Katie crept forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “You need to let it out, Shaw, before it destroys you.”
He stood so quickly that she had to jump back. “I’ll call Frank and get him going on this.”
“Just like that?” she said, bewildered.
“Just like that. It’ll be faster that way,” he added ominously.
As he made the call, Katie stared at the crest of St. Albans School and then over at Shaw as he relayed her discovery to Frank.
When he clicked off, Shaw said, “Get your shoes on. We’ve been stuck in this room long enough. I’ll take you to dinner while they bang through the database.”
Katie retrieved her shoes, sat on the bed, and slipped on her heels.
He put a hand on her arm and guided her out the door. As they walked down the hall, her heart was thumping in her chest. She didn’t believe Shaw. Not at all.
And she was afraid. Not for herself.
She was afraid for him.
CHAPTER 88
THERE WERE EIGHT FAMILIES on the St. Albans database that owned black Mercedes S500s, a match with vehicle registration showed. Shaw, Royce, Frank, and Katie sat in a room at the FBI’s northern Virginia office studying this list.
“Two in McLean. One in Great Falls. Three in Potomac. The rest in D.C. Four of them have kids currently enrolled in the school,” an FBI agent rattled off.
Katie broke off staring at the screen and glanced at Shaw. His focus was totally on the list, she could see. As she watched, she saw him mouthing words to himself.
He’s memorizing the names and addresses.
“The smart thing to do,” Frank said, “is split up our assets and hit them all at once.”
“We can actually narrow the list down even more,” the agent said. “The house in Great Falls and the car are registered to a woman; she’s eighty-six. The ones in D.C. are men, Stephen Marshall and Sohan Gupta, but they’re African American and Indian, respectively. You said your guy was a white guy. We can check out those people later just in case someone had access to their cars, but it makes sense to prioritize.”
Frank said, “So that leaves five. Two in McLean, Virginia, and three in Potomac, Maryland.”
“We’ll have to get search warrants executed,” the FBI agent said. “That’ll take some time since the circumstances” – he glanced at Frank – “are a little unusual.”
“How long?” Royce asked.
The agent checked his watch. “We’ll push hard, but tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
“Do it.”
“Should we post surveillance teams at their houses?” Frank asked.
“Might spook them,” Shaw pointed out. “And if we don’t have search warrants in place…”
“Then they could destroy evidence and there’d be nothing we could do about it,” Royce finished for him.
Frank sighed and said to the FBI agent, “Just get ’em as fast as you can.”
Katie glanced over at Shaw in time to see a grim smile cross his face. And then it was gone. “I want to go with you when you do the hits,” he said.
Frank nodded. “But we let the FBI guys lead the way.”
“Absolutely.”
Royce nodded in agreement. “I’m clearly out of my jurisdiction here.”
The meeting broke up and Shaw walked out. Katie quickly followed him. As he reached his car in the parking lot, she put a hand on the car door.
“Don’t do it.”
He eased her hand off the door. “Don’t do what exactly?”
“You know what.”
“I’ll give you a ride to your hotel. You obviously need some sleep. You’re sounding a little punchy.”
She gripped his sleeve. “Shaw, I saw what you were doing back there. You memorized the list. You’re not waiting for a search warrant. You’re going to go to those places tonight. And-”
“And what? Start killing people? Is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think.”
“Good, you can join the club.” He pulled his arm free. “You want that ride?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Suit yourself.”
He drove off. Frank and Royce came out of the building and headed toward her. Frank stared after Shaw’s car. “Your buddy leave you high and dry?”
“No, I just…”
“You want a ride?”
When they got in the car, Frank turned and looked at her.
“Everything okay?”
“Everything’s great.”
Royce gave her a penetrating stare, glanced at Frank, and shrugged.
When Katie got back to the hotel, she stripped off her clothes, took a hot shower, and nearly scrubbed herself raw. She rested her head against the tile wall of the shower and let the water pour over her.
What do I do now? Tell Frank and Royce? Let them follow Shaw? Stop him from killing somebody? From being killed?
That’s what she should do, Katie knew. But it wasn’t that simple. What if she was wrong? What if Shaw found out she’d betrayed him? Yet she hadn’t promised not to tell. He’d never asked her not to reveal her suspicions.
She got out of the shower, dressed, and put on dark clothing. She couldn’t snitch on Shaw. But she also couldn’t just stand by and let him destroy what life he had left.
She called his room. When he answered she hung up. He was still there. Two minutes later she was in the lobby sitting in a high-backed chair waiting for him to come down.
An hour later he did. He headed out. And so did Katie.
CHAPTER 89
THE FIRST TWO HOMES Shaw checked out weren’t the ones. From a distance Katie watched him enter the places only to come out of each a few minutes later. At the third house, however, a stone mansion in McLean, he didn’t come right back out. In fact, he didn’t come out at all.
Katie checked her watch. Ten minutes had gone by. This must be the jackpot. She slipped out of her car and crept into the house the same way as Shaw had – through the back door. Her heart was hammering in her ears as she threaded her way down the hall. She almost tripped over something that was in her path. It was all she could do not to scream.
Is it a body?
Is it Shaw’s body?
As she groped around with her hand, she felt the overturned chair in front of her. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she noticed other things too, things that shouldn’t have been where they were, including a smashed photo on the floor. She picked it up, squinted at the picture. It was a man with a young boy.
She put it down and edged along the hall. A box was on the floor. She bent down to see what it was. The box turned out to be empty, but it looked like something had been kept in there. Was this Shaw’s doing? Was he looking for something she didn’t know about? Was there someone else in here and all this debris evidence of a struggle? She really should just run, but what if Shaw were hurt?
The door was up ahead. She clutched the knob, took a breath, and eased it open. It was a bedroom. A large one. The master suite of this McMansion.
Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the figure in bed. He was propped up on pillows. The weak moonlight that came through the window allowed her to see. The man looked like he was still screaming. But he wouldn’t be screaming anymore. Katie had seen corpses before and this was one.
She turned to run.
And smacked right into a human wall.
Shaw clamped a hand over her mouth.
She stared up at him fearfully, every inch of her body sliding into spasms of terror.
He removed his hand and motioned to the body. “He’s dead.”
Katie slowly nodded, her eyes still wide with a look of terror.
Realization spread across Shaw’s features and then was replaced with anger.
“Check the body, it’s already cold.”