by Susan Harper
“So a bunch of men involved in drug smuggling get assaulted, and your first assumption is that their only connection is Felicity having worked their cases?” Jack questioned. “That’s ridiculous! This probably has something to do with their drug smuggling. Bosses wanting to keep them quiet kind of thing.”
“With the exception of Gregory and Kristopher, none of these men’s operations seem to have any connection whatsoever,” Agent Ryan said. “Different drugs. Different dealers. Different sources. The only connection we could find was Miss Overton.”
Jack suddenly jolted, and he looked directly at Agent Ryan with extreme concern. “If you think that the criminals Felicity helped put away are being targeted, then what about the women? My Aunt Nadine? Whitney? Candice? Could they be in trouble right now too?”
“Don’t worry about your aunt,” Agent Ryan said. “All of the convicts that Felicity put away that are still breathing are currently being transferred to the state prisons for their protection. Candice, Nadine, and Whitney will be heading to the women’s state prison. Brandon, Gregory, and Kristopher all arrived at the men’s state prison this morning and are being kept in isolation until we can be certain of their safety.”
“Good,” Jack said, and Felicity noticed that he seemed quite relieved. His aunt was a terrible person who had taken someone very special from Jack, but he had still known the woman his entire life. And although Jack’s uncle had divorced her, it was evident that he was still worried. Family ties were very hard to cut.
Brian leaned back in his seat and rolled his eyes slightly. “I’m sorry, Agent Ryan, but I have to say that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I agree with Jack—there is surely some other connection that the FBI are missing. Have any of the women even been targeted?”
“No,” Agent Ryan said. “Not yet.”
“So a bunch of drug dealers are targeted and you honestly believe their only connection is Felicity’s involvement with their investigations? I know you said their organizations were not connected, but you have clearly missed something,” Brian insisted.
Before Agent Ryan could argue otherwise, the door to the interrogation room swung open. A man in a suit looked directly at Ryan with a flustered look. “Agent Ryan,” he said breathlessly. “We need you. Right now.”
Agent Ryan frowned. “Can this wait?”
“No, sir. I don’t believe so,” the man said, waving his hand slightly to encourage Agent Ryan to leave the room immediately.
Agent Ryan sighed and stood up slowly. “If you four would excuse me for a just a moment. Please wait here, and I will be right back.”
Chapter 4
Nearly two hours went by before Agent Ryan returned, and at that point, Felicity was rising from her seat to go give the man a piece of her mind for holding them for so long. She was starting to find the whole thing to be as ridiculous as Jack and Brian had claimed it to be. Five drug dealers targeted, and the only lead the FBI had was that she helped put them away? It was ludicrous. As the man entered the room, Felicity grunted and plopped back down in her seat, rolling her eyes and letting out a loud huff. “Easy there,” Jefferson whispered to her with a slight grin. “At least someone brought us coffee.”
“Yeah, station coffee,” she grumbled in response and crossed her arms as Agent Ryan stood in the doorway, looking somewhat distressed.
“Everything all right, Agent Ryan?” Jack asked, though he sounded just as annoyed as Felicity felt.
“Not entirely,” he said. “We have something we want you four to see. If you would, please come with me to the chief’s office.”
The four followed Agent Ryan out of the room and down the hall to the office where the FBI had set up. A few members of NCIS were present as well, running point since some discharged members of the Navy—Gregory and Kristopher—had been among those targeted. Agent Ryan pointed to some empty chairs, but all four huffed and insisted on standing after having been left seated in the interrogation room for almost two hours.
“It seems that our culprit has struck again,” Agent Ryan began as one of his fellow agents started up a computer screen. “This footage was taken from a street camera just a few hours ago up in Atlanta on route to the women’s state penitentiary.”
Felicity, Brian, Jack, and Jefferson squeezed together to look at what it was Agent Ryan had to show them. They watched a prison transport van stop at a red light. A man in a black mask whipped a black truck in front of them, blocking them from continuing through the intersection. The man was dressed in assault style gear, all black. He carried a simple AR-15, and over his shoulder, he had a set of oversized hedge clippers. “We have those same sort of hedge clippers in our toolkit in the van,” Jefferson said, and Felicity hushed him.
They watched as the man hurried toward the back of the prison transport, pried open the back door with the hedge clippers, and then opened fire.
The driver of the van darted around back, his own gun in hand, but he was shot by the assailant. There was no sound on the video, but they could see the flashes from the weapon being fired. The attacker stood toward the back of the van for a moment, seemingly having some sort of exchange with a person inside. Seconds later, the man reached within the vehicle and dragged Whitney Fontant out by her hair. The woman resisted, but the large man overpowered her and then dragged her to his own vehicle before driving off.
“Was my aunt in that van?” Jack asked once the video stopped playing. He looked a bit pale.
“Yes,” Agent Ryan said. “Nadine and Candice were both shot, but thanks to the driver coming to their defense, both women are alive and currently being taken care of up at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. The driver is all right too, but all of them are severely injured. You four still think we made too much of a jump assuming this had something to do with your cases?”
Felicity shook her head. Candice and Nadine had absolutely nothing to do with drug dealing—Candice had killed her grandmother to obtain her inheritance and Nadine had murdered her niece, Jack’s sister, when the girl had found out about her affair. It seemed that the only thing connecting all of the victims was Felicity’s involvement in their arrests, and that made Felicity nervous. So much for avoiding law enforcement and detective work, Felicity thought as she reflected on her conversation during girls’ night.
“This is insane,” Felicity said. “Why did he take Whitney?”
“We’re not sure,” Agent Ryan said. “Kidnapping is quite a change in his MO. We also don’t know if the man on camera is merely hired help or is the mastermind. Remember, someone bribed the inmates to kill Kirk and Frankie. For all we know, this man on camera is just another lackey, but I suspect not.”
“Why not?” Felicity asked. “What makes you think this is the same man who has been pulling the strings so far?”
“Because his goals changed in the middle of following them through. If he had just been hired help, he would have killed all three women and made sure they were dead, just like the hired inmate, to ensure he got his pay. Other than the drivers, there were no police around; he had time to finish the job if he had wanted to. Instead, something that Whitney says to the man jolts him. Instead of shooting her, he gets flustered and drags her off. Doesn’t even bother to make sure that Candice and Nadine are dead,” Agent Ryan explained. “That’s why I think that the man on this camera is the same man pulling the strings, as you put it.”
“Are Candice and Nadine going to be okay?” Jack asked.
“They should be,” Agent Ryan said. “But they are both still in surgery, last I heard.”
“Do you want to go to Grady to see your aunt?” Felicity asked Jack, and he shrugged.
“I haven’t spoken to her since she was arrested,” Jack said. “I don’t know if I have it in me to be in the same room with her after everything that happened. I think I’ll pass.”
Felicity nodded and then turned to Agent Ryan. “I don’t understand why someone would specifically go after people I helped put away. Why would th
at cause someone to go on a killing spree? Do you have any theories?”
“Some,” Agent Ryan said. “We don’t have quite enough information for our profilers yet to narrow this down. Right now, we’re looking at probably two different classifications of serial killers: missionary or revenge.”
“What’s the difference?” Jefferson asked.
“Missionary killers kill because they believe that by their killings, they are somehow improving the world by getting rid of people they deem as bad or corrupt. Revenge killers kill with the motive of revenge, sometimes killing people who represent someone else to them or killing people they feel they have been done wrong by,” Agent Ryan said. “If we’re dealing with a missionary classification, it’s because our killer admires Felicity for putting these people away to begin with. They see themselves as someone finishing the work that Felicity started, making sure people she put away see complete justice in a way that they define justice. Death.”
“And why do you think it could be a revenge serial killer classification?” Felicity asked.
“The killer could somehow feel wronged by you,” Agent Ryan said. “And they think that by targeting your convicts, it’s a good way to mess with you or to one-up you in some way. But like I said, we don’t know which way our killer is leaning just yet. All we know is that you are somehow connected to this. Right now, we’re spread thin and aren’t able to fully focus on profiling because Georgia State Police are all out looking for Whitney before our unidentified suspect decides to get rid of her. It’s likely she’s being held either in Atlanta, where she was snagged, or has been brought to Coweta County, where we believe our killer lives.”
“Why do you believe the killer lives in Coweta County?” Felicity asked, feeling a nervous twitch in her gut.
“Because of you,” Agent Ryan said. “You’re either his idol or the thing he hates. You were in the local press a lot last year; it’s very likely he followed your story very closely because he is a local.”
“What do you need from us?” Brian asked.
“Cooperation,” Agent Ryan said. “Any information you have on Frankie, as his lawyer, would be helpful in identifying a suspect. Really anything any of you could tell us about these cases would be beneficial. I’m going to have Agent Lillian debrief all of you before you leave since you all worked on some, if not all, of the cases we’ll be looking at. Anything you could tell us would be helpful.”
Felicity nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Whatever you need, we’re here to help.”
Chapter 5
Felicity rubbed her eyes, feeling the full load of the day on her shoulders. Eventually they had departed the police station, and they all were able to return to work by early evening. Brian, now incredibly behind on paperwork, would be remaining at his office in Atlanta overnight. The thought of staying at home by herself had her a little anxious knowing that there was a serial killer loose, probably somewhere in Coweta County. Especially considering that the serial killer they were looking for was somehow obsessed with her cases. Could that mean the killer was also obsessed with her? The thought made her a bit woozy.
She and Jefferson closed up shop right on time. It being mid-February, the sun was still casting down over the shop as Jefferson nervously bid her farewell. “I get to ride home in a cop car,” Jefferson said, nodding to the street where two patrol cars were waiting. “How freaked out does it make you that the FBI requested we all get our own personal transports home tonight?”
“On a scale of one to ten, I’m at about an eleven right now,” Felicity admitted. “Let my officer know I’ll be another ten minutes or so. Just going to finishing up some paperwork. You can head on out, though.”
“All right,” Jefferson said, then turned up his nose slightly. “Brian’s really staying in Atlanta tonight after everything that happened today? You are really going to go home by yourself tonight?”
“Relax, Jefferson,” Felicity said. “I’ll be fine. You know I used to live by myself before I moved in with Brian. And you live alone too, you know? And besides, I’m a Georgia girl at heart. Anyone who tries breaking into our house will regret it as soon as I pull out my shotgun.”
Jefferson laughed and nodded approvingly. “That’s my girl,” he said before waving good-bye, reminding her to lock up the house and set her alarm, then heading out the door. She noted that he paused out front to look around—glancing up and down both ends of the street as though he expected the bogeyman to jump out from around a corner.
Felicity didn’t want Jefferson to worry, but she had fibbed a little bit about her confidence in the situation. She didn’t have any paperwork to file; she just wanted a moment alone. Instead of working, she called Autumn, who she knew would be getting off her shift at Newnan Hospital shortly. “Go for Autumn!” Autumn sang into the phone. “How is my darling Felicity doing this evening?”
“Have you heard about what happened today?” Felicity began, propping her elbows up on the counter in the dimly lit shop.
“Ooh, drama?” Autumn questioned. “Drama at work or with Brian? I can definitely sense some irritation… Don’t tell me… Do you have another case you’re working?”
“Something like that,” Felicity began. “Let me begin by saying that Coweta County has a serial killer.”
“No. Don’t you dare get involved with that one,” Autumn chided. “Back off right now, little missy!”
“Already involved,” Felicity said, “but not by choice. The killer is targeting people I helped put away. The FBI are handling the case, but it’s got me a little on edge. Brian is staying up in Atlanta tonight for work, and I’m a little—”
“Say no more!” Autumn called. “Slumber party at your place tonight.”
“Autumn, you don’t have to do that,” Felicity said, but truthfully, she was relieved. It was the real reason she had called, after all.
“Nope, already done. I’m going to swing by my place to fix myself an overnight bag, and then I’m heading to you,” Autumn declared.
“Wow, thanks, Autumn,” Felicity said. “I really appreciate it. To be honest, I was a little nervous about going home tonight. This lunatic kidnapped Whitney, shot Candice and Jack’s aunt, and he hired some jail inmates to kill Kirk and Frankie. He even hired some inmates to try to kill Brandon, Gregory, and Kristopher, but they managed to hold their own until guards got to them. Whoever this guy is, they’ve gone completely off the deep end. My head has been going a million miles an hour today thinking about all of this. I’m worried.”
“Have they found Whitney?” Autumn asked.
“Not yet,” Felicity said.
“Does Brittany know that her sister has been kidnapped and that her father was assaulted in prison?” Autumn questioned. “Someone should probably tell her.”
“Jack convinced the FBI to let him deliver the unfortunate news to her,” Felicity said. “I believe she’ll know come morning.”
“So, Jack and Brittany… Is that weird to you?” Autumn asked.
“Weird because he’s my ex and Brittany is the little sister of Jefferson’s crazy ex?” Felicity questioned. “Or weird because Jack is so much older than her?”
“Both.”
“Yeah,” Felicity said. “A little. Jack just never seemed like the type to be in such a… What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Joke. A joke relationship,” Autumn said. “He’s obviously dating her because she’s a young, little—”
“Easy there, Autumn,” Felicity said with a slight laugh. “Save some of the gossiping for our girls’ night. I have to go so I don’t keep this officer waiting. I’ve got a police escort home tonight.”
“Oh my gosh! Is it really that serious?” Autumn shrieked. “My poor Felicity! Are you in trouble? Do they think the killer is going to go after you?”
“It’s just a precaution. He’s not even going to stay at my house. He’s just making sure I get home okay,” Felicity assured her. “I’ll see you in a bit! Bye, girl.”
&nb
sp; “Bye,” Autumn mumbled.
Felicity finished locking up and headed out. A gentleman in uniform was standing half-asleep, propped up against his patrol car with his arms crossed and head slightly bowed. “Evening,” Felicity said. “Long day?” She laughed a little at the officer, who jumped slightly after being caught half-asleep on duty.
He looked up and smiled. “Evening, Miss Overton. Officer Steven Sanders,” he said and shook her hand. “I will be your escort this evening.”
“I appreciate you all taking so much care,” Felicity said as she started to get into the back of the car.
“The back is for no-goods,” Officer Steven joked. “You can sit in the passenger’s seat.”
Felicity smiled and thanked him before allowing him to open the door for her to climb in. They pulled out onto Main Street, and Felicity offered directions to her home. “A serial killer in Coweta,” Officer Steven said with a bit of surprise. “At least, that’s what they’re saying at the station, right?”
“They aren’t keeping you all well-informed, are they?” Felicity asked.
“Not really,” he said. “We’re just the FBI’s lackeys for now. I know they sent Jack up to Atlanta to pick up the lawyer. They’ve had all of us acting as errand boys today. All I’ve been told is some people staying at the local jails got hurt and that Whitney Fontant has been kidnapped. I think she was changing her name back to Lull while in jail, from what I’ve been told.”