A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(116)
“That’s the assumption, but we have no verification of that. After half a minute, he hung up. Didn’t answer for twenty-five minutes. Then he answered the phone again, calmer, still demanding to get everyone back. He also wanted us to clear the street completely. I tried to engage him, and he hung up again.”
“Okay. You were the primary negotiator the entire time?”
“Yeah. And Summers acted as secondary negotiator and intelligence officer.”
Not ideal—Abby wished Will had asked for a third team member. If Tammi acted as secondary negotiator, she couldn’t focus entirely on intel. “Okay. I’m secondary negotiator now. Summers, what do you have on McCormick so far?”
Summers cleared her throat. “Tom McCormick started writing articles for the New Yorker Chronicle in July 2017. At first his articles were mostly political, but after a few months he began focusing on influencers. He covered several up-and-coming local influencers, including Gabrielle Fletcher. He has a social media page for his work but no personal page. Same for Twitter and Instagram. He owns a white Nissan Sentra, which we already located. It’s parked nearby, so it looks like he drove here. As far as we can tell, he has no legal firearms. No medical records. No police records. I didn’t find anything before July 2017 so far.”
Abby massaged the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I’ll give you some leads to start with. Tom McCormick is a fake name. His real name is Luther Gaines, and he was a member in the Tillman cult. At some point in the past three years, he left the cult; I’m not sure if it was before or after he started writing for the Chronicle. I want you to talk to his editor. Tom probably gave them references. See if you can find those.” She paused as she recalled the photograph on Luther’s night table. “Also, I want you to check Gabrielle Fletcher’s Instagram account. Will had it indexed, so hopefully you can find things easily. I want you to look for any sentence that has the phrase undying gratitude.”
Summers scribbled furiously in her notebook. “Okay.”
Abby turned to the board. “Divide the board into topics; this is a mess. Here’s what I want from left to right. Info about Tom. Info about Luther. Anything we find on Eden and Gabrielle—I want their medical records here.” Her finger moved, pointing at various parts of the board as she kept numbering topics. “Demands. Deadlines. I want a list of all the good stuff we did for him, okay? If we delivered him an espresso, I want to see it on the board. We need a diagram of the house—don’t draw it yourself; get some blueprints. Leave the right side for a surrender plan. And every single important phone number we can get. For starters, I want Tom, Eden, Gabrielle, Tom’s editor, and the number of the doctor currently taking care of Nathan Fletcher at St. Peter’s Hospital in Albany. You got all that?”
“On it.”
Abby checked the time. Nearly three thirty. “I’ll go brief Griffin. Will, show Summers the indexed data of Gabrielle’s feed. When I return, we’ll call him again.”
CHAPTER 80
It was like Gabrielle wasn’t even hearing him.
She was supposed to understand by now. He’d always assumed she was a brilliant girl. But when he outlined how he’d only tried to help her, explaining about all the effort and time he’d invested, doing what she’d asked him to do, she just stared at him, her eyes vacant. He slapped her. She tumbled off the chair, gasping, her mother screaming at him to stop.
“Are you even listening?” he roared, then whirled toward Eden and pointed at her face. “Shut up, or I’ll cut your throat.”
“Sorry, I’m listening,” Gabrielle sobbed on the floor.
The guilt had already begun sinking in. He shouldn’t have hit her. She was confused. And the damn phone rang again. They called all the time—like they had something important to say. He rubbed his eyes with his fists, trying to concentrate. If he only said the right words, Gabrielle would understand. She would see all he had done for her.
He would have her undying gratitude.
Her love.
That was all he’d ever asked for, wasn’t it?
He knelt by her side. “You asked me to do it. I would never have done it all if you didn’t ask . . . if you didn’t practically beg for it.”
She blinked at him. “I don’t understand. Tom . . . when did I—”
“Don’t act like you don’t remember!”
She flinched, and he realized his hand was already raised. Ready to slap her again. It was that damn phone. It was driving him insane. It wouldn’t stop ringing.
He snatched it from the table, ready to lob it through the window. But no, he needed it for later. Instead he accepted the call.
“Tom?” that guy, Will, said from the other side.
“Listen, asshole!” he shouted. “Don’t call again unless it’s to tell me the street is clear. You got that?”
“But how can—”
“You’re not listening!” None of them listened. No one listened to him. No one. “I’ll hurt them, I swear I’ll hurt them. Don’t call again!” He hung up.
For a few seconds, there was blessed silence from the phone, just the sound of the women sobbing. He didn’t want to make Gabrielle cry.
If only she’d listen.