Jeffery Deaver - A Maiden's Grave

He remembered that he wasn't supposed to stand in front of the door. What else? He was reassured to glance at Budd, who had a shiny black leather cuffcase on his belt. Potter himself had never cuffed a real suspect – only volunteers at the live-fire hostage rescue drills on the Quantico back lot. "I'll defer to you on this one, Charlie." Budd raised surprised eyebrows. "Well, sure, Arthur."

"But I'll back you up."

"Oh. Good."

Both men pulled their weapons from the hip holsters. Potter chambered a round again – twice in one night and three years from the last barricade in which a bullet had rested in his gun's receiver and meant business.

At room 611 they stopped, exchanged glances. The negotiator nodded.

Budd knocked, a friendly tap. Shave and a haircut.

"Yeah?" the gruff voice called. "Hello? Who's there?"

"It's Charlie Budd. Can you open up for a minute? Just found something interesting."

"Charlie? What's going on?"

The chain fell, a deadbolt clicked, and when Roland Marks opened the door he found himself staring into the muzzles of two identical automatic pistols: one steady, one shaking, and both safeties off.

"Cynthia's a director of the S amp;L, yes. It's a nominal position. I'm really the one who calls the shots. We kept it in her maiden name. She's not guilty of anything."

The assistant attorney general could protest all he wanted but it would be up to the grand and petit juries to decide his wife's fate.

No raillery. Marks was now playing straight man. His eyes were red and damp and Potter, feeling nothing but contempt, had no trouble holding his gaze.

The AG had been read his rights. It was all over and he knew it. So he decided to cooperate. His statement was being taken down by the very same tape recorder he'd slipped Budd earlier in the evening.

"And what exactly were you doing at the savings and loan?" Potter asked.

"Making bad loans to myself. Well, to fictional people and companies. Writing them off and keeping the money." He shrugged as if to say, Isn't it obvious?

Marks, the prosecutor specializing in white-collar crime, had learned well from his suspects: he'd bled the Wichita institution's stockholders, and the public, for close to five million dollars – much of it spent already, it seemed. "I thought with the turnaround in the real estate market," he continued, "some of the bank's legitimate investments would pay off and we could cover up the shortfall. But when I went over the books I saw we just weren't going to make it."

The Resolution Trust Corporation, the government agency taking over failed banking institutions, was about to come in and seize the place.

"So you hired Lou Handy to burn it down," Budd said. "Destroy all the records."

"How did you know him?" the agent asked.

Budd beat Marks to it. "You prosecuted Handy five years ago, wasn't it? The convenience-store heist – the barricade Sharon Foster talked him out of."

The assistant attorney general nodded. "Oh, yes, I remembered him. Who wouldn't? Smart son of a bitch. He took the stand in his own defense and nearly ran circles around me. Had to do some digging to find him for the S amp;L job, you can bet. Checked with his parole officer, some of my contacts on the street. Offered him two hundred thousand to torch the place as part of a robbery. Only he got caught. So I had no choice – I had to cut a deal with him. I'd help him escape, otherwise he'd blow the whistle on me. That cost me another three hundred thousand."

"How'd you get him out? Callana's maximum-security."

"Paid two guards their annual salaries in cash to do it."

"Was one of them the guard Handy killed?"

Marks nodded.

"Saved some money there, didn't you?" Charlie Budd asked bitterly. "You left a car for him with the guns, the scrambled radio, and the TV in it," Potter continued. "And the tools to get the money out of the slaughterhouse where you'd hidden it for him."

"Well, hell, we couldn't exactly leave the money in the car. Too risky. So I sealed it up in this old steam pipe behind the front window." Potter asked, "What were the escape plans going to be?"

"Originally, I'd arranged for a private plane to fly him and his buddies out of Crow Ridge, from that little airport up the road. But he never made it. He had the accident – with the Cadillac – and lost about a half-hour."

"Why did he take the girls?"

"He needed them. With the delay he knew he didn't have time to get the money and make it to the airport – with the cops right on his tail. But he wasn't going to leave without the cash. Lou figured with the hostages inside and me working to get him out, it didn't matter how many cops were at the slaughterhouse. He'd get out sooner or later. He radioed me from inside and I agreed to convince the FBI to give him a helicopter. That didn't work but by then I remembered Sharon Foster's negotiation with Handy a few years ago. I found out where she was stationed now and called Pris Gunder – his girlfriend – and told her to drive over to Foster's house. Then I pretended I was a trooper and called Ted Franklin at state police."

Potter asked, "So your heart-rending offer to give yourself up for the girls… that was all an act."

"I did want them out. I didn't want anyone to die. Of course not!"

Of course, Potter thought cynically. "Where's Handy now?"

"I have no idea. Once he got out of the barricade that was it. I'd done everything I'd agreed. I told him he was on his own."

Potter shook his head. Budd asked coldly, "Tell me, Marks, how's it feel to've murdered those troopers?"

"No! He promised me he wouldn't kill anyone! His girlfriend was just going to handcuff Foster. He -"

"And the other troopers? The escort?"

Marks stared at the captain for a minute and when no credible lie came to mind whispered, "It wasn't supposed to work out like this. It wasn't ."

"Call for some baby-sitters," Potter said. But before Budd could, his phone buzzed.

"Hello?" He listened for a moment. His eyes went wide. "Where? Okay, we're moving."

Potter cocked an eyebrow.

"They found the other squad car, the one Handy and his girlfriend were in. He's going south, looks like. Toward Oklahoma. The cruiser was twenty miles past the booking center. There was a couple in the trunk. Dead. Handy and his girlfriend must've stolen their wheels. No ID on them so we don't have a make or tag yet." Budd stepped close to the assistant AG. The captain growled, "The only good news is that Handy was in a hurry. They died fast."

Marks grunted in pain as Budd spun him around and shoved him hard into the wall. Potter did nothing to interfere. Budd tied the attorney's hands together with plastic wrist restraints then cuffed his right wrist to the bed frame.

"It's too tight," Marks whined.

Budd threw him down on the bed. "Let's go, Arthur. He's got a hell of a lead on us. Brother, he could be nearly to Texas by now."

She was surrounded by the Outside.

And yet it wasn't as hard as she'd thought.

Oh, she supposed the driver had honked furiously at her when she crossed the center line a moment ago. But, all things considered, she was doing fine. Melanie Charrol had never in her life driven a car. Many deaf people did, of course, even if they weren't supposed to, but Melanie had always been too afraid. Her fear wasn't that she'd be in an accident. Rather, she was terrified that she'd do something wrong and be embarrassed. Maybe get in the wrong lane. Stop too far away from a red light or too close. People would gather around the car and laugh at her.

But now she was cruising down Route 677 like a pro. She didn't have musician's ears any longer but she had musician's hands, sensitive and strong. And those fingers learned quickly not to overcompen-sate on the wheel and she sped straight toward her destination.