Split Second (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 1)

“Pretty damn sure. But for this old warrant, it would have been tough to track him down; he’s gone pretty far underground.”

“Are you still planning to go down there?” asked Michelle.

“We found a friendly Tennessee judge who issued us a search warrant. We’re going to pay that place a visit, but under a pretense because I don’t want anyone getting shot. And once inside, we see what we see. It’s a little dicey from a legal point of view, but I figure if we can get Bruno out before something happens to him, and bag Scott, then it’s worth it. We’ll let the lawyers figure it all out later.”

“When are you leaving?”

“It’ll take us a while to get everything set, and we’ll want to do it in broad daylight. I don’t want this Scott wacko to open fire on what he thinks are trespassers. It’s about a four- or five-hour drive, so really early tomorrow morning. You still want to go?”

“We do,” said Michelle with a glance at King. “And we may find somebody else there.”

“Who’s that?” asked Parks.

“A graduate student holding a long grudge.” She clicked off and filled in King on the events. Then she pulled out a sheet of paper and started scribbling out some bullet points.

“Okay, here’s my brilliant theory number two, which assumes that Jorst is not involved. Let’s take it point by point,” she began. “Scott sets up the Ritter killing with Ramsey; he’s the inside guy. For what motivation I don’t know, maybe money, maybe he had some secret vendetta against Ritter.” She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe Scott’s parents gave all their money to Ritter when he was a preacher? You remember what Jorst said about that? And when

I was doing background on Ritter, I confirmed he was a very rich man, basically because of these ‘donations’ to his church, a church he was somehow sole beneficiary of.”

“I thought about that too. But unfortunately that theory doesn’t fit the facts. I worked with Scott for years and know his history. His parents died when he was a kid. And they didn’t have any money to leave him anyway.”

She sat back with a frustrated look. “Too bad. That would have been a good incentive. Hey, what about Sidney Morse? His parents were wealthy. Maybe they gave their money to Ritter. Then maybe Morse was involved in Ritter’s death.”

“No. She gave her money to Morse when she died. I remember hearing about it when Morse came onto the campaign, because she passed away during that time. And in any event, we know the Ritter and Bruno cases are somehow connected. Even if Sidney had something to do with Ritter’s death, he couldn’t have been involved with Bruno’s kidnapping. Not unless he knocked him out with a tennis ball.”

“Okay, that’s true. All right, let’s still assume Bob Scott was behind it. That’s the first part. Let’s just say he was paid off to help orchestrate the assassination. It costs him his career, but so be it. He goes off and lives in the wilds of Montana.”

“But what about Bruno? What connection could Scott have to the man?”

“Well, what if when he set up Ritter he did it because he and Ramsey were friends somehow, way back when? I know it seems crazy. Scott fought in Vietnam and Ramsey protested against it, but stranger things have happened. Maybe they met at some protest. You know, Scott was sick of the war and jumped to Ramsey’s way of thinking. So maybe if he helped set up the assassination of Ritter with Arnold Ramsey, he also knows Kate Ramsey. And then he’s also aware that Bruno ruined her father’s career with trumped-up charges, and he told Kate that. Now Kate grows up hating Bruno, and Scott comes back in the picture somehow, and they team up to kidnap him and make him pay for what he did. That would pretty much explain it all.”

“And the man who visited Arnold Ramsey, the one Kate overheard saying Thornton Jorst’s name—you’re saying that was Scott?”

“Well, if Kate is really involved, she could have just lied about that to throw us off the truth, like we talked about. So what do you think?”

“Those are pretty good deductions.”

“Well, I think we make a pretty good team.”

King drew a deep breath. “Now I guess we wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

CHAPTER

60

THE NEXT MORNING they left at the crack of dawn in three vehicles. Parks drove with King and Michelle, and two Suburbans carrying grim-looking, armor-wearing federal agents followed them.

King and Michelle had filled in Parks on the developments with Kate Ramsey and Michelle’s theory on how all the dots connected, however precariously.

Parks did not look convinced. “With the way things have been going in this case, I’m just waiting for another damn curveball.”

On the way down over coffee and Krispy Kremes, Parks went over the attack plan: “We’re going to send one of the trucks down to the house after we disguise it as a county survey vehicle. One of our guys goes up to the door with his clipboard while another pulls out the survey equipment. Some of our men will be inside the truck. The others will have surrounded the place and set up a perimeter. Our guy knocks on the door, and when someone opens it, everyone pops out loaded for bear and we go in hard and heavy. If nobody’s home, we go in clean and execute on our search warrant. With any luck no shots are fired, and we all go home happy and alive.”

King was riding in the backseat. He reached over and touched Parks on the shoulder. “You know Bob Scott is a weapons freak, but he’s also an expert in hand-to-hand. That’s how he escaped from the Viet Cong. Story goes he spent six months filing a metal buckle down to a razor’s edge and then cut the throats of his two captors with it. Not a guy you want to slip up with.”

“I hear you. We go in with surprise and overwhelming force. Textbook. That’s the best way I know how to do it.” Parks then said, “You really think we’ll find Bruno and maybe Joan there?”

“Maybe,” said King, “but I don’t know if they’ll be breathing.”