I returned my concentration to Anya. “Who are you meeting tonight, my love?” And why was it so important that she be kept from that meeting?
Now that Anya was seated, I thought I would get a little closer to scout out the other diners and drinkers inside the sports bar. I would carry out my mission, of course, but I wanted to be sure I didn’t have any other friends inside Full Court Press tonight. I crossed the street and was headed toward the bar when another familiar creature appeared on the same street.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” I said to myself. It was the beautiful siren I’d spoken with earlier that day. “Brooke,” I said to myself.
I must have said her name a little too loudly, because she straightened and appeared to look for where the sound had come from. I ducked between two cars and turned my back.
As she and the man clearly unworthy of a woman like Brooke passed by, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder.
When I did, her eyes caught mine. “Oh, hello,” Brooke said. “Bradley, right?”
I forced a smile. “That’s right. Nice to see you again.” I turned quickly and pretended to wave at someone across the street. I darted away from them and ducked out of sight. I would make it a point to apologize tomorrow. Hopefully, that wet blanket on her arm would be long gone. I wouldn’t mind getting to know that doe-eyed beauty without him around.
I was so busy admiring Brooke, I had nearly lost track of time. I glanced at my watch. 8:55.
It wouldn’t matter if I was a couple of minutes late. I looked back over at the sports bar. Anya was sipping a gin martini—her drink of choice most nights—still alone.
When I looked for Brooke again, she was nowhere to be seen. Strange.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the text: Is it done?
“Don’t be a dick,” I muttered to myself. “I said I’d text you when it was done, asshole.” I slid the phone back in my pocket. But my boss was right. I had a job to do.
Across the street from the bar was the entrance to an alley with a wrought-iron gate. I slipped behind the gate and into the shadows behind a trashcan I had scouted out earlier that day. I pulled the rifle from under my coat, extended and locked the stock into place, laid the rifle across the garbage can for support, and concentrated on evening my breath and lowering my heart rate to achieve maximum focus. As I swung the rifle toward the plate glass window of Full Court Press, I whispered, “I’ll miss you, my love.”
As my finger touched the trigger and I dialed in the distance through the scope, I tensed. “What the fuck is he doing there?”
I lifted my head, removed my finger from the trigger. The man who’d been with Brooke moments ago was standing next to and talking to my beloved. I saw no sign of the lovely Brooke. Was Anya supposed to be meeting with this douchebag? Or with Brooke? Who were these people?
I gave my head a shake. “Well, it’s supposed to look random.” I’d make this look like nothing more than a random shooting, all right, by taking this guy out alongside Anya.
Maybe I’d have an opportunity to console Brooke tomorrow after her glib-looking lover was dead.
I eased my shoulder into the rifle again and took aim.
Chapter 8
Brooke
With time to spare, Declan and I strolled up and down the street doing a little window-shopping before entering Full Court Press. As we walked back to meet Anya, Declan suddenly squeezed my hand and pulled me out of the foot traffic of others.
“What is it?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.
“We’re okay, right?” It wasn’t like Declan to show fear, but he had been different since his friend, Dimitri, had pulled me out of a burning cottage. And he and I still refused to talk much about what happened the day we helped the FBI stop a terrorist attack on the power grid. A member of the Kharkiv Bratva—a Russian mobster—had nearly killed us both.
I lifted my hand and ran a finger over the lines that formed between his brows. “Yeah. We’re okay. I have… things”—for lack of a better word—“to work through. But we’re okay.”
“You know I would never do anything to hurt you. I would gladly give all that I have to take your pain away.”
“I’m beginning to realize that.” I smiled, hoping it would calm him. It was my fault he was feeling uncharacteristically unsure about us. “Let’s go talk to Anya so we can get back to the townhouse.” I backed away from Declan, pulling on his hand as I did.
When I turned, I immediately saw someone I recognized. “Oh, hello,” I said. “Bradley, right?”
Ty and James’s strange neighbor threw me a low wave and seemed to force an awkward smile. “That’s right. Nice to see you again.” He turned abruptly and waved at someone across the street, his trench coat flapping behind him as he bolted to the other side of the road.
“Who was that?” Declan asked.
“I met him this morning,” I said. “One of Ty’s neighbors.” I didn’t see anyone that he might have waved to. “You know, something about him doesn’t seem right. I think I might call Ty and ask him about this Bradley character.” I glanced inside Full Court Press. “Crap. Anya’s already in there.”
Declan grabbed my elbow, leaned in, and kissed my cheek. “How about I introduce myself to Miss Bhatia? You call Ty. I know you: you won’t be able to concentrate until you squash this uneasy feeling.”
“We do make a good team. I won’t be long.” I placed a kiss on his lips, and when he had turned and entered the bar, I pulled my phone out and called Ty.
He answered on the first ring. “Don’t be jealous, but James and I witnessed the most beautiful sunset, and now we’re sitting here listening to a live band doing nothing but covers of Jimmy Buffett and drinking fabulous margaritas.” Ty always answered the phone like we were in the middle of a conversation.
“Margaritas? That doesn’t sound like you.” I decided to cross the street toward where I had last seen Bradley. I didn’t know what it was about him that seemed off to me.
“I know, but it’s beautifully warm here, and isn’t it like a law down here that you have to drink margaritas while listening to Jimmy Buffett?”
I ignored the rhetorical question. “Hey, listen. Who’s this Bradley person that lives down the street from you?”
“Bradley… Oh, like two or three doors down? He’s a strange one. Barely ever acknowledges James and me. We tried to introduce ourselves by bringing him scones after he’d moved in. But we could never catch him at home, so we ended up just leaving them on the front porch with a note. Now that I think about it, I don’t think he ever thanked us for those. Why do you ask?”
“Not sure.”
I spotted Bradley lurking alone in the shadows of an empty storefront across the street from the bar. Instinct led me to keep my distance from the creep, who seemed to be talking to himself. He looked down at his phone, then shoved it in his pocket. “Declan and I just ran into him on the street in Georgetown.”
“Wait. Declan’s there? What’s Declan doing there? You could have started with that.”
“Yes, he tracked me down, but—”
“Good. I hope he forces you to talk about whatever it was you were avoiding with him. He’s—”
Bradley darted through a metal gate into an alleyway. “Ty,” I said, cutting him off. I strained my neck and narrowed my eyes to try and see where, exactly, Bradley had gone and what he was doing. He appeared to be just inside the gate. He was moving around, but I had a bad angle. I moved closer. “The Bradley person. Ask James if he knows anything.”
Ty began a conversation with James. “It’s Brooke. She wants to know…”
I was inching closer to the metal gate when—
Pop. Pop. Pop.
I flinched with each sound. Glass shattered behind me. Screams erupted. Car alarms rang out.
“Brooke?” I heard Ty’s voice as if it were at the end of a long, narrow, and dark tunnel. “What in the world was that?”
Pop. Pop.
I backed up a step, nearly tripping in my heels, but it was too late. Bradley had seen me.
“Brooke? Is someone shooting? Brooke!”
Bradley stepped through the gate and stalked toward me. “Drop the phone, Brooke.” He had his hands in his pockets. One of them was lifted, and I could make out the shape of what I had to assume was a handgun.
“Yes, someone is,” I said, hoping Ty knew I was answering his question, then I let my phone fall to the ground with a clank.
“What shall we do about this?” Bradley asked. His voice was calm in a sea of frantic cries coming from all around us.
“About what?” I asked. I, too, spoke calmly, though my heart was anything but, and a cold sweat had broken out across my face and body. “I didn’t see anything.”
He angled his head, and a grin that raised the little hairs on the back of my neck spread across his face. “I think we both know that you did.”
I let my eyes shift to my right and saw the shattered front windows of Full Court Press. Oh, God. Declan.
Sirens erupted in the distance. People were screaming and running about. Judging by the way everyone ran in different directions, no one other than me seemed to know where the shots had originated. Several idiots stood just outside the restaurant—targets—with phones to their ears. They were scanning the area looking for any sign of a shooter or shooters, when they should have been taking cover, or better yet, running.
My heart raced as I stared into the calm face of a terrorist. My hand perspired against my clutch, which was where my Sig P238 was. Since I’d left the FBI, I didn’t always keep a firearm strapped to me, but I almost always carried a pistol in my purse. Declan said I was paranoid, but I assured him I just knew anything could happen at any time. Case in point. From now on—if I made it out of this alive—I would wear my firearm everywhere I went.
“We’re in quite the pickle,” Bradley said.
“Is that what we’re calling this?” I asked, miraculously keeping my voice even.
The sirens got louder. Bradley stepped closer, ran the barrel of his nine-millimeter from my temple down my cheek. “Who are you, Brooke? I know that you’re staying in the former FBI analyst’s house. Are you FBI?”
I tensed at the coolness of the metal against my skin. “No.”
“NSA? Why was your date meeting with Anya Bhatia? Was he NSA?”
I narrowed my gaze. Was? I swallowed against the lump that threatened, just thinking that Declan might be… “No. I’m no one special. Anya and I are friends.”
“Were,” he said.
“What?”
“You were friends. Anya is dead.”
I jerked my head in the direction of the bar. People had ducked down behind tables, or they had fled the restaurant already. A few were screaming for help next to bodies.
“Why? Why did you kill her?”
“Does it matter?” He moved the gun so that it was pointed into the center of my stomach. “I’m sorry, Brooke. I was really looking forward to getting to know you better. But only one of us can leave this scene tonight.”
I opened my mouth to say something when I heard another pop of a gun.
The thud of a bullet hitting flesh and then bone, followed by the spray of warm liquid across my face, paralyzed me temporarily. But then instincts kicked in, and in the next second, I hit the ground and rolled toward a parked car. I glanced the length of my body. I wondered if I had been hit, and if shock had blocked out the pain.
Bradley fell to the ground with a thud.
More shouting. Tires screeched.
And still, my thoughts were of Declan.
Bradley’s body lay crumpled on the brick sidewalk. His head and face were unrecognizable. The right side of his mouth was contorted into a feral snarl. The left side no longer existed. I was so confused. Bradley has been shot in the head an instant before he would have shot me.
In the next seconds, the sound of organized shouting—not the frantic cries of victims or witnesses—prompted me to push myself to my feet. I stayed squatting beside a car, pausing for a moment to wipe blood and brain matter off my face with a fistful of tissues from my purse. Through two layers of car windows, I saw that SWAT had arrived, so I left my own gun tucked inside my clutch.
I knew, based on the direction Bradley had fallen and by the condition of his head, that the last shot had come from a spot on the other side of the road. The second floor of one of the buildings, maybe.
I scanned the second floor, but saw no one. SWAT members were directing people to safety. I watched a man lead a woman from the bar, his hand on her forehead, blood seeping through his fingers. The injury wasn’t from a bullet wound, but from the flying glass, most likely.
I walked slowly between two cars into the street with my arms lifted, my clutch in my right hand over my head.
“Stop where you are,” a male SWAT officer ordered. “Is any of that blood yours, ma’am?”
“What?” I asked, confused, but then looked down at the blood spatters and body matter strewn across the front of my dress and arms. “No. Brooke Fairfax. I’m Homeland Security.” Even if I only worked for a state office, surely the fact that I was a member of intelligence had some kind of pull.
The man kept his gun trained on me, as did two other officers. He held a body shield in front of his face and body and approached me slowly. “Do you know what happened here, Miss Fairfax?”
“Partly. Maybe.” I glanced up at my clutch. “I have identification and a concealed weapon in my clutch. I’m going to hand that to you.”
He took my clutch and handed it back to one of the officers behind him.
“I would like to tell you everything I witnessed, but first, I have to know if my friend is okay inside the restaurant.” With my hands still over my head, I pointed toward Full Court Press. My voice cracked slightly. I wanted to scream for Declan. I wanted to fall to my knees and cry. But something stopped me.
Members of SWAT had already entered the bar. Others had surrounded the area and were looking for any sign of additional shooters. I was risking my own life standing in the middle of the street. There was definitely a shooter still at large, but I made a calculated assumption that he had fled after shooting Bradley and after SWAT had arrived.
“Her ID checks out,” someone yelled. “Former FBI,” he added.
The SWAT member in front of me lowered his gun. “Miss Fairfax, I’m Officer Maddox. How many shooters would you say we’re looking for?”
“By my assessment, one shooter shot up the sports bar. Another shooter shot the first shooter.”
“The man over there.” He nodded toward Bradley.
“Yes, sir. His name is Bradley. I don’t know his last name. He’s a resident of Georgetown. Look,” I said, “I’ll tell you what I know. I just need to see if someone is okay.” Why hadn’t Declan come out yet? Was SWAT holding everyone inside as possible witnesses?
Two ambulances had been allowed through the barricade and were making their way toward us. Officers were all talking at once. I tried to follow everything they were saying.
“Second floor is secure.”
“Neighboring restaurants are secure.”
“One shooter is dead; at least one other is at large.”
“We’ve got four dead, including the shooter. At least a dozen injured from shattered glass or being trampled by people attempting to flee the scene.”
Declan hadn’t been sitting near the window. A tear slid down my face. Please don’t be one of the casualties.
“I need an EMT!” an officer yelled from inside the bar.
I moved to get around Officer Maddox, and he moved with me. “Ma’am, I can’t let you enter an active crime scene.”
“Look, you’re going to have to arrest me or tackle me, but I’m going inside that restaurant.”
He sighed, but stepped aside.
I jogged toward the opening of Full Court Press. When I got closer, I stepped carefully over broken glass. Another
officer tried to stop me.
“It’s okay, Max. Let her through.” I hadn’t realized, but Officer Maddox was on my heels.
I wasn’t wearing the best shoes for stepping across shards of glass. I almost laughed, remembering Declan’s accusation that I might not be able to move well in them.
I maneuvered through a sea of law enforcement. Medics were bent over someone to my right. Another body stuck out from beneath a table, a puddle of blood all around her. Anya. She was clearly dead. Shot in the throat. At least it had been quick.
“Declan!” I yelled, refusing to consider he was the body the EMTs were working on. Several victims being treated for cuts looked up. Officers turned and stared at me.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” a female voice said behind me.
I turned to see two EMTs pushing a gurney toward me. I stepped to the side, but turned as they passed me. They lowered the gurney, and a police officer backed away from the man on the floor, giving me the first glimpse of the man they were now lifting onto the gurney.
“Declan?” I managed. I darted past one officer and lightly pushed on one of the EMTs. “Declan!” I grabbed his hand.
“Ma’am, we need you to get out of our way. He’s lost a lot of blood. We don’t have much time.”
His hand was ice cold, and he was unconscious. They had ripped his shirt open, and an EMT was pressing a mess of white against his stomach. His nose and mouth were covered with an oxygen mask.
I looked from Declan’s face into the eyes of the EMT. “He’s going to live, right?”
“We’re going to do—”
“Everything you can, I know the fucking drill.” I stepped back and watched as they pushed the man I loved through the debris.
I didn’t tell him enough—that I loved him. Why had I held back my feelings? I could probably count on one hand the number of times I’d said it.
“Where will you take him?”
Officer Maddox approached me when the EMTs didn’t respond. “Miss Fairfax, I have the director of the FBI on the line for you.” He held out a hand. In it was an iPhone. “I can have an officer drive you to the hospital as soon as you’ve answered some questions.”
Shot in Darkness Page 4