Page 43 of Save Her Life (Sandra Vos #1)

FORTY-TWO

Sandra was walking into the field office when a call came through from the lab. “Special Agent Vos,” she answered.

“It’s Renee from the lab. We finished processing that storage locker in Woodbridge, and you’ll be interested to know that we found blueprints for Liberty Bank among Patton’s things. They were marked up in his handwriting.”

“Showing he planned the robbery.”

“It sure looks that way.”

“Thanks,” Sandra told her. They had the proof they needed, and until they presented the deepfake to Patton, this discovery could still add years to his time in prison. Sandra hung up and placed another call as she entered the WFO. She passed Brice, and Nolan, who was sitting at her desk. She still hadn’t taken time to change or put makeup on, and they did a double take at her disheveled appearance, but she kept moving with her phone to an ear. She was on hold while the prison administration put her through to the warden’s cell phone.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Nolan asked, trailing after her. “Just stop and talk to me.”

She kept moving, just as time kept chugging along.

“Sandra,” he said, using a firm tone she was well familiar with and never cared for.

She looked over her shoulder but kept on her way to the conference room. “I’m not your dog. You have something to say, say it. I need to get on a video conference.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

His apology only slowed her steps.

“Who’s the conference with?” Nolan asked.

“Darrell Patton. My deadline is noon. That’s less than an hour from now, and if I don’t have something to give Lonnie Jennings, he’s going to kill our daughter. I’m not so sure he won’t anyway, just for the fun of it. I’m quite sure the guy’s a psychopath.” She breezed into the conference room, when the other end started ringing.

“Warden Synder,” he said drily. He didn’t sound too pleased that she had his cell number and was cutting into his Sunday, but too bad.

“Special Agent Vos. I need to speak with Darrell Patton immediately, preferably over video.”

“I’m at home, Agent Vos. Immediately is a tall request. Lots of moving parts.”

Then get them moving! The thought passed through with such density, she was impressed she didn’t verbalize it.

“I’d need the meeting link,” he relented with a sigh.

“Should already be in your inbox.” She’d taken care of that from the parking lot before heading inside the office.

“I’ll make it happen. Give me ten minutes.”

“Thank—” The line went dead. Only now did she face Nolan. He looked good, he always did, but there were more creases around his eyes and gray peppered the hair at his temples. “Wherever and whatever I’m doing is to get Olivia back.” She stiffened.

“I know that and didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I’m just…”

Emotionally compromised… “I know.”

Nolan scooped her into his arms, and she let herself sink into the embrace. She might not always like the guy, but he was Olivia’s father. If anyone could understand the hell she was going through right now, it was him. Only she’d never seen Nolan afraid of anything before. Uncomfortable, yes, and it usually emboldened him. She didn’t feel that energy from him now though. It was possible he’d calmed down in recent months.

She pulled out of the hug. “Smooth flight?”

“As much as possible. Felt like a lifetime though, not just because it wasn’t a straight shot.”

“I bet it did.”

“You’re looking a little… rough. You doing all right?”

“Our daughter is with a madman, so you know the answer to that. As for my appearance, some things are more important.” She set about logging on to the computer in the conference room and shutting the door. “You can stay but off camera, okay? I don’t want to apply any more pressure on Patton than necessary.”

“You saying I’m intimidating, Vos?”

“To some people you probably are.” And she wasn’t lying. Nolan was six four with a solid frame and all muscle. Part of the reason they never worked was his obsession with fitness. She was all for exercise and a healthy diet, but he had a grueling workout regimen. She sat in front of the computer, and Nolan sat across the table.

The video connected, and Patton was on screen. The warden had come through despite his protests.

“Mr. Patton,” she said to signal Nolan she was connected and for him to remain quiet.

“I thought we said all there was to say last night.”

“It seems I missed some things. Or namely one thing. You accused me of having no proof you were involved in the bank robbery. Well, you’re wrong.”

“This is just another attempt to incriminate me.”

“We found the bank’s blueprints among your things.”

Nolan angled his head.

Through the video, Patton sat up straighter and leaned in toward the camera. “You went through my stuff?”

“We got a warrant. I assure you it was all legal and aboveboard.”

“You said you’d give me immunity.”

“I did, in the past tense.” She was thinking with Patton not believing his daughter was in danger, concern over himself would win out.

“Well, if you put it back on the table, I’ll talk.”

She found it disheartening that his daughter’s welfare didn’t provide enough motivation. “I’m sure I can make my boss approve that.”

“Is that a yes?”

“If you tell me where the gold is, and we confirm that it’s where you say it is, then yes.” Not that she had any idea how she was to pull all that off in time to benefit Jennings’s encroaching deadline.

Nolan was punching one fist into the palm of his other hand. But violence and action were the go-to tactics in his negotiation toolkit. Another thing they’d never agree on. Her phone rang, and chills ran through her. “It’s Lonnie,” she said to Nolan and Patton. “I need to take this.”

Patton made a gesture as if to say, By all means.

Sandra muted the video and answered Jennings’s call.

“Time’s up,” Lonnie said. “Tell me why I shouldn’t put a bullet in her head right now.”

Olivia was crying in the background, and it tore at Sandra’s soul. But Patton was watching. Remember it’s Natalie, not Olivia , Natalie… “Because you want the gold.” She could have pointed out that he was calling fifteen minutes early, but there was no advantage to stating the obvious. Jennings would have called early intentionally to shake her.

“Then you know where I can find it?”

“I’m in the process of finding out.” She dared to look at Patton, who was saying something. With the sound off, she couldn’t know what. She’d never been great at reading lips.

“Screw process of . Find out.”

Olivia cried louder. “Mom!”

“Please, just one more hour. That’s all I’m asking for.” Silence grew on the line. She was hoping to extract understanding from a madman. He’d waited thirty-three years for the gold, so what was another hour? But was she insane to think she could trust Jennings to be reasonable?

Jennings eventually said, “I will call you back in one hour,” and hung up.

“What did he say?” Nolan asked, rising from his chair, but he sat back down when she drilled him with a glare. She couldn’t answer that without Patton asking who else was in the room.

“Darrell,” she said after unmuting the connection, “Lonnie’s going to kill Natalie if he doesn’t know the location of the gold in one hour.” Natalie , not Olivia … She had to immerse herself in the fabrication.

Darrell smiled. “I still don’t buy that he has Natalie. He wouldn’t do that or even know where to find her.”

Where the hell was the deepfake video? But just as she thought it, her phone chimed with a message. She confirmed it was what she was after. “Here’s the thing. You want proof, Darrell? Lonnie sent through a video. Here it is.” She hit play, without even having a chance to vet it first, and held the screen to the camera so Patton would get a good view. She could only watch from a tight angle.

Natalie was strapped to a chair. She had a gag in her mouth, and her eyes were large and frightened. An arm moved in the frame and removed the gag. “Dad, please, do what he asks! He’s going to kill me!”

Then the arm was back, and Natalie was sideswiped across the face. Natalie cried out again, and the video went black.

With the video finished, Sandra set her phone on the table. “You saw it with your own eyes. Lonnie has her, Darrell.” She was doing all the mental coaching she could to remind herself that the dramatization was staged. It was so well done that she’d inserted Olivia’s face there instead, and to see the restraints, the gag, the frightened eyes, the slap… It was almost too much.

“I can’t believe he’s doing this.” Darrell’s face morphed from shock to outrage. “I’m going to kill that son of a bitch!”

“As FBI, I can’t condone that, but I understand why you’d feel that way. But I can bring all this to an end, save Natalie, and arrest Lonnie.”

“And you swear I’ll get immunity?”

“You have my word.”

“Fine, I’ll tell you where to find the gold.”

Sandra listened as he laid out precisely where to go. It was an old fishing cabin in the middle of a wooded area in a Washington park, and she remembered seeing it before. “I sure hope you got that right because Lonnie’s running out of patience.”

“Trust me. It’s there.”

She disconnected the video chat with a promise to update Darrell. As if.

“We have the location. Let’s go.” Nolan popped up from his chair and pushed it into the table.

“All we need to do is hand this information over to Lonnie when he calls.”

“You honestly trust that guy to give us our girl back on your word alone?” Nolan shook his head. “No, we need to get that gold in our hands, and then we have something to bargain with.”

“You realize you are bargaining with our daughter’s life,” she flung back.

“I’m doing what I can to save her life, Sandra. Getting the gold is the smartest course of action. You must see the benefit.”

She could imagine Jennings getting cold feet and wanting more than a dot on the map before releasing Olivia. Surely at some point he’d have to realize the location would be put under surveillance, and he’d be arrested if he showed his face. “I do.”

“Then?”

“Well, I also see a million ways it can go sideways.”

“Name one.”

“He might not buy the FBI will just hand over the gold.”

He shrugged. “You convince him.”

As if there were nothing to it…

“Think of it this way, Jennings is a risk taker,” Nolan said. “From what I’ve gathered, he’s shown that from the start. It just shows how desperate he is.”

Having Jennings’s desperation pointed out wasn’t soothing her nerves.

Nolan continued stating his case. He didn’t realize she was already convinced. “This guy isn’t going to give us Olivia back just because you tell him where the gold is. Surely even you must see that he’ll want it in his hands first. I say we save him the trouble, get it, and show up with it, make the exchange. Simple and done.”

That’s how Nolan always saw life, an effortless flow where everything worked out. She’d like to argue that wasn’t the real world, but for him, it seemed to come together that way. “Just like that?” She smiled and added, “It could work, but we only have an hour.”

If Nolan was stunned by her agreement, he recovered quickly. “Then we better get to work.”

“And nothing could possibly go wrong.”

“I never said that, but let’s not think that way.” Nolan got the door for her, and they headed back to the warren of desks.

Nolan quickly started chatting to several agents, telling them they were headed out to search for gold bars.

“Agent Copeland, a word?” she said to him, drawing him into a quiet corner. “I’m not sure how it works in your unit, but here it’s the boss who assigns the agents.”

“I saw Assistant Director Rowe when I first got here and he said it was all hands on deck to get Olivia back, so I assumed…”

“I’ll go have a talk with him.” Before she left the area, she did ask Brice, “You in?”

“You couldn’t stop me.”

“Glad to hear you say that.” She smiled at him and left to inform Elwood about the intended plan of action.