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“How aggressive?”
“Not . . . I don’t want to spook him.”
“Good.”
Kennedy glanced at Hurley. “You up for the trip?”
“Let me see. I can either stay here and listen to my oncologist try to talk me into taking rat poison, or I can go to Switzerland and beat the shit out of some banker. Tough call.”
“Stan,” Kennedy said in a tone that showed she was not amused.
“Of course I’ll go.”
“Good.” Turning her attention back to Rapp she said, “One more thing. I want you to talk to Gould before you leave.”
Rapp was caught off guard. “Why?”
“He knows something about Obrecht and I think he’s holding back.”
“And you think he’s going to open up to me?” Rapp suddenly looked agitated. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get my team in the a
ir ASAP.”
“Your team is already assembled . . . well, mostly assembled. Scott is handling something for me, but he’ll be there by the time you’re ready to take off.”
Rapp frowned. “You spun up my team without talking to me?”
“I know this is hard for you to grasp at times, but I’m in charge.”
Rapp didn’t want to be in the same room with Gould. “So you’re ordering me to talk to him?”
“That’s right.” Kennedy slid a file across the table. “Read through this quickly and then go downstairs and find out what he knows about Obrecht. There’s also a USB stick in there. It has some surveillance footage Gould took of the area by the veterinary clinic right before the assault. I think you will find it interesting. You and Stan should watch it together.”
Rapp didn’t care about the file or the footage. “How rough can I get?”
Kennedy inhaled sharply and thought about it. “Use your judgment.”
“And if I decide to kill him?”
Rapp’s dark eyes gave Kennedy an unsettling feeling. He was her friend and at times it was easy to forget that at his core he was a killer. She cleared her throat and said, “I don’t want you to kill him.”
“Why?”
“For reasons that I can’t explain right now. You’ll have to trust me.”
“Reasons you won’t explain, you mean.”
“However you’d like to take it, but it is worth reminding you two,” Kennedy said, pointing at Rapp and then Hurley, “that you’re not in charge. I’m calling the shots, and for now I say he lives. Are we clear?”
Rapp wasn’t even sure he wanted to kill the man. His emotions were all over the board when it came to Gould and his wife and child. There’d been only a handful of times where he’d castigated himself for not killing Gould when he had the chance. It was Anna’s memory that had kept him from doing it and he had come to terms with that strange twist of fate. That decision had been made with the naïve assumption that Gould would retire and take care of his family. Learning that the reckless idiot had squandered his chance at a second life had Rapp second-guessing his decision. Kennedy might be his boss, but Gould owed Rapp his life. When the time is right, Rapp thought, I’ll be the one to decide if he lives or dies.
Rapp leaned back and crossed his legs. “For now, I’ll do it your way.”
“Good. Something that’s not in the file . . . I placed Claudia and Anna in protective custody.”
Rapp got that faraway look in his eyes. “Where were they?”
“New Zealand.”