Triple Cross (Alex Cross #30)(90)

Liu looked at the pictures and then at Moore. “Lisa?”

“Shut up, Suzanne,” Moore said. “For once, shut up.”

I nodded to Sampson, telling him I was setting him up for the kill.

Then I turned back to Moore. “You went on the laptop in Tull’s office and called up Google Earth and the Allisons’ house and the Kanes’, then left the app running.”

Tull’s researcher said nothing.

Sampson opened a large manila envelope he’d brought in with him. “While my colleagues were placing you both under arrest, I was executing a search warrant on your Airbnb apartment. And look what we found on a shelf in one of the closets.”

He drew out an evidence bag containing a baggie holding several locks of sandy-brown hair.

“We haven’t tested them yet, but they are the right color,” I said. “And they sure look about the same length as the hairs we found at the Kane crime scene and later identified as Tull’s.”

Liu stared at the hair, then at Moore, then at Sampson. “Which bedroom?”

Mahoney pointed at Moore and said, “It gets worse.”

Sampson picked up his phone and showed the screen to them. “That’s a report from the crime lab on the forty-caliber Glock we found in the storage unit. Not only has it been confirmed as the murder weapon in every one of the Family Man killings, but partial fingerprints were discovered, one on the clip and one on a cartridge that was still in the clip.”

I said, “We ran them through IAFIS, the fingerprint database, and got a hit.”

“Thomas?” Liu said.

“Your girlfriend,” he told her.

Moore’s mouth went slack, and her eyes widened with disbelief. “No. That’s not true.”

“But it is,” Mahoney said.

She turned angry, shaking her head, and glared at me. “Look, I ginned the excitement up a little, hired Kenilworth to invade the Allisons’ place. If it was necessary, he was going to go into another house in Northwest DC, the Pan family. I learned from Thomas how to ratchet up the tension in a case.”

“Why did you drop the hair at the Kanes’?” Mahoney asked.

“I didn’t,” Moore said. “I honestly had never been near that house until after the family was murdered.”

I said, “How do you explain Tull’s hair in your room and your prints on the gun that killed more than eighteen people?”

“I …” She looked lost. “I can’t. I—”

A knock came at the door. An FBI agent leaned his head in and informed Mahoney that the two federal defenders were on their way up.

“We’ll leave you now,” I said, standing. “But it’s over for the both of you. You’ll spend the rest of your lives behind bars, and rightfully so.”

Liu’s destruction was complete. She stared at the table and sobbed.

We headed for the door.

Moore shouted, “Wait!”





CHAPTER 102




Manhattan


ON THE SCREEN, BREE watched the assistant district attorney and Detectives Thompson and Salazar return to the hospital room where Dusan Volkov and his boyish-looking lawyer Sergei Andreyev were waiting to hear the Russian mobster’s fate.

“They agree?” Volkov asked. “No life in prison?”

“We haven’t agreed yet,” ADA Ellis said.

Andreyev protested. “My client’s going to be straight with you about many things. You should take life in prison off the table.”

“He does minimum twenty-five or no deal whatsoever,” Ellis said. “And this information has to be solid as concrete.”

Andreyev started to counter, but Volkov waved him off. “I start,” he said. “When you think you hear enough, you take these things off the table, yes? And fifteen years minimum, because I know many, many things about many, many people.”

The ADA folded her arms, said, “I’m listening.”

The Russian said, “One day—I have the date somewhere, but I don’t remember now, maybe six months ago?—I get text on private cell phone and e-mail in private, secure e-mail. Same message saying Duchaine and Watkins are taking over high-end prostitution in Manhattan.”

“Who sent the message?” Ellis pressed.

“He calls himself Maestro and M.”

Bree’s heart started to pound. She sat forward, riveted, and started filming the screen with her phone to show Alex later.

“Who is he?”

“I told you,” Volkov replied. “Maestro and M. That’s it. He uses burn phone and messages through Tor. You know this Tor?”

Ellis sounded irritated when she said, “An anonymous messaging system.”

“Yes, but you are government, you can look at pictures I took of every message he sends me. FBI traces him.”

Arms crossed, Salazar asked, “How do you know this Maestro is behind the killings at Paula Watkins’s house?”

“Because he tries to hire me to do the killings at Watkins’s and I refuse. You will see from pictures.”

“Why did you refuse?”

“Too risky. I mean, eleven people at one time?”

“Who did M hire for that?”