by Misty Evans
Under the window, a thin layer of good old Oklahoma sand had blown in. Salisbury nosed around a disturbance in the dirt.
“Salisbury, come,” Colton said, snapping his fingers.
The dog didn’t want to quit sniffing, but he reluctantly obeyed, sitting by Colton’s feet.
Colton stepped forward and eyed the swirls of dirt in the shadow under the window. Shoe print?
Pulling out his phone, he illuminated the area with the phone’s flashlight and felt a spike of adrenaline.
The impression was faint, almost nonexistent. He snapped photos of the indentations anyway. Whoever had stood here hadn’t been wearing sneakers or boots—there were no ridges or circles. But there were definitely impressions of a shoe heel and possibly a toe.
Colton lifted his own foot and let it hover next to the impression. He wore an eleven. Whoever had left the print behind wore a size slightly smaller.
Salisbury whined. Colton glanced over and the dog’s nose was in the air, quivering with another scent.
Colton avoided the footprint and looked out the window. His pulse was galloping, Salisbury’s excitement affecting him as well.
Someone had been here.
Recently.
The shooter?
Did he know Shelby was home? Had he been watching her place? Colton made a sweep around the outside of the house. Nothing.
He came back to the indentation in the dirt.
Sloppy to leave a shoe print behind.
But then, the cops and FBI had long ago given up on this place.
The expanse of what should have been the backyard was overgrown with weeds and wild plants. He stood once more in the window—where he knew the killer had to have stood that night—and stared across the street at Shelby’s house.
He saw movement in the window, just a flash of Connor walking by, but he pulled out his phone and texted him.
Close front blinds. Now.
A second later, Connor’s reply. They are.
Not all the way. He and Connor had probably disturbed them when they’d been placing the sensors in the windows.
Colton saw the blinds flip.
Got them, came Connor’s response. Everything okay?
Hell, no, it wasn’t. None of this was.
Salisbury whined again.
Working on a lead. Stay alert.
Connor sent him a thumbs-up emoji. On it.
Colton texted the images of the shoe print to Rory at SFI headquarters, asking him if he could match the faint images to a type of shoe. Rory responded with a similar confirmation.
At the same moment, Colton’s phone rang. Beatrice’s Espionage ringtone echoed in the cavernous house.
“Yo, boss,” Colton answered. “Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“No go on the autopsies,” she said. “You’ll have to explore another option.”
“That’s it? You didn’t press?”
In the tense silence that followed, Colton could feel her irritation at his insolence. “There’s a reason they’re putting up blockades on this, Colton. I’d prefer not to push the wrong person and have it backfire on us.”
That didn’t sound like Beatrice at all. She liked pushing the wrong people—and getting answers.
“I need those reports.”
“And I need to make sure neither you nor I end up in a military prison.”
“That’s a little dramatic.”
Another pause. Her irritation bordered on anger. “One thing I am not known for is being dramatic. Logical, sensible, strategic, yes. Dramatic, no.”
True. But he couldn’t help himself. The dragon was awake. “So you’re saying the great Queen B can’t get ahold of a couple of autopsy reports?”
“These men died by a sniper and the Navy is covering up the why of it. It’s suspicious and clearly linked to Agent Claiborne’s shooting. But someone very high up the Navy chain of command wants to make sure this case goes away. I suspect you know why and you’re keeping the information from me. So until I get straight answers from you, and your complete cooperation, do not expect me to put myself and SFI on the line.”
“You offered to help me in any way I needed.”
“I’m attempting to keep you from getting your ass shot at, or ending up in prison.”
“You’re just worried about SFI getting shut down.”
“And rightfully so, but I am concerned about you, Colton. Do not underestimate just how much.”
He dropped the phone by his side for a moment, taking a deep breath. It was damn hard to let people into his life. Hard to accept that he meant something to them.
Don’t blow this. SFI meant everything to him. Shelby and SFI.
He put the phone back to his ear, mentally telling the dragon to go fuck itself. “I apologize. I’m hitting dead ends and it’s frustrating.”
“Understandable.” The tense air between them eased. “What are you keeping from me about these dead veterans?”
He blew out a long, slow breath. “They were all involved, one way or another, in Connor’s rescue.”
Salisbury decided he’d had enough sitting and took off out the door.
“Wow.” She didn’t sound wowed so much as curious. He heard the sound of fingers tapping computer keys. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
“That makes two of us.”
“You think this is the work of 12 September?”
“Seems like the most obvious answer, but it doesn’t feel right for them.”
“How do you want to proceed?”
Colton looked down to see Salisbury in the doorway, wagging his tail. In his mouth was a wrapper.
As if he were carrying a prize, the dog marched over and dropped it at Colton’s feet, sat like a well-mannered dog, and stared up at Colton with expectation all over his scruffy face.
Colton bent down and petted his head. “An empty granola bar wrapper. Fantastic.”
He gave the dog a thumbs-up, then straightened and stared at the farmhouse again, running scenarios through this mind. “If you can’t get anything more on your end,” he said to Beatrice, “I’ll have to kick some rocks here. I’m going to need more time.”
Beatrice started to disagree and Salisbury barked. Colton looked down, his gaze landing on the shiny wrapper as it caught a shaft of sunlight.
The wrapper wasn’t dirty. It was a bit crinkled, but not like ones that had been blowing around outside in the elements. It wasn’t faded from the sun either.
It was fresh, just like the shoe print.
Someone had been here, and recently from the looks of it. “Hang on,” he said to Beatrice.
Hustling to the truck, he grabbed a napkin from the glove compartment and returned, using it to pick up the wrapper. He put the phone back to his ear. “I might have something.”
“What?” Beatrice asked.
“I sent a photo to Rory of a shoe print—a fresh one—at the site where the sniper shot Shelby. That’s where I am right now. My pal, Salisbury, just found a granola bar wrapper. I think our shooter is still around and keeping an eye on Shel.”
“Don’t touch that wrapper. There might be prints.”
“I’ll see if the locals can dust it.”
“You think that’s prudent, considering their limited resources and dislike of you?”
Colton chuckled. “Guess that rules out the FBI as well.”
“We don’t know the exact parameters of this investigation, and unfortunately, it appears your relationship with local law enforcement will not smooth the way in reopening it. If the Navy is hiding something, they can and will exert a tremendous amount of influence and control over all of the players, as your ex-wife has already experienced with her dead-end investigation. We can’t run the risk of alerting them that the two of you are digging around again.”
“What do you suggest? I can’t just walk away. The shooter—”
“I didn’t advise you to walk away, Mr. Bells. Be quiet and listen. I’ve dealt with more than a
few cover-ups in my time. Here’s what we’re going to do.”
Colton stared at the floor as Beatrice laid out her plan. It was a little bit crazy…which meant he liked it.
A moment later, he disconnected and pocketed his phone. Holding the wrapper up in the sunlight, he patted the dog’s head once more. “Salisbury, you may have just earned yourself a steak tonight.”
Chapter Ten
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“HEADS UP,” CONNOR said. He was peering through the blinds of the front window with his gun drawn. “You’ve got company.”
Shelby was still waiting for a call back from Lori Evers and they’d done a few laps around the living room. Connor had pushed the sofa out of the way and made an obstacle course with a couple chairs. He’d told her about Sabrina while she practiced walking and keeping her balance.
Her ankle was cranky from that morning with Colton, but it wasn’t swollen, so she ignored the ache and found it actually made her more focused.
Focus equals progress.
She pushed the walker ahead of her and made to look out the window too, but Connor held her back.
“It’s probably just my parents,” she said, praying they’d left Daniel behind. “Or Jaya, my best friend. They’re all worried about me being here with… Well, you know.”
“Yeah.” Connor shot her an I get it look. If anyone knew Colton’s effect on people, it was him. “Driver is in a black BMW with fancy wheels.”
“Oh.” She waved at his gun. “Put that thing away. It’s my boss.”
Connor gently set her back a foot. “Stay here. I’ll get the door.”
These men. So protective. All her life, her dad had been the same way. It usually rubbed her wrong, and like she’d told Colton, she was FBI and a damn good agent at that. She knew how to protect herself.
But right now, Colton was the one who was correct. She needed help, including protection, until they figured out who’d tried to stop her that night.
Connor didn’t open the door and let Theo in, he stepped through and closed it behind him. Shelby finagled her walker over and pressed her ear against it to listen to their conversation.
Theo introduced himself, Connor did not. Theo claimed to have brought a box of chocolates from Shelby’s team at the office. Connor told him he would see Shelby got them.
Oh, for all that’s righteous! Was he seriously not going to let the ASAC come inside the house?
A rumbling sound echoed from her left. She reached out and lifted one of the blind flaps and saw Colton’s truck wheeling into the drive. Shelby had to blink and do a double-take—Salisbury stood in Colton’s lap with his paws on the steering wheel.
Her eyes had to be playing tricks on her again.
Colton parked, the dog bounding out and heading for the porch. Colton followed, eyes narrowed at Theo.
Shelby opened the door—at least she tried to. Connor still had hold of the handle and it wouldn’t budge.
There was barking and Theo’s voice went up a notch as he told Colton to call off the dog. Shelby tried the door handle again, but it wouldn’t give. She heard Colton laughing, his amused voice telling Theo he never trusted a man who didn’t like dogs.
“Connor,” Shelby called through the door. “Let me out.”
The door suddenly flung open and Connor filled the doorway, a wrapped box under his arm and his gun still drawn. “Back up.”
She had no choice but to do as he said as he pushed himself inside. “What do you think you’re doing? I told you, that’s my boss. He may have a lead on the case.”
Ignoring her, he flipped one of the chairs from the obstacle course around and guided her into it. “Colton will handle it.”
She pushed herself to standing again. “Open the door.”
Connor handed her the wrapped box and gently shoved her back down into the chair. “Have a chocolate, Shelby.”
“Did you bring the file?” she heard Colton ask. Salisbury had stopped barking, but she could hear a muffled growling through the door.
“What file?” Theo.
Colton’s voice lost its amusement. “The one I asked you to bring.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Even inside, Shelby could feel the tension in the air between the two of them. Colton’s voice practically singed the ends of her hair. “I left you a message this morning to bring Shelby’s file.”
“The one on the veteran serial killer? That’s classified information and Shelby is not officially back to work.”
“Not the serial killer file. The one on Shelby’s shooting, you eejit.”
And yep, the tension went DEFCON 1, just like that.
“You better get out there, Connor,” Shelby said. “Things are about to get ugly.”
Poor guy. He glanced at the door, back to her, back to the door. “Shit,” he said under his breath as he went to interrupt World War III.
Shelby’s phone rang from the dining room table. Lori? She scooted herself up, grabbed the walker, and started hauling.
By the time she got to the dining room and snatched up the phone she was out of breath. “Mrs. Evers?”
A second too late, the call had already gone to voicemail.
But Lori Evers didn’t leave a message. Quickly, Shelby called her back. Lori answered on the first ring.
“Mrs. Evers, it’s Agent Claiborne. Sorry I missed your call. You got my message? About me reopening the case on your husband?”
The reply was chilly enough to coat the singed ends of Shelby’s hair with ice. “I told you the last time we spoke, I don’t know what happened to Wyatt. We separated before his last tour. I hadn’t heard from him in nearly two years, then suddenly, he was on my doorstep. I was so happy to see him, but he wouldn’t talk about where he’d been, what he’d been doing. He’d been discharged, that’s all he would tell me. He came home, seemed fine for a couple of weeks, then started acting anxious and worried. He disappeared and the next thing I knew, two officers showed up at my door to tell me they’d found his burned body.”
The woman sobbed, catching her breath. “I want the killer found as much as you do, but this tears me up. I’m trying to move on with my life. I can’t keep rehashing this when there’s nothing new. Please understand.”
A pit of regret sat in Shelby’s stomach. “Of course. Is there anything else I mentioned to you when we originally spoke that rang any bells?”
“I told you I don’t know what happened to Wyatt and I don’t know the man in the picture you showed me.”
From the living room, the sound of the door opening and closing alerted her to Colton and Connor coming inside.
“What man?”
“The one in the picture you showed me that day we spoke. You asked me if I’d ever seen him before and I told you no.”
A picture of one of the other victims? Or a suspect?
Salisbury ran in and Colton followed, his face grim.
“Can you describe the man in the picture to me, Mrs. Evers?”
Colton raised a brow and slid into a chair opposite Shelby.
Lori’s voice shook. “I can barely remember it. Like I told you, I’d never seen him before.”
“Please try.”
A sigh. “Brown hair, brown eyes. I think he was wearing a black shirt.”
Not much of a description. “Short hair? Long?”
“Kind of in between, you know how a lot of younger men wear it these days. Short on the sides and back, but longer and messy in front, I remember that.”
Shelby’s fingers on the phone went cold. Her stomach did a somersault. She was staring at exactly that description.
Colton made a motion for her to put the woman on speaker.
She didn’t. “Any distinguishing features on the man’s face, like a mole, a scar, facial hair?”
“Why are you asking me this? Don’t you have the picture?”
No, she didn’t,
but she was about to go hunting for it. “Is there anything about that picture, about the man, that stuck out to you?”
“I told you, Agent Claiborne, I can’t help you. Find my husband’s killer. Then we can talk.”
The line went dead.
Colton was unwrapping the box of candy. He helped himself to a chocolate and tossed one to the dog.
“You shouldn’t give dogs chocolate.” Shelby tried not to stare at him. “It’s bad for them.”
“Seriously?” He reached down, snagged the dog, and through much growling, managed to remove the candy from Salisbury’s mouth. “Sorry, mutt. Apparently, you can’t have the good stuff.”
Colton’s brown eyes came up to meet hers. He was grinning, but his grin faded the moment he saw her face. “Shel, what is it? Was that Wyatt’s wife? Who were you asking her about?”
Shelby swallowed the fear nestling in her throat. “I think it’s you, Colton.”
“I NEED A list of my missions,” Colton said to Beatrice.
He was outside with Salisbury again, staring off at the wheat field. So many seasons here, so many times he’d seen wheat growing out there, big rolls of it during harvest.
Salisbury didn’t have to pee, Colton just needed a minute to himself. It wasn’t every day you were accused of murder.
And here he’d thought they’d cleared that up, and the only reason his profile sheet and picture were in Shelby’s file was because he was a source.
What a day.
“What missions exactly?”
“The dates and locations of all the missions I worked, both when I was in the service and during my time with SFI.”
He couldn’t believe he was saying this. Asking for verification of his alibis on the dates Evers, Edmonton, and Bard were killed.
Shelby hadn’t accused him of anything while they’d eaten lunch, or even hinted that this new info from Lori Evers pointed at him.
But it did. He could see her brilliant mind rejecting the idea, and yet, she would have to follow up on it. Any and every lead. Especially since she didn’t know why she’d taken a picture of him to show Lori Evers.