Rapp nodded. “Phillip Keiser’s been one step ahead of us since he started.”
“But Jane spotted him in Ballard.”
That had been unexpected. But then, Jane Cannon didn’t fit the norm. She had an uncanny sense, a way to follow the evidence in directions not easy to predict. “I think we got lucky there.”
“Hmm.” Gina didn’t say much more.
They waited and watched while the negotiator spoke with Phillip through a radio he’d dropped off. Rapp didn’t like how much they hadn’t known when being assigned this mission.
He was only working while on temporary leave from his real job. The moniker of “agent” served as a helpful if not legitimate tool to further Gambol’s agenda. Yet, despite being a temp assignment, he still wanted to find the killer and put him away before Keiser took any more lives.
Damn Gambol for withholding the truth about Haversham’s involvement. Maybe Haversham didn’t know about Gambol’s deal with Rapp, but the big-wig knew enough to call him out for being on “thin ice.”
Rapp flexed his arm under his jacket, conscious of the wound he’d gotten in service of his country that had yet to fully heal. Another reason he’d been stuck out here in Seattle—to recuperate.
He understood Jane a lot more than she realized. Also falsely accused of being disloyal to job and country, both he and Jane continued to fight the good fight.
He glanced around again, wondering where she was. She should have been standing with them while they waited to learn Phillip’s fate. Rapp could only hope they got to him before he killed again.
“Uh, are you Agent Rapp?” a young officer asked as he approached.
“I am.”
The officer nodded. “Can you come with me please, sir? The suspect is asking to talk to the FBI.”
Rapp had a feeling Phillip would rather talk to Jane. They seemed to have built a rapport.
“Lead the way.”
Rapp followed, curious about the connection Jane had formed with their killer. He could easily see the appeal from Phillip’s perspective. Jane was around Code Blue’s age, attractive, smart.
He still didn’t understand what it was about her that drewhim.Rapp had seen better looking women. Wined and dined dignitaries, doctors, lawyers, and other intelligent ladies, attracted as much to their brains as their bodies.
But she had something else he couldn’t put his finger on. He even liked Jane’s prickly personality. Not that he ever mixed business with pleasure, but if he did, he’d certainly have asked her out by now. She intrigued him on a multitude of levels, and her sharp ability to follow clues and turn them into real leads made her an asset.
Why would her boss burn her just to find a mole in his squad? He would have been better off using Jane to find the leak. But then, Rapp didn’t care much for Matthew Scott. Everything he’d read about the guy suggested a rich kid using his parents to be a big shot.
“He’s in there.” A detective handed Rapp a vest, which he donned, then had two armed officers escort him to where Phillipcould see him. Rapp paused just outside the lobby, beyond the closed door but protected by a cement column from gunfire.
“I don’t see a weapon,” Rapp murmured, eyeing the lobby through glass.
In it, a small crowd of people cowered by the back wall while four people sat on their knees in the center, their hands behind their backs. Two women and two men. All four looked petrified. The pallor of the oldest man suggested a health problem.
He spoke into a handset someone provided. “Phillip, I’m Gunther Rapp.”
“I know who you are.” Phillip smiled. He wore neither ballcap nor hoodie, nothing to obscure his features, and matched the photos they had of him. He looked All-American handsome, someone who should be on a baseball card grinning at his fans, not on a wanted poster.
And he knew Rapp.
Another connection to someone feeding him information, but who? Not Gina and not Diego. Rapp had secretly been keeping tabs on the team.
As for Jane, Team Ten were legendary. Once he’d met Hal and Joe and seen how they treated her as one of their own, he definitely knew he could trust her.
Which left Gambol and the people he’d been talking to—including Haversham and everyone associated with August Kaminski.
“Phillip, I’m here to talk. Just tell me what you want. And let those people go. They’re innocent, the same way your parents were. They’re not the ones at fault.”
“I know who’s guilty,” Phillip’s dreamy smile said he wasn’t firing on all cylinders. He’d have been taken out by a sniper by now if he hadn’t already promised a larger threat if anything happened to him.
