Page 71 of Every Last One
Brice bobbed his head. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“So what’s the story on this Sparling fella?” Neal asked Gibson.
He punched on the keyboard again. “Fifty-six, widower. It looks like he lost his wife, Mable, of thirty years, eight months ago.”
“That’s three of the four who have lost someone they loved and who blame Founders Hospital,” Sandra summarized.
“Like I said before. We’ve all lost people, but it doesn’t give anyone the right to do what they’re doing,” Kreiger said.
“On that point we agree, but grief can outweigh logic. Then add financial stress…” Sandra was curious if Kreiger had ever lost someone he’d truly cared about, though. It took away reason and rationale. It might have been between eight and ten months since the hostage takers lost their loved ones, but those wounds would still be fresh. Anyone forced to carry on without their person could testify to that. “Any next of kin for Sparling?”
“It looks like his wife had a daughter when she was a teenager. Her name’s Trudy Hall, currently thirty-five,” Gibson said.
“And her birth father?” Neal asked.
“Deceased,” Gibson shared stoically.
“Well, I’ll get search warrants in place and have officers dispatched to the homes of Perkins and Sparling, also have them talk with family and friends,” Neal said. “Gibson, let me know the minute we have access to the website. We need the shot caller’s identity and background ASAP.”
“I’m going to try Perkins’s cell phone,” Sandra said and got in position to do that. She listened to the line ring several times before her call was flipped to voicemail with a generalized robotic greeting. She hung up and tried him again. This time it went right to voicemail. “He just turned his phone off.”
“Then we’re three for three, four really considering the woman on the eighth floor isn’t talkative,” Kreiger said.
Sandra could feel the team coordinator was getting restless. If she couldn’t get someone inside to talk soon and surrender, things were bound to get worse before they got better. At least she had an edge to work with the shot caller. She had the names for her three buddies now. Whether or not the woman knew their real names didn’t matter. But there were two sides to sharing that information. It might make the shot caller feel they were moving in on her, and push her to do something drastic. Or it would help her see that there was no way out of this but to surrender. It wouldn’t be long before they knew all about her too. Sandra would give the strategy some more thought before she did anything.
THIRTY-NINE
4:50 PM
Eric had popped by Howard University Hospital before heading over to Stevie Cross’s residence. While his relationship with Sandra was serious enough, it felt past time to be meeting the woman who meant so much to her. He’d heard the stories about how Margo and her husband adopted Sandra and her twin brother when they were twelve years old. Before that the children had spent two years of bouncing around in various foster homes. Margo had been a huge help for Sandra through the loss of her brother.
Dana had been expecting him and said it was lovely to meet a friend of Sandra’s. Dana introduced him to Margo Davenport as a friend of hers. This was something she’d prepared Eric for before entering Margo’s room. She didn’t want to confuse Margo by mentioning Sandra in case she didn’t know who she was at that moment. Eric had known before from Sandra that Margo had Alzheimer’s, but he wasn’t prepared for what he saw.
Doctors had run their battery of tests, and they had visibly taken their toll. The results still weren’t in, and that fact twisted a knot in Eric’s stomach. Sometimes delays could result from backlogs in the lab. It could also be that the results were clear, and doctors were left scrambling to figure out what to suggestfor treatment. But it was the third possibility he could conceive that filled him with dread. They had found something and were delaying with the dispensing of that news until Sandra was present. When this long day ended and reality sank in, he’d be there for Sandra.
Eric was thinking back on all this as he walked into Cross’s home. Officer Bingham came over with something in his hands and passed it off to Eric. It was a memorial card with the photo of a young man in his twenties. His name was Sullivan Perkins, and the service was held nine months ago. Not a son of Cross’s or he’d have the surname. “Where did you find this?”
“Stuffed into the back of a desk drawer in the home office.”
“Great find. This could be the lead we’ve been looking for.” It was the first personal connection for Cross they’d uncovered that held promise.
Bingham dipped his head and returned to the deeper parts of the house, while Eric went to his car. He keyedSullivan Perkinsinto the onboard computer. The results weren’t enlightening on their own, but he clicked on his mother’s name to bring up her background. Her maiden name was Cross.
Bingo!Eric pulled his phone as it started to ring. “Birch here,” he answered, briefly catchingLieutenant Colemanon the caller ID. “You’re just the person I was about to call.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, me first. Feeney’s laptop gave us the identities of two more hostage takers, leaving us only needing to find out the woman’s name in the boardroom. I’ll get another officer to Tom Sparling’s house, but I need you to check on Shane Perkins.”
Eric stiffened. “You said Perkins?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Small world. I just found out that Stevie Cross would be Shane Perkins’s uncle.”
Neal was silent for a few beats. “Mind bringing me up to speed on how you got there?”
Eric did so, and when he finished, Neal said, “Then let me get this straight. Stevie Cross let his nephew into the server room at Founders?”
“Sounds like it, which would explain why Cross tried to mislead us by providing a false description of this person’s looks and then giving us Hartley’s name.”
