"Well, you are p.i.s.s poor at your job, son," she said to Simon's body. She grabbed Jill by the hair and slung her to the floor. Then she started kicking her.

"Wouldn't you agree with that, Jill? Wouldn't you agree Deputy Hole-In-The-Head is p.i.s.s poor at his job? He's pretty good at bleeding, though, look at him."

Jill did as instructed and looked at Simon. The bullet had gone in more or less between the eyes, but the blood wasn't coming from the entry wound. Or even from the gaping exit wound. Blood chugged out of Simon's nose in great dark hiccups like black milk from a jug.

Jill felt Susan's boot connect with her side two more times in quick succession. The second blow felt like it broke at least one rib. She heard it crack. Then the boot toe smashed into her temple and everything went dark. Jill's last thought was that she reckoned possums could fight after all.

Kathryn, Cowell, and Jacob studied the files in silence. Jacob had just pulled out his phone to call Jill when Kathryn mumbled something.

"Huh?"

"I said, I don't know."

"Don't know what?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'm just being a daddy's girl."

Jacob said, "Jesus. Anything, Kathryn. Anything."

Kathryn held Jacob's gaze, then scanned the open folder again.

"Fourteen years ago. A bank robbery. Apparently he wasn't a career criminal. Other than petty theft, no previous record of any kind. Never anything violent. Just some desperate guy who held up a bank. One of your 'average Joes having a s.h.i.tty day.' When the cops showed up, he went nuts. Just lost it. He shot a customer who ran for the door. Shot her in the back. Then barricaded himself in the bank. It became a hostage situation."

Kathryn turned the page and looked directly at Jacob. Cowell watched and listened.

"After a three-hour standoff, he refused further negotiation, threatened to shoot more hostages. Then cut off all communication completely. Jacob got the green light and neutralized him."

Cowell said, "So?"

"So, two hours after that, officers on the perimeter located the suspect's vehicle outside the bank parked in an alley. His six-year-old daughter was locked inside."

Jacob said, "I remember. Of course I remember. Captain Bryant was heading the team at the time. He gave the green light. I was in the final phase of training. It was my first time as primary. Oswald was my spotter, he cleared the shot. And I pulled the trigger."

"Name of the daughter?"

Kathryn flipped through the file. "They didn't know it was his daughter at first. She wouldn't speak." She found the right page. "Rose. Rose Kaufman."

Cowell opened up a searchable database on his computer.

"That name mean anything to anybody?"

None of them recognized the name, but Jacob spoke up and said that when he'd asked Oz about his new girl, he'd just said, "A ROSE IS A ROSE IS A ROSE," which was just the kind of oblique s.h.i.t old Lee Harvey loved to throw around.

"I got a hit at The Sacramento Bee. They carried the story," Cowell said and swiveled his laptop around for them to see a black-and-white photo of a little girl. The caption read BANK ROBBER LEAVES DAUGHTER WAITING IN GET-AWAY CAR. "They only ran the photo because she was a Jane Doe at that point. They were fishing for leads." Cowell turned the laptop back around and started clicking the keys. "I wonder what Rose Kaufman is up to these days. Let's try Department of Social Services, Child Protective Services."

But before he could finish entering the name, his phone chirped at him. He picked it up and read the message. "From Hasan. Fingerprints were rushed through the lab. Results were as we suspected-Jake, Cortez, Hasan, Palucci, and Oz. One last distinct print is unknown. But get this: there was a hit on it. A match. But the record is sealed."

Jake and Kathryn both said, "Minor."

"So, you see, your husband's not really a guardian angel, he's the angel of death. That's the book I've been working on. And it's almost finished. What do you think about twist endings as a literary device?"

Jill was sitting at the kitchen table, her hands cuffed in front. Susan sat on the other side of the table and had a gun trained on her. Her head and side throbbed from the kicks Susan had rained down on her. She was a vicious little b.i.t.c.h. Through the fog of pain, Jill was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Susan Weaver, the little timid possum, had tricked her so thoroughly. She would refuse to believe any of it if she hadn't actually seen her murder Deputy Simon. There was no doubt.

"There's a certain school of thought that a twist ending is the hallmark of commercial fiction and cable television. The literati find it beneath them. What do you think?"

"I think you should go f.u.c.k yourself."

"I thought you might feel that way, what with the critical notice your novels received. You're firmly planted in the tradition of literary fiction. But I don't mind slumming."

Susan rooted around in her voluminous handbag and pulled out a small purple-and-white cardboard box.

"What do you think about this as a plot device? A way to up the stakes?"

Jill recognized it immediately. She had an identical one hidden away in the back of her bathroom cabinet. It was an EPT pregnancy test. Jill wasn't sure why Susan would want to know for sure whether Jill was pregnant or not. What the reason would be. But the threat of whatever was coming was enough to chill her bones. She felt an immediate maternal reaction, an instinct to protect the life that might or might not be growing inside her.

Jill wedged her cuffed hands under the kitchen table and used all of her might to try and flip it. The table was heavy oak, but Jill found the strength to turn it over. Susan was caught off guard, and the table knocked her and her chair over. She was caught under the overturned table, but not pinned. The chair held the table up at an angle. Plenty of s.p.a.ce for Susan to scurry out.

The .38 in the kitchen drawer was closest, but it was really too close. As far as Jill knew, Susan still had the gun in her hand and could put a bullet in her back before Jill even had time to wrap her fingers around the one in the drawer. So she propelled herself through the kitchen door and on into the living room. The .45 strapped under the coffee table was her best bet. She dove to the floor and buckled her hips and shoulders to get under the table. She reached her cuffed hands up to draw the weapon. But it was gone. Just disappeared.

From above, she heard Susan say, "Yeah. I took that gun last time I was here, on the floor with my laptop. Cops and cop wives are pretty predictable."

Susan reached under the table and pulled Jill out by the hair. She cracked her revolver across the bridge of Jill's nose, breaking it. Blood and pain blossomed in equal amounts.

Through the blood, Jill said, "You can beat the living s.h.i.t out of me, but I guarantee you that you will never get me to pee on that stick."

"Well, you know, I love a challenge. I really do. I've been preparing for this for years now. Paramilitary training camps alongside skinheads and would-be mercenaries. Some very bad people. People driven by hate. So believe me, Jill, if I wanted you to pee on a stick, pee in a cup, or pee on a high voltage wire-you would do it. Believe me, you would do it. But I don't need you to. I've already peed on this one."

Susan held out the plastic test stick. There was a positive result in the round display window.

"I'm pregnant, Jill. And if you're pregnant too, then that means we're both carrying a sniper's child."

At first, Jill thought Susan was telling her that they were both pregnant by Jacob. But she just couldn't process that idea. Her mind wasn't working right. Too much had happened too fast. Not to mention she'd taken some fairly brutal blows that resulted in a broken nose and at least one broken rib. But it dawned on her what Susan was saying. Susan was pregnant by Lee Staley. She carried a sniper's child.

Susan pulled Jill to her feet and pushed her back into the kitchen. Jill complied. She pulled Jill's cell phone from where she kept it in the back pocket of her jeans, then sat her down. She started opening cabinet drawers, rummaging, looking. From the back, she still looked like nothing more than a mousy girl lost in an oversized cardigan.

"Holy s.h.i.t, how many guns do you two have?" she said and went on to another drawer. "Okay, good," she said and turned to show Jill the pair of Craftsman pliers she'd found. She went back to her purse and rummaged there until she found a bank deposit slip. She held up the pliers and the deposit slip and said, "Now guess what I'm going to do with these? First though, we need to text your hubby. Let him know you've been hurt. Probably gonna need medical attention."

Jacob had tried to call Jill twice in the last five minutes, but her phone just rang and went to voice mail. He knew that in all likelihood, it meant nothing more than that she was in the shower or something. But nothing about today was normal, so he'd asked Cowell to have Sergeant Heidler contact Simon to make sure everything was okay.

Cowell had obtained an emergency injunction to unseal the closed case files. The name of the minor child whose prints matched the print found in Oswald's apartment was indeed Rose Kaufman. He had a secretary reading and summarizing Kaufman's DHR case file aloud over the phone on speaker.

"... Family Protective Services. p.r.o.ne to violence. Placement after placement ended in some type of violent dispute. She disappeared at age seventeen. I've got a picture here."

Cowell, Sesak, and Denton all said, "Fax it. Now!"

They got up and stood at the fax machine. Waiting. It only took thirty seconds, but it felt like a year. It was just a headshot of the type used for an ID card. It was a fax of a photocopy, so it was blurry. But Jacob recognized Susan Weaver immediately. Jill's timid little writing student. He was about to speak up when his phone vibrated and relief washed over him when he saw that he had a message from Jill. He opened the message to read it.

The desk phone beeped. Cowell crossed to the phone, punched a b.u.t.ton, and Ray Heidler's voice came over the intercom.

"Simon's not responding by radio or cell. Should I send units?"

Cowell looked up at Jacob, but Jacob was already gone. All he saw was the man's thick shoulders clearing the door.

"Well, f.u.c.k! s.h.i.t! All right, Sesak-"

But Kathryn bolted from her chair and out the door, too. After her partner.

Kathryn emerged onto the S.O. fleet parking deck. A cruiser screeched around a corner, clipping the b.u.mpers of two parked units as it came. Kathryn ran out from a stairwell door and jumped in front of the out-of-control car. She held her hands out and squeezed her eyes shut.

The car stopped. She opened her eyes to see the chrome b.u.mper rocking to and fro against her knee caps. Kathryn scrambled into the pa.s.senger seat next to Jacob.

"Like I said, partner ... I'm in."

Jacob stared straight ahead, then punched the accelerator. He tossed his cell phone into Kathryn's lap, and she read the open message from Jill. I'm hurt. Come home now.

The car screamed out of the parking deck.

Once on the road, Jacob hit the light bar and siren.

As they neared his home, Jake killed the siren and lights, cut the engine, and allowed the cruiser to coast silently into his driveway, stopping behind Simon's patrol car.

Jacob and Kathryn approached the house with their weapons drawn. Jacob listened at the door but heard nothing. He turned the k.n.o.b and found it unlocked. He shook his head. Bad sign.

Jacob breached the doorway first, followed by Kathryn. They each took in the b.l.o.o.d.y, utter surprise of Billy Simon's dead eyes. This was real.

Jacob moved through the rooms with his weapon held at shoulder level. He was quick but cautious. Kathryn covered him every step of the way. They cleared the entire house to ensure no other victims or perpetrators lay in wait.

Jacob stood in the living room and yelled, "Jill!"

Kathryn holstered her weapon. She put her hand on Jacob's shoulder.

"She's not here, Jacob, but you need to go back to the kitchen."

Jacob walked into the kitchen. He saw the overturned table. There was a pair of pliers and a balled-up piece of paper on the counter. And blood. A good bit of it. Someone had been hurt. He secured his weapon and picked up the pliers. He studied them for a moment then put them back down.

He picked up the balled-up paper. Looked at it a moment, then unwrapped it. As the paper opened, he saw it was a bank deposit slip. As he unfurled the paper completely, something fell from it and hit the table.

A finger nail, French manicured, torn from its nail bed, encrusted with blood. Jacob's jaw tightened. He grabbed the pliers and hurled them across the room where they imbedded in the Sheetrock wall.

There was something else on the counter. Kathryn knew right away what it was. A pregnancy test stick. She put on gloves and carefully picked it up. She read the result window, then held it out for Jacob to see.

"Oh, Christ. Oh, Jesus. Jacob?"

Jacob looked. He knew not to touch it since he wasn't wearing gloves. He shouldn't have touched the pliers.

Jacob collapsed into a chair. He covered his mouth with his hand.

Kathryn's radio squawked, and she stepped away and spoke into it.

Jacob could vaguely hear the conversation in the next room, but not what was being said. It was just noise. He was lost, trying to decide what to do next.

"... Jacob ... Jacob ... Jake!"

He looked up at his partner.

"We're hot. Bank robbery. Takeover. Multiple hostages."

"Cameron Citizens Bank?"

"How could you know that?"

"Promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"Don't tell. It's my shot. n.o.body else. Me. My shot."

Jacob held the deposit slip out to Kathryn. Cameron Citizens Bank.

He knew what it was now. It was an invitation.

And Kathryn understood what her partner was asking of her. Don't tell. Otherwise, Cowell would never allow Jacob anywhere near that bank with a rifle in his hand. Not if he knew Jill Denton was a hostage.

And Jacob wanted to save her.

n.o.body else. Me. My shot.

CHAPTER 22.

Eddie Palmer looked up at the two women who had just entered the vestibule of the Cameron Citizens Bank in downtown Morgan City. They appeared to be in distress. The closed circuit security cameras clearly captured the faces of Susan Weaver and Jill Denton, although that footage would never be needed for proof in the events that were about to unfold.

Eddie almost always used the ATM or the drive-thru teller, but today he had come inside the bank because he wanted a crisp new fifty-dollar bill to put inside his niece's birthday card. You could never tell the quality of the bill the automated teller might spit out, and he didn't want it to get crinkled in the pneumatic tube of the drive-thru.

He stood at the courtesy counter, his bald head shiny from the overhead fluorescent lights. Eddie was using a ballpoint pen attached to the counter with a ball chain cord, filling out a withdrawal slip when he heard the women entering.