She glanced up at his bloodied face and looked away. She wanted to think that he wouldn’t kill her. He was no more than twenty, twenty one or two, maybe, but no older. He had probably grown up in the system, too, and had been let down by it on countless occasions. He certainly didn’t seem like a hardened criminal, or a murderer. She could probably talk him down.
“I can help you, but that’s entirely up to you,” she repeated what she had said to him before.
“I can’t tell you anything, because I don’t know shit! We just followed the orders Raybourne gave us. He tells us where to go, who to kill, and we just do it.”
He gave her a devilish wide grin.
“You know he will kill you if you go back to him, don’t you? He will shoot you in the back of the head, like the others. You aren’t safe with him. Do you really want to die that way? Let me up, and I will allow you to walk out of here, no questions asked. I will even find you a place to stay if that is what you want.”
He gave her a scornful look. He was furious too. “I will take my chances with Raybourne. At least I know him, and he has been good to me when no one else was. I wouldn’t betray him, not even for a pot of gold, and certainly not to you!
I’m not a snitch!”
“Feeding your drug habit isn’t helping you,” she told him in a low voice. She wanted to appear sympathetic, and she probably was. She just didn’t know it, yet. “It’s Raybourne way of controlling you.”
He wiped his nose for the fifth time and stared fiercely at her. She had hit a nerve with him.
“You don’t know shit, and you wouldn’t judge me if you knew what I’ve been through.”
“Okay, so I don’t anything about you—then tell me. I’m all ears.”
“Raybourne was the only one who was there for me and my Mom. We were living on the streets. We left because my Dad was an abusive alcoholic. He beat the crap out of me and my Mom. Raybourne was driving by one day and saw us huddling there in the cold begging for money. He stopped his car, came out, and talked to us. He found a place for us to stay that night. He paid our rent and bought us food and clothes. He even got my Mom into rehab out in Arizona. But Mom wasn’t strong. She couldn’t kick the habit. She went back to doing drugs the second she got out of rehab. She died of an overdose a week later. I was fourteen and had no one. Raybourne took me. I stayed with him. That’s how I know he’s a good guy! Would you have done that for us Agent Bowles?”
He peered down at her with red beady eyes.
She met his eyes and said nothing. She didn’t know what to say to him. She
could have easily said yes, and lied to him, but she didn’t, she couldn’t. His story was raw and painful. She had to respect his pain, and what he had been through. She didn’t want to tarnish it with lies.
“Yeah, just what I thought! I know Raybourne wouldn’t hurt anyone. He isn’t guilty of any of the shit you guys are accusing him of, either.”
So Raybourne had gotten to him! She wasn’t surprised. She had to find another way to reach him.
“I’m sorry about your Mom,” she told him in a sympathetic voice. “And I’m sorry that things hadn’t exactly been easy for you growing up. I understand your loyalty to Raybourne, I really do, but he’s not who you think he is. He is still a very dangerous man who needs to be stopped, and keeping quiet isn’t helping him or you. We will catch him eventually. It’s only a matter of time. I’m sure your would have wanted you to do the right thing if she was here right now.”
That set him off.
“Shut your mouth about my Mom! You hear me! Leave her out of this!”
“Okay, but think about it this way—how has Raybourne really helped you? Has he given you the kind of life your mother would have wanted for you? You are a young guy. You should have been enjoying your life, not getting high as a kite and
going around killing people for Raybourne.”
He gave her a resigned look.
“You don’t know anything about my life, lady, so don’t pretend that you do.”
“I can get you into rehab. I can help you. Raybourne wasn’t able to save your Mom, but I can prevent the same thing from happening to you.”
“I don’t need your help! I have Raybourne.”
“He will kill you. He will blame you for those men’s death, and for failing him. What did he send you to get for him?” She peered up at his reddened face.
“None of your business!”
“I know men like Raybourne,” she continued. “They don’t accept failures. And you are exactly that to him right now.”
“I told you to shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” He swung the gun erratically at her,
and kicked her with his steel-toed boots. “I will break your goddamn neck if you
don’t shut the fuck up! Your voice is so annoying! It reminds me of my last girlfriend. She was always nagging me about going into rehab. And you know what I did to her?” He looked down at her and smirked. “I drove her all the way to the country one evening. She thought we were on some sort of romantic date. I got out of the car and shot her. That certainly shut her up!” He let out a loud sinister laugh. “I will have no problem doing the same thing to you if you keep running that trap of yours.”
He kneeled and applied pressure to her neck. She felt his long, bony, cold
fingers going around her neck, trying to choke the life out of her. Her hands went up to stop him. She gripped his hands and tried to pry them away from her neck. He was much stronger than she thought, but she managed to get him to stop. A sharp pain shot through her dislocated shoulder, and she went limp. She let out a small cough and spoke to him again. “Killing me wouldn’t serve anything. There’s always going to be someone to replace me, and they will hunt you down. Let me help get you away from Raybourne. You can start a whole new life away from here.”
He lowered his face to hers.
“Yeah, I bet you will help me, just the way you helped the others.”
His eyes moved to the dead body not far away from them. That probably did it for him. He stood again and pointed the gun at her, aiming directly at her head. She stared up at him, trying to read him. He was on edge, but she didn’t think he would go through with it.
They had been there for a while, about five to ten minutes, by her calculation. Her watch had broken when she had fallen on it. He could have killed her already if he really wanted to. And he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would hesitate about shooting someone, especially for revenge. She had killed his friends, and she was after Raybourne, a man he clearly idolized.
“You can walk away from here. As far as I am concerned, none of this ever
happened. You were never here.”
He threw his head back and let out a vulgar laugh. He seemed to have a habit of
doing that.
“It’s a very unconventional way of begging for your life, Agent Bowles! I must give you this, though—you are one convincing bitch, you know that!” He pointed the gun at her, moving it up and down briefly. “You are actually trying to make me believe that you wouldn’t put a bullet in my back the second I turn to walk away from here. Well, here’s news for you—I’m not that stupid. I’m high as shit, but certainly not stupid! I don’t trust you, Agent Bowles, not one bit!”
Her hands went up above her head to prove to him that she meant every word.
“I will not shoot you. You have my word. I don’t even have a gun.”
“Yeah, you guys never do, until the victim is lying dead on the ground. Find some other loser to trick, because this one isn’t buying it!” He pounded his chest lightly.
She decided to try another way.
“I will tell you what—there’s a pair of handcuffs here. You can use them to handcuff me to the railing over there.”
“Wow! You don’t give up, do you?” He held the gun on her again. “I’m sorry I have to do this, Agent Bowles, but I can’t leave you alive. You would hunt me down, just like Raybourne. And one day you are going to cat
ch up with me. You will put a bullet through my heart, then. This isn’t personal. It’s just a, me-before-you sort of thing.”
He stepped back and pulled the trigger. The shots ran out loud and clear. They were deafening and chilling. She felt blood cascading down her upturned face less than half a second after, streaming onto her slightly parted lips. She licked the warm splatters off her lips to prevent the blood from draining into her mouth. The bastard had shot her, she thought. She should have taken him out when she had the chance. She shouldn’t have thought twice about putting a bullet right through his heart! Now, he had beaten her to the punch! She was going to die.
And as she lay still, unable to move, images of her dead father, her mother, her fiancé, Director Nilsson, Marcy—the people she knew and cared about flash quickly before her eyes. She actually saw each of their faces, as if they were standing right there with her. This was certainly far less dramatic than she imagined it.
Another shot ran out, two, actually, and she froze. He was making sure he finished her off, she thought. He must have figured out that she was wearing a vest underneath her oversized jacket. He wanted to make sure she wouldn’t survive.
She held her breath and waited for him to leave. There was a good chance she would survive this—people got shot in the head all the time and recovered. She was going to be one of those people, she decided. She was going to fight to stay alive, and then she would hunt him down as he had predicted and end his life, just as he was trying to do with hers.
She kept her eyes close and counted to twenty. It was more than enough time for him to walk away. He would be foolish to stick around after this. She opened her eyes slightly to see if he was still there, and blinked at the bright morning sunlight. She couldn’t remember it being that glaring before. The sun was halfway in the sky by now, and she stared up intently at it, as if she was seeing it for the first time.
She could feel the thick blood on her eyelids, weighing her lashes down, and she kept on blinking to get the sticky mess off. It was when she suddenly became aware of someone standing about a yard or two from her. She squeezed her eyes shut again. She couldn’t bear to watch him shoot her again.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed!” Earnes asked in one of his annoying voices. She could tell that he was angry at her. “You should have called for back up? What were you thinking, taking on those guys alone.”
She opened her eyes and looked up. Earnes was standing over her, looking down intently at her, taking in her bloodied face and clothes. She had never been this happy to see him. The gun was still in his hand.
“I almost had them,” she told him, with a forced, weak smile, glancing over at the dead guy’s body. She didn’t want Earnes to see how terrified she was. She had come this close to dying, and it had scared the living daylights out of her. It wasn’t something she wanted her partner to know. “This one got to me. I didn’t think he was going to shoot me.” She sat up, and ran her hands over her head, checking to see if there were any bloody holes there. There were none, and she wasn’t in any sort of pain, except for her sore shoulder.
Earnes peered down at her and frowned. “You are lucky—the gun probably jammed or he was out of bullets. He could have killed you, Gabby.”
He held out his hand to her.
“Tell me something I don’t know.” She gave him a halfhearted smile, and took his hand. He helped her to her feet. “I thought you were going back.” She stepped away from him and went to pick up the gun.
“I was on my way. Then I got a text from Macy. She was waiting for you at the
lab. She couldn’t get you on the phone. She ping your cell, and tracked the SUV
here.”
“Now I have to go to that Indie rock concert in Sin City with her! There’s no way I can get out of it now.” She gave Earnes a sheepish grin, and rubbed the top of her shoulder.
He still hadn’t put the gun away, and she eyed it suspiciously. It wasn’t his service weapon, or one of the guns they used, either. He caught her eyes, and the way she was looking at the gun.
“I forgot mine in my desk last night. I didn’t get the chance to go back and get it
this morning.”
“Yeah.” She gave him an uncomfortable look. “I was hoping to take him alive.”
She bent over the guy and felt for a pulse. There was none. He was shot about five times, all in the chest. They were clean hits, and a bit excessive, even for Earnes. One or two bullets would have taken the guy out. She guessed Earnes wanted him dead, and he had succeeded in doing just that.
“I guess he wasn’t so lucky after all.” A smirked appeared on Earnes face. He looked pleased that he had killed the only person who could have helped them find Raybourne.
“He was close to Raybourne,” she told him. “Raybourne was some sort of hero and surrogate to him.”
“And you believed that. The guy was a mess. He was high on drugs. You shouldn’t believe anything he told you. It’s probably nonsense he made up.”
“Well, I did. He sounded pretty credible to me. Raybourne trusted him enough to put him in charge of those guys.”
“That’s because they were all idiots like him! They don’t seem like the usual thugs Raybourne kept around.”
“I wonder what they were after.”
“You don’t think it’s the passports?”
“No, they could have grabbed those at the house.”
“So you think there was something else at the house they wanted?”
“Yeah, I do. Now we will never know.” She gave the guy a desultory glance.
Earnes gave her a baffled look. “Wait! You actually think this guy knew something.”
“Yes, I do. We wouldn’t be able to find out what he knew now, would we? He was a lost kid, Earnes.”
“He doesn’t look like a kid to me.”
“That’s because his childhood was taken away from him. It wasn’t his fault that he had a druggie for a mother.”
She took off her jacket and used it to cover the guy’s face. He had died with his eyes and mouth opened. She reached under the jacket and closed his eyes, as an after thought.
“You couldn’t save him Gabby.”
“I know that, but I was willing to give him a chance. From what he told me, he never had one.”
Earnes frowned at her. He had never seen her act this way about a suspect. “I will pretend that I didn’t hear any of that,” he told her in a reproving voice. “The guy tried to kill you.”
“I know that.”
“Then why are you acting as if shooting him was such a bad thing.”
“Bowles shook her head. She stared down at the dead guy one last time.
“Something he said resonate with me.”
Earnes looked at her. “Yeah—what?”
She brushed him off. “Nothing, I guess I’m overreacting about the whole thing. I just think he could have told us something about Raybourne.”
“Do you want me to call this one in?” he said to her.
“No, I will do it.”
She walked pass him and headed back to the van.
Chapter 6
“Kirk, honey, are you home?” Her left hand went up to hit the light switch as she walked in the door. “Babe, are you here?” she asked again.
She took off her jacket and tossed it on the large white marble table in the large foyer, and made her way inside. “Kirk, are you up there?” She paused at the bottom of the long flight of stairs and called up to Kirk. Funny—he should have been home already. “Honey?”
Usually, Kirk would appear at the top of the stairs by now. He would smile down at her and asked how her day was. They would chit chat for a couple minutes before he went back what he was doing before dinner. She shrugged her shoulders and headed to the kitchen. He had probably been delayed at the office. She was surprised he hadn’t called or sent her another text. He usually did.
Kirk had texted her almost two hours ago, to say that he was on his way home. Maybe he h
adn’t been able to slip away. He had been swamped with work lately. He told her he had been handling more accounts than usual, and that business was better than how it had been in the last few years. The bank had been seeing a huge upsurge in private investors.
Kirk was an investment banker with one of the big banks in Manhattan. He came from a long line of bankers. His great-grand father had been one of the original founders of Wells Fargo. She had met Kirk about a year ago. They had both been volunteering at the Holy Apostles soup kitchen. He had been there serving up sandwich and soup with a group of volunteers from the bank. They had hit it off right away. Kirk had asked her out for coffee the next day, and she had accepted. He’d proposed three months after, and she had accepted.
Soon after, Kirk had bought a house in Sunny Ridge, and had asked her to move in with him. She had been hesitant at first, mostly because she thought he was moving things along a little too fast for her, but Kirk had convinced her that moving in with him would be good for their relationship. He had given her this impressive speech that had completely sold her on the idea. Kirk had told her that he had bought the house as a wedding present for her, and since they would be married in a couple months, he didn’t see any reason why she should put off moving in with him.
She had given up her place the following month. Kirk had hired movers, and had moved her things into the house. She had been in Washington that weekend. He had picked her up at the airport with the good news. And he’d paid off the lease on the condo she had been renting in Washington Heights.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t had the time to plan their wedding. Their “short”
engagement was slowing dragging into a full year. And neither of them had brought up marriage since they’d moved in together. She guessed they were comfortable with their living arrangement.
She took off her black blazer, and draped it over one of the chairs around the
large kitchen table. Then she removed her service revolver and pushed it into a far corner of the wide granite counter. She reached into the fridge for the bottle of chardonnay that was left over from dinner two nights ago. She was going to have a glass before dinner. She took the bottle and grabbed a wine glass from one of the top shelves, and poured a full glass. She took a sip of the wine and reached for the phone to check her messages. The automated recording told her she had six new messages waiting for her. She pressed one to listen to them. She only got through two.
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