The second tremor was caused by a familiar phrase.
Tommi’s attacker claimed he had been forced to abduct her because she was too stuck up to give him the time of day.
Stuck up.
Sara could recall Brock staring longingly at the cheerleaders as they walked to the popular table in the cafeteria.
“They won’t even look at me,” Brock had whispered. “They’re too stuck up to give me the time of day.”
The third tremor was the sobbing.
Sara did not know Daryl Nesbitt personally, but she could not imagine him crying over any of his crimes. The only man she had ever met who routinely broke down was the same man who had sat beside her on a school bus for ten years.
The fourth and final tremor had brought down the sky.
Brock’s mother had been admitted to the hospital the last week of October. Sara could not recall all of the details, but she could still remember how different Brock had been when he’d come to relieve her in the middle of the night. His overly obsequious manner was gone. He’d been animated, practically giddy. Sara had chalked it up to anxiety about his mother. In retrospect, she could see his behavior for what it was.
Triumph.
“Almost finished.” Faith stood behind Sara, clipping the transceiver for the microphone to the back of her pants.
Dan Brock had spent two years earning his associate degree in mortuary sciences. The classes were intense, demanding an intimate understanding of thanatology, chemistry and human anatomy. As the county coroner, he had been mandated to attend forty hours of training at the Georgia Public Safety Training Center in Forsyth. There, he had learned about forensics and crime scene investigation. Every year, he’d been required to undergo twenty-four hours of additional in-service training so that he was up-to-date on any advances in death investigation sciences.
He would know how to paralyze a person. He would know how to cover his tracks.
Beneath the rubble of the avalanche, Sara had located the final, most damning clue.
She had texted Brock’s photo to Tommi Humphrey, asking—
Is this him?
After four unbearable minutes, Tommi had texted back—
Yes.
“Okay,” Faith said. “You can put your shirt back on.”
Sara buttoned her shirt. Her fingers felt thick. She thought about Faith’s math equation during yesterday morning’s briefing.
A + B = C.
The man who had attacked and mutilated Tommi Humphrey was the same man who had attacked Rebecca Caterino and Leslie Truong.
He was the same man who had murdered the women on Miranda Newberry’s spreadsheet.
He was the same man who had abducted, drugged and raped Callie Zanger.
He was the same man that Sara had called her friend.
Tears flooded her eyes. She was angry. She was terrified. She was devastated.
For over three decades, Sara had felt such warmth and true affection for Dan Brock. How could the little boy who’d sat beside her in kindergarten, the gawky teenager who’d been so self-deprecatingly funny, be the monster who had tortured, raped and killed so many women?
“Go ahead.” Faith was holding one side of the headphones to her ear.
Sara tried to keep her voice as normal-sounding as possible. “One-two-three. One-two-three.”
“Good.” Faith rested the headphones on the table. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“No,” Sara admitted. “But we don’t have bodies or crime scenes. We have guesses and a spreadsheet. The families deserve answers and this is the only way to get them.”
“We could roll the dice,” Faith said. “Arrest him. Scare the shit out of him. He could still talk.”
Sara knew that would never happen. “Once it’s out there in public, he will do everything he can to deny it. The Van Dornes, Callie Zanger, Gerald Caterino—all of the victims he left behind. They will never know the truth. Brock won’t go on the record, especially while his mother is still alive.”
Faith looked grim. She opened the door.
Will was standing vigil outside. He was wearing a Kevlar vest. His rifle was slung over his shoulder. Menace came off his body like sweat.
He looked at Sara, silent, but the silence said everything.
Sara pulled on her blue cardigan with the deep pockets.
Amanda climbed into the van, telling Sara, “The codeword is salad.”
Sara looked back at Will. He shook his head. He did not want her to do this.
Amanda continued, “The moment you want to shut it down, for any reason, just say the word and we’ll come running. Yes?”
Sara cleared her throat. “Yes.”
Faith studied the monitors. They were half a mile down the road from the AllCare facility. The camera on the dashboard of Nick’s car showed them the front of the warehouse. There were no cameras inside because of privacy concerns.
Amanda coached, “A full confession to all of the murders would be glorious, but any specifics you can get out of Brock about Caterino or Truong will be enough to stick a needle in his arm.”
She meant the death penalty.
Amanda said, “I’ve got men outside the loading dock and around the back, but we can’t go in. We don’t know if the window shutters inside Brock’s office are still closed. Once you’re in the warehouse, Will and Faith will stage in the corridor. That’s the closest anyone can get without risking exposure. Everything the camera and mic pick up will stream to their phones. If you say the codeword, count on it taking them roughly eight to ten seconds to breach the office door.”
Sara nodded. Her body had gone numb.
“Here.” Faith held out a loaded revolver, the muzzle pointing down. “If you need to use this, keep pulling the trigger until the cylinder is empty, okay? Six shots. Don’t hesitate. Don’t shoot to wound. Shoot to stop.”
Sara weighed the revolver in her hand. She glanced at Will. She tucked the gun into one of the deep pockets of her cardigan.
“Nick?” Amanda spoke into the radio. “Report?”
“The target is still inside.” Nick’s voice scratched through the speaker. “Lunch shift cleared out the building. We snagged them once they hit the street. I hooked the manager and had a sit-down talk. They don’t start back up taking deliveries until one. We’ve got the street blocked off at both ends. There’s nine cars left in the parking lot. One belongs to Brock. The others are registered to employees. The manager says they’re probably in the breakroom.”
Amanda said, “Faith, job one is getting those civilians out without alerting Brock.”
“The breakroom has a window that overlooks the warehouse,” Faith said. She had found the blueprints for the building on the county website. “We’ll have to be careful.”
“Every second of this operation should be careful.” Amanda turned to Sara. “Your call, Dr. Linton. We can take him down right now. Tommi can identify him. She would be a compelling witness. We can build a case without a confession.”
Shay Van Dorne. Alexandra McAllister. Rebecca Caterino. Leslie Truong. Callie Zanger. Pia Danske. Theresa Singer. Alice Scott. Joan Feeney …
Sara slipped the purse strap over her shoulder. “I’m ready.”
Will helped her down from the van. She held onto his hand. She kissed him on the mouth.
She told him, “We’ll get McDonald’s for dinner.”
He wouldn’t let her lighten the mood. “If he touches you, I will kill him.”
Sara squeezed his fingers before letting go. The farther she walked away from Will, the more numb she felt. A sort of anesthesia spread from her limbs into her chest, so that by the time Sara made it to her car, her movements were robotic. She put on her seatbelt. Started the engine. Selected the gear. Pulled onto the road.
Will and Faith trailed behind her in a black sedan. Sara could see the resigned set to Will’s jaw in her rearview mirror. The half-mile drive to the warehouse stretched out endlessly. Her mind filled with everything and nothing at the same time.
Should she do this? Could she do this? What if Brock didn’t talk? What if he got angry? She had told everyone that Brock would never hurt her, that he could’ve done that long ago if he wanted, but what if the Brock that Sara knew turned into the Brock who took pleasure in the suffering of women? She had seen first-hand evidence of his madness. He hadn’t been content to rape the women. He had destroyed them. Sara was about to push him to the brink. Would he try to destroy her, too?
She tapped down the blinker. She made the turn.
The AllCare warehouse looked the same as it had the day before. Except where it didn’t. SWAT was already on the roof of the building. A glimpse across the street told her that a sniper was covering the front entrance. Sara knew that another sniper would be guarding the rear. Two more black-clad men were on either side of the concrete stairs to the lobby.
If all went as planned, Brock would be waiting for her inside of his cluttered office. Sara had called to tell him she would drop off the key to his storage unit. Brock had sounded delighted that he would get to see her again. He would be eating lunch at his desk. He’d offered to share some cake that he’d brought from home.