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He walked back to the lobby and past the flummoxed security guard.
“Sir, wait, you can’t—”
“Quiet,” said Chase. He did not bother to conceal the Glock. “Send the police to Gillen’s suite.”
When he returned to the top floor, he used Gillen’s ID badge to get back into the suite. Thwarted and furious, he glared at the CEO’s body. Chase had wanted Gillen to face justice. And failing that, to kill him himself. He needed to talk to Shay, to his kids, but there was still unfinished business.
He already knew the answer, but he had to be sure.
“Ava,” he said, “trace the last call.”
CHAPTER 30
IT WAS ALEX Teague.
Chase told the police that Avalon’s chief security officer was also Gillen’s personal fixer—until he double-crossed his boss, tendering his resignation with a high velocity round.
The Arlington Police were the first on scene, but the responding officers weren’t apt to believe the man standing over the corpse of one of the richest men in the world. They burst in with weapons drawn.
Chase had anticipated that. He greeted them with his hands up, fingers spread wide, concealing nothing.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said.
There was shouting and shoving to the floor. They cuffed him and cinched his wrists tight, but Chase didn’t care. He had spoken with Shay moments before they arrived. His wife was alive. His kids were alive. Wade was alive—in pain but alive. The grumpy bastard came through in the end.
The officers yanked Chase to his feet and read him his rights.
“The bullet that took Gillen out came from a sniper’s rifle,” Chase persisted. “Opposite roof.” He jerked his chin toward the shattered circle in the window. “The man you want is named Alex Teague. He’s Avalon Communications’ chief security officer.And he’s getting away right now.”
A senior officer surveyed the body on the floor. Then he got in Chase’s face, all smiles.
“And the bullet in the foot?”
Chase was about to answer but thought better of it.
“Lawyer,” he said, and sighed.
Shit, Shay’s normally my lawyer. It’s going to be a long night…
From inside a cell at Arlington County Police Headquarters, there was nothing left to do but wait and reflect on the last few days.
From the night of Avalon Park, Chase had known something was off. He had gone straight to Shay. They’d hoped Madison could get to the bottom of it when she examined the Echelon, but when he received the second text and the phone call that put his family under threat, Shay had led him outside. They’d sat on their front stoop—without their devices—and she’d revealed she had found evidence of price fixing and payoffs at Avalon. She had been mulling how to proceed, but now she agreed with her husband that something was awry at the company.
“So you discovered dirty dealings—” began Chase.
“At the same time someone threatens you to extort money from my boss,” finished Shay. “It’s not a coincidence.”
They decided Chase ought to play along. It gave him an excuse to see Gillen. Look him in the eye and see what he knew.
But the man was hard to read.
Chase drove to Wade’s ranch to talk to him and, failing that, deliver a letter summarizing what they suspected and a request for safe haven if the time came. He knew their old commanding officer would never refuse. Meanwhile, Shay visited the FBI Washington Field Office, turning over evidence in a classified space. The special agents assured her she would be safe, but Avalon was a twenty-first-century tech giant and the FBI was a twentieth-century bureaucracy. Things were moving too fast for the feds.
Chase needed to get creative.
With the train collision, Teague overplayed his hand. Until then, it had been about the money. When the Voice demanded the deaths of his wife and kids, it was too much of a swerve. Chase realized then it had never really been about the money at all—it was about silencing Shay. For good.
The concern was that if Chase didn’t appear to comply, a “clean team” would do it anyway and make him look responsible. So Chase and Shay had pulled the kids into the tunnel and told them everything.
