by Tina Whittle
“I could, but—”
“And since the Harringtons are all about finding that Bible, this could even count as billable hours.”
“Hope said the Bible was a fake.”
“And I trust her about as much as I trust a wharf rat.” I licked the final drop of gelato from my spoon. “So what do you say? Wanna do a little surveillance?”
He examined the paperwork one more time. I watched the wheels turn in his head.
“I’ll have to fill out the 302 ahead of time,” he said.
I stifled the grin. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
I licked salted butter from my fingers. “So this is a stakeout?”
Trey thought about it. “I suppose so.”
“I thought it would be more exciting.”
He didn’t reply. We were parked in a lot next to the river watching Winston’s shop. The Lincoln had all the comfort of a luxury suite on wheels—all it needed was a mini-fridge. I had popcorn and a Coke. Trey had tea. Lapsang souchong. Decaffeinated. No sugar, no honey, no milk.
He kept his eyes on the pavement. Winston hadn’t left his shop, not even for one second. We knew he was in there, but the door remained shut with the CLOSED sign out. It was extremely weird behavior for a late Friday evening, when normally he’d be on the stoop, hawking pamphlets and coupons.
I stirred my coffee. “Is this typical for a stakeout? Sitting around for hours?”
“We’ve been here thirty-five minutes.”
“You know what I mean.”
He took another sip of his tea. The crowd moved in a river of alcohol and high spirits, and the sun set behind the bridge in sluicing orange light. One couple stopped at the sweetgrass weaver to buy a rose. The man presented it to the woman with a courtly flourish, and she pressed it to her nose, even though it had no scent.
They were on a date. We were on a stakeout. I tried to remember our last date-date, and couldn’t. It had been dinner, I supposed, or sex. Did sex count as a date? Not that Trey ever actually asked me out. I usually made the plans, and he showed up. Unless he was working. Or running. Or off kicking things. Or it was past nine o’clock.
I looked over at him, so capable and efficient, eyes riveted on the tour shop. “Trey? Do you ever wonder how we ended up together?”
“Your brother hired me for a personal protection detail.”
“No, I mean romantically.”
“You propositioned me.”
“No, I…I mean yes, but…you’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
He kept his eyes on Winston’s door. “What exactly are you asking?”
“I’m asking why you’re with me. You know. Like a couple.”
His forehead creased, and he looked thoughtful. One finger tapped the dashboard, but his eyes remained on our target.
“Can we talk about this later?”
“You’re sticking a lot of conversation on that later plate, Trey. If I didn’t know better, I’d think—”
“Because Winston’s leaving the shop now.”
I snatched up my binoculars. Sure enough, Winston was locking his door, a briefcase in hand. He looked left, then looked right, then left again, the epitome of paranoia. He didn’t spot us, however, and started walking briskly, one hand shoved in his pocket.
Trey put down his tea. “Come on.”
He got out of the car, and I scrambled after him. We walked along the water’s edge, next to the concrete barrier. Pedestrians wandered in intoxicated flocks, gazing into shop windows, clotting around maps.
Winston was an easy tail, however, despite his rather sedate non-Hawaiian shirt. He stayed on the sidewalk next to the shops and moved with purpose, the briefcase close to his body. Trey knew how to keep distance, but it didn’t matter—Winston was oblivious to us.
“He’s definitely up to something,” I whispered.
Trey put a finger to his lips. Shhh.
I shushed.
Winston sat abruptly at a table for two in front of one of the smaller cafés. Almost as abruptly, a man moved out of the alley and sat opposite him. I didn’t recognize the two men who remained standing at his shoulders, but I recognized the man at the table with Winston. There was no mistaking that hatchet nose and high forehead.
“Oh shit.”
“What?”
“That’s Gerard Dupre. He’s the Grand Wizard. Remember his picture? On those pamphlets the KKK’s been passing around? High level Klan, a much bigger deal than those morons at the booth.”
Trey pulled out a simple tri-fold map and opened it in front of us. He pointed to Forsythe Park.
“Look,” he said.
“At what?”
“At the map.”
“Why?”
“Because Hope’s here.”
I got a chill. “Where?”
“Eyes on the map.”
“I am!”
“She’s at a table—don’t look—on the rooftop bar, two hundred and fifty feet to the right.”
I fought the urge to search the rooftops. “What’s she doing?”
“Watching Winston and Dupre.”
He kept his head bent over the map, but I knew he had her locked in his peripheral vision. I tried to do the same, but couldn’t. I chanced a quick look at the roof. Sure enough, Hope sat at the corner table, her attention riveted on the street.
Trey’s voice was annoyed. “Tai!”
I snapped my eyes back to the map. “Sorry. Does she see us?”
“I don’t know.”
A wild thought occurred to me. “Trey, what if this is a set-up? What if she’s—”
“Shhh.” Trey didn’t move his head at all, but his eyes tracked the street. “Something’s wrong.”
“What?”
He shook his head, his brow furrowed. “The crowd flow isn’t right. There’s something—”
He froze, dropped the map, and then before I could take another breath, tackled me. He moved with the blinding speed of lighting, fierce and total, and I hit the pavement hard, the full weight of him landing on top of me. In the distance, I heard screaming.
“Trey!”
His hand covered my mouth. “Be quiet and stay down!”
“What happened?”
“Quiet!”
He shifted his weight so that I could breathe easier. Then he shoved me backwards against the concrete barrier, his body a shield. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the panic. The stampede. The screaming.
I twisted my head, craned my neck. One brief glimpse—Winston sprawled on the cobblestone, the café table overturned. I started shaking.
Trey took a deep breath in and out, his face expressionless, his eyes flat blue. He rolled off me in one swift tumble, pulling his gun as he did. Then he lay on his back, the H&K on his belly. He pushed himself to sitting, back against the concrete.
“Call 911,” he said. “And stay down. Don’t move from this spot.”
He was in the program now, not an ounce of shake in him. I closed my eyes. I wanted my boyfriend back, somebody to hold me against the rising hysteria, to tell me everything would be fine. That was the Trey I wanted. But this was the Trey I needed, this one with the clipped words and the cold eyes. He would be the one to get me out of this, not my boyfriend. He was the one I had to trust.
And so I did.
Chapter Thirty
Somewhere behind the crime scene tape and pulsing blue lights, I knew that Winston’s body was being processed. There were no more sirens anymore, no crowds, no honey-colored sunlight. Only the wind remained. It rippled up and down the empty sidewalk, riding across the rocks and the water, colder than before.
Trey and I sat in a booth inside the deserted café, cleared of customers and employees now. Kendrick sat opposite us, in uniform, a wall of official irritation.
“What the hell where you doing stalking Winston Cargill?” he said.
“I tried to tell you—”
“And I told you to drop
it.”
“You told me to drop the murder, and I did. This was about figuring out why Winston and Hope set me up so that I could clear my name.”
“Yeah?” His expression was fierce. “How’s that working out for you?”
I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter. “What happened?”
He shook his head. But Trey answered for him.
“The shot came from behind us, probably from Hutchinson Island. That’s a long-range hit, even more difficult with the crosswinds, but possible.” Trey turned to Kendrick. “Head or body shot?”
Kendrick hesitated. He was watching Trey very carefully.
“Head,” he said.
“One bullet?”
“Right in the T-zone.”
“I thought so. Most likely police-trained, although I’m certain he used a suppressor system, which is more of a military strategy.” Trey turned and pointed. “I’d check the undeveloped lot next to the conference center. It’s a good set-up for a hide site—superior concealment in the underbrush, clear angle of sight, easy access to the highway.”
Kendrick examined Trey with new eyes. “Where’d you train?”
“SWAT. Eight years with the APD dignitary protection unit, four of them with the urban tac team.”
Kendrick leaned back. “So you know.”
“Know what?” I said.
Trey took a sip of water and looked out over the river. “That was an expert shot. You and I presented even easier targets. And yet we’re still alive.”
I looked to where we’d been standing by the water. The concrete barrier was only three feet high. We’d had our backs to Hutchinson Island, the soft vulnerable spot at the base of the skull exposed.
Kendrick nodded. “One shot, one kill. Sniper’s creed. If the shooter had been aiming for you…” He shrugged and looked at Trey. That cop thing passed between them.
“We would be dead,” Trey said.
I huddled deeper in my jacket, a sudden chill scraping my spine. Not from the coming night. Not even from my close call with a bullet.
I turned to Trey. “I didn’t know you were a sniper.”
He didn’t look at me or answer the question. His eyes were on Hutchinson Island, across the turgid water, debris floating downriver under the bridge.
His phone rang, and he pulled it out. “It’s Marisa. I have to take it.”
He got up and moved to a secluded spot next to the bar, away from the windows. Despite the workout clothes and running shoes, he carried himself in Armani mode. Precise. Proficient. Cool.
Like a sniper.
Kendrick watched him. “You didn’t know?”
I shook my head. “I knew he was on the SWAT team. The dignitary protection unit. I guess I never really pushed that idea to its logical conclusion.”
“He never told you?”
I shook my head again. I remembered Marisa’s words, her implication of the dark things lying in his psychological profile. His denial of such. I shook off the apprehension and got back to business.
“Did you find the briefcase?”
Kendrick shook his head. “Any idea what was in it?”
“I’d guess our infamous Bible. Except that every piece of evidence I’ve run across suggests it’s a fake.”
“Any idea who might be behind this?”
“The KKK is a good start. So is Hope Lyle. Trey can give you a 302 on her. We saw her on the rooftop right before the shooting, so if Trey’s analysis is correct, that the bullet came from behind us, she wasn’t the shooter. But she’s involved.”
Kendrick sat back, arms folded. I remembered riding home with him in the back of someone’s truck once, both of us young and beer-filled and happy. Now his eyes were black and serious.
“So are you,” he said.
A uniformed officer approached, a quietly authoritative young woman with close-cropped hair and dark eyes. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but they need you in the tour shop.” Then, to my surprise, she looked at me. “You too, Ms. Randolph.”
“Me?”
“They have some questions.”
I got a prickle of apprehension. “About what?”
Kendrick stood. “Let’s go find out.”
***
Winston’s shop was a swarm of uniforms and radio chatter. The officer took us the back way, down the alley and into the storage room. Brightly lit now, stark, the colorful posters lurid. Jezebel the parrot was gone. I wondered who had her, what would happen to the disreputable scrap of feathers.
The officer looked at me. “They say you know something about antiques.”
“Depends what kind.”
“Do you know what this is?”
She showed me the paper box under Winston’s counter. I peered inside and saw dozens of tiny glass bottles. Old books too, probably with the front pages ripped out, an old forger’s trick I’d read about. Stacks of fine ivory paper that I knew better than to touch, but that I recognized instantly. I’d held a piece of that paper in my hands only a few nights before.
“It’s a forger’s kit. See?” I pointed. “That’s the same paper used to make the fake treasure map.”
Kendrick turned to me. “You sure?”
“Reasonably.” But then I looked closer. “Except for one thing. This paper is longer and has a letterhead. It’s from the Marshall House.”
The officer scratched her head. “That’s right up the street, on Broughton.”
“Oldest hotel in Savannah,” I said. “Built in the 1850s. During the Civil War, it was a hangout for rebels of the more genteel stripe, eventually seeing duty as a military hospital. It’s also quite haunted.”
None of the officers were up for a ghost story, however. Kendrick got right to the point.
“So the paper’s valuable?”
“All by itself, yes, but it’s even more valuable as raw material. To a forger, this stuff is gold. Cut off the identifying letterhead, and you’ve got a properly aged piece of blank paper. You could turn it into a letter, a certificate—”
“A treasure map?”
“Absolutely. Old pens, old inks, a little hydrogen peroxide, maybe a few passes with a hot iron to age the thing. That box contains almost everything you need to make an impressive forgery.”
Kendrick caught the word. “Almost?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “You need a forger to put everything together correctly, otherwise you’ve got a mishmash. And the forger who owned this kit keeled over from a heart attack three weeks ago.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Trey drove us back to the hotel without a word. It was fully dark now, the bridge silver-white against a clear black sky. Marisa wanted a meeting, he said. I wasn’t one bit surprised at that. What did surprise me, however, was that she wanted me in on it too.
I kept my eyes on the water below us. “You never told me you were a sniper.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
He thought about that, then shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Is this what Marisa was hinting at? In your files?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I resigned from the sniper team two months before the accident, so I didn’t include that part of my service in my Phoenix application. Marisa is a thorough researcher, however. She probably pulled the records.”
“But you said there was nothing in those files!”
“I didn’t know there was!”
I didn’t reply. Trey rarely raised his voice. When he did, I knew to back off and let him get a rein on things. I knew this, but didn’t always do it. This time I did.
He took a deep breath. “I want to tell you about this. But I can’t right now. I know I’m saying that a lot, but it’s true. Things are closer to the surface now. Your words. And it’s hard…it’s very difficult…”
He shook his head again, this time with agitation. “After the meeting with Marisa. I’ll tell you about it then. All of it. I promise.”
***
Trey went up to the ro
om without me. I told him I’d be in the bar for a few minutes, that I needed a second to get my head together. This was almost true. What I really needed was Garrity.
So I sat in a corner booth, phone in hand, hesitating. Garrity was my go-to guy for anything involving pre-accident Trey, but he’d nail me to the wall the second he heard the story. Amateur, he’d say. Come back to Atlanta and let the professionals handle it.
And he was right—I was an amateur. Not like a sniper. They were the ultimate professionals. I understood people getting mad enough to kill each other. You get angry, your vision goes red, soon enough the bat or pistol or switchblade finds it way into your hand. And then, bam. You’re a murderer.
Snipers were different. Snipers killed only after a cold, calculated analysis. For them, putting a bullet between someone’s eyes was logical, the end result of an equation. It was a job, one that didn’t get their hands dirty.
And I had two of them in my life at the present moment. One taking shots in my general direction, the other in my bed. And the worst thing was, I wasn’t sure which one was the most dangerous.
I took a deep breath and punched in Garrity’s number. He was not sympathetic.
“Of course he was a sniper. What else did you think he did?”
“I don’t know, busted up heads, knocked down doors.”
“Well, yeah, that’s how everybody starts in SWAT. But that gets boring, especially if you’re as smart as Trey.” His voice went suspicious. “Why are you asking?”
So I explained. He reacted entirely as I expected.
“Sweet Jesus, Tai! What the fuck?”
So I explained some more. He listened. At some point in the conversation, he stopped being obnoxiously bossy and started being concerned.
His voice softened. “You really didn’t know he was a sniper?”
“How was I supposed to know? He’s never said one word. I knew all the other stuff—dignitary protection, SWAT, marksmanship awards—but that did not add up to sniper.”
“I forget you’re a civilian sometimes. The signs are obvious. The way he handles physical space, always measuring distances and calculating angles. The way he controls his breathing and heart rate. The running, the decaf tea, the patience, the detachment. Textbook sniper.”