Seeking PAVAD

by Calle J. Brookes

  Chas had had to be content with checking Hollace’s emails to see if there had been even a hint of what had happened. He’d gone back as far into the other man’s archives as he could get.

  Just looking for a mention of Amelia.

  There hadn’t been one.

  Social media had made that clear, too. No one had posted a single word about what had happened.

  Ezra hadn’t told them. Hadn’t told them at all.

  Chas sat watching Geoff’s good friend Nils now, as he sat at an ice cream stand three blocks from where Nils worked.

  It wasn’t even noon yet.

  That asshole, half-German shit hadn’t changed. Still drawing women to him like flies to honey. That was something Chas had never quiet understood. This woman was a beautiful redhead. Stacked. Probably half idiotic, just like Nils liked them.

  Chas had asked him once why he didn’t look for a woman with some substance. A third of the guys in the unit had talked about finding a woman to settle down with—or longed for the women they’d left behind. Not Nils.

  His goal had been to find a steady stream of women to screw every opportunity he could.

  Apparently, the redhead was the latest in that stream. Chas watched her. She laughed a little too loudly, dressed a little too scantily, and touched Nils a little too frequently.

  Hell, she was the kind of woman who pissed Chas off from the get go. She was a scourge. Nothing at all like Amelia. Or Shannon.

  But Nils...

  Nils was looking at her like she hung the moon. The way Chas no doubt had once looked at Amelia.

  Chas checked the time, though he had an excellent internal alarm clock. He was in no rush. There was time.

  Shannon was still at work for a few more hours. There was time before he had to be there to ensure she made it home safely. He couldn’t be late. She was counting on him.

  His next intended paid target would be in his office for eighty-three more minutes. He’d handle Nils, then the paid target three blocks from where he sat—he’d planned it that way after tracking Nils through his credit cards; people were creatures of habit, after all—then he’d catch his bus home.

  Shannon and dinner would be waiting. He may even have time to go by the humane society. He’d like to get her a kitten. Something to love and coddle when he couldn’t be there with her.

  He had time for a little diversion with Nils now. And this? This would just obfuscate his real purpose with his paid target. This one client was netting him near half a million dollars with the bonus for striking Shannon.

  He might even supplement that by going after another FBI agent or two. Maybe he would even target three—bring himself a cool one hundred thousand in bonus money. Shannon’s boss, maybe. Chas knew who he was. He remembered him from the guy’s football days with the Atlanta Falcons and the West Virginia Wildcats.

  What did it matter if Shannon liked the guy or not?

  The money would be worth it.

  She would forgive him eventually. When she realized what it had brought them. He never would have grown to feel this way about her if it hadn’t been for that day they’d connected.

  He would use that money to buy her a nice ring. One that would make her understand just exactly how he felt about her. How they had forever together now.

  Then maybe a house somewhere. That one next to where he’d camped while waiting for that PAVAD agent was still available. He’d already spent some time in that neighborhood, and the houses were all similar. He had been quite comfortable inside. It had a perfect kitchen; he could so see Shannon there. Chas’s attention sharpened abruptly.

  Nils had shifted, putting his hand on that disgusting woman’s. Nils’s fingers trailed up her bare arm.

  She had a tattoo of a phoenix on her arm. Chas studied the colors through the lens, then slipped the gun toward her chest.

  Chas could see the outline of her nipples beneath her top. Shannon would never display herself like that.

  Nils had always liked augmented women.

  Not Chas. He preferred women who were smaller. Sleeker, tidier. Who preferred Mickey Mouse over exposed skin.

  More modest.

  He just flat-out preferred Shannon.

  As a smaller man himself, it just... He liked being larger than the women in his life. In being the one they looked up to. Needed. He was man enough to admit it stroked his ego a bit to feel stronger and important.

  Shannon Toliver was the perfect size. He’d sat in the seat next to hers the last time he’d followed her to the bus. Stood when she’d stood. Noticed how well she would have pressed against him if she’d let him hold her.

  Shannon didn’t have large breasts. She didn’t need them. She was perfectly proportional.

  She had been wearing a simple pantsuit when he’d last seen her. Stylish and professional. It had hugged her trim, little body in all the right places, but not obviously so.

  It took a discerning man to see her for what she really was.

  Everyone in the restaurant could see who Nils’s girlfriend was. Everyone could see what she had.

  Nils should stop her from flaunting herself like that. Teach her a lesson.

  But the other man wouldn’t. He wasn’t man enough.

  But Chas was.

  The bullet struck the redhead an inch above her cleavage.

  Now it wasn’t just her hair that was red.

  Chas took his second shot.

  Nils would never get the chance to give her the lesson she deserved.

  Chas had just made sure of it.

  ONE HUNDRED ONE

  MAX’S PEOPLE CIRCLED the wagons after word got out that the victim was a friend of Ezra’s. Jac had called; she was on her way back. He was with Chalmers when the call came in that there had been another shooting. “We tagging Hahn on this?”

  Chalmers shook his head. “He’s working with Shannon. It’s best that he not get too involved from this point on.”

  Max snorted. If it was his good friend who’d gone under Dr. Mitchell’s knife, he’d want to be on the front lines. “I can’t see him sitting out docilely.”

  A worried look hit Chalmers’s eyes. “I know. I think he’s biding his time. But he’s holding himself together.”

  Of course he was. Ezra Hahn was a professional, after all. “We got anything to go on?”

  Max mentally ran down what he knew of the case. They had more than twenty wounded now, nine dead. Jaynice Miller and her fiancé were both still in critical care, the woman shot along with Ezra’s friend had been upgraded from critical that morning. She was going to recover, barring any major complications.

  Cody Lorcan, a woman he considered a good friend and knew Chalmers felt the same about, had been treated and released within an hour of the attack on her and husband.

  She, her two children, and her husband had been taken into protective custody.

  No one targeted Sinclair Lorcan, a man responsible for ferreting out internal corruption within the bureau, by accident.

  It just didn’t happen that way.

  Max had studied the crime scene photos and diagrams. If the shooter had wanted Sin Lorcan dead, he would have made certain he was.

  Something bigger was going on in St. Louis. He could just feel it.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have any evidence to back that up. Yet.

  He and Ken crossed the yellow tape separating them from the latest scene, and Max took in his impressions quickly.

  It wasn’t the most high-end of restaurants. The kind working, blue- collar and lower, white-collar, workers would frequent on special occasions. It had general American style favorites, complete with barbeque and country-fried steak.

  He’d eaten there before. He’d even brought a date there before.

  “We had three wounded from bullets, and two more when the glass shattered. A pediatrician named Adrienne Pacheco was hit with the first shot. She’s in surgery now. We don’t know the prognosis yet.” Ken led the way to the inside of the restaurant. �
��The waitress was struck after the bullet passed through the pediatrician. It hit an artery, but she’s expected to recover. She’s four months pregnant and terrified. She can’t be more than twenty. Father of the child isn’t in the picture, and her parents are in upper Maine.”

  Max winced. The poor kid. This...no one deserved this, let alone some scared kid facing single parenthood. He knew exactly what that road was like. “The male victim?”

  “Nils Schneider. He’s in surgery now. He was shot second, after the pediatrician was hit. He turned at the last moment and leaned back slightly. Bullet entered the side of his neck, and from what I’ve heard, barely missed his carotid. He’s damned lucky.”

  Max swore to himself as he looked at the table nearest the window.

  There was a ring box on the center of the table. In a pool of blood. The two victims had gotten lucky to survive. There in the front window like that, they had been sitting targets.

  Literally.

  So why them? Was it deliberate or something more?

  A second chair was equally covered with blood. Where the pediatrician had been sitting.

  The window had shattered around them.

  The entire world had. He knew exactly what kind of fear that could bring.

  ONE HUNDRED TWO

  EZRA LOOKED UP when Chalmers entered the bullpen and settled near Shannon’s desk. Ezra was at the one next to hers, copies of everything they had so far in front of him.

  It wasn’t much.

  It never was when it came to long-distance serial killers like this. They didn’t have a consistent profile with this type of unsub.

  So, they’d have to find back-end means to find the sonofabitch.

  He had spent most of the morning trying to find out who had manufactured the bullets used. And waiting on ballistics to see if the weapon was registered with any national databases. It was going to take a while.

  Ezra had called most of the men who had worked with him and Geoff that morning. He hadn’t been able to make contact with three of them.

  But he would.

  Geoff’s body wasn’t going anywhere until the M.E. released him. It was the way things worked. Ezra would be the one responsible for the funeral; he was the beneficiary of Geoff’s life insurance policy, and there would be enough to cover expenses.

  The landlady was keeping Geoff’s cat for a few days until Ezra could decide what to do with it. And Geoff’s belongings. Someone would have to box them up.

  He didn’t want to think about any of this. But he’d handle it. For Geoff.

  The other man would want him to find the bastard first. Make sure he didn’t hurt anyone else.

  So that was what Ezra was going to do.

  That meant this damned paperwork in front of him.

  Chalmers said his name. Ezra met the other man’s eyes. He tensed. Whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good.

  “What?”

  “We had another shooting this morning. All victims are in surgery now. I want you and Max to head to the hospital. Interview the victims as soon as they are out of surgery.”

  Ezra stood. “You’re letting me out there.”

  Chalmers hesitated, then nodded. “You’ll be the one most likely to be able to get into this guy’s head. And you’ve proven you won’t go off half-cocked. I cleared it with Dennis. You’re back out there.”

  “Good.”

  Ezra grabbed his gear after a significant look at Shannon.

  She just nodded.

  They’d have time to talk about things later.

  ONE HUNDRED THREE

  MAX DROVE. THE two men discussed what they knew about long-distance serial killers in general and this one in particular.

  The bureau didn’t have a great track record with killers like this. It was a publicity nightmare, as well.

  It had taken them far too long to put together that the shooter who had hit several places in the St. Louis area was the same shooter.

  Chalmers had Maria Angel from Team Five coordinating with every local law enforcement agency that had had any of the other shootings. Everything would have to be brought together in one place.

  Shannon was coordinating everything else.

  They parked and entered the hospital, not stopping until they got to the surgical trauma department.

  They would get more specifics on the victims there. Ezra didn’t even have their names yet, though he thought Max had them written down in his little notebook that he carried everywhere.

  The guy was definitely more anti-technology than Ezra was used to seeing in PAVAD.

  There were people in the waiting room, though the bureau had wanted to keep the families separated from the general public.

  One woman caught his eye. A pretty blonde about a decade younger than he was.

  “Ez!”

  “Meika, what...”

  “They’re going to be ok!”

  ONE HUNDRED FOUR

  MAX WATCHED EZRA’S eyes as the pretty blond basically threw herself into his arms.

  Apparently, she more than knew him.

  Ezra looked floored, and who could blame him? Several others in the room greeted the other man by name.

  “Hey, Hahn. Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  He’d put it together rather quickly, even if Ezra hadn’t.

  Ezra pulled himself out of the woman’s arms quickly.

  They stepped out into the hall, just outside the waiting room.

  “Nils Schneider is our male shooting victim.” Max didn’t beat around the bush. Ezra knew the victim, and from the way that woman had acted, he probably knew him very well.

  The chances of one agent knowing so many of the victims were extremely slim. Ezra worked with two victims—three, counting Shannon—and knew two others. That was enough for Max’s gut to be telling him something. Connected.

  It wasn’t just coincidence.

  The targets had been deliberately chosen. And Max doubted it was finished yet.

  ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  EZRA STOOD OVER Nils’s bed and studied his friend. There was a bandage on Nils’s neck. Nils was still unconscious from the surgery. But he’d gotten lucky. It had been intended to be a kill shot. Ezra didn’t doubt that.

  Nils’s girlfriend, the first woman he’d ever been truly serious about, as far as Ezra could recall, was in the room across the hall.

  The damage done to her was more extensive, but she was also going to survive.

  Nils would be released most likely within a few days. His girlfriend would probably be there a good week or more, barring any complications. The waitress would also most likely be released within the next seventy-two hours, if all went well.

  They had all gotten extremely lucky.

  Most likely because of the unpredictable wind that had been blowing all afternoon. It had been enough to cause the shooter to miscalculate.

  Either that, or the shooter wasn’t as good as he’d thought. It had Ezra revising the profile he’d been forming slightly.

  Nils’s eyes flickered.

  Ezra leaned closer.

  He’d been waiting there for a few hours. He’d stuck around, wanting to make certain Nils was going to be ok. Nils’s sisters had insisted Ezra take a few moments to sit with Nils. He’d appreciated it. He’d always liked Meika and Evony, Nils’s younger sisters. They’d lost their parents while Nils was overseas. The twins were all Nils had left of his family.

  “Hey, man. Causing trouble?” Ezra leaned closer. He didn’t want to overwhelm the other man. And Nils had some vision issues; he’d not be able to see well without his glasses. It had been enough to keep Nils from being a sharpshooter with their unit. But he’d had other skills.

  Nils blinked at him. He tried to speak, but there had been some damage to his vocal cords. It would take time for them to heal.

  “Don’t talk. You need to let your throat heal.” Just how close his friend had coming to dying wasn’t hard for Ezra to miss. That it was only a day after G
eoff’s death...he wasn’t lost to that at all.

  Nils pointed to Ezra’s phone, which was still out. Ezra handed it over without hesitation.

  Nils typed out a quick message.

  Just one word.

  Adrienne.

  Ezra totally understood. “Next door. Sleeping now. There’s some damage, but nothing she won’t recover from. I swear. We saw way worse in Afghanistan. She’ll be ok, Nils. I promise.”

  Nils’s eyes closed and relief hit his face.

  “Just rest, man. I stuck around long enough to let you know that I’m going after the bastard responsible for this. He’ll pay for what he did to you. To her.” And to Geoff. Ezra stood. “Your sisters are outside. I think Meika’s in with your girlfriend, but Evony is waiting just outside the door. I’m going to let her sit with you while I get back to work. I’ll catch him, Nils. I swear.”

  ONE HUNDRED SIX

  “SO WHO IS this guy? We have some of the best profilers in the world right here. Let’s figure him out,” Ken said. He had a big hand on Shannon’s back, comforting and reassuring and protective like he always was. She’d liked her supervisor from the first moment she’d been assigned to his team. There was something so calm and accepting about Ken.

  “First, you’re going to have to understand something. The guy we’re searching for doesn’t think the way we do,” Ezra said. “There’s something twisted inside him to block the moral ramifications of what he’s doing.”

  He looked like hell, but she hadn’t missed the determination in the way he held himself. The strength that kept him going after what he’d endured that morning.

  It was every agent’s worst nightmare—seeing the body of someone you’d known, trusted, cared about, and knowing they had become the victim of a monster. Thank God his friend Nils had survived and would recover.

  “How so?”

  “He can’t. He has to disassociate. If he’s military trained, he’s been forced to compartmentalize in a way that the average person can’t. And not to take risks. He waited on that roof for targets to appear. He looked at every single face through the scope of his weapon, and he calculated everything. He profiled so much faster than seems possible. He didn’t just randomly pick Jaynice Miller and her fiancé that day. Nor did he just randomly target Shannon—or just superficially hit her. He planned that. For a reason. He saw her as the best target to cause the maximum amount of damage. She was the smallest, physically weakest—the only female. And because of her size in such a crowded space, a more difficult target. Especially considering where the bullet struck her. Sharpshooter distance. I’ve mapped it. Studied it. I can make that same shot, but it would be difficult. I might even have to practice first. And he’s very well-practiced—and he chose a difficult shot just to prove to himself that he could. He shot through an extremely narrow distance between those two air ducts. If she’d stepped aside in any direction, he would have missed. He knew that. And I can guarantee that he was more than thrilled to strike her. He probably got off on the control aspect of it. On watching every guy out there rush to stop him—and help her. He was controlling everyone. Like a video gamer with a game controller. He likes being invisible but being the one calling the action.”