The Sally Ride Chronicle (The Syndicate-Born Trilogy Book 4)

by K. M. Hodge

  Jason’s face sank. “Yes, yes... I’m glad you aren’t going to be hurt by him anymore.”

  She could tell by the look in his eyes that he was growing weary of this never-ending conversation with her. He didn’t understand why she stayed with Charles, and to be fair, she didn’t quite understand her reasons for staying, either. She was resolute this time that she would not be going back to Charles, shivering at the thought of all he had done to her and to others. No, she wouldn’t be running back to him this time, no matter what he said to try and get her back.

  As Jason rose from the sofa, Katherine grabbed his hand. “I’m sorry, Jason. You’re such a good friend to me. I know you just want what’s best for me.”

  Jason wordlessly nodded and, after a few seconds, broke her hold on his hand and walked away.

  She hated to keep secrets from him, but her fear of involving him in this mess kept her from telling him the truth. Trying to regain her sense of self, she rose from the sofa and called out to Jason, who was in the kitchen making coffee. “I’m going to go for a run. Wanna join me?”

  After a long pause, he at last responded to her. “No, I think I’ll sit this one out. I should probably go into the paper today and get some work done. Make yourself at home. I don’t know when I’ll get back. It might be late. Don’t wait up for me.”

  Katherine’s heart hurt at his response. She’d hoped that they might be able to spend the day together, as they’d often done in the past after she and Charles had fought. Wanting to give him his space, she ran down the stairs of his complex and out to her car to get her suitcase and her gym bag. A long run would help clear her mind.

  After her five-mile run she returned to Jason’s apartment. She would have to look for a new place to live, but couldn’t bring herself to deal with that particular consequence of her actions.

  Much to her dismay, Jason ended up spending most of Saturday and Sunday at the paper, leaving Katherine to sit alone in his apartment and think over the events of the last few weeks.

  She was so eager for Monday to start, she awoke at 4:00 a.m. to go for another five-mile run and then work the weight machines at the gym before going into work. The routine was brutal but it helped clear the fog from her mind.

  ***

  FBI Headquarters: Hoover Building

  Washington, D.C.

  March 3, 2008

  8:00 AM

  ~~~

  From his spot perched at the corner of her desk, he watched her walk in a daze through the busy bullpen. Her red and puffy eyes suggested she had been crying, and she carried a Kennedy Center travel mug. Maybe she liked the opera, he noted.

  When she saw him, her steel blue eyes turned icy.

  Uh-oh, he thought, clutching the files in his hand even tighter, bracing himself for the impact of the inevitable angry words.

  “Excuse me, Agent Bailey, but would you so kindly get your ass off of MY desk!”

  Alex flashed a lazy smile as he stood up. “You’re not a morning person, huh? That’s cool.”

  Katherine sank into her leather chair and took a sip of her coffee, gasping and touching her red lips with the back of her hand.

  He thought of making some off-handed comment about coffee being hot, but thought better of it. Something told him that she wasn’t one to take teasing well.

  “What do you want?”

  Alex held up the case file with a smirk. “I’m here to work, Agent Mitchel.”

  She sighed and slid further down into her chair with a scowl on her face. “Right,” she said under her breath.

  Alex handed her the case file. “A little girl’s body was found in the woods behind her house. She was reported kidnapped seventy-two hours prior. There’s been a string of murders of little girls all along the eastern seaboard in the past three months. ASAC Richards handpicked us for the taskforce. Of course my first case in the Violent Crimes Unit is going to be a child murder,” he said, his mouth drawn in a tight, grim line.

  She flipped open the case file, and glanced up at him with a look that made him think she might want him to scram.

  “I’ll leave you to get acquainted with the particulars. ASAC Richards scheduled the first briefing for this morning. You’ve got thirty minutes before we’re needed in the ready room.”

  “Thank you, Agent Bailey,” she said in her professional tone.

  He could see the wall she was putting up between them, no doubt as a result of his kissing her the other night. He nodded back, adjusted his tie, smoothed out his suit, and walked back to his desk.

  The briefing took three long hours and left Alex in dire need of a cigarette. He had known that the transition to the Violent Crimes Unit would be hard, but he hadn’t prepared himself for working on child abduction and murder cases.

  Alex jogged down the back stairs and out the side door unnoticed. The bright afternoon sunshine almost blinded him. He leaned against the cold stone of the FBI building, took long drags of his cigarette, and watched visitors mill around the outside--taking pictures of themselves behind a cardboard cutout that looked like an FBI badge.

  As he exhaled a large ring of smoke, a familiar form came into view.

  Charles MacAvoy walked briskly out of the FBI building and headed in Alex’s general direction.

  He put out his cigarette and stepped out of the shadows and into Charles’s general line of sight.

  Charles’s jaw tightened. “Agent Bailey,” he said through his clenched teeth.

  Someone had been doing a little Googling, he thought. Grinning from ear to ear, he sauntered over with the intent to push some buttons. “Charles, you miserable twat of a human being.”

  The other man’s face contorted with pure rage. “Motherfucker!”

  His heart rate rose as Charles came at him, pushing him against the wall of the building and pinning him there with his forearm. Alex hadn’t anticipated him being this responsive.

  “I read up all about you, you miserable sack of shit,” Charles said. “I know your name. I know where you live. You do not want to fuck with me.”

  Alex snickered, “You’re right about that, but it’s not you I want to fuck. Your girl is pretty hot, and not a bad kisser.”

  Charles jammed his arm further into his throat, constricting his breathing. Instinct kicked in and Alex brought up his knee with a quick hard jab into the other man’s scrotum, and smashed his own foot down hard on Charles’ foot, releasing himself from the chokehold.

  Straightening his tie and jacket, Alex looked down at Charles with a look of disgust. “It was a pleasure. We should do this again some time.”

  Not wanting to wait around for him to recover and retaliate, Alex went back into the building and up to his desk to finish up his expenditure reports.

  CHAPTER 2

  ~~~

  O’Malley’s Bar

  Ocean City, Maryland

  March 8, 2008

  7:20 PM

  ~~~

  Katherine sat in her FBI-issued sedan outside their suspect’s last known address, and checked her watch for the third time in the last half hour—he was twenty minutes late for their shift, breaking FBI protocol for surveillance of a suspect. She studied the information they knew about their suspect and tried to memorize his face, but her back was stiff and she was tired from the long week. Couch surfing at Jason’s apartment had begun to take its toll, but she had been too busy with work even to think about looking for an apartment.

  A tapping on the passenger side window startled her out of her reverie. Alex. She reached across to open his door.

  He smiled and slid into the seat. “I know I’m late. Sorry.” His cheeks and nose were red and his teeth chattered together.

  His charming smile disarmed her, something that after a week of working long hours together was becoming a habit between them. The boundaries that she clung to had become tiring, and she’d let them slip against his relentless charm.

  “I’m hoping you will forgive me when you see what I brought.” He held up
a white, greasy takeout bag like a prize. “Mr. Sandwich, your favorite. Meatball sub for me. Veggie De-lite for you.” He reached into the bag and handed her the smallest of the two sandwiches. “Oh, and coffee, of course. It’s cold as shit out tonight.” He held up a large thermos with two nested cups on top.

  Katherine raised her eyebrow in a mock-irritated way. She couldn’t let on that his charm had actually managed to work on her. “Tell me something I don’t know. I’ve been freezing my ass off.” She smiled despite herself. She enjoyed his company and, in spite of her best efforts to keep him at a safe distance, had grown fond of him.

  His emerald-colored eyes twinkled from the light cast off by the street lamps. When her eyes met his for a brief moment, the side of his lip curled up into a small smile.

  Her heart skipped a beat. “Don’t worry, you haven’t missed anything. It’s been rather uneventful. Unless you count watching a bunch of frat boys piss in the alley an event,” she mumbled through a mouth full of food.

  Alex snickered. “I’m sorry I missed that.”

  Katherine settled into her seat as she watched people coming in and out of the bar across the street. The subtle sounds of Alex beside her, chewing, shifting in his seat and crumpling his wrappers, comforted her.

  ***

  A companionable silence set in. Alex had wolfed down his sub in record time, astonishing even himself. Then he remembered that he hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, and that had only been a bagel with the nasty fat free cream cheese that the office clerical staff kept picking up.

  He reached between his legs and pulled up the thermos. With great care, he poured steaming hot coffee into one of the cups and handed it to Katherine. Their fingers brushed each other in the exchange, causing a blush to blossom across her freckled nose and cheeks. Alex looked away, smiling. He didn’t need the coffee anymore; a warm alertness settled into his bones.

  He pushed his seat into a reclining position and burrowed into the worn leather interior in preparation for a long night of sitting, waiting, and watching for their suspect to show up. They had spent the last several days working up a profile, phone canvassing and interviewing witnesses, which led them to suspect a thirty-year-old white male, who lived above O’Malley’s Bar in Ocean City, Maryland. They were assigned the first twelve-hour shift.

  Alex soon found himself fighting sleep even though it was only 8:00 p.m. In an effort to stay awake, he decided to probe Katherine and find out about her ex’s unexpected visit on Monday.

  Trying to sound casual, he cleared his throat. “Hey, I forgot to tell you I ran into your ex the other day, outside, during my smoke break. You two are getting back together?”

  Katherine set down her empty thermos cup on the dash in front of her. “He brought me my service weapon. I had forgotten it at the apartment when I left on Friday.” She turned and looked at him with a joking grin. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”

  He lifted his hands in defense. “Just making conversation, Agent Mitchel.”

  Just as he said this, the suspect sauntered out of the bar across the street and headed in the direction of the abandoned field next door.

  Katherine jumped out of the car first and ran towards the suspect with her gun drawn. “FBI, stop!” She then followed at a fast clip as the suspect bolted in the direction of the alley.

  As per primary tactical procedures, Alex sprinted around the back of the bar and came out through the alley in an effort to corner the suspect.

  While in pursuit, the suspect reached into the band of his pants, pulled out a small pistol, spun on his toes and pointed his weapon at Katherine. She raised her gun, trained to shoot him if necessary. The suspect shifted back and forth on the sides of his feet with his weapon pointed at Katherine, creating a standoff.

  “FBI. Drop your weapon! Now! Drop it!”

  The suspect’s weapon hand shook.

  Shit. Alex tried to close in on the suspect and do a quick visual sweep of the perimeter, and he caught sight of some movement in the direction of the dumpsters. His mind raced as he glanced up, still keeping his gun trained on the suspect. His heart thundered in his chest as a surge of adrenaline flooded his body.

  There. A beam of reflected light from the street lamp gleamed against the metal barrel. A gun! A car’s headlights illuminated the scene for Alex. A sharpshooter was poised on the landing of the fire escape above them, aiming at Katherine! With only a second to respond, he lifted his 9mm SIG-Sauer P226 pistol and called out to the sharpshooter.

  “FBI. Drop your weapon. I will shoot.”

  The sharpshooter glanced down at Alex before returning his attention back to his sights—his target, Katherine.

  Alex fired off his weapon and expertly took down the sharpshooter, who never got a chance to fire.

  The loud echoing sound of his service weapon jolted the already skittish suspect, who wildly fired his weapon, missing Katherine by a wide margin.

  Katherine pulled the trigger on her Glock 23, but the gun jammed. Alex aimed and fired his gun, taking down the suspect, who crumpled to the ground between him and Katherine in a flurry of curse words.

  Katherine holstered her useless weapon and moved the suspect’s gun out of reach with the handkerchief from her pocket.

  His handkerchief, he realized. Alex reached down to pull up his right pant leg and handed Katherine his Kahr CM9 from out of his ankle holster. “Here, take this.”

  While Katherine held the suspect in place, he walked over to the fire escape, pulled down the ladder and climbed up to where the downed sharpshooter lay sprawled on the landing. He sank down on his haunches and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Pursing his lips, he looked down at Katherine, who was reading the suspect his rights.

  The man kept ranting about pressing charges while she called first for an ambulance, and then to her ASAC.

  Alex patted down the sharpshooter, looking for any kind of identification, and then climbed down the ladder as Katherine was hanging up her phone.

  “He didn’t have any identification,” he said.

  She wet her lips with a smooth sweep of her tongue. “My gun jammed.”

  He frowned and rested his hands on hips. “I noticed. Have you had trouble with it before?”

  She shook her head, taking on a defensive posture. “No. I always clean it and keep it oiled.”

  Alex worked his bottom lip as an idea started to germinate.

  Katherine nodded to the man on the landing. “Do you think he was an accomplice? None of the profiling or research indicated that he was working with anyone else.”

  He looked down and nodded at the suspect, who had lost consciousness. “If he’s an accomplice, which I don’t think he is, hopefully he’ll talk.”

  Katherine sighed, but before she could say anything he touched the sleeve of her coat.

  “The sniper was aiming at you. He has no identification. I’m not a weapons expert but I think his weapon is a military grade sniper rifle.” He worried his bottom lip again, reluctant to continue his train of thought. “I... I don’t think he has anything to do with this case. I....” He couldn’t bring himself to say what he was really thinking. She wasn’t ready to hear it—he could tell.

  The sound of the ambulance pulling up got him off the hook. He turned away from Katherine and strode with purpose towards the EMTs, leaving her alone to consider the possibilities.

  Twenty minutes later, the Evidence Collection Team was busy at work roping off the scene, collecting, cataloging, and referencing the evidence, including Katherine’s service pistol. A tactical officer on scene was able to confirm Alex’s suspicions that the sharpshooter’s weapon was a Blaser R93 LRS2, a military grade weapon. Forensics took the sharpshooter’s prints to enter into the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or IAFIS.

  The lead forensic investigator caught up with Alex on his way out of the roped-off crime scene. “We’ll let you know if we get any hits.”

  “Thanks, man,” Alex said
with a sigh. He wasn’t expecting any hits. Some people didn’t exist, and he had a feeling that shooter was one of those faceless, nameless people.

  The agent nodded as if he too wasn’t holding his breath. “You were both damn lucky that neither of you got hurt.”

  Alex huffed. “Yeah, lucky.”

  ***

  FBI Headquarters: Hoover Building

  Washington, D.C.

  March 9, 2008

  12:30 AM

  ~~~

  Several hours and lots of paperwork later, Katherine packed up her stuff to go home.

  Alex grabbed his things and walked out with her. He even held open the door for her as they stepped out into the brisk March air.

  She started for the curb, but Alex reached for her arm and stopped her. “Hey, it’s been a rough day, and I don’t know about you, but I’m way too wired. Want to go out and grab a bite to eat? The RFD on 7th is open for another hour.”

  Katherine sighed. “No thanks, Alex. Maybe next time. Goodnight.” She lifted her arm and waved down a passing cab, and got in.

  “Where to?” the cabby asked.

  It was late and not a lot of places were going to be open. She thought for a second before replying. “Fado, 7th and H.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Jason’s number.

  “Knettle speaking.”

  “You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice.”

  The cab driver looked through the rearview mirror and caught her eye.

  After everything that had gone down that night she couldn’t help but be suspicious of everyone—even the nosey cabby.

  “That bad of a day, huh?”

  Katherine lowered her voice. “Yeah, you could say that. I.... There’s something I need to talk to you about, but not over the phone. Can you meet me somewhere?”

  “I thought you were on surveillance all night?”

  “That’s part of what I need to talk to you about. Can you meet me?” She could hear the desperation in her voice, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Of course, where?”

  “Fado?” She knew the moment the words left her mouth that Jason would be concerned about meeting her in a bar, but she needed to meet with him in a public place and, at the late hour, bars were her only choice.