Dangerous Games (35 page)

“Last election, I voted under
four
assumed names. How’s that for public-spiritedness? I was a one-woman political machine. And you know what? My candidates
still
lost. But what are you gonna do?”

“I know what
you’re
going to do, Abby.”

“Not sure I’m liking the ominous tone.”

“You’re going to go home, and start doing all the things necessary to cover your tracks. Now—before somebody else decides to interview you. Somebody more thorough than Crandall.”

“Are you kicking me out?”

“I’m kicking you
loose
. You did a great job. You got the Rain Man for us. And I’m sorry I doubted you. But we can take it from here.”

“Sounds almost like I’m not wanted.”

“You’ve done all you can. And I want to thank you for it. Really.” She was already easing Abby toward the door.

Abby frowned. “Don’t get all choked up. These overt displays of emotion can be so embarrassing.”

Tess realized she was pressing too hard. “Abby…”

The attempted apology was waved off with a smile. “I’m just ragging on you, Special Agent. I know when the manager’s taking me out of the ball game. I just hope the closer doesn’t blow my lead.”

“Don’t worry. Everything is under control.” Tess only wished this were true.

“Okay, but I need my Smith.”

“Right. It’s in my coat.” Tess had left the coat at her workstation. “Wait here.”

She hurried down the hall to the C-1 squad room, which was empty, all the agents either conferring with Michaelson or working the scene of the kidnapping. She found Abby’s gun in her coat pocket and took it out. When she turned, Abby was right behind her.

“I asked you to wait,” Tess said, irritated.

“I’m no good at following orders. Haven’t you picked up on that by now?” Abby took the gun and put it into her purse. “Much better. You know, I felt naked without it.”

Tess wanted to say that carrying a gun hadn’t helped Madeleine Grant. Instead she forced a smile. “Let yourself out. No one will stop you.”

“Just let ’em try. So…this is it, I guess. End of the road for Cagney and Lacey.”

All Tess wanted to do was get back to working the abduction. “I’m afraid so. Good-bye, Abby.”

“Hey, why so formal?” Unexpectedly, Abby stepped up and gave Tess a quick, jarring hug. “It’s been good to know you, Special Agent.”

Madeleine’s voice came back to Tess:
She’s lonely, you see. Much lonelier than she lets on. Lonelier than she knows
.

She’d found it hard to believe. But maybe it was true. She didn’t know what to say as Abby pulled back.

“I’m just an old softy,” Abby said with a slightly embarrassed grin. “Besides, it’s not every day somebody saves my butt. Hey, I still owe you that cheeseburger.”

“Another time,” Tess managed.

“Sure. Count on it.”

Abby saluted Tess with a brisk wave, and then she was gone, heading down the hall in the direction of the reception area, and Tess relaxed. One problem had been solved, at least.

Abby Sinclair was off the case.

36

Abby left the Federal Building and crossed Wilshire, smiling. It had been a hoot to see the expression on Tess’s face when she received that spontaneous gesture of affection. Abby hadn’t given her a hug for laughs, though. Nor had she wanted to share the love. What she’d wanted to share was the ID tag clipped to Tess’s lapel.

What the heck, Tess didn’t need it. She had other FBI creds, and Abby had none at all. It didn’t seem fair. Fortunately the unequal distribution of resources had been rectified. Abby had the small, laminated clip-on tag now. She figured it would come in handy when she visited Kolb’s apartment building. Tess might not be interested in Kolb’s partner, but Abby was, and she thought the bug in his phone might give her a lead.

Having left her Honda in his neighborhood, she would have to catch a cab in Westwood. There was usually one outside the Westwood Marquis hotel. She hiked into Westwood Village, weaving her way through the usual crowd of college kids, fending off an occasional drunken advance. At the Marquis she was pleased to see a cab in the taxi lane.

She told the driver Kolb’s address, and he grunted an affirmative. As the cab rolled east on Wilshire, she inserted the ID tag into her wallet so Tess’s photo showed through the plastic window, then spent the rest of the ride studying the photo blowup of the driver’s cab license and trying to figure out how to pronounce his last name.

When they reached Kolb’s block, she saw police cars around the building, but no media yet. The arrest had been kept out of the news. “Drop me at the corner,” she said.

She walked back to the apartment building, where patrol officers guarded the front and side entrances. She wished she were dressed a little more upscale, but regardless of her ensemble, she could pass for a fed. It was all about attitude. Feds had this strut, this cock-of-the-walk thing going on. She picked up her pace and made sure she wasn’t smiling. Feds never smiled at cops, and vice versa. There was too much territorialism in their relationship to allow for such niceties.

As she hiked up her skirt and stepped over the crime-scene ribbon, one of the patrol cops approached. “I’m afraid you can’t go in there right now, ma’am.”

Her wallet was already in her hand. She flipped it open and flashed the ID tag. “FBI.”

She knew there were other feds present. They would never yield control of Kolb’s apartment to the locals. The cop wouldn’t be surprised to see another special agent swing by.

“Okay, no problem,” he said, stepping back.

She barely acknowledged him as she strode into the building’s lobby.

Easy as one-two-three. Now came the hard part. She had to get into the janitor’s supply closet, almost directly opposite Kolb’s door. Trouble was, there would be FBI agents—real ones, not cheap imitations like her—in and around Kolb’s digs. It would be tricky. Still, everything was relative. Compared with having Kolb’s gun to her head, breaking into a closet was no sweat.

She headed down the hallway and was glad there were no police in view. But the door to Kolb’s unit was open, and from inside she could hear voices and the drone of a handheld vacuum cleaner. The crime-scene guys were sucking up hairs and fibers.

Obviously she couldn’t afford to seen by the criminalists, who worked for the Bureau and would know she was an impostor. She’d been hoping they would keep Kolb’s door shut. No such luck. And Kolb’s apartment was a studio. No back rooms for the trace-evidence experts to vanish into. What she needed was a ploy to divert their attention from the doorway to the hall.

She took two items out of her purse—a membership card bearing the name of a local athletic club, and her cell phone. Kolb’s home number was the last one she’d called. She pressed redial and heard his phone start to ring.

Predictably the crime-scene team paused in what they were doing to look at the phone. The vacuum cleaner was switched off. A male voice asked, “He got a message machine?”

“No,” someone else said.

“Shit. I’d like to know who’s calling this joker.”

Abby slipped the membership card into the crack of the supply closet’s door. The card was fake, its only purpose to serve as a shim. It was thin and highly flexible, but tough enough to force open a spring latch.

The door unlocked. She eased it a couple of feet ajar and ducked inside. It took her only a few seconds to find the hidden receiver, still in place behind the cutaway section of drywall. She removed the unit and pocketed it. When she slipped out of the closet, Kolb’s phone was still ringing. She stepped away from his apartment, toward the stairwell, and ended the call.

“Thirteen rings,” one of the criminalists said. “Must have been an important message.”

“Star-sixty-nine it,” his partner said.

Abby had expected them to do that. It didn’t matter. Her cell phone was set up to block a standard phone-company trace. The FBI might be able to get the number some other way, but not for a while. By the time they did, she would have ditched the phone, which was registered to Abby Hollister, the woman who was soon to be a ghost.

She had no intention of retrieving the infinity transmitter in Kolb’s phone. It would stay there forever unless the techs found it. She doubted they would—why look for a bug in his phone? They knew law enforcement hadn’t bugged him. Even if they did find it, the item couldn’t be traced to her. Everything was going smoothly. No problems.

“Think the call could’ve had anything to with the kidnapping?” the first tech said.

Abby paused by the door to the stairwell.

“Doubt it. Whoever snatched Grant knows Kolb’s in FBI custody. Why call him here?”

The vacuum cleaner came on again. Abby barely heard it. She stood motionless, taking in the words.

Whoever snatched Grant…

Kolb’s partner had Madeleine. And must have called the FBI to let them know.

It was a trade. Had to be. Kolb’s release for Madeleine’s life.

And Tess…

Had she known? Was that why she’d been in such a hurry to say good-bye?

Of course she’d known. There had been something stiff and false about her smile, her banter. A snow job all the way. She hadn’t wanted her pal Abby to interfere any further, even though it was Abby’s own client who was in danger.

“Well, I got news for you, sister,” she whispered. “I’m not so easy to get rid of.”

Another cop was guarding the side door. Abby put the cell phone to her ear and went through the stairwell and outside. As the cop looked up, she spoke into the phone.

“Tell Michaelson they’re still collecting evidence,” she said. “It may take a while.”

Michaelson, she remembered, was the head man at the LA field office. She figured a little name-dropping would make her sound more official.

Apparently it worked. The cop let her pass without a word.

As she walked away, she noted uneasily that the stars were invisible behind thick clouds, and a few drops of rain were falling now and then, not enough to matter, simply a warning of what would come.

Abby thought of Madeleine alone in the storm drains, tugging at the handcuffs. She had maybe an hour before the tunnels flooded.

The feds would never release Kolb. That was obvious. If Madeleine wasn’t found in some other way, she was dead.

Truth be told, Abby had never especially liked Madeleine Grant—too prickly, too haughty, too much the pampered prima donna—but it was her job to keep the woman alive. And she would.

Somehow she would.

37

Michaelson snapped his head up to look at Tess as she stepped into the observation room. “Where the hell have you been? Never mind. You need to go in there again, talk to Kolb.”

“I’m not sure he’ll tell me anything.”

“Maybe not, but you’re the only one he’s willing to have a conversation with. Seems you and he have some sort of rapport.”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Just get in there. Pump him. Find out who he’s working with.”

Tess had a feeling this was easier said than done. She left the observation room and took a breath, trying to clear her mind of unwanted thoughts. Thoughts of the Lopez case—again.

She had the sick sense that history was repeating itself. Another pair of killers, another unforeseen victim taken after the danger should have passed.

And another error of judgment on her part? She hadn’t believed Abby’s theory about Kolb’s partner, hadn’t listened to her when she reported seeing someone outside Madeleine’s house. If she’d been more alert, would she have dispatched agents to Bel Air as soon as Kolb was in custody? Or was that merely the perfect clarity of hindsight?

You can only do your best
, the priest had said. She tried to convince herself of that, but images of Danny Lopez’s small body in a trash bin kept getting in the way.

Straightening her shoulders, she returned to the interrogation room, her face set in a stern mask. “Apparently, Mr. Kolb, you haven’t been working alone.”

He showed her a blasé smile. “Whatever gave you that idea?”

“It seems your partner has taken matters into his own hands.” She sat at the table, forcing herself to face him. “He’s abducted a woman. He’s demanding your release in exchange for her whereabouts.”

“That’s enterprising of him.”

“You have to know there’s no way we can release you.”

“Then I guess there’s no way this woman can survive.”

“You were a cop. You know the rules. With the evidence we’ve got against you, you’re never going to walk out of here. It’s not an option. You have to know that.”

“Do I?”

“Yes, I think you do. And you’re smart enough to know there’s no percentage for you in allowing another victim to die. It’ll only make things worse for you at trial.”

“Worse.” He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess the judge might let me get away with two kidnappings and two murders. But a third one would be the last straw.”

“I admit your situation is bad. But that’s all the more reason for you not to pass up any opportunity to do yourself a favor. Cooperation at this point might mean the difference between life in prison and capital punishment.”

“Maybe I’d rather die. Maybe I want to go out as a martyr.”

“You won’t be a martyr. You’ll just be a criminal. You can be a dead criminal or a live one.”

He was silent for a moment. “I wonder if you could put that in writing,” he said quietly.

“What?”

“The business about the death penalty. You’ve got pull, don’t you? I’ll bet you could get the DA to commit to life imprisonment—no lethal injection.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Then I don’t know about cooperating.”

“It takes time to work out a written agreement. Time we don’t have.”

“Grease the wheels. You can get it done if you have to.”

“I can’t promise anything. I’ll have to check with the assistant director in charge of this field office, see what’s possible.”

“So why don’t you go do that?”

“First I want to know what I’m bargaining for. What can you give us?”