In Plain Sight

by R E Gauthier

  “I’m...I’m not doing anything to stand in her way, Kels...I mean Agent Macgregor can be with whoever she wants. I’m not a factor in any of this,” Miranda sobbed.

  “I already told you that women like you don’t try hard to get what you want, you just do. Agent MacGregor or Kelsey as you are allowed to call her; looks at you in a way that Race deserves to be looked at. With you dead, Race will be free to have what she wants.”

  Wanting to scream, Kelsey had to take a deep breath. All her hostage negotiation training told her to keep the assailant calm. Where are those snipers?

  “Sara if I make you a promise to give Race a chance once this is all over will you let Miranda go? She knew she didn’t have much to negotiate but even something would keep Sara talking and not acting on her endgame plan.

  “See Sara, Agent MacGregor isn’t interested in me. I saw that kiss between she and Race too and she...She’ll be better off with Race.”

  Tears were now running down Miranda’s face and she looked like she had given up hope. Kelsey’s heart broke hearing her say those things about her and Race. She felt Miranda’s despair and it killed her to think she’s ready to give up. She wanted desperately to tell the sobbing author she couldn’t find anyone better than her and if she only wanted to be friends she would take whatever she could get as long as Miranda was in her life. Knowing that admitting it now would only provoke Sara she said what Sara wanted to hear.

  “I don’t care about Miranda she’s only our witness, you were mistaken Sara, about everything.”

  Her heart winched in real pain as Miranda’s feelings hit her. I’m sorry Mo Chridhe.

  “I don’t believe anything you two say. I have seen you two together, when you thought no one’s looking, saw the way your eyes met; even the way you look at each other now says that you both have strong feeling for one another. I saw you leave Agent Macgregor’s suite yesterday morning, I’m not an idiot I know what happened that night after the night club. Everyone can feel it and you two are just denying it for reasons I can’t understand.” Sara now stood and dragged Miranda along with her.

  They were now standing at the roof’s edge dangerously close to it. Kelsey knew she had to execute her plan.

  “Miranda, please look at me and listen. What did my father tell you about Clan Gregors?”

  “I don’t...”

  “He said we’re known for our actions not words, so trust me. You do trust me, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, do you remember the night by the pool? You surprised everyone that night most of all Duncan and me. Do you think you can remember what it is you did?” She hoped to calm the author down and have her distracted by her voice but most of all she needed her to help her with this plan.

  “Yes...I remember...I don’t...”

  “Listen it doesn’t matter now but Duncan and I never knew what you were going to do, do you understand now?” She watched as the author thought for a moment and then understanding dawned on her face, she just closed her eyes. Kelsey felt it hit her full force. Yes she understands.

  “Enough I have had enough, it’s time, say goodbye now I’ll at least give you that,” Sara pressed the knife deep under Miranda’s chin. More blood trickled down her neck. Miranda cried out in pain.

  Kelsey seethed with anger.

  “Miranda do you trust me? I need you to trust me. Everything will be alright, you just need to trust me,” she pleaded with the trembling woman in Sara’s arms.

  “I do trust you.”

  “Good girl okay then show me what you did that night.” She saw the understanding shining in her eyes as everything happened in a flash but she saw it in slow motion.

  Miranda used her right hand to shove Sara’s hand holding the knife away from her throat. Without the threat of the knife, she managed to put some distance to elbow Sara in the side, loosening her grip on her. Miranda then ducked giving Kelsey a clear shot. She took it, hitting Sara in her forehead killing her instantly.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Destiny is not by chance, it’s by choice and not to be waited for but to achieve.”

  Kelsey hadn’t much time to think about what happened next, time sped by and everything seemed hollow and numb. She kept recalling the look in Miranda’s eyes, tears flowing down her cheeks and then Sara’s dead eyes looking at her. Miranda had fainted from the stress and paramedics took her to the hospital. She saw the angry look in Jess Harrington’s eyes and knew exactly what the woman wanted to say to her. Instead she followed behind the stretcher as they took Miranda from the rooftop. She had dodged that bullet.

  Her three colleagues and best friends in the world rallied around her.

  “Wow Mack you took one badass risk, how did you know Miranda would do that?”

  “I ahhh...well I knew she knew how to do it and saw that she understood what I needed her to do. I needed her to trust me but I also had to trust her,” she said dragging her hand through her hair and blowing out a breath that felt like she had been holding it since she arrived on the rooftop.

  Rachel came up and hugged Kelsey and whispered in her ear.

  “I’m proud of you but I don’t have to tell you that what you just pulled off could have gone horribly wrong.”

  “I know Rachel but it’s not like we had many choices, the SWAT team wouldn’t have made in time and she was going to jump and take Miranda with her.”

  “I know there weren’t many alternatives but this could get you in trouble with the brass and you know it,” Rachel said as she looked into her eyes.

  “Well I’m not one to do everything by the book anyhow and it won’t be the first time I’m in front of the Disciplinary Review Board.”

  Doc calmly stood by and then said he was also proud of her fast thinking. It was over but before she got the call from the director she knew was coming, she needed them to get all their ducks in a row and sew up their case against Sara Taylor.

  Over the next few hours they learned that Sara had in fact rented a condo in Salisbury near Natasha’s home and park where she was killed in. She worked at the same advertising agency Katherine Montgomery had. Putting her in close proximity to both victims and giving her opportunity to kill them both. Tracking her GSP on the rental car she had they knew she likely had Miranda with her when she went and picked up Elizabeth Ellis from the airport. She had rendered her last victim unconscious and had her in the trunk, taking her back to her home to kill her and stage the body for her husband to find. They had her recorded confession and Miranda’s eye witness account. Even if Sara had not gone to the extreme of staging her endgame: a murder suicide she would have been convicted easily on the evidence they had. I just wished she’d be rotting in prison instead of me needing to kill her.

  Her mind kept going over the last several minutes before she shot Sara and again she knew she had done the only thing she could. Guilt bubbled up as she remembered Jess with her arms around Miranda and Doc talking with her. She knew that if she had conducted herself more professionally, the author; their witness would never have been grabbed and held hostage by Sara. If she had done what she had done every other case, keep her head in the game, Miranda Gauthier, wouldn’t have had her life endangered and she would have had to kill Sara. No she would have done us all a favor and killed herself. She continued berating herself for her lack of discipline and what it had almost cost her. She could have died.

  Nikki had called and spoke to Jess and Miranda was being held for observation in the hospital, her cuts had been cleaned and taped. The doctors said the scars would be minimal. She worried that the other scars would not heal as easily. She longed to go to her but knew she should stay away. Her head won that battle.

  She reminded Nikki about her promise to get the book signed and set to her niece. Her best friend tried to convince her that Miranda would want to see her but she asked that Nikki promise her she would do as she asked.

  I know I’m going to get the call and when I do I’ll be away for a
long time. The review board wouldn’t let this one slide so easily.

  Calling Nanna she had reassured her that everyone would be fine and told her she would do her best to come visit her soon, afraid it would be several months before she could get back home again.

  Her phone rang then and she turned to look out over the Baltimore Inner Harbor. Looking at the phone screen to see who had called her she saw the DOJ’s executive number on the screen. Quickly she tapped the accept call button. It’s worse than I thought.

  “Hello...” was all she got out.

  A familiar male voice curtly interrupted her.

  “Thank you for doing a marvelous job there Kelsey; this is Frank Montgomery calling to congratulate you on a job well done.”

  “You didn’t have to do that Sir; I mean I just did my job.”

  “You did what I couldn’t do and that’s to make that woman pay for everything she did. Between you and me, our justice system doesn’t serve the victims when their killer just sits in jail, you killed her like I would have liked to do myself, so thank you.”

  “Well news travels fast; I’m surprised you know about it already Sir. Can I assume then that I will be getting a call from the Director to be present before the DRB by tomorrow?”

  “I have people who report to me but I’ve not been privy to the inner workings of the Bureau today but I can assure you that I’ll do my best to make sure you’re not held up long. What that woman was able to do, infiltrate the FBI will need to be reviewed, but you had nothing to do with it. I’m not calling just to congratulate you; I also called to tell you that I have requested you to lead a new Taskforce and this time if you can bring this bastard to justice, you’ll have the pick of any unit to lead.”

  She could hardly believe those words; she had been waiting for since she stepped off the stage after graduating from the FBI Academy.

  “Well Sir...,”she began to say.

  “No need to tell me now, I just need you here in DC by tonight. This is a politically sensitive case and the fewer people who know about it the better. Once you have the specifics, I’ll need you to assemble the best team you can to investigate it with the upmost discretion and professionalism.”

  When the boss of your bosses told you to be somewhere and when you jumped but she had just finished this case and it hadn’t even sunk in yet. Torn between what she should do and what she did do, she followed her gut and told the US Attorney General she would be in DC on the next flight out of Baltimore.

  She knew she should have told him that the committee may find her liable for endangering a witness during fulfilling her duties as the leader on this case. This fact that would most likely have him take away this next assignment and with it the power to do what she had been striving for all these years, finding the person or persons who were responsible for her cousin, aunt and uncle’s deaths. She would have to reconcile herself with it once it came to light because she wasn’t about to let it get in the way of all she had been working to do these last 21 years, get justice for her family.

  One final look around the room where it all began she watched the members of the taskforce finishing up; they all had their duties to perform. Her friends and FBI family had pulled through for her again. She had finished her job and had solved this case. The case had brought a woman into her life that had changed her forever. Gone was the woman who could bottle up her emotions, gone was the woman who didn’t think or worry about her needs and gone was the woman she had always been.

  The new woman she had become had the gift of Second Sight and could use her dreams to solve cases as long as she kept letting them in. This gift also allowed her to read the feelings of a woman and sense her even when she couldn’t see her. Her feelings were tangled up with this woman so she didn’t know where she ended and Miranda began. So how can I stay away from her? How would she be able to stay away from a woman who had been the catalyst to her meeting the REAL Kelsey MacGregor and saying goodbye to the person she had once been? Can this new person she had become be the Senior Special Agent Kelsey MacGregor who solved the hard cases?

  She walked through the door that would take her to her destiny in DC and hopefully to the answers she sought.

  About the Author

  In Plain Sight is the debuting novel by R. E. Gauthier. This book came from a labor of love of hers since she had been a young girl, always thinking one day she’d write a book Growing up she told many a tall tale and was known for her storytelling that had people in stitches or on the edge of their seats to find out what would happen next. Always a serious person she took growing up just as serious as she did her passion for animals, whether they were feathered, finned or furred, she loved and cared for them all. Taking the path of author was not in the cards as she left high school and attended university in her hometown, Halifax. She worked for nearly 20 years in a veterinary clinic and loved her job very much but knew that something was missing.

  She went a journey of self-discovery over the next several years and left the job she loved to pursue love and fulfillment, finding it in a small rural town with a shy woman and their assortment of fur-children; adopted or fostered. She always knew one day she would pick up the pen and write that story.

  Remember: “This is not the end but the beginning.”

  This is her story so please enjoy and don’t forget to go to Amazon.com if you would like to learn know more about R.E. Gauthier and her upcoming books please follow her on:

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