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He turned and glared. “You don’t get to talk about my wife. She was an angel.”

“If she put up with you, she must have been,” Guilliam replied.

“I don’t care what you’ve got to say to me,” he snapped, glaring at everybody. “I’ll be dead before I ever hit jail anyway.”

“But at least you’ve admitted to it.”

“I would admit to a whole lot more,” he added, “but I will wait until I know for sure that Mason is dead.” He smiled. “That’s what I care about.”

“Because he shot your grandson in a home invasion. A home invasion where Gabe targeted Mason’s wife.”

“Exactly. And that stupid grandson of mine shouldn’t have done it, yet he didn’t deserve death.”

“What about all these people you’ve killed or had killed? Did they deserve death?”

“You bet they did,” he declared. Then the old man got crafty. “Bring me proof of Mason’s death, and I’ll help you clear up dozens of old cases.”

With that, the chief of police walked past and glared at him.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get that set of boobs away from me,” he muttered. “You shouldn’t even be in that job.”

“Good to know I have your support,” Alex said, beaming a smile in his direction, just making him glare even more. “And just because you say so doesn’t make things the way you want.”

“It should. Women don’t belong in law enforcement.”

“I’m not sure assholes like you belong on earth either,” she added, with that same cheerful smile. “So, I guess we’ll both be disappointed. All you’ve done is cause chaos and mayhem all around you.” She glanced around at the senior care home. “How many other people in here have you coerced into doing your bidding?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t do anything I don’t always do. People are generally quite happy to give me what I need.”

“Yeah, and why is that? Do you threaten to rape their daughters and to kill their sons?”

He glared at her. “No, I don’t have to. Not anymore. Once you make a name for yourself and raise a little hell, everybody’s petrified of you, and that’s the way you work it. Then it doesn’t matter. By the time anybody thinks about resistance, the thought has already left their heads, and their resistance has got up and gone.” He laughed. “Fear is a huge motivator.”

She stared at him and nodded. “It is a huge motivator, but your grandson Gabe was still a useless piece of shit.”

He struggled to get up out of his chair, wheezing in fury.

She added, “And you knew it, but still, all you did was cause hellishness for everybody else. What have we got, five, six dead people, all because you coerced them into this Gabe mess?” She shook her head. “Who killed them all off? That’s what I want to know. Who killed them all? We know it wasn’t you.”

“None of your business.” He glared at her. “You all think you know everything, but you know nothing. It’s not just me affected by my grandson’s death,” he muttered.

She stared at him for a long moment, then turned to Guilliam. “Have you had any chance to get an idea where she is?”

“No. This asshole’s not giving in.”

The old coot laughed. “I might be inclined to do something to save her, but you know my condition. I want Mason dead.”

“Oh, I heard you, and you’re not getting that.”

“Yeah, says you. It’s very simple. If you don’t do the job, she dies. And the person who kidnapped her will kill Mason anyway. I was just keeping him out of jail a little bit longer.”

“A little bit longer?” Guilliam repeated. “Meaning, you expect he’ll end up there anyway?”

“Most certainly, particularly after I’m gone. It’s always been me who kept him in check.”

“Are we talking about the one doing all your bidding? You probably corrupted him yourself.”

Just then another set of police cars arrived, and the old man was slowly moved to be loaded into a car, to be taken to the jail.

The old man laughed. “It’s not like I will talk to you, Chief of Police , down there, any more than I’m doing here.”

She smiled. “Maybe not, but you can’t terrorize anybody else, and now we can talk to your family and other minions without your interference, with the assurance that you’ll never be back.”

He glared at her. “Yeah, well, they better not say anything fucking wrong about me. I’m the reason they had it so good all these years.”

“ Right ,” she muttered, her tone dry and caustic. “Like absolutely nobody else in this world is any good, just you, correct?”

He glared at her.

She returned her own warning gaze. “Remember that it’s my jail you’re going to. So, I highly suggest you think very hard about what you have to say next.”

He continued to glare at her and shut up.

She nodded. “Good choice.” She looked over at the manager. “Sir, you will also be needed down at the station.”

“I can’t leave here.”

“The owners have already been contacted,” she noted. “They’re coming in for questioning as well, due to suspicious activity in their facility. I believe they have something to say to you.”

“They know perfectly well everything I’ve been doing,” he declared stiffly. “I’ve devoted my life to those people.”

“Good, then you’ll be quite happy to tell us all about it.”

He flushed and shook his head. “Not if you treat me badly.”

“Why do you think I will treat you badly?” she asked curiously, looking at him. “You think I will put you on the rack and stretch you out or something? Use all those old medieval methods?”

He glared at her. “It’s not nice of you to tease me either. I’ve never been arrested before.”

“That’s all right. You will soon get arrested and have that experience,” she explained. “With any luck you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail, and you won’t ever get arrested again.”

He stared at her in shock. “I won’t go to jail for anything. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That remains to be seen,” she stated. “When you’re involved with someone who commits these violent crimes, you are also guilty by association.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” he whined. “He’s the one who arranged everything.”

“Yeah, we know,” she agreed, as she motioned to the two officers nearby, who each took an arm and directed the manager outside. “And you let him, even helped him. Aiding and abetting is what it’s called,” she pointed out, as she pushed his head down to keep him from hitting it as he got into the black-and-white. “We will talk more down at the station.” And, with that, she slapped the top of the cruiser and ordered, “Get him into a cell as soon as you can.”

Then she turned to another manager, who had been brought on to replace him. She looked at the woman and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Elsey Howitch,” replied the woman nervously.

Guilliam walked up and asked, “Well, Elsey, what can you tell us about this place?”

She looked from one to the other and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You need to think carefully about what you say next,” Guilliam warned, “because we already know the old man is involved in at least five murders.”

She squeaked out an astonished cry.

He nodded. “We’re pretty sure the real number is way-the-hell higher. But in this last few weeks or so, we’ve counted that many.”

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she cried out.

“So, now I need to know just how much you helped him.”

The woman fell apart right in front of them.

“I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to at all,” she wailed.

“And what is it you didn’t want to do?”

“I had to go shopping for him all the time. I had to pick up stuff, like phones and things. I don’t… I don’t even know sometimes what I picked up. I just had to go pick up deliveries, things in boxes.”

“What do you mean, had to?” the chief of police asked, her tone hard.

Elsey turned, and her hands shook as she wrung them in front of her. “It was either that or lose my job.”

“And who told you that?”

“The manager. He told me that I had to.”

“And yet you’re a manager yourself.”

She nodded. “But he’s the boss, and I have to do what he says, or I don’t have a job, and, if I don’t have a job, I can’t feed my family.”

Guilliam studied her. Seeing the truth in her gaze, he turned to the chief of police and said, “This is a waste of my time.”

“Maybe,” she agreed, with a shrug. The chief of police turned to question Elsey. “Do you ever see his grandson?”

“Yes, yes, he comes here often,” she replied eagerly, as if happy to answer something.

“Did you ever hear what they talked about?”

She winced. “They always shut up when people walk in. It’s always hush-hush secret stuff,” she said, “but it’s always bad stuff. He’s no good. That man, he’s no good.”

“Which one?” he asked.

She whispered, “The grandson. That one, he’s no good.”

“Oh, I got it,” Guilliam agreed. “We also believe he kidnapped a young woman today.”

She stared at him and nodded. “I did hear something,” she murmured. “I don’t know though.… I don’t know if it’s relevant.” Her gaze went from one to the other. “They mentioned something about Mason.” She looked hopeful that the information would be of use.

Guilliam nodded. “Yes, they’ve kidnapped a young woman in order to get someone to kill this Mason person.”

“To kill?” she asked, paling. “I thought I just heard them say shot .”

“Yes, you did. He was shot, and he’s in the hospital. But they failed to kill him the first time around, so they’re trying for a second attempt.”

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she muttered, almost sobbing now. “I had nothing to do with it. Please, you must believe me. I had nothing at all to do with it.”

He believed her, and he could tell from the chief of police’s face that she did too. “What else did you hear?” he asked.

She thought hard. “It was always just talk.” And then she frowned. “It was strange today, as he was talking about things he doesn’t deal with.”

“Like what?”

“Like laundry.”

At that, Guilliam nodded. “We suspect that the kidnapped woman was taken out in one of those wheeled laundry carts.”

She clapped her hands to her face. “Oh my gosh, that poor woman.” She looked from one to the other. “Why? Why her?”

Guilliam barked a harsh laugh. “Because he wants me to kill Mason, and she is my partner. They’ve told me that, if I don’t kill Mason, they will kill her.”

That left the other woman in tears, as she stared at him, shaking her head back and forth. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

“Maybe not,” he conceded, studying her closely. “However, if you know anything else, anything at all, this is the time to tell us, before we find out on our own and realize that you’re withholding information.”

“No, no, no. I don’t know anything. It’s just little bits that I might have heard. It’s always hard with him because he talks and then shuts up, so you don’t know. You’re not supposed to hear anything, and over time you just block it all out. You ignore it because he’s that kind of a man.”

“Oh, I hear you,” Guilliam noted, “but, if you heard anything today, you need to tell us now.”

Another voice called out, “I heard the same thing she did.”

He turned to see an old lady in a wheelchair off to the side.

“He used to brag about all his escapades,” she began, her voice sad. “I thought he was a good man at first, but he hadn’t been here very long when I heard him bullying the staff. I told him to leave the staff alone, that he didn’t need to be making them miserable. He told me to shut up, and, if I didn’t, he would make sure that somebody in my family paid for it.” She looked over at them. “Please, don’t ever let that man come back here again.”

The chief of police approached her and nodded. “We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen, but we will need proof of what he’s been up to.”

“Didn’t he confess?”

“He did, but, if he recants, then I’m left with not a whole lot to make a case from. So I need evidence.”

“Of course. I do know that he’s always talking with that grandson of his, and as Elsey told you, they were always talking about what they would do if they needed to.”

“And did you hear what they said today?”

“Something about a laundry cart and a laundry van.”

Guilliam was already pulling out his phone. “That makes sense. I presume that my team is already on it.”

“He said it wouldn’t look… I remember them saying something about it wouldn’t look like a laundry van.”

“And yet it would be,” Guilliam added.

“Right.” She nodded. “I hope you get that woman back. And I hope that asshole never gets loose again.” She stopped as she was about to wheel away. “One time he did talk about using murder to keep people in line. I thought he was joking at first because he had just arrived, so I didn’t know him well enough. But now I don’t think he was joking at all.”

Guilliam nodded. “No, I don’t think he was joking. We’ve been told that is how he controlled people. We’ve even heard rumors that, way back when, he would pick out a few people, have them disappear, all as a lesson for everybody else.”

She winced. “Somebody here mentioned that he had a hand in her son going missing years ago, and that, if she could afford to be anywhere else, she definitely wouldn’t be here.”

Guilliam frowned at that. “Are you sure? Because this old man could afford to be somewhere else or even at home with private care, so I’m not even sure why he’s here.”

“He likes the location,” she said in a dry tone. “And the fact that he can bully everybody.”

The chief of police added, “He could probably go to a more expensive place, but he has his local connections, and I presume they treat him the way he wants to be treated.”

“Ah”—Guilliam nodded—“that would explain it. And who’s this woman?”

The woman in the wheelchair replied, “She’s here. You could probably talk to her. I know she’s traumatized. She hasn’t been here very long, and, when she realized he was here,… she’s, well, she’s not been the same ever since.”

“Of course not.” Guilliam sighed. “When you start a reign of terror, it doesn’t end just because someone wants it to end.”

“I don’t think he wanted it to end at all,” the woman stated. “I think he’s been more than happy to make sure everybody feared him and did exactly what he told them to do.”

“And did you overhear anything else he may have said, especially today?” Guilliam asked, as the chief of police took off to find the other woman.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. I thought so many of the stories were hogwash, until I realized he was serious, and then I basically stayed as far away from him as I could. I locked myself in my room a couple times just to avoid him.” When Guilliam frowned, she winced. “That old man is still randy , and I wasn’t interested. He kept making suggestions that he thought would interest me.”

“Good Lord,” Guilliam muttered. The old man might have been in his eighties. The woman in front of him was regal and had to be well into her seventies. More power to her if she wanted a relationship, but to think that this guy would be threatening women of her age just meant the old coot was clueless as to what women wanted. “How pathetic it is that he would force that type of relationship on women.”

“It’s the only way he could ever have any relationship,” she stated, with half a smile. “Nobody liked him. Everybody hated him in fact, and, if they didn’t hate him, they were terrified of him. It just took me a little bit longer than the others to find out. I’m not from this area originally. So, when I moved here, I had no idea we had a serial killer at this retirement home, let alone one who has gone unpunished all these years.”

“Have you met any of his family?” Guilliam asked.

“I have. The daughter was here a couple times. A very intense woman,” she noted. “I’m not sure that I particularly would have been friends with her either. There was talk of her coming to live here later in life, but I gather that her surgeries and cancer treatment may not be going all that well. I got the impression that since the grandson died, the old coot’s been worse than he used to be and very uncaring about anybody but himself. He would often bring his daughter to tears.”

“Did you ever have any idea if she was involved in any of it?”

“I don’t know. One time I interrupted an argument between them, and she was very upset about the death of her son. The old man yelled at her, saying that her son was a useless piece of shit or something along that line,” she said, with a wave of her hand. “But then he tended to say that about anybody he didn’t like in the moment.”

“Of course,” Guilliam noted. “And, with all his family members being equally dysfunctional, I can’t imagine that the grandson who died would have been any different from the others.”

“I don’t even know what happened, but they blame somebody named Mason.”

“The grandson was involved in a series of B&E crimes, and at one point he targeted one of Mason’s friends. Law enforcement was having a problem getting the victims to come forward, presumably out of fear of retribution. So Mason made some public statements, hoping to get him to break into his home, so they could get an opportunity to send him to jail. Mason’s wife was supposed to be away that weekend, but, at the last minute, she decided to spend the weekend home with Mason. So, when the grandson arrived and broke into Mason’s house, he was delighted to find her there and decided that he would torment and rape her in front of Mason. That didn’t go so well for him.”

The woman stared at him in shock, and Guilliam nodded.

“Mason ended up shooting and killing him, obviously in defense of his wife.”

“Thank God for that,” she muttered in horror.

“Exactly. The family chose to proclaim that the intruder was innocent, with absolutely no idea why he was even there at the time. They blamed Mason for it.”

“So now they’re trying to kill him?” she cried out in shock.

“Yes, although that B&E happened years ago. Yet Mason was shot a few weeks ago and is recovering in the hospital,” Guilliam explained. “He is under guard, of course, but we’re very aware that somebody is still attempting to take him out.”

“And did I hear something about an attempt to coerce you into doing that?” she asked cautiously.

“That’s what the old coot’s hoping for. He figures that, by kidnapping my girlfriend, he could apply enough pressure to make me go kill Mason.”

She shook her head.

He smiled at her. “Obviously that’s not happening.”

She grimaced. “Yet your poor girlfriend…”

“Yes. I’m not sure who has her, but it appears the other grandson is involved.”

“He’s no good either,” she declared. “The grandson orders around everybody here like they’re his servants and expects them to wait on him hand and foot.” She shook her head. “That whole family is messed up.”

“Yes.”

At that, the chief of police returned with an older woman. They quickly questioned her, and she confirmed the same thing.

“Now, the question is, where would the grandson hold his kidnap victim?”

“I don’t know why he would take her anywhere,” replied the first lady in the wheelchair. “If he’s making sure that you kill somebody in the hospital, wouldn’t he stay at the hospital to see the job done?”

A slow smile dawning on his face, Guilliam held up one finger. “I’ll be back in a second.” He quickly bolted outside. He got Jasper on the phone and asked, “Where are you?”

“I’m in Mason’s room right now.”

“Okay, there’s a good chance that this asshole is somewhere close by. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself, but I’m putting it down to stress and circumstances,” he admitted, with a groan. “What if he’s parked right in the hospital parking lot, waiting to see if I show up to take care of Mason?”

“You think he would do that?” Jasper asked doubtfully.

“What I think is that this guy can’t afford any mistakes. I don’t know why he’s doing this at all, outside of the fact that his grandfather wants him to. I don’t know what kind of pressure is involved in getting him to do it, if there even is any. For all I know he’s quite happy to do all this, but the grandfather will want proof, at the very least to know that I’m there. And the only way is for the grandson to be close at hand to see me walk inside.”

“Okay, I’ll mobilize the troops, and we’ll do a full search outside,” Jasper replied.

“You need to do it discreetly,” Guilliam said.

“I do know how to do my job,” Jasper noted.

“I get it, but…”

“I know. I understand. Right now it’s all about Janelle. Are you done there?”

“Yeah. The chief of police is here and she’ll get statements from everybody.”

“Good enough,” Jasper said, ending the call.

*

Moving quickly, Guilliam headed toward the hospital parking lot. He knew that the outside search would have gone on at the same time as the inside, but, if they didn’t find anything, the kidnapper would be thinking he was safe. That was good. Guilliam wanted him to feel like he was safe. Guilliam wanted him to believe that everything was going his way. The kidnapper was wrong, of course, but that would give him a sense of security.

As Guilliam pulled into the rear hospital parking lot, he deliberately got out, walked around, checked to make sure he was visible, then strode around the hospital, heading for the front of the building. He felt eyes on him, and that was important. Everybody needed to know that he was supposedly there to do a job—finishing off Mason. No way in hell Guilliam would, and he knew that his team all knew that, but this asshole was counting on Janelle’s kidnapping to be enough of a pressure point for him.

Honestly, all this made him nervous. If anything happened to Janelle, he wasn’t sure what he would do. He found it unbelievable that it had come to this. After everything the get revenge on Mason group had been working on, to think that somebody just walked in and snatched Janelle in the hospital—sitting there with the body of her mother, spending a few minutes before they took the body away—was just obnoxious. And that’s what these people worked on. They utilized pain and fear, making people suffer as much as they could. He hoped this asshole was somebody Guilliam would meet personally, like with his fists, making him suffer a little for what he was putting Janelle through.

As he thought about the old man in the retirement home and all the power he once wielded, Guilliam couldn’t imagine what the old bastard had probably gotten away with. Guilliam hoped he and his team and the local authorities could get names and dates of the missing at least, so they could close some cases and could offer some family members a bit of solace in finally hearing the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

Revealing the truth was a double-edged sword, since it would also hurt people to know what happened and to realize how much this asshole and his family had destroyed with their disregard for human life. And yet people like that were always living among us. Yet it seemed as if, in these modern-day times, those people weren’t so readily getting away with their crimes. This old guy had perfected his system though. He’d perfected his method of haunting people. He knew what buttons to push and how hard to push them.

Guilliam had been on base and also had been overseas, even back when the old man had been killing, blackmailing, threatening, abusing others in the Coronado area. A decade ago the old man had relocated his terrorism tactics to the senior care home, which still was a mystery to unfold. When Guilliam’s phone buzzed, he finally got the file he’d requested on the second grandson. As he went through the rap sheet, he shook his head. “Another fucking asshole,” he muttered.

This grandfather absolutely loved these screwed-up grandsons. Guilliam wondered what part the fathers to these two men had played in all this. Were the two fathers of the same bent? And, if so, why weren’t those two fathers getting involved here? Yes, Guilliam had heard how the father of Gabe—the one stupid enough to break into Mason’s home and to threaten harm to Tesla—had checked out of life, especially with his wife now dying of cancer. And with the other father to the other son out of the picture, the grandfather now seemed to lean on his remaining grandson to carry out his vile acts for him.

Guilliam wondered just how much the grandfather’s wishes were catered to here. How much did he terrorize his own family when they didn’t follow suit? When they didn’t do whatever the old coot required of them? Had they been given the same kind of treatment as these townspeople? Guilliam believed they did because, once an asshole, always an asshole. Still, Guilliam couldn’t imagine growing up to learn that level of disregard for human life.

It did explain the kid Mason had killed. Gabe probably was bored, even emulating his grandfather, all to potentially earn his favor, to inherit the grandfather’s wealth, skipping over his parents and going straight for the next generation. Guilliam had seen it before. If these dysfunctional families couldn’t get love from their blood relatives, they would get it from another individual. If money was also involved, all the better.

Guilliam paused at that, wondering just how much money the grandfather might control. He quickly sent a text to Jasper, asking him for information on the old man’s combined estate and who might be in the will.

When Jasper phoned him a little later, he asked, “Are you still outside?”

“I am,” Guilliam replied. “Why?”

“Just confirming. We’re checking the license plates on every van out there,” he explained. “We can’t imagine it would be any other vehicle, but we don’t want to take that chance.”

“Of course not,” he murmured. “And I agree. I doubt it will be any other vehicle just because he’ll still have to hide her. And the old man’s net worth?”

“It used to be an incredible amount of money, but it’s much less now. Some of the CEO father’s business decisions didn’t go over so well, and he lost the company quite a bit of money over recent years. The grandfather has very little respect for him or for his daughter for marrying him, especially after he managed to deplete their resources so badly.”

“Right. So, the old guy probably hoped that his grandkids would step up and be what he wanted them to be.”

“Quite likely,” Jasper agreed. “And it did appear that both grandkids, the grandsons, attempted to step up. In each case only one child came from each of the two daughters. I think one daughter passed already, and the one remaining daughter has breast cancer.”

“Do we know if she’s doing okay with the cancer, maybe fighting it off, or if she in palliative care right now?”

“Good question. I’ll see if I can find out.”

Guilliam rang off and returned to his search of the parking lot, quiet, unobtrusive, just walking through, trying to be visible, yet not in a threatening way. What he really wanted was for the kidnapping asshole to see him, to see that he was here, to see that he wanted to find Janelle, alive and in good shape—maybe concerned enough for her to consider finishing off Mason.

That might not be the message Guilliam should be sending, but he would do a lot right now to stop this asshole from doing anything stupid. And when it came to stupid, already so many incidents had been so stupid that it seemed to be the proper word here. Making a very visible entrance through the rear door, he headed inside the hospital. As soon as he made it just inside, he settled into a spot where he could watch the outside world. Would the kidnapper expect Guilliam to come back out again in a hurry or something else? How would the kidnapper know if the job had been completed? That was the real trick. How to find that out.

Talking to Jasper on the phone again, Guilliam said, “I think it’s been long enough.”

Jasper snorted. “For you, yeah, but, for any other assassin, a real assassin, you know perfectly well that they would still be assessing the place.”

“And yet, as far as this grandson is concerned, he thinks he can coerce me into killing Mason. He also knows that I have the skills to do that. Then the question becomes, how does he find out that Mason is gone?”

“Most likely from someone in the hospital, who he coerced to notify him, due to blackmail, physical threats, whatever. Let’s not forget all the military people they’ve already had involved in Mason’s sniper attempt.”

Guilliam suggested, “We should ask the old coot about that.”

Jasper agreed. “That’s a damn good point.”

“Contact the chief of police, will you? I’m pretty sure the grandfather has some connections on base, even within the police department, that he’s probably hoping nobody finds out about. Didn’t someone say that dear old grandpa may have served in the military and how that really ticked off the dead grandson?”

“Oh, we’ll find out all right,” Jasper stated, “and if the old coot puts any more of us in danger, we’ll have his ass in a court-martial.”

“Yeah, well, I hope we just throw him in the brig and leave him there.” Guilliam snorted.

“Meanwhile,” Jasper shared, “we have things in place inside the hospital. A Code Blue will be announced at any moment, and a crash cart is on the way to Mason’s room. We’ll keep Mason’s room secured. Plus, some of our volunteers are manning the phone system, as well as the nurses’ stations on the first floor and on Mason’s floor. That way our story should be consistent. So, once you hear the code, then leave after a minute or so.”

“Will do. I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.” And shortly thereafter, he quickly walked outside, making sure to glance nervously around, and then smoothly moved toward his vehicle—as if the job were done, and it was time to get lost. Once in his vehicle, he deliberately drove past the public entrances and headed out of the back parking lot.

Once out of sight of anyone in the hospital parking lot, he made several quick turns, then parked in a used car lot, not very far away. Now on foot, he doubled back into the hospital through a side entrance for Employees Only. He sent a text to Jasper. Back inside, avoiding cameras. I’ll wait and see what happens.

Jasper sent a thumbs-up. Interrogation of old man and manager is underway. Looks like the manager is interested in talking.

Good. The old bastard will probably happily tell us everything he did, which I suspect is quite a bit. It’s the only way he’ll get out of this without heavy prison time, though it’s hard to say how much he’s involved in it personally—or how long he’ll live.

He’s involved. And we know he’s all about saving his own ass, even to the point of throwing his one remaining grandson under the bus.

With his phone on vibrate, Guilliam sat quietly in a dark corner, near the reception desk, watching as people came and went through the main entrance. When no sign of anything came from the front, he motioned to the nearby security guard, who gave him a headshake. Guilliam nodded in return, and just then a phone call came through the main switchboard in the lobby. They all waited and listened, as the switchboard operator answered as coached.

“Yes, we do have a Mason Callister here,” she replied, then hesitated. “I’m sorry to tell you that he didn’t make it.” The woman manning the phones turned toward the security guard, who nodded back at her while moving closer. “Yes. I’m afraid he’s just passed away.” And, with that, the operator ended the call.

The nurse seated beside her frowned. “I don’t like doing that,” she whispered to her temporary coworker, “as we have no way of knowing who that even was on the phone.”

The woman who worked for Jasper just smiled at the nurse. “The good news is, if we don’t know who called, then chances are, he also doesn’t know what we’re up to.”

The nurse shrugged. “As long as his wife doesn’t hear the news.”

“Oh, you mean, the news that her husband has passed away? That is not likely, since she is in the hospital room with him right now.”

“I know, I know. I just… I don’t normally do this kind of stuff.”

“Good,” the woman stated, with a smile. “I’ll be at this post for a while. Once you are on the phones again, if anybody calls to ask about Mason, you give them the same message.”

“And what if it’s somebody else?” she asked. “What if it’s a family member?”

“There will be a public announcement once this is all over with,” the woman reassured her. “This is just for the moment. Remember that a woman has been kidnapped, and her life is at stake, not to mention Mason’s.”

The nurse pinched her lips together and nodded. “I remember that, but I hope you catch this asshole soon.”

“Oh, we will,” the woman declared, with quiet certainty. “We will.”

With that, Guilliam turned and slipped back out of the hospital.