didn’t know.”

“Apparently, she hadn’t told anyone, but Nick told Lucy before she went down to the morgue. Carina thinks that Lucy has a rapport with the bastard, and Dillon thinks that the guy looks up to and respects Lucy as a superior. Some damn shrink reasoning. The bastard has a bomb, he’s special forces, and he’s already ruined his career and his life—he doesn’t have anything to lose. So I’m…” Sean hesitated a second. “I’m doing what I can to ensure that Lucy gets out alive.”

“Understood. Will’s a good guy, Sean, we were close when I lived in San Diego. He knows what he’s doing.”

“He hates me.”

“What did you do?”

“What I do best.”

“Sean—I’ll call Will, smooth things over. You rub cops the wrong way. Aren’t you buddies with his brother?”

“Brother?” Sean snapped his fingers. “Dean? Will and Dean Hooper with Sac FBI are brothers?”

“Yes. Just—go easy with Will.”

“I’ll try.”

Patrick hesitated, then said, “Peterson couldn’t have thought this out.”

“I have some ideas. Hopefully, this will all be resolved before you get here.”

“Jack wants all the info you have on the guy. He’ll talk to his commanding officer and friends, maybe get more insight.”

“I’ll send it to you now.”

Sean hung up, shot Patrick a copy of his data, then turned to the cop. “I’m done here.” He really needed to be alone so he could check his facial recognition program. “I need to use the facilities.”

“Sergeant Blade wants you back at the SWAT truck.”

“Do you have a bathroom there?” His lingering good humor after sneaking his downloads by the two cops disappeared.

The SWAT guy walked him down the hall. “Blade told me to keep an eye on you.”

“I’m sure.”

He went inside the restroom and closed the door. He immediately pulled out his tablet and launched his program.

It had finished running. And immediately, he found what he was looking for.

Wendy Parsons, the nurse who’d given Peterson a flash drive the night before, never left the hospital. She was supposed to have gotten off duty at eight
A.M.
, but she wasn’t ID’d on any security cameras thirty minutes after she met with Peterson. She went from outside the emergency room to the lobby to her desk, left—then never returned. From Sean’s cursory examination of the hospital system, the lobby and main areas were well monitored, but the individual floors—other than the maternity unit in the south wing—were on minimal camera surveillance.

“People don’t just disappear,” he murmured.

Sean sent Dillon what he found. Dillon responded immediately.

Parsons isn’t at home, and she doesn’t appear to have come home after her shift ended.

Pounding on the door told Sean his time was up. “Rogan, Tom Blade wants us back at the truck now.”

He burst out, “What happened?”

“Your girlfriend refused to accept the lab test results, said they weren’t accurate.”

“My
girlfriend
is a federal agent who knows what she’s doing.”

The cop snorted. “This could have been over ten minutes ago.”

Sean followed him out of the building. If Lucy had refused the tests, she had a damn good reason for doing so.

But the stakes had just gone up, and Sean needed to find Wendy Parsons ASAP.

CHAPTER 31

Charlie’s calmness didn’t bother Lucy; in fact, she was glad he remained calm because it showed that he could be reasoned with. He was patient. He didn’t talk to her, and she didn’t push him, deciding that right now he was still processing all the information from the day, plus his reaction to his sister’s autopsy.

But the silence disturbed the three nurses, and they’d been growing increasingly agitated as time ticked by. Kristan had jumped up three times and Charlie was upset with the young nurse’s constant chatter. The third time she jumped up, Charlie went over to her and held a gun to her head. She slid down, against the wall, crying.

Charlie returned to his post at the desk. Lucy said, “Let me go over and talk to them, please. They’re scared.”

He eyed her cautiously. “Why aren’t you?”

She looked him in the eye. “I am.”

“You don’t act scared.”

“Honestly, I’ve faced things worse than death and survived.”

He eyed her with interest. She’d spent the last hour slowly working on getting him to trust her. When the test results came back—too early, and he knew it—it was her idea to bring in the portable lab. If he thought he wouldn’t get answers, he’d finally realize that his freedom was over. He was a soldier at heart, and while he could mentally put himself into the role of the attacker, he wouldn’t be able to survive this way for long. He’d see what he was doing. She feared he would kill himself, or kill the hostages and then himself. In his mind, one of these three people was responsible for his sister’s death, and if he had to kill all of them to see justice done, he would. She could practically see him working up the justification for murder.

She was the neutral third party, the one whom he viewed as impartial. It was clear that he admired her forensic skill, even though she was no more competent than any other trained pathologist who took pride in her work. It had been nearly a year since she left the ME’s office, but she’d done so much during her internship there that the skills came back, just like riding a bike.

Medics in the military were in the middle of action, even when they weren’t soldiers, and they saved lives. They earned the respect of the soldiers around them, according to her brother Jack. She had a sense that Peterson equated her with army medics, someone he needed to protect.

The problem was, she wouldn’t be able to do all the tests. The basic tests were easy, but they’d need access to a high-end lab to run the sorts of tests for medications in quantities that could kill. What she hoped to do was show him that the tests that were returned were not falsified, and explain the limitations to testing. It was her only idea to buy them a little more time so that SWAT could make a move. Because had she told him the tests were fine, he would have known she was lying.

But the only way SWAT could act was if Lucy could get Peterson to dismantle the bomb.

He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t push him. The silence actually calmed her. The ventilation system was purring. There were no sirens. No sounds of anyone attempting to breach the morgue. The one problem was Kristan’s sobs. Just when Lucy thought she was relaxed, she started crying again. Brian would try to soothe her, then say something that pissed off Charlie, usually calling him a psycho and saying how SWAT was going to put a bullet in his head. Rena was the only one who had completely kept her head, after her initial outbreak at the beginning of the ordeal.

The situation had lasted well over five hours now, and Lucy had been in here for three of those hours. But the waiting seemed to keep Charlie calm as well.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I’m watching.”

“I know.”

She walked around the autopsy table and kept her distance from the other hostages. “This is almost over. Kristan, I know you’re scared, but it would help everyone if you could get yourself under control.”

Rena stared at Lucy with an anger and hatred that surprised her. “Are you working with him?”

“I’m trying to get to a peaceful resolution.”

“You’re taking your sweet time. I didn’t think Stockholm syndrome worked that fast.”

Lucy wasn’t going to explain herself to Rena or the others. “Kristan? Do you think you can do that for me? Be calm?”

Kristan nodded, her eyes red and swollen.

“Good.” She turned to Brian. “How’s your leg?”

“Numb.”

Rena said, “We’re nurses. We’ll take care of our own.”

“You know he’s going to turn on you,” Brian told Lucy. “He’s a nutcase.”

Hardly. He had a clean and logical methodology for what he was doing. He wasn’t crazy, and he wasn’t going to turn on Lucy as long as she was honest with him.

“Just hold on a little while longer. We all want to be home for Christmas.”

“If you really wanted to help, you would have gotten us out of here, not your sister,” Rena said. “She’s a cop, more capable of dealing with someone like him than you are.”

Lucy wasn’t going to reveal any of her training, outside of the ME’s office. She didn’t know if they would say something, and she’d already built a level of trust with Charlie that she didn’t want to jeopardize.

She walked back to Charlie. “They’re doing their best,” she said.

“I don’t really care.”

“You do care. I understand how you got to this point. In your grief, you didn’t see any other option. But there are always other options. We all do rash things sometimes.”

Charlie almost smiled. “You’re a cool cucumber. Have you ever been rash?”

“More than once.”

“Name one time.”

“I don’t want to talk about me.”

“You sound like some psychologist or something. Trying to get me to talk about my past. I already told you everything. There’s nothing more to me. I doubt you’ve ever done anything without thinking it through—except maybe trading yourself for your sister. That you did out of love.”

Partly. But Lucy had never worked with her sister. She didn’t know how Carina would have handled the situation, and from the minute Lucy walked in, she had a feeling she could fix this without anyone dying. And Carina had thought so too, or she wouldn’t have told Charlie that Lucy was a pathologist.

The phone rang and Kristan yelped. Charlie answered it. “Yes, sir. Thank you. You can leave the cart outside the door. I’ll send Ms. Kincaid to retrieve it. I’ll be watching, I want her back inside.”