High Noon

proper and reasonable precautions.
    She’d never have thought it of him. It just went to show how wrong you could be about someone.
    If he got his head, or his damn balls, blown off, it was his own fault.
    She had to stop, shut her eyes and order herself to calm down.
    That wasn’t going to happen. If she didn’t know just where to find Duncan, how the hell would Roy’s killer? And why would he waste his time and energy cruising around the city looking for Duncan, and then risk exposure by trying something stupid?
    He was too smart for that.
    He had a plan, of that she was certain. And he wouldn’t have tipped his hand to her if Duncan was his primary and immediate target. Duncan might very well be one, but there was time.
    She’d let herself panic, and she knew better.
    Calm, rational thinking was the way to find the answers.
    She’d pulled another detective and an experienced uniformed officer into the case.
    “We believe,” she began as she continued to write on the board, “that the UNSUB is connected to one of the female victims of a previous hostage situation, suicide or crisis in which I sat as negotiator. What we know is he targeted, abducted and killed Roy Squire, specifically because of the victim’s connection to me. We know he has knowledge of explosives. We know he traveled to Hilton Head, and returned to Savannah with Roy in Roy’s car, which was found abandoned and wiped clean in the long-term lot at the airport, where we can assume he had his own car parked or took a cab. We do not know, yet, how he got to Hilton Head.”
    She turned around. “Detective Peters, I need you to check on one-way car rentals that were picked up in Savannah, dropped off in Hilton Head. One-way railway and bus tickets, air tickets. Or any round-trips purchased that were used only one way. He may have chartered private. We don’t know how deep his pockets are. Find out what you can from private planes, destination Hilton Head, within the last week.”
    “Why didn’t he use his own car, coming and going?” Sykes wondered. “If he has one. Drive’s not that far from here to there. Why use the victim’s to transport?”
    “We don’t know that either. It’s possible he doesn’t own a car.”
    “Or,” the new team member, Nably, began, “the one he owns, or has access to, isn’t geared for hauling a full-grown man, bound and gagged, forty, fifty miles.”
    “Too small,” Phoebe mused.
    “Or a hatchback SUV with no trunk, no place to conceal the abductee.” Nably pulled on his prominent bottom lip. “Or maybe he just likes the idea of having us puzzle on it, and spend the time finding out.”
    “Very possible.” She paused to drink from her bottle of water. “It’s also possible, and I believe probable, that the subject has had police or military training. He knows how we work, so yes, he might have done things this way to add to the legwork. He’s had training. He was able to slip through the perimeter on the Johnson situation, dispatch his target and slip back out without a ripple.”
    “Maybe he was in uniform,” Sykes suggested. “Or had ID.”
    “Yes. He got through the posts, into the building and into Reeanna Curtis’s apartment. It had been cleared, and she rushed out with her children—doesn’t remember if she locked the door or not. Either way, he got in. He chose that apartment, that window. Why?”
    “Because he knew enough to know it wasn’t optimum angle, and SWAT wouldn’t use it.”
    “I agree.” She turned back. “The pink roses on the grave—which we have not been able to trace—indicate the UNSUB’s attachment to a woman, most likely a dead woman. These are the names of all female casualties in any negotiations in which I took part, both for this department and previously for the FBI.
    “Brenda Anne Falk, suicide. Her husband is clear on this. She had a brother and a father, both of whom have been verified as in Mississippi during the time frame of Roy’s abduction and murder. At this time, we have no leads on anyone else connected to her who has either motive or opportunity. Linked here are the other law enforcement personnel who are listed in the file on that incident. There is no known personal connection between any of them and Brenda Falk.”
    “Maybe he doesn’t have connections to any of them,” Sykes put in. “Maybe it’s a cop or a fed who just went south. Picked up on any of those,” he continued with a nod toward the board. “And/or you,