Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 62

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

T he fire department arrived and ordered them to pull back even though she’d flashed her badge and tried to explain an FBI Agent was inside and that it was a crime scene.

Apparently, they didn’t care.

It was possible she was too fraught to make sense.

She moved the truck back another fifty feet while fire fighters began running hoses. She stared with growing horror at the increasing flames visible through the hangar doors. She couldn’t see Cas anymore. Suddenly, an enormous fireball erupted out of the front entrance and Delilah covered her mouth with both hands, stifling a scream as her knees sagged.

Yael gripped her hard around the waist to keep her from falling, but she was staring open-mouthed too.

It was impossible to imagine Cas could have survived that blast, even wearing protective gear.

Delilah couldn’t comprehend it.

She’d lost everything she cared about in the span of a few short hours—her parents. Cas. Every single thing she loved. And it was all her fault. It was all her fault because she’d made a mistake and dropped her guard for a few minutes. She didn’t know how she’d be able to go on. Not this time .

Her heart throbbed painfully inside her otherwise empty chest.

There was a screech of tires as a white van came hurtling around the corner on two wheels, going so fast Delilah worried it might flip over. The van came straight for them, and the two patrol cops pulled their weapons.

But she recognized the weird figure behind the wheel. Stumbling forward, she ran out in front of the officers waving her FBI gold shield as her heart soared. “It’s okay. He’s FBI!”

Cas was alive.

The van pulled to a stop a few feet away and the passenger door was thrust open. Cas pulled off the respirator as she ran toward him. He jumped out, and she flung herself into his arms.

“I found them,” he said against her shoulder. “I got them both out alive.”

Oh my God, what ?

He released her and strode over to the truck, searching through the bags and pulling out an evidence kit before coming back to take her hand.

“We need a medic!” he yelled, then more quietly to her. “I need to check for explosives before we open the rear doors, but they are alive and in one piece. I’ll be quick.”

Relief filled her. “I thought they were dead.”

“Secure the vehicle until I open the doors. Keep everyone away. This van is part of a crime scene.” He let go of her hand, and she hurried to the rear of the van, pulling her professional cloak around her shoulders as an ambulance pulled up.

It took a long minute and each second felt like an hour as she made people stand back and wait. Finally, the doors opened, and there were her parents looking ragged and scared, ruffled and dirty, but incredibly and amazingly alive.

She hugged them both tight after they clambered awkwardly down from the van’s interior.

Inside the van, Cas carefully placed the duct tape which must have restrained them between plastic sheeting so it could be analyzed as evidence .

He finished what he was doing, always the consummate professional, and jumped down after her parents. For the second time that day he was dragged into a Quinn family hug.

Delilah couldn’t believe they were all still here. All still alive. But the danger wasn’t over.

Not yet.

Joseph could feel his plans unravelling all because that stupid Mexican prick had to improvise. He’d spent years meticulously planning how he’d get away with not one, but four separate murders in the space of a week, without anyone ever being able to prove a thing. Every detail had been thoroughly examined from every angle, every potential pitfall brainstormed until it was perfect. And then he’d set about putting his pawns in place and getting the details flawlessly aligned.

And while he was angry both Cas Demarco and Delilah Quinn had escaped retribution the first time around, he was confident enough in his abilities that he saw no reason to panic. There was always a backup plan for any op. And next time perhaps he could do all the things he’d promised to do.

But fucking Pedro…

The guy was so impatient he’d ruined everything.

Joseph had seen some online reports of a large fire at an airfield in Virginia—an airfield he’d flown out of on Wednesday morning, where he’d left the van Kevin Holtz had boosted for him a few days earlier. Holtz’s father used the airfield to store his plane, so no one was likely to question it being there. They all revered the Navy SEAL “hero” who hung out with his dad whenever he had time.

The news stories had been quashed, but there had been a few social media posts, enough to realize Pedro had probably been tracked down because he was a goddamned amateur.

He’d said he could fly a plane. The plan was he’d borrow Holtz’s father’s aircraft and fly down to Mexico with Delilah’s parents onboard. As long as they had them, they had Delilah on a string. But now Joseph was pretty sure that Pedro had been lying about having a pilot’s license. He’d been bullshitting, and now everything had gone to shit.

Was he dead? Or was he feeding the FBI everything they needed to put Joseph away again, this time for life?

He feared the latter.

The signal on the truck had also disappeared suggesting Delilah knew her parents had been found. Dead or alive, he wasn’t sure. Didn’t care.

Joseph wanted to beat the fuck out of something, but he had to hold onto the last of his control. He paced the floor, hands clasping his skull trying to ease the headache that had been building relentlessly.

Forcing the weakness away, he crouched down and struck a match to the old newspaper and kindling set in the hearth.

He needed to destroy the burner phone he’d used to talk to Delilah Quinn and Pedro Alvarez. It was the only physical link between them. The press had been camped outside his door for hours now and he felt almost as trapped as he had when he’d been locked inside that concrete box for five long years. At least the media provided him with an alibi for today’s goatfuck.

“Brother?” Virgil stood in the massive doorway of the living room.

Joseph shook his head.

Virgil came inside and ran his thick fingers over the top of the baby grand piano no one had played since their mother had died a decade ago. He lifted the drapes to look outside at the news vans that appeared to be camped out for the night.

He closed both the blinds and the drapes. “Should we be worried?”

Joseph nodded reluctantly. “I might need to disappear.”

Virgil’s expression fell.

Joseph tossed the cell phone onto the spitting fire and piled more wood on top. Placed the guard in front of it and headed into the study where his father did the books for the business. He poured two glasses of good bourbon using his mother’s heavy Waterford crystal tumblers. Passed one to his twin.

It was incongruous to have such a lavish setting for a mechanic’s office, but his father had known what he was doing when he’d seduced and impregnated one of the richest spinsters in the district.

She’d always despised the gossips who’d whispered she’d married down. She’d been proud of her boys even if privately she and her husband’s marriage had disintegrated to the point where they’d slept in separate rooms and barely spoke. She’d died before she’d gotten around to divorcing their father. Pity she wasn’t alive now though. Melody could do with a woman’s hand.

He glanced at the ceiling as he took a long swig of the amber liquid.

His daughter was sleeping now.

He’d had the local doctor prescribe some sleeping pills, so she’d stop crying. She’d get used to them eventually. Hopefully, sooner rather than later because the noise of her whining grated on his nerves.

Joseph finished his drink and poured them both another. “I could use a little time tomorrow—to arrange things.”

Virgil’s chin rose. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Joseph shook his head. Frowned. Maybe he already had. His mind kept going back to Clarence Carpenter. Wrapping his bare arm around the man’s scrawny neck and Clarence reaching back in panic and pulling at his hair, scratching at his arm. Joseph didn’t think he’d left any other clues along the way, but DNA techniques were so sensitive nowadays. A few skin cells and strands of hair, they might be his downfall.

And Pedro fucking Alvarez. He was the weak link in this mission.

But he didn’t think Pedro would betray him to the authorities, not immediately, anyway. He’d warned the guy what would happen to his sister if he did. Plus, Pedro had no love for the FBI and Cas Demarco in particular. Joseph was pretty sure the guy would rather die than tell Demarco anything about what they’d done.

“What are you thinking?” Virgil asked.

He stared at his brother, so like him now, it was like looking in a mirror. The only difference was Virgil was plagued with more of a conscience. “I was thinking I should take Melody out to the camp for a few days. If these bozos want to sit in a boat all day and watch me, let them.” He jerked his head toward the media vans outside. “I figure they’ll get bored after a little while or get cold or sunburned while I sit on the dock and teach my daughter to fish.”

“You think the FBI will follow you out there?”

Joseph scratched his ear. “It would keep them occupied if they did.”

Virgil nodded. “How long do you think you’d need to be out there?”

“Couple of days at most.”

Virgil nodded again and finished his drink. “Hopefully, you’ll bring home a few fish for dinner.”

Joseph nodded. “Hopefully.”