Page 39 of Every Last One
“Give me some time to see what I can do,” Sandra said. “In fact, my plan is to get him on the phone again, and with any luck, talking.”
“You sure you don’t want to rethink that?” Neal raised his eyebrows. “He made it pretty clear the last time what he’d do if you called again.”
“But he’s not calling the shots here,” she said.
Kreiger pressed his lips. “He kind of is.”
“Um, excuse me.” Luis held up a finger and continued speaking when everyone looked at him. “I’ve got access to live footage now.”
“Great, show us the nurses’ station on the fourth,” Sandra requested.
“Coming right up. Huh. No one’s around.”
“Chapman mentioned the gunman was in the nurse break room,” she said.
“And that’s it right there.” Luis pointed at his screen, indicating a door close to the nurses’ station.
There wasn’t anything to be gained from looking at a closed door. “Can you bring up old footage?”
“Anything you want. I have access to all of it,” Luis said.
“Bring up the footage at that station starting at one o’clock.” That was the time she’d spoken with Mickey.
“One minute.” Luis pushed some buttons on his laptop.
Seconds later, the gunman from the fourth floor was on the screen. He was of average looks and size. What concerned her the most was his relaxed body posture. He had supposedly shot someone, had threatened a man’s life, and he was slumped in a chair behind the desk and slowly swiveling while he was on the phone with her. It wasn’t the image of a man full of remorse. It was that of a man without a conscience.
TWENTY
1:45 PM
Sandra was delayed calling the assailant on the fourth floor. She was distracted by the other progress being made. Thanks to Luis’s help, they were able to grab pictures of three of the four armed assailants. Including footage of Cross letting a younger man into the server room. There were no cameras inside the boardroom, and earlier video just showed the woman approaching Pamela’s desk, head down. The faces they had were being run through facial recognition databases, but no one was expecting any hits. Gibson printed the images and affixed them to the markerboard with small magnets. Neal made sure that the pictures were distributed to all the officers and detectives in the field, with the primary focus being Eric so he could show them to Stevie Cross for a reaction. He flagged the man with Cross.
“The man from the fourth has to be in his mid-to-late sixties,” Sandra said. “He’s older than I had imagined.”
“And then you look at his friends. The woman on the second floor, maybe late thirties. The guy on the sixth only mid-twenties,” Brice added.
“His age lends to him being good with computers and tech,” Kreiger said.
“Maybe that’s a little stereotypical, boss,” Monica said.
“Yeah? Look at you.”
“I’m flattered you think I’m in my twenties. I turned thirty-two last week.”
Kreiger smiled. “Well, whatever. Stereotypes became that for a reason. They track.”
“Okay, I’m going in again. I’ll try to get through to the HTs on the second and sixth floors first. Then I’ll try Mickey,” Sandra said, putting her headset on. The rest of the team followed her lead.
“Maybe we could call him Perp Four,” Gibson suggested. “You know, for being on the fourth floor.” He turned around and faced his computer again when no one responded.
The rest could call him what they liked, but she’d think of him as Mickey until or unless he gave her a different name. She didn’t need to inadvertently mess up when she was on the phone with him. “Luis, I’ll let you know before I try each floor. If you could bring up the live feed for each nurses’ station as I go, that would be great.”
He tapped some keys and brought his laptop over, holding the screen for her. “Here’s the second.”
No one was within sight. She put the call through and listened to the line ring. Still no one. She hung up. “The sixth,” she said to Luis, and he brought up that nurses’ station there. Like with the second, not a person in view, and her call went unanswered. Luis brought up the nurses’ station from the fourth without her asking.
Here goes…She punched in the numbers, and after the second ring, the door of the break room opened and Mickey entered the frame alone.
