Lancaster had given him a chance. It was a lesson that had been drilled into his head during SEAL training. You gave your adversary a chance to save himself, and if he didn’t take it, you took him out. Without another word, he pumped three bullets into Holloway’s chest and saw him fly backward and knock over the grill on his way down. Burning charcoal covered his body, and he quickly caught on fire.
Lancaster jumped the fence and entered the house through the back door. The kitchen had an island where a salad was being prepared. Instant potatoes were cooking on the stove, and a loaf of bread sat waiting to be cut. There was also an old Kodak camera sitting on the island for when the meal was done. It was called a Brownie and this particular model was small enough to slip into a man’s shirt pocket. Every serial killer had a ritual that was religiously followed, and he wondered if it was part of the flawed wiring in their brains.
He passed into the dining room. The table had three place settings and an open bottle of red wine. Mates stood across the room, pressing the barrel of a handgun to the head of a freckle-faced teenage girl, who he guessed was Ryean Bartell. Mates’s other arm was around her throat, from which hung a gold Saint Jude medal.
Ryean begged Mates not to kill her.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Mates told her.
The dining and living rooms were connected. Daniels stood in the center of the living room, pointing the shotgun. She wasn’t backing down, and neither was Mates.
“Let her go,” Daniels said.
“Fuck you,” Mates said.
Lancaster decided to change the odds. He aimed at Mates’s head and closed one eye. He’d put a bullet into the head of an al-Qaida militant in Yemen and managed not to hurt the hostage, and was willing to try it here.
“Do you want one of us to shoot you?” Daniels asked.
“I’ll take my chances,” Mates said.
He took aim. Mates realized he was being sized up and jerked Ryean from side to side so Lancaster couldn’t get off a clean shot. Ryean started to sob.
“How did you figure out it was us?” Mates asked.
“Blame him,” Daniels said.
Mates gave Lancaster a murderous look. It was eating at him.
“You left a lot of clues,” Lancaster said, trying to rattle him.
“Bullshit. You just got lucky,” Mates said.
Mates was buying time while formulating a plan. He was going to make a last stand and hope it paid off. Ryean would either get killed in the crossfire or Mates would put a bullet in her before he ran out the door. Either way she was a goner. Lancaster decided to tell her, and see where it led.
“They were going to kill you after lunch,” he said. “You knew that, don’t you?”
Ryean blinked. She was drugged and having a hard time focusing.
“But I didn’t do nothing,” the girl sobbed.
“Doesn’t matter. They were still going to kill you.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Mates said.
“They’ve killed fifteen girls,” Lancaster told her. “Each victim was abducted from a mall and brought to a house. She’s pumped up with so many drugs that she loses her will. Then she’s fed a nice meal and murdered. You were number sixteen.”
“But I didn’t do nothing,” she said again.
“Doesn’t matter. Your time was up.”
“I said, shut the fuck up,” Mates roared.
Ryean had reached the breaking point. She sank her teeth into Mates’s forearm, and her abductor momentarily loosened his grip on her neck. Throwing her weight forward, she grabbed a steak knife off the table. Her arm came straight back and she blindly plunged the tip into Mates’s eye. Mates screamed and discharged his handgun.
Ryean wrestled free. Instead of running, she pushed Mates into the wall and stabbed him repeatedly. Mates tried to protect his face, and she went straight for his jugular. It was over in seconds, and Mates fell to the floor and did a death crawl.
Lancaster went to Daniels’s aid. The stray shot had caught her thigh, and there was a pool of blood on the floor. He tore off his shirt and made a tourniquet, getting the blood to stop. Ryean hovered behind him, still clutching the steak knife.
“You okay?” he asked.
She said yes. He tossed his cell phone to her.
“Call 911.”
Ryean made the call. She went outside to read the address off the mailbox to the dispatcher, then returned. The wait was unbearable. Lancaster held Daniels’s hand and said another prayer. The FBI agent stared at the ceiling, her eyes unblinking.
“Tell my sister that I love her,” Daniels said.
“You’re not going to die,” Lancaster said.
“Just in case. Will you do that?”
“Of course.”
Daniels sniffed the air. “I smell something burning.”
He lifted his head and glanced into the kitchen. He’d left the back door open, and smoke was pouring into the house.
“I shot Holloway. He fell on the grill and caught on fire,” he said.
“Good going,” she said.
Chapter 42
The Reality Thief
If you believed what you read in the newspapers, the decline in the national murder rate was due to a less violent population. Fewer people were dying of gunshot and knife wounds each year, which could only mean that the populace was becoming less violent.
Only half of this statement was true. The citizenry was as violent as ever, the number of people being shot and stabbed at an all-time high. What had changed was the medical profession’s ability in dealing with the victims. First responders kept the victims breathing, and emergency rooms saved their lives.
That was why Daniels survived. Ten years ago, this would not have been the case, and she would have died from loss of blood and the shock. But the emergency medical attendants were pros, and they had kept her alive until they reached the hospital.
Daniels’s status as an FBI agent earned her a private room in the ICU of Broward Health Medical Center. She was weak and needed time to regain her strength before starting rehabilitation. To anyone who came to visit, Daniels vowed that she would be back running within six months. No one had doubted her.
Lancaster came to visit a few days later. Melanie, Nolan, and Nicki Pearl were gathered around her bed sharing a story. Melanie hugged him.
“And to think I didn’t want to hire you,” Melanie said.
“It all worked out in the end,” he said. “How’s our patient doing?”
“My sister’s a tough little shit. She’s going to be fine.”
“I heard that,” Daniels said. “What did you bring me?”
Lancaster handed her the gift bag. Daniels undid the bow holding it together and removed a picture frame in distressed gold. Instead of a photograph, there was a quote from the Irish poet Samuel Beckett written in bold calligraphy.
“What does it say?” Nicki asked.
“It says, ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better,’” Daniels read aloud. “Is that what we did, Jon, fail better?”
“We didn’t quit,” he said.
She placed the frame on the night table. “No, we didn’t. How’s our victim?”
Ryean Bartell was also a patient in Broward Health Medical Center. Mates and Holloway had given her so many sedatives that she was lucky to be alive. Ryean hadn’t understood the mortal danger she was in until Daniels had blown down the front door and come charging in. The newspapers had nicknamed her “The One That Got Away.”
“The kid’s a survivor,” he said. “She’s going to be okay.”
Daniels started to reply but instead shut her eyes. Melanie reached over the bed and hugged her sister. The bad moment passed, and Daniels reopened her eyes.