Page 89 of Dead Fall (The Quantico Files 2)

“Thanks, but I’m still mad at you for not getting out of there when I sent you that text.”

“Couldn’t leave you, man. No one in the car wanted to go.”

“If that bomb had gone off...”

“Then we’d all be singing hallelujah,” Monty said with a grin.

“I guess that’s true.”

Noah came back into the room with the wheelchair.

“I’m going to talk to Alex if she’s awake,” Logan said. “I’m concerned about Bayne. He failed to pull off his pièce de résistance, so now what?”

Monty was silent for a moment. “Yeah, that bothers me too, but if he has any sense, he won’t be hanging around.”

“With more than ten inches of snow, travel’s been really affected. What if he’s nearby? I’m not convinced he’s gone.”

“Terry just told me Bayne cashed out his dwindling bank accounts before coming here from Australia, leaving his wife just enough to get by until the life insurance came through. After he paid the settlement from Davis’s lawsuit, he was pretty much wiped out, but he probably has enough to keep him going for a while.”

Noah spoke up. “He despised Davis for years. Was jealous of his success. Then when Bayne was hit with the lawsuit, it triggered his hatred. His instability. He started putting his plan into place, although the authorities in Australia now think his wife might not have known about all the killings he planned, let alone the methods he employed. They don’t believe she’s as twisted as he is. She just wanted the insurance money. Anyway, he targeted other profilers in an attempt to make it look like Davis was killed because of his profession, not because of who he was. Kaely and Alex caught his attention because they made it into the media. He was jealous of what he considered their undeserved celebrity.”

“So,” Logan said, “Bayne hated Davis because of his success. That hatred simmered for years. Then when Davis took away his financial stability, his psychopathic personality burst forth. He couldn’t hide it anymore. He figured out a way to take revenge and to make himself rich. And no one would suspect him because he was dead.”

Noah frowned. “Now that he’s failed, what do you think he will do?”

Logan hesitated a moment before saying, “I don’t know. If he’s smart, he’s somewhere safe. Someplace he’ll never be found.” But even as the words left his mouth, something inside told him this wasn’t over yet.

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