Part 32 (2/2)
She waited for them to walk down the hall out of earshot.
”And thank you, Detectives Jordan and MacDonald, for letting me be part of your own private little police force. So,” she said, raising her eyebrows, ”how did I do?”
Chapter 77.
”How the h.e.l.l did she get her hands on a cell phone?” Gideon said as he got behind the wheel of the SUV and peeled out.
”I don't know, but this is falling apart,” Dave said. ”Just like with Enzo, only worse. This time we're really dead.”
”Maybe somebody got in through the back door. Are you sure you locked it?”
”No, Gideon, I left it wide open so that anybody could walk in on her and call 911.”
”Don't get all defensive. I'm just asking.”
”Funny-it sounded more like you were just blaming.”
”Sorry. This all came out of the blue. I'm a little freaked.”
”That's the difference between you and me, Gideon. I'm a lot freaked.”
”How about we stop panicking for a minute and start thinking,” Gideon said.
”I'm thinking plenty,” Dave said. ”I'm thinking about what it's like to be a cop spending the rest of his life in Sing Sing.”
Gideon maneuvered the car onto the Ed Koch Bridge. It was the start of rush hour, but the traffic leaving Manhattan was much lighter than the traffic pouring in from Queens. ”Here's my take on it,” he said. ”n.o.body came in through the back door. n.o.body came in from anywhere. If someone was there, and they really did see Rachael, they'd have called back by now. Am I right?”
Dave shrugged. ”I hope so.”
”Plus, she's only wearing a Hazmat suit, so where was she hiding a cell phone? Even if she magically came up with one, she's in chains-what did she do, dial it with her teeth? It's all a hoax, Dave. Some crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d called 911 pretending to be Rachael, and those idiot cops bought it.”
”Which idiot cops? Jordan and MacDonald, or us? Once they said the sister identified her voice...”
”Come on, Dave. Use your head. The sister wanted it to be Rachael. The cops wanted it to be Rachael. So they bought it. But you and I know that she couldn't get her hands on a phone. It had to be a crank caller. Relax.”
”Relax? Maybe if the son of a b.i.t.c.h made his crank calls from Brooklyn. But he didn't. Hoax or no hoax, he got them to zero in on Queens, so now I'm not relaxing until we move her as far away as possible. The sooner the better.”
”I thought she'd confess by now,” Gideon said, ”but she's tough. It could take days before we can get her on video.”
”We don't have days,” Dave said. ”The garage is too hot. We can't keep her there. I hate to drive all the way up to the Adirondacks, but I think my cousin's cabin is the safest bet. I say we pack her up and head there now.”
”Small problem,” Gideon said. ”It's a five-hour drive each way. Jordan and MacDonald will be calling us any minute to help them canva.s.s whatever neighborhood they decide the call came from. We can't drop out of sight, and we can't exactly stash her in the back of the car.”
”Well, we can't leave her in the garage.”
”Sure we can,” Gideon said. ”We just can't leave her in the garage alive.”
”So what are you saying-just kill her? Without the video?”
”I'd rather think of it as kill her without getting caught,” Gideon said. ”Hey, you can't win them all. She didn't crack, and we don't have time to wait. We have no choice. We have to kill her.”
”When?”
”No time like the present,” Gideon said as he came off the bridge and turned onto Vernon Boulevard. ”We'll be there in five minutes.”
”Just like that?” Dave said. ”Just run right in and kill her?”
”What do you want to do? Stop off and bring her another pizza? Buy her some parting gifts? Dave, this isn't going to be a big production number like with Enzo. We know how to do this. We put a plastic bag over her head, pack up the equipment, and leave her there. They'll find her eventually.”
Dave nodded, trying to adjust to the fact that they were going to kill someone in five minutes. He never got used to it. That was Gideon's thing. ”Did anyone ever tell you that you are one sick motherf.u.c.ker?”
”Yeah,” Gideon said. ”But tell me again. I never get tired of hearing it.”
Chapter 78.
In the ten minutes that Casey and Bell spent being lied to by Captain Cates, Matt Smith had planted a GPS tracker and two bugs in their car. Then he used his geek magic so that Kylie and I could track their movements and listen to their conversation on an iPad.
In the thirty minutes before that, Cates had pulled together a twelve-man SWAT team and a helicopter whose NYPD markings were covered with ABC Eyewitness News logos. It was the perfect rush-hour cover for a cop chopper.
The entire operation was coordinated through the city's newest defense against terrorism-Monitor-a twenty-million-dollar electronic hub linked to more than a hundred thousand eyes and ears across all five boroughs. It was like Big Brother on steroids.
All those resources were being brought to bear to save one woman-a young mother whose criminal negligence had led to the death of her innocent five-year-old daughter and who only two days ago couldn't get the city to spring for a couple of cops in a patrol car to escort her to a safe haven.
That was then. Now Rachael O'Keefe had been upgraded from an anonymous fifteen-dollar-an-hour phlebotomist to one of New York's most important citizens. And the fact that the mayor's a.s.s was on the line if she was murdered didn't hurt her cause.
Kylie and I put on Kevlar vests and NYPD windbreakers, and the instant Casey and Bell's SUV drove away from the precinct, we sprinted for our car. Kylie got behind the wheel, and the six SWAT vehicles that had been idling out of sight over on York Avenue barreled up East 67th Street and fell in behind us.
We moved out, and I tracked Casey and Bell, keeping us as close as I could, but always out of sight.
As expected, they headed for Queens, and it was clear from the verbal battle they were having in the car that we had found our Hazmat Killer.
Heads turned as our heavily armed convoy moved south down Second Avenue. ”You've got to hand it to Cates,” I said, ”for pulling all this firepower together in no time flat.”
”If you ask me, it's overkill,” Kylie said when we were halfway across the Ed Koch Bridge. ”Especially the clown car bringing up the rear.”
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