“No, oh please, no…” gasped Tucker. “What have I done?”
Lien-hua ran to help Vanessa. I rushed over to Grolin. He was still alive.
“Put your gun away,” I yelled to Tucker. “Now.”
Grolin couldn’t get the guns off his hands. He couldn’t drop them. And he couldn’t rip the tape off his mouth to tell us. I removed the tape from his face, and he spit out a bloody white pawn.
“Who did this to you, Joseph?” I asked. “Who?”
He swallowed hard, searching for breath. “I didn’t hurt her,” he managed to say. Tears burned in his eyes. He’d been crying for a while, probably knew the cops were coming and had been trying to get free.
“Who?” I said. “Who did this?”
The crimson light beat around us. Brum, brum. Brum, brum… He spit up a mouthful of blood.
“Get an ambulance, now!” I shouted at Tucker, who was standing in shock beside me. I leaned closer to Grolin. He was trying to say something.
But it was too late. He gasped one last time and slumped to the ground.
No!
I started chest compressions, but with two gunshot wounds to the chest like that, it wasn’t going to do much good. Brum, brum. Brum, brum… “We need that ambulance!”
Lien-hua radioed for help. Tucker was still in shock. “What have I done?” he was mumbling. “What have I done?”
“Why did you have to rush in here, Tucker?” I yelled. “Why couldn’t you wait?”
Sirens. The police were on their way.
Brum, brum. Brum, brum…
I tried to beat the life back into Grolin’s shredded heart. It was no use. Joseph Grolin was dead.
And he wasn’t the Illusionist.
Ten minutes later the ambulance was pulling away to take Vanessa Mueller to Mission Memorial Hospital. She might very well die at her place of work. The mood at the scene was grim.
“He rushed me,” said Lien-hua. She was stunned. We all were. “I kicked at his hand when it looked like he had a weapon. He wouldn’t drop it.”
“Each of us is going to have to file a full report on this,” I said. “Figure out exactly what happened here.”
“You saw him, right?” Tucker said to us. “He was waving the guns at me.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. In the end, Brent probably wouldn’t get into disciplinary trouble. After all, the guy was waving what appeared to be two guns at us and wouldn’t verbally respond or drop his weapons.
Of course, he couldn’t do either.
He was just another one of the Illusionist’s pawns.
I was beginning to think we all were.
“The killer lured us here through Vanessa,” I said. “No one shot at her, though, right?”
We all shook our heads.
“All right,” I said. “Then he was here, somewhere. We’ll have the CSIU guys scour the place and have ballistics check the bullet in her neck to see if it matches the bullet that was taken out of the neck of that guy at the parking garage.”
Then I turned to Tucker. “I hate this part, but I have to do it. As the senior agent here, I need you to hand me your weapon. It was used in a lethal shooting, and until a complete investigation can be-”
“I know.” He slapped his gun into my hand. “I know.” His face clouded over, and I couldn’t tell if it was shock or guilt that was sweeping over him. Maybe it was both. He turned and slouched away. I let him go. I felt bad for him, sick to my stomach about the whole thing. But I didn’t really know what else to say.
For the next two hours I answered questions and filled out paperwork for the responding officers until I was bleary-eyed. I was the last one from our team to leave the scene. After catching a ride to my hotel with one of the officers I collapsed on the bed. Tried to sleep.
Ended up doing pull-ups instead.
But my shoulder hurt so bad I had to do them with only one arm.
And with each pull-up I vowed I would catch the Illusionist.
My anger was laced with fresh fire, and nothing short of stopping him was going to put it out.