Lucas followed them, hugging the wall next to Bobby’s body. “Put them in the backseat, lengthwise, so that half of each duffel is wedged between the two front seats. Don’t leave the car until it’s done. At this range I can’t miss.”
Missy and Brad left without a word, without a backward glance for their fellow captives.
The phone rang.
“That,” Cavanaugh said to Lucas, “would be Laura. You might want to talk to her.”
“I don’t think we’ll be needing another negotiator. You’ll all be going home soon, at least most of you. I can’t fit too many people in that car.”
Cavanaugh muttered something under his breath.
“What?” Theresa asked.
“He’s going to take a hostage with him. I figured he would, but it still sucks.”
“There’s no way to take him down with one of us in the car?”
“A sniper could get him through the window. They’d have to do it before he gets moving, though. It’s risky.”
She watched the two freed hostages through the glass door.
Brad shoved his duffel into the backseat and then ran, not directly across the street but down the center of it, south toward Superior. Missy struggled, maneuvering the two bags into place as Lucas had instructed. Then she walked with defiant calm over to the library building, where three young men in fatigues emerged to welcome her.
“All that money could form a barrier between him and the hostage,” Cavanaugh observed.
Lucas surveyed the line. “Eeny, meeny, miney-”
“What happened to letting four people go?”
“That was Bobby’s deal, Chris, not mine, and unfortunately it fell through.”
“You don’t seem real broken up about losing your partner.”
Lucas didn’t glare at him, not exactly; his face just grew still in a way Theresa had come to recognize as equivalent to a glare. “Bobby was the best friend I ever had, so don’t tell me how broken up I am. But I respect his wishes.”
“Him dying was part of the plan?”
“I told him to stay where he’d have some cover. He could have hit Eric through the glass or an open door. Bobby worked on his impulse control in therapy, but apparently not enough. He had to tell Eric why he was about to die.” He took a moment to regroup. Theresa believed him. He hadn’t wanted to lose Bobby.
“How did you know I’d produce Eric for you?”
“We didn’t, but it was worth a try. The trick was to make you think it was your idea.”
Cavanaugh looked as if he’d been slapped.
“Time to go,” Lucas told them briskly. “I need somebody the cops would never shoot at. And could there be anything more beautiful, and more vulnerable, than a mother and child?”
Jessica Ludlow gathered Ethan more tightly in her arms, eyes wide.
“Yes, you, my little southern Madonna. And you, Theresa. You’re both coming with me. The guys can stay here. This is how it’s going to work-”
“No,” Theresa said.
“No,” Cavanaugh said. “Leave them here. You can only make things worse for yourself by adding kidnapping to your list of charges.”
“Chris, you’ll be picking up a pitchfork in hell and still trying to talk St. Peter into opening the gates, I swear. We’re not negotiating. We were never negotiating, get it? We needed you to produce Eric and the money, that’s all. Now shut up. You, Theresa.”
“You don’t need me.” She emphasized every word. “You have a young woman and a little boy. No one will risk hurting them. I’d just be in the way.”
Everyone in the room stared at her as silence flowed in, tamping down the last echo of her voice, pressing on her shoulders like guilt.
“Theresa…” Cavanaugh began.
She couldn’t look at him. “He won’t hurt them. I trust him.”
Lucas muttered, “Of all people…”
“Leave both of them,” Cavanaugh said. “I’ll go.”
“I just might take you up on that, Chris. I’m sure your heroism would do wonders for the sales of your next book. Even if it’s published posthumously.” Lucas still wore that cold, closed-down look that frightened her, and it settled on her as if she were the only person in the room. “I think you need to explain this sudden lack of altruism, Theresa,” Lucas said, speaking just loudly enough so she could hear him. The security guards almost certainly could not. “It’s got everyone quite mystified.”
“I want to live, that’s all. Leave me and Chris here with the guards. You can’t fit us all in that car anyway.”
“But I need good hostages. The cops won’t shoot at you, their little scientist lady, and they sure as hell ain’t going to risk their shining star. He’s the only cop who gets on TV without having to be indicted first.”
“Let him go,” she repeated, desperation spreading through her voice.
“No.”
Cavanaugh interrupted. “Why do I get the feeling that you two are having a conversation the rest of us aren’t privy to?”
“Can’t we just get out of here?” Jessica Ludlow asked. “What are we waiting for?”
Lucas answered without looking at her. “First I need to know what Theresa knows and who she’s told.”
“I’ve been stuck in here with you! How could I have told anyone anything?”
Cavanaugh turned toward her, putting a hand to his chest when the movement hurt him. “Told anyone what?”
“Go ahead, Theresa,” Lucas goaded. “I’m not going to let him go anyway.”
Theresa sighed. “This was never about the money. It’s about Mark Ludlow’s murder.”
Jessica stared. “Lucas didn’t kill my husband.”
“No,” Theresa told her. “You did.”
31
3:46 P.M.
Chris Cavanaugh shook his head. “I don’t understand.” “Start from the beginning,” Lucas instructed her. She kept her voice steady and strong. “You mean when Mark
Ludlow died? Or when you, Bobby, and Jessica met in art therapy at the prison in Atlanta?”
“Talk quieter, unless you want me to have to dispose of those three guards as well. There’s no air ducts in this outer wall anyway, so you don’t have to be clear for the microphones.”
“How do you know about that?” Cavanaugh demanded. “I studied under an expert. Your book was quite popular at the prison library, by the way-you should let your publicist know.” “Let’s go,” Jessica Ludlow repeated. “In a minute. Go on, Theresa.” “Jessica’s an artist.” Lucas reached one hand toward the young mother, then stopped as he remembered the cameras. But their eyes met, and she smiled, for the first time all day. “She’s a fantastic artist. Do you see any of her stuff hanging in her house? No. Ludlow didn’t appreciate it, and besides, it was his house.”
Theresa shifted, drawing her knees toward her chest. “Yeah, he wouldn’t even put her name on the deed. So you two met when Jessica worked in art therapy at the Atlanta jail, and you fell in love. But Mark Ludlow got wind of it and asked for a transfer, just as you were about to be released?” She made the last sentence into a question, but Lucas nodded. “You followed her here. I’m guessing that’s where things went bad.”
He said, “All we wanted was a divorce, and custody.”
Jessica spoke up, quietly. “I would even have considered joint custody. But Mark said no way. He said no court would allow even visitation to someone on felony parole, and I figured he was probably right.”
“We had no choice,” Lucas said to Theresa. “You’re a mother. You must understand.”
“So you killed him.”
“We argued. Bobby hit him with the gun, just kept hitting. I told you he had poor impulse control.”
“Convenient,” Theresa said. “But I don’t think so. You have a cast-off pattern of bloodstains traveling up your pant leg.”