No Good Deed Read Online Free PDF Page A

the process.
    None of those children would ever be the same. A burning anger filled Lucy. Nicole Rollins had stolen their innocence. She’d set this entire thing up with full knowledge that the kids would be traumatized and possibly killed. Her sole motivation was to escape. Five dead cops and dozens injured.
    How could Nicole have ever become a DEA agent? How could she work for more than a decade in a profession she detested? How could she see what violence did to the victims and then perpetuate it herself? When Lucy first met her, while they worked together on Operation Heatwave, she’d thought Nicole was smart, methodical, and a bit cold. A lot of cops—especially those who had high-stress jobs—could be icy. Lucy was herself aloof, especially when processing a crime scene. She saw the scene through the eyes of the killer as well as the victim in order to not only understand the victimology, but to capture the killer.
    She could understand Nicole if she wanted to get into her head, but Lucy hesitated. Going so deep into the criminal psyche was unfortunately easy for her, but it took its toll. Still, such analysis was one thing she was particularly good at, and understanding Nicole’s plan and why might be the best way for Lucy to help find her.
    But what really bothered her, over and above what had happened here today, was how Nicole could spend so many years in law enforcement and yet no one knew her true self. She was able to fool many people for many years. How was she recruited in the first place? What was her background? When did she turn? Was there one incident that had her changing allegiances from the agency that trusted her to a violent criminal organization? Or was it a gradual process?
    Lucy walked over to where the fire department had cordoned off the smoldering bus. She overheard the chief report that they had found one body, an adult female. No children had died today.
    The death toll could have been so much higher. Lucy would never forget or forgive Nicole. She’d killed an innocent person and five law enforcement officers who were simply doing their job.
    She flashed her badge and walked under the crime scene tape to get a closer look at the transport van. The bulletproof glass had been shattered by repetitive, high-velocity firepower. The three dead guards had been removed; they lay on the ground under yellow tarps. The bodies of the two DEA agents from the SUV were down the street under similar tarps. They’d be removed as soon as the coroner arrived. The FBI Evidence Response Team and SAPD were processing the scene; cards with numbers littered the street and vehicles—the highest number she saw was seventy-nine, but there seemed to be over a hundred placards.
    Lucy stood next to the driver’s door and surveyed the immediate area. The bus had blocked the intersection, separating the lead SUV from the van. This intersection was ideal to set up the trap. They were driving on a narrow two-lane street heading into a four-way intersection. There was no easy way for the large van to turn around. The attack had occurred at approximately eight fifty a.m., a busy commute time.
    The two US Marshals had been incapacitated but not killed. Why incapacitate the Marshals but kill the two DEA agents?
    Had the transport driver been suspicious? If so, he would have contacted the support teams—but they’d already been taken out.
    Lucy saw the scene vividly. The bus stops in the intersection. Gunmen exit, shoot out the window, kill the guards. Fast. Everything happened fast, perfectly timed. No one alerted SAPD or the respective federal agencies prior to the shooting. Blocked communications. No sense of danger until it was too late.
    Kill the two guards in the cab. Open the van. Nicole knew what the plan was because she told Isaac he had ten seconds to comply or children would start to die. He complied. Nicole walked free, but to avoid being followed she told Isaac he had five minutes, twenty seconds to get the