by Dani Pettrey
Dirk swallowed, tapping the steering wheel. “About the same amount of time.”
Finley leaned forward from the back seat and placed her hand on Griffin’s shoulder as rage flared inside of him. He had shaken the hand of the man who’d tortured and killed his baby sister. It took all his restraint not to leap from the car and jump on a plane back to Houston, but that was not how they’d nail the scum. “Do you know anything about his life or his family back in Maryland?”
“Nah. He didn’t talk about it much.”
“I’ll call my partner, Jason, ask him to do some digging,” Griffin said as they pulled up to an old, rickety barn. “How’d you track the killer here?”
“It was a combination of factors, actually.” Dirk stepped from the car and shut the door.
Birds scattered from the sycamore trees overhead.
“First, Julie had splinters embedded in her skin. Since she was only in the water a few hours, we were able to remove and analyze them.”
“Only a few hours?” That was a far shorter timeline than with the other victims. Perhaps he was too early in his killing spree to really understand the currents and how they affected a dead body.
“The splinters came from aged wood over a hundred years old. There’s only so many buildings that old in the area. Two homes and this barn,” he said as they walked toward the entrance. “I figured an old barn near the game land made a lot more sense than one of the homes in town.”
“Game land?” Finley asked.
“It’s about seventy-five thousand acres of land used for hunting half the year, hiking the other half.”
“So if she was killed during hunting season, the sound of a gunshot wouldn’t be out of place?”
Dirk tapped his nose. “You got it.”
They stepped inside the barn, an oppressive sense of darkness swooping over them.
Finley shuddered as if she’d just gotten a chill.
“You okay?” He rested his hand on the small of her back.
She nodded, but he could tell she was feeling the same thing he was. Something awful had occurred here.
“Did you find any evidence of Julie’s murder?” he asked.
“The killer attempted to clean up, but from what you’ve told me, he was early in his craft.” Dirk looked at Finley. “Forgive the base word, but that’s how I’m sure he views it.”
Finley crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her arms with her hands. “I’m sure he does.”
It was disgusting.
“Wilmington sent a CSI crew up here, and they went through the barn and the site where Julie was found. Like I said, the killer tried to clean the place, but the team still found evidence of blood—a fair amount of it. They were able to match the splinters in her skin to the floorboards, and we found a busted-up chair they determined she’d been tied or cuffed to, based on the markings on her wrists and the indentations in the chair’s arms.”
Griffin clutched Finley’s hand, knowing this would shake her, as it was shaking him. He couldn’t help but wonder if the same thing had happened to Jenna.
After gathering all the information they could from Detective Cullen, Griffin and Finley thanked him and made the drive back to Wilmington. Any evidence to this point was circumstantial, so they decided not to do anything that might tip off Joel Hood to their suspicions. They’d be catching an eight thirty flight back to Maryland—apparently Joel Hood’s home at one point, as well.
Luke glanced at his watch. His colleague would be arriving any moment. Colleague perhaps wasn’t the right word, since they were agents for different countries, but he viewed David as a colleague just the same. They had partnered together many times for common purposes, and worked together in conjunction with Interpol—both part of the race to catch Ebeid before he wreaked more destruction.
“Luke,” David said, entering the office as if on cue.
“David.” Luke moved to shake his hand. “Thank you for coming.”
“To stop our common enemy? Anytime.”
“Come on in and meet everyone.” Luke ushered him inside. “This is Kate.” The bell over the door rang, signaling Declan and Tanner’s arrival.
He turned to greet them. “Hey, guys. Allow me to introduce you to—”
Tanner’s eyes grew remarkably wide. “Dad?”
“Tania?” David said, his eyes equally wide. Eyes the same color as Tanner’s.
“This is your dad?” Declan asked Tanner.
She nodded, clearly confused by his appearance. “What are you doing here?”
“Luke called in a favor.”
Tanner’s eyes narrowed on him. “Luke?”
“David and I work in conjunction from time to time,” Luke explained, just as befuddled as she was.
“The CIA and Mossad?” she asked.
“We share a common enemy, Tania,” David said.
“Tania?” Declan arched a brow.
“It’s her given name, before she Americanized it,” her dad snapped.
“I prefer Tanner.”
“She prefers anything that is opposite of her heritage.”
“Really, Dad? This isn’t the time or place.”
“No. You are right. We have far more important matters to attend to.”
“Any luck with the shredded paper the team pulled out of the trash?” Luke asked, trying to defuse a clearly awkward family reunion as Parker entered the main room.
“Yes,” Parker said, handing Luke a piece of paper. “I was able to re-create one section of what the shards they pulled from the trash once made up. I’m still working on the remaining sections, but at least it’s a start.”
Luke studied the paper, his gaze narrowing. “Is this a wind chart?”
David inhaled sharply.
Luke arched a brow. “What?”
“You mentioned you found the warehouse where Bedan was working?”
“Yes.”
“And you said you found aerosol cans?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see one?”
“Sure. I’ll grab one from the lab,” Parker said, heading down the hall.
“What are you thinking?” Luke and David shared an ominous look. Luke knew it was most likely the exact thought he’d had when he first saw the cans.
Ebeid intended to spread the anthrax spores via aerosol dispersal.
26
Tanner’s father leaned toward her as they waited for Parker to return.
“I don’t understand,” David said in a low whisper. “What are you doing here with Luke? You work for the Global Justice Mission.”
How did he . . . ? “Have you been checking up on me?” Had he actually shown an interest in her life since she left Israel?
“Your aunt . . .” He shrugged. “She talks to your mother.”
Uh-huh. His body language was clear. He had been checking up on her, which was flat-out shocking, considering they hadn’t spoken since she’d left Israel more than a decade ago.
“I’m with the Bureau now,” she said, “and this”—she indicated the group—“is the team heading up the task force set up to stop Ebeid and his impending attack.”
Her dad’s dark, inquisitive eyes narrowed. “You leave your homeland only to fight the same war for another country?”
She cleared her throat. He was so stubborn . . . overbearing. It was flooding back—his heavy-handedness, his controlling manner. “Dad, this isn’t the time or place.”
“It never is,” he said, disappointment welling in his eyes.
“I’m Special Agent Declan Grey,” Declan said, clearly attempting to break the tension in the room. “It’s a pleasure to meet Tanner’s father.”
“I’m sorry for not introducing you,” Tanner said, looking softly at Declan and then to her father. “Dad, this is my boyfriend, Declan.”
Her dad’s brows shot high. “Boyfriend? A federal agent?”
“Yes.”
He shook Declan’s hand while scrutinizing him. “I look forward to getting to
know you better.” Which meant raking him over the coals, but she wasn’t worried in the least. Declan could more than hold his own.
“As do I,” Declan said.
“Thank you again for coming, David,” Luke said, clearly trying to steer the conversation back to the case.
David nodded. “Anything to stop our common enemy.”
“I’m sure you have already figured it out,” Luke said to the group, clearly unsure of who knew what, “but David is Mossad. We’ve worked together frequently in pursuit of Ebeid.”
David nodded. “We are both trying to combat the growth and spread of sleeper cells being staffed with young men out of Southeast Asia.”
Tanner and her family had spent a short part of her youth living in Southeast Asia. All the threads of her life seemed to be coming together in this very moment in time. As if God had been preparing her.
Her dad shifted his hands to his pockets, jingling the change in his right one, just like he had when she was a little girl—though she doubted he’d pull the magic trick of the disappearing coin at her age, or given their surroundings. They no longer had that kind of relationship. They’d had no semblance of a relationship period since she’d accepted Christ as her Savior.
Awkward silence filled the room, only the occasional jingle of his coins breaking it.
She still couldn’t believe Luke and her dad had worked together, though it made sense given Luke’s focus on Muslim extremists in Southeast Asia as well as her dad’s—at least during their time there. It’d been through that period of her youth that she’d felt the call to go back as an adult and serve. People there—woman and children, especially—needed help. It was why she’d requested to be assigned to Cambodia when she went to work for Global Justice Mission.
She wondered how long Luke and her dad had known each other, where all they’d worked together. There was a mentor-mentee, father-son vibe going on. Her dad clearly liked and respected Luke, and Luke clearly looked up to her dad. It was surreal.
“When was the last time you saw Bedan?” Luke asked.
“In Paris after he fled the Munich attack.” Her dad’s presence was as commanding as ever. He was still strong and refined, but he had wrinkles creeping in at the corners of his dark brown eyes, and whispers of gray edged his temples.
“Is that where you’ve been working?” she asked, unable to curb her curiosity. “In Paris?” He’d never been allowed to say where he was going when he traveled, other than when they were living on-location, of course. But she had occasionally guessed—or at least attempted to guess—where he’d been from the small gifts he brought her when he returned home. But now she was part of the task force, so maybe he’d actually share his full knowledge with her. She caught herself holding her breath as she awaited his answer.
“Tania, you know I cannot say.”
“But you just told Luke you were in Paris. . . .”
“I did so to comment on Bedan’s location. Not mine.”
Same old silence.
“Of course,” she quietly said, just as she’d always done.
But this time it felt even more wrong. She was part of the circle, not to be relegated out of the room as she’d been when she was young and visitors came to see her dad. Not that they came often. They didn’t have friends over for dinner. Didn’t do things her other friends did. Hers wasn’t a typical family growing up, but as she got older and gained a better understanding of her dad’s high position in the Mossad, she understood why.
No wonder her dad had always been so cautious of his speech around her.
She still remembered the terror in his eyes when he’d discovered her hiding in his office while he was on, what she could only assume looking back, a Mossad business call. She hadn’t meant to be in there. She’d been playing hide-and-seek with her gray lop-eared stuffed bunny, pretending they were secret agents like her papa. She froze when she heard him enter the room, too frightened to move. She’d be in severe trouble for being in his office, period. It was off-limits, but she and Mr. Rabbit weren’t civilians—not on that wonderful, carefree afternoon while her momma ran to the market and her nana was asleep in the living room recliner. She and Mr. Rabbit were secret agents, just like her papa.
At age seven, she’d been too young to understand anything that was discussed on that call other than a few words, which stuck in her mind—surveillance, payment, and dead.
It was then she’d discovered just how different her papa’s job in the Mossad was from that of her friends’ fathers and just how good he was at sensing another’s presence in the room.
She remembered the soft sound of his footsteps, his shadow looming over the slit in the cabinet she and Mr. Rabbit were hiding in. The door swung open and she gaped up at the barrel of a gun. It wouldn’t be the last time she’d had a gun pointed at her, not in her line of work, but it was a memorable first seared in her mind. Mr. Rabbit tumbled to her feet as she shook in fear.
Papa had been livid, chastising her for being where she didn’t belong, and after that day, right up until she’d joined the Global Justice Mission, she’d never felt like she belonged.
Parker returned with the aerosol can and handed the black canister to David.
He studied it with a creased brow.
Declan rubbed Tanner’s shoulders from behind. “You okay, love?” he whispered as everyone else’s attention shifted to David’s scrutiny of the device.
Tanner swallowed. “Just in shock.”
“Luke had no idea. . . .” Declan began.
“Oh, I know. It’s just . . . he’s the last person I expected to see when I walked through that door.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“When I left Israel over ten years ago.”
David exhaled, slowly setting the canister on the tabletop. “It appears Bedan has succeeded in his design. Perhaps a finishing touch here or there, but he’s got it.”
Luke was the next to exhale deeply. “So Ebeid’s going to be able to spread anthrax effectively via aerosol.”
Her dad swiped a hand over his thinning crown of hair. “I’m afraid so.”
“Which explains the wind charts,” Luke said. “Bedan needs wind to carry the spores. With the right prevailing winds, the spores could carry, undetected. . . .” Luke cut off the thought. “We need to find the new location of that warehouse before Bedan puts those finishing touches on his weapon of mass destruction.”
27
I can’t believe you worked with Tanner’s dad,” Kate said as Luke drove them to yet another hotel for the night.
Luke tapped the wheel. “Crazy, right? I had no idea.”
“David seemed . . .”
“Solemn? Reserved?”
Kate shifted in her seat. “Yeah.”
“He’s so high up in the Mossad, I don’t even know the level of his position.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” He blinked in the glare of the oncoming headlights. The large SUV passed on his left, and he caught a glimpse of long blond hair in the reflection of his headlights.
He stiffened.
“What’s wrong?” Kate asked as a thwack sounded, and their car swerved.
“It’s Lauren.”
Another thwack. Another tire blown out.
He hit the brakes, but the pedal just pumped without catching. What on earth?
Kate’s eyes were wide in the dim shadow of the streetlights.
Lauren U-turned and sped up, moving directly for them as the steering went out next.
He clutched the wheel, glancing at the silver guardrail lining the narrow bridge, and then down to the dark, flowing water below, the moon illuminating its cascading rush.
Lauren had timed it perfectly.
He released the gas pedal, but the car continued its forward momentum, powering headlong against the bridge’s guardrail.
Lauren slammed them from behind in her large, dark SUV.
Luke pumped the brakes again out of instinct, b
ut Lauren had somehow rendered his controls useless.
“Luke?” Kate said, bracing herself for another impact.
This time Lauren rammed harder, shoving their car over the metal bridge railing.
“Hold on!” he shouted, struggling to power down their windows to prevent the force of the water from sealing them in, but all power in the vehicle was gone.
Nose-diving, they careened headfirst into the roaring river with bone-jarring impact.
“Luke!” Kate clutched his hand.
The murky water quickly swallowed the vehicle, entombing them. Bullets riddled down through the dark surface.
“Take a gulp of air.” Lauren couldn’t fire forever. It was late, but someone would surely have heard the car breaking through the metal barrier and hitting the water.
“What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to have to swim for it.” Pulling his weapon, he shot his window. The bullet’s exit created a web of cracks, before the cold water surged in. Kicking out the glass shards to create safe passage, he took Kate’s hand and swam out with her right behind him.
Sticking close to the side of the vehicle, he waited until Lauren needed to reload, and then they swam for it, bullets soon swirling through the dark water as red lights flashed overhead.
The firing ceased, and he breached the surface just in time to see Lauren peel away. One of the police vehicles quickly took off after her, but Lauren was too good to get caught. She’d outmaneuver the officer, just like she’d outmaneuvered them.
She hadn’t followed them from CCI. He’d seen no tail. And she’d come from the opposite direction. So how did she know the path they’d be taking or the hotel they were headed to? Had she slipped a tracking device onto his rental car? He’d check, but with his car at the bottom of the river, they’d likely never know, and he couldn’t take time to fixate on that. He needed to take Kate someplace safe and warm, but where?
“I’ve got it,” Kate said after they’d been released by emergency personnel and Declan had reluctantly dropped them off at Kate’s car. He’d argued for them to stay at his place, but neither of them wanted to risk bringing Lauren to his door.