“Try Sally Kennedy and see if she knows anything.” Wire swerved out to the far left lane around a grouping of traffic and then veered hard back right, over to the right lane and roared up the Cretin-Vandalia exit.
* * *
“Montgomery is at the front door,” Kristoff said into his mic. “He’s going inside.”
* * *
Mac pulled out of the parking lot for the Bella Eatery and turned left onto Hennepin Avenue and headed back over the Mississippi River and into downtown Minneapolis, holding Sally’s left hand. Her cell phone started ringing. She let go of Mac’s hand and reached for her purse on the floor and pulled out her phone.
“That’s odd,” Sally mused.
“What?”
“The Judge is calling. Probably wants to make sure we’re on for tomorrow.” Sally answered her phone, “Whoa, whoa, easy, Judge, say that again?” Sally looked over to Mac with a worried look.
Mac’s grip tightened on the wheel when he saw the look on Sally’s face. She was a cool customer, always, but she was clearly concerned. “Judge, I’m going to put you on speaker. I’m with Mac. Go ahead.”
“Mac, I need your help.”
* * *
McCormick and Shelby showed Montgomery into the dining room. “Can I offer you anything to drink or eat?” Sebastian asked.
“No, I’m good,” Montgomery answered although he looked anything but good. The political blogger had a three-day-old beard, appeared haggard and looked like someone who needed to eat and then get some sleep.
“I’m very sorry about Jason,” McCormick offered solemnly. “I haven’t seen him for a long time but he was a good guy.”
“Thanks for saying that.” Montgomery sighed. “I’ve been having a hard time processing all this. I can’t believe what has happened to us.”
“Do you know why Jason came up here?”
“Yes. He came here to meet with you.”
“Why?”
Montgomery took his backpack off his shoulder. “Everything I need to show you is in here.”
* * *
“McRyan is on his way,” the Judge reported.
“What’s his ETA?”
“Ten maybe fifteen minutes. He was over having dinner just north of downtown Minneapolis.”
“He may not be there in time.” Wire punched the accelerator and burst through a yellow turning to red light at the intersection of Cretin and Summit. As she approached the intersection with St. Clair, she took a hard left.
“Dara, he lives on Berkeley.”
“My gut says to go in the back.” Between Stroudt’s murder and what she saw in DC earlier in the day, she knew that there were people looking for Montgomery, dangerous people and she was on her own. Walking up to the front door didn’t seem like a good play.
Wire pulled over to the curb on St. Clair just short of Finn. Parked, she immediately reached in the backseat into her nylon backpack and pulled out her Sig and two magazines. She slid one magazine into the Sig and put the other in her coat pocket. Next, she pulled the slide and chambered a round and then pulled up the back of her black leather coat and slipped the gun into the back of her blue jeans. Wire opened her door and looked back to the Judge. “Stay here,” she ordered. “I mean it.”
* * *
Montgomery sat at the dining room table and waited for his laptop to start up. McCormick sat to his left at the table while Kate kept standing, looking over his shoulder at the computer. “So you’re not going to believe who we saw at this cabin in Kentucky,” Montgomery said excitedly.
“Let me guess. Heath Connolly and a few others,” McCormick replied.
Montgomery sat back from the laptop, his jaw dropping open, looking at Sebastian. “How did you know?”
“We had someone down there as well. She followed Connolly from DC. Our question is who were you following?”
A man wearing a black mask burst into the dining room from the kitchen, a pistol with a suppressor in his hands. He shot Montgomery between the eyes.
* * *
Wire was across the alley and twenty feet from the back door, carefully making her way up the back sidewalk when she heard the deadened, but unmistakable suppressed sound of a gunshot.
A woman screamed.
* * *
“Kate, go, go!” McCormick yelled as he pushed up from his chair and jumped at the shooter, who put two into Sebastian’s chest. McCormick fell forward into the shooter.
“No! No!” Kate screamed as she ran for the front door.
Foche pushed McCormick off of him, stepped forward and pivoted right to face Shelby who was reaching for the knob to the front door. He raised