Tied Up in Knots (Marshals 3)

“Okay.”

Everyone started talking at once until Kage raised his voice, which thundered over everyone else in the room.

“As far as the FBI has been able to piece together, he became ill on the trip from the prison to the Denver airport. They stopped at a hospital on the way, and the version of events becomes somewhat convoluted from there.”

I glanced at all the suits sitting in Kage’s office until one of them leaned forward after clearing his throat.

“We’re unsure where the breakdown in communication was, but as you know, Hartley presents not as a violent offender, but as what he is: a meek, nonthreatening physician.”

My laughter was sharp, caustic, and it happened before I even knew it was going to explode out of me.

“Marshal Jones?”

“Oh, that’s such bullshit,” I barked. “But begging your pardon, sir, I’ve never known Craig Hartley to be nonthreatening. We originally put him in prison because he killed nineteen women.”

“I know that he—”

“Nineteen!” I yelled. “Dead. Murdered.”

“Marshal—”

“How can a man who’s killed nineteen people ever be considered nonthreatening?”

“We—”

“When he escaped last time, he killed a female friend of his who aided him in his flight from custody, murdered an elderly couple and FBI Special Agent Cillian Wojno, kidnapped Saxon Rice, and kidnapped and tortured me. He also murdered every man who worked for him, ten in all, who aided him in my kidnapping and torture. The words ‘meek and nonthreatening’ are not appropriate!”

No one said a word for a minute, until Kage.

“You need a minute?”

I concentrated on calming down. “No sir. I apologize.”

He lifted his hand. “It’s not necessary.”

After a moment of regulating my breathing, I gave him a nod.

“They have confirmed sightings of Hartley crossing into Mexico one week ago, and had him flying out of the Monterrey International Airport two days after that aboard a private plane owned by Javier Aranda.”

“Aranda is the head of Vicario Capital,” the agent I’d yelled at told me. “He’s based in Nuevo Leon, that’s the front for the Salazar Cartel out of Tamaulipas.”

Everyone but Kage was looking at me like I should have an opinion. “Okay,” I said to get them to continue.

“When did Aranda and Hartley become friends?” Kage asked the agent.

No answer from them so he turned to me. “Jones?”

I cleared my throat. “I had no idea it was Aranda, but Hartley told me that he flew to Mexico with his team a few years ago to operate on a cartel boss’s mother.”

“He did?” the agent asked me.

“Yeah.”

“And saved her life, of course,” Kage surmised.

“Yessir. He told me he’d gotten a report and she was the picture of health.”

“Jesus,” the lead agent let slip.

I leaned forward and put my face in my hands, not wanting to break down again, feeling the burn in my stomach and the flutter of panic in my chest. It was terrifying to be the expert on all things Hartley, to know more than anyone else since he’d shared so much on my biannual visits to him in prison because he wanted me to know him.

Everyone wanted to talk to him, all the psychiatrists and psychologists, everyone writing a book about him, every branch of law enforcement. They all yearned for insights into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind but he was stone-silent except with me.

Only me.

I was the one he wrote to and wanted to see and begged to visit. The warden at Elgin had once told me that Hartley had to be in love with me, there was no other explanation. He was wrong, of course, they all were, and I knew that because I knew Hartley. He didn’t love me. In fact, he wanted to kill me, but it had to be done on his timeline, at his pace. When he was in jail, without power, the only weapon he had in his arsenal to hurt me with was his memories. So he’d talked and I’d listened and learned and sadly committed it all to memory. Now Hartley had in me a living, breathing record of his life. I was the authority on him, and it had just been proven again. The FBI had no idea how Hartley and Aranda connected until I told them.

“Jones?”

I lifted my head to look at Kage.

“He knows he’s going back to the supermax to rot if he ever comes back to this country,” he informed me. “Interpol has his name. It’s only a matter of time before he’s captured.”

“Yessir,” I replied automatically.

“I’m sorry, Jones.”

“Why’re you sorry? You did everything in your power to keep me and everyone else safe. This is on the bureau. Squarely.” All eyes on me. “Did he kill anyone?”

“No,” the lead agent answered. “A nurse was killed by our agents when she got between them and Hartley.”

“At least he stopped killing his friends,” I muttered, standing up. “I need to process my witness, sir, if I may.”