David's head jerked up in surprise. "You?" he said. "You're FBI?"
"Yes."
David's shoulders sagged, and he looked suddenly older than his forty-five years, his expensive suit hanging loose on his frame, as if he'd lost weight along with everything else he'd lost. She glanced at the open briefcase. There were papers and also framed photographs.
"How did you find me?" he asked, sinking down in the chair behind the desk.
"That doesn't matter," she said. "You need to tell me what's going on, David. Why you hired people to blow up a café and a building."
He stared at her, then his gaze moved to the photograph in his briefcase. He picked it up, gave it a long look, then turned it around. "This is my wife, Tori, and our daughter, Ariel. It was taken at Christmas, six weeks before they died. This was the last photo taken of all three of us."
It was a heartbreaking picture of a once-happy family. David looked young and confident, on top of the world. Tori was a stunning redhead. Ariel had the sweet beauty of an innocent six-year-old.
"They're beautiful," she said, still keeping her weapon trained on him.
"They were my everything. They didn't deserve to die. They didn't deserve for their last minutes to be filled with smoke and fire and terror, trapped by a system that was supposed to protect them but prevented them from escaping."
"So you decided to punish the people responsible for their deaths. But Samantha Barkley wasn't responsible."
"She let them walk," he said, energy returning along with his hatred. "She made plea deals to keep her rich friends out of trouble. And Cooper signed off on the building construction after taking a bribe. They weren't innocent. They were criminals. Someone had to make them pay."
"Why now?" Max asked. "That was seven years ago."
"Because they were happy. I saw Samantha Barkley at a charity gala with Dominic. She was laughing, flirting, and having the time of her life. I realized she probably didn't even remember my wife and daughter. Or any of the others. She'd moved on with her life. They all had. Redstone changed its company name, but it kept making smart systems. Wexler Properties built more buildings, using the renamed systems, bribing the city to look the other way while they cut corners."
"Who's next?" she asked. "Do you blame Dominic for what happened?"
David's gaze narrowed. "He's the one who funded Redstone in the beginning. If he hadn't given them money, maybe they wouldn't have been able to build the system that killed my family."
"Why not go after him directly?" Max challenged.
"I was building up to it. I wanted him to feel pain first: the loss of a loved one, the worry that danger was coming for him, the realization that he might not be as untouchable and invincible as he might think. But…" His voice trailed away. "He's going to get away."
"Why?" Max asked. "Because your plan is falling apart?"
"Because my plan has been taken over," he said, anger and fear burning in his eyes now. "And they don't want Dominic dead. He's too valuable to them. They don't care about my other targets. They took my money to fund their own plan, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it."
"Who took your money? How did this start?" she asked, eager to finally get some answers.
"After the civil case was over, I was venting to Elias about how no one paid for what happened to my wife and daughter, and he said he might be able to help me. He knew someone who could handle jobs like that."
"How did you know Elias?" she interrupted.
"I have a personal training session at Forge Fitness every week. Sometimes, Elias stepped in when my trainer was unavailable. And at times, I gave him some personal financial advice. Anyway, he connected me to Alex Novik, who got me onto an encrypted site where I could post a job." David paused. "I wanted people to feel what Tori and Ariel felt. It couldn't be a bullet or a blade. It had to be an explosion. And I found someone who could do that." He took another breath. "I thought about it for a long time. Didn't really decide to do it until I saw Samantha with Dominic, and her smile made me crazy. It was so unfair, so wrong."
"Who took the job? Caleb Azrani?" Max asked.
"I know that's his name now, but at the time, it was someone named Cal475. He said he could make bombs. And he had people to place them. But he would need me to double my offer. I didn't care what the cost was."
"He must have loved that," Max said dryly.
"I became a mark," David agreed. "I thought I was in charge, but I wasn't. I realized that too late. Other people were getting hurt. The explosions weren't as targeted as I wanted them to be. And I was worried that once the FBI started looking around, they could trace everything back to me. Cal assured me that wouldn't happen. I paid him more money to make sure he tied up any loose ends."
"Was Jonas Cray one of those loose ends?" she asked. "Was he the one who placed the bomb?"
"I found out later that he was, but that was after I heard he was dead, and I realized that Cal had hired Jonas. I had left it up to Cal to do whatever he needed to do and use whoever he needed to use to get the job done. I didn't want names or details."
"Cal also tried to kill a woman named Whitney Holden," Kara said. "She works in the Building Department. She got James to reschedule his inspection and check out the closet where the electrical boxes were placed."
