Pure Vengeance (On the Line Romantic Thriller Series Book 1)

by Lori Ryan

  This feeling was never so strong as it was now. Because right now, this sniper was taking his city apart, bit by bit. And he wasn’t just taking down people they thought were guilty of a crime. Now he’d hit an officer. The second one of their own to feel violence that day.

  Cal froze as he approached, seeing the medical examiner bent over a body in blue. Shit, shit, shit.

  The scene was chaotic and reporters were swarming at the edges of the taped off area, screaming at him for a statement, but the officers standing by were stone cold and silent. Rigid jaws and anger-swamped eyes met his. He couldn’t blame them.

  Another body lay on the sidewalk in front of the small building, covered and waiting for Dr. Kane’s attention. A pimple-faced kid of seventeen or eighteen sat talking to Detectives Reynolds and Cafferty, whom Cal had pulled in to work with him. The kid looked shaken as hell and didn’t take his eyes from the body on the sidewalk.

  Dr. Kane looked up. Her face didn’t hold anger. Sorrow was stamped across her features, and Cal looked down to see a young officer he didn’t know lying dead in a thickening pool of blood. He was a kid. A fucking kid fresh out of the academy, Cal would bet.

  Cal crouched by Dr. Kane’s side. “What happened?”

  “His death was swift.” She removed her gloves and looked at him. “He didn’t suffer long.”

  Cal didn’t respond. He knew what she was trying to do, but it wasn’t working. The officer might have died quickly, but he’d have had time to think of his family. The people he loved.

  He looked over at the other body. “That the perp?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Kane said quietly. “He went to rob the place but our officer here got the call and was around the corner. The guy held a gun to the clerk and tried to drag him out of the place to get away with a human shield. The sniper shot Officer Burke and then shot the gunman. Burke’s backup arrived to find the kid on the ground a mess, and both the gunman and our officer dead on arrival.”

  Cal knew they had officers scouring the area for the sniper, but he knew this guy would be long gone. What he didn’t know was whether their sniper intended to take the officer out or whether it had been an accident. Was he expanding his message? Was he so pissed at the city and the police that he was now focusing on them? Was he lumping them together with the criminals he’d been preying on to date?

  Cal stood and went to find out what the clerk had told Reynolds and Cafferty. Eve approached and fell in beside him silently. He hadn’t seen her pull up.

  “Was he able to help us at all?” he asked as Cafferty broke away from Reynolds and the clerk.

  “He says the perp heard the siren and looked like he might take off running. He hit the door, but the cop was already out in the lot. Came back and grabbed the clerk and dragged him with the gun on his head. They get outside and they’re standing there with Officer Burke yelling at him, telling him to drop the weapon. The kid doesn’t know how long it went on. All of a sudden, all hell broke loose. He says he isn’t completely sure what happened. The gunman was making a run for it, pulling on him, and he sees Burke move, maybe trying to cut him off? Maybe block him so he couldn’t take the clerk with him? He doesn’t know. But he sees Burke go down. Then the gunman makes a run for it in the other direction. The clerk said he dropped him so fast when Burke went down, he wasn’t sure what was going on. The gunman runs that way.” Cafferty gestured toward the east. “A second shot took him out.”

  “You think the sniper was aiming for the gunman and Burke stepped in and got hit by mistake?” Cal asked.

  “Sounds like it.” Cafferty nodded.

  “How the hell is this sniper doing this? First the guy in the park, now a guy holding up a gas station.” Cal asked.

  Eve shook her head. “It makes sense for him to be listening to a police scanner, and that would explain this one.”

  “It doesn’t explain the attacker in the park or the first vic.” Reynolds shook his head and they were all silent for a minute, before Reynolds let out a quiet curse and looked over at the uniform. “He was a good kid.”

  “You know him?” Cal asked. Eve still stood by his side, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Yeah.” Cafferty nodded. “Not well. Enough to know he shut up and did his job. Real eager. A few months out of the academy.”

  The words echoed in Cal’s head as he continued to do his job. He tried not to look as they took away Burke’s body. He’d need to go see the kid’s family before they released the identification. Cafferty had volunteered, but Cal would do it. This was on him. It was all on him.

  “Cal. Damnit, Cal, slow down.”

  Cal didn’t want to hear what she had to say. He turned on her. “The press is watching, Eve. Save it for later.”

  “No. I won’t save it for later.” She moved in front of him, putting herself between him and the door of his car. He liked her tenacity, but he liked it a hell of a lot better when it wasn’t aimed his way. He didn’t need to hear what she had to say. He knew damned well Officer Burke was dead because he hadn’t done what he needed to.

  “Eve, that’s enough.” He gritted out between clenched teeth.

  “No.” She glanced at the press. The uniformed officers were keeping them off them for now, but they’d make their way over to them eventually. He needed to get out of here. “No, you need to listen to me. I was wrong before, Cal. I was angry. But this is not your fault. That officer is dead because of our sniper, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.”

  “Eve.” The warning came out a bit more like a plea than he’d intended and he lowered his voice and firmed up his tone. “I don’t need you to rehash this for me. I’ve got to go tell his family—”

  “No.” Her tone was sharp and harsh and he pressed his lips together in response. “No, you need to hear this. This is not on you. You did not kill that officer.” She said each word carefully and he could see that she meant it. She wanted him to believe it. The only problem was, he didn’t—couldn’t.

  “I need to go inform Officer Burke’s family.” He looked past her. He didn’t want to do this right now. Didn’t want to let her soothe him. He didn’t want to be soothed.

  “I’ll go with you.” She began to move toward the front of the car, ignoring the fact she’d driven here separately, but he stopped her.

  “No.” Nothing about this should be made easier for him. “You go back to the station. Follow up with forensics or something. I need to do this.”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond. He got in the car and drove away without looking back. She was too much of a comfort to him. He didn’t know when it happened, and he knew things weren’t quite right between them right now. Even with that, just having her there would make him feel better, and that just wasn’t something he was ready to accept right now.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Eve saw the look on Cal’s face when she walked into the bullpen with Jake Tanner. She only hoped he’d give her time to play this out before lighting into her. If he trusted her, she believed they could rule Tanner out without any harm to his career. Of course, if Cal exploded on her, that would all be over.

  She probably should have talked to him about this ahead of time. Doubt tried to creep in at the corner of her mind, but she forced it out of the picture.

  “Hey, Cal,” She said, bringing Tanner right up to the group of detectives Cal stood with near his desk. “You were right, Tanner was happy to come in and see if he can shed any light on things.”

  Jake Tanner put a hand out to Cal. “Good to see you, Cal. You should have called sooner. I’da been happy to come in.”

  “Thanks for coming.” Cal shook Tanner’s hand, apparently willing to play along. “Take a look at what we’ve got, will you? Let me know if you see anything we haven’t seen?” He turned to the rest of the task force. “Jarrod, why don’t you come with us, and Jepsen and Mullen, you guys head over to forensic, see if they’ve got anything more for us. Taylor and Martinez, can you touch base with your tech team?�
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  Eve followed Cal, Jarrod, and Jake into the incident room. The long room had their murder board along one wall and all the files related to the case. She watched Jake as he glanced around. She was hoping to get a read on him by showing him what they had. If he was their killer, she suspected he’d trip up and show it. He’d either be fascinated with seeing the evidence of his handiwork laid out in front of him. Or he’d mention a detail that hadn’t been reported in the press. They’d held back quite a bit on this case.

  Jake didn’t go immediately to the murder board. He stood near the small table and looked to Cal. Eve got no vibe of fascination the way she would have expected if he’d been the shooter. The shooter would have liked seeing their handiwork laid out. With Tanner, all she got was the vibe of an officer waiting for instruction and wanting to do his job.

  Cal waved an arm and walked toward the murder board, Tanner following. He gave Tanner a recap of the shootings. Tanner gave a low whistle as Cal described the distance and the difficult layout for the shot that had started this all. The one that had put Jarrod in the hospital.

  Tanner asked questions about the direction of the shootings, time of day, weather and more. Nothing he said indicated he was trying to hide prior knowledge of the facts. And none of his behavior raised a flag for Eve. He moved down the length of the murder board and stopped, studying the sniper’s nest carved out into the back of the silver sedan. The one their killer had used to shoot Mary Gentry’s attacker.

  “What are you thinking?” Cal asked, standing at the officer’s shoulder. Eve moved closer.

  “Just that it’s tight. The DC snipers used a little bigger sedan. One of those older models that’s longer. This is a small car.” He shrugged. “Then again, we’ve all shot from some tight spaces, literally and figuratively.”

  “Could you make a shot work in that space?” Cal asked. Eve estimated Tanner was six foot two, maybe three. He was thin, but tall.

  Tanner was slow to nod. “I think so, but it wouldn’t have been my choice.” The car had been reported stolen two days before the shooting, but the owner wasn’t sure if it had been missing longer. It was the car her son used and he’d been away for over a week visiting his father in another state. Maybe this was a car the shooter had access to? Something that was readily available in the neighborhood. They had uniforms talking to people on the block and on nearby streets to see what they’d seen.

  “So, it’s possible, the shooter is small? Or a woman?” Eve asked, stepping up to stand next to Cal. She realized they’d had blinders on to the possibility that this was a woman. How the hell had they let that happen?

  “Some of the best snipers in history have been women. It’s definitely possible,” Tanner said.

  Cal swore under his breath and turned to one of the stacks of files on the table.

  “What is it?” Eve and Jarrod asked as they came to stand by his side. Tanner continued to look over the evidence tacked up to the board behind them.

  Cal rifled through notes. “The first shooting. We’ve never been able to explain how someone got this rifle in and out of the building without anyone noticing someone carrying something as large as a sniper’s rifle.”

  He tossed aside the stack of papers and pulled out his phone, brought up a webpage and moved back to Tanner.

  “Hey, could someone hide the kind of rifle they’d need for these shots in a double stroller like these?” He showed Tanner a webpage and Eve came up to look. It showed several types of double infant strollers. Some with the seats side-by-side and some with the two seats one in front of the other.

  Tanner took the phone and scrolled through. “Look at this,” he said pointing to one of the pictures. This showed a stroller with the sun shades up over the infant seats and a diaper bag hanging from the handle. “My wife throws a blanket over the top of our baby’s stroller all the time if he’s sleeping. You cut a hole into the diaper bag and throw a blanket on top of the infant seats, you can definitely wheel your rifle around. I’m not even sure you’d need a folding stock on that.”

  “Damn.” Cal went to the door and called for Cafferty and Reynolds to come into the room, before turning back to the group. “We have a witness at the building where our shooter made the first shot who said she talked to a woman with her two infants in the elevator the morning of the shooting. And Mary Gentry said the person she saw in the car our shooter used as a sniper’s nest was small and wearing a baseball cap. We need to look through everything in these files for evidence pointing to a woman. We’ve been too set on this being a man.”

  “Can I help?” Tanner asked. Cal looked to Eve who gave a small nod. They might not have grilled Tanner about his whereabouts, but she’d gotten what she wanted. She’d been given the chance to read his reactions and check him out. She didn’t believe he was their shooter any more than Cal had believed it.

  “Grab a stack.” Cal gestured at the table as he filled in Cafferty and Reynolds on what they were looking for.

  Reynolds set aside the file he’d been holding and each grabbed a stack of folders. With this number of people, they’d clear the stack of interview notes and reports quickly. Eve grabbed an extra white board from the other end of the room and erased the old material on the board before rolling it over to the table. They needed to gather any information about a woman near the crime scenes in one place so they could look at the case with fresh eyes. She didn’t take the time to kick herself for not seeing it earlier. They had work to do.

  If they could pinpoint any sightings of a woman, they could go back and do those interviews again. With any luck, they’d land on something to help them identify their shooter. Preferably before any more lives were taken.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Eve looked at the white board. They hadn’t found much, but there was a statement from a witness in the second shooting who’d said he saw a woman with a stroller leaving the area after the shooting. No notes as to twins or a double stroller or anything, so Reynolds was running out to chase the witness down and see if he could get more detail.

  Eve stood and stretched, moving around the room. She leaned against one wall, hands behind her back, giving her mind the break it needed to process more information. Cal glanced up at her and smiled, winking in a way that made her stomach flip over. She wasn’t ready for what she had to admit was happening between them, but she was glad he was offering an olive branch after the standoff over Tanner. She smiled back at him, but looked away as she caught Jarrod’s look. Jarrod hadn’t missed what was happening between her and Cal.

  She hoped like hell the others had. It wasn’t that she was ashamed or embarrassed or anything. She just wasn’t at all sure where this relationship was going to go and she’d done a lot to earn her reputation in the agency. If a man dated someone they worked with and it didn’t work out, it wasn’t seen as a big deal. For a woman, it could follow them around. They could forever earn the reputation of being someone who was willing to sleep with a coworker, and she’d just found it was a hell of a lot easier to have the rule and reputation of “never.” It was easier if the men she worked with knew she was off limits.

  She hadn’t been off limits for Cal. Hadn’t been from minute one, because, no matter how she fought it, she was attracted to him on more than a physical level. She ignored the fact that she could feel his eyes on her now, and looked around the room at the evidence they’d collected. It wasn’t much. Her eyes landed on the folder Reynolds had set down earlier. It was from the James case. Eve’s eyes bounced to the murder board for the James case, which still stood against one wall at the end of the room.

  Something tickled the back of her spine as she moved over to the board and began to read. She didn’t know what, but strands of thoughts began like wisps floating in her mind. She let her eyes travel the board, not really reading but simply getting impressions. She felt Cal come up beside her, but he didn’t speak.

  Again and again, her eyes went to Rebecca James. Then she saw it. Rebecca Evans James
. She scanned the small sheet of info on Rebecca James, there more as a formality than for its informative abilities. Neeley, Massachusetts. Rebecca James was born Rebecca Evans in Neeley, Massachusetts.

  It had to be a coincidence.

  She snatched the sheet off the board and moved back to the table, all eyes on her now. Minutes later, she’d pulled up records of the Carl Evans case in Maine. Photos that had been collected during the trial of the man known as the General to his family and followers, the leader of a small militia group who’d been arrested five years earlier. Carl had died in prison and some of his followers still lived on the property once used as his stronghold. It had been owned by another family who hadn’t been implicated in his trial. In fact, the case they’d eventually been able to build hadn’t been what they’d hoped for at all with Evans.

  They’d hoped to build a case for arms dealing, but the case had fallen apart and they’d only been able to put him and several of the other members of his militia group away on a drug trafficking charge.

  “What is it?” Cal asked, looking over her shoulder.

  Eve pointed to the small woman in one of the older photos on the screen of her tablet. “This is Rebecca James, formerly Rebecca Evans. She’s the daughter of Carl Evans.”

  “The General?” One of the other FBI agents who had joined them in pouring over evidence asked, as he stepped forward.

  “Who is the General?” Jarrod asked.

  “A man named Carl Evans. Leader of a militia group in Maine. He was dishonorably discharged, long before hitting anywhere close to General rank, but his people called him the General. We arrested him about five years back. The FBI hoped it would be a big takedown of him and his militia organization. We suspected he was dealing some pretty heavy equipment, firearms and even some grenades, that kind of thing. The case went south. We think we got a bad tip from one of our sources. Instead of the arms we expected to find, we caught up him and a few of his people for selling crack cocaine. The sale took place off his property, but we got a warrant to raid the property and thought we’d find the weapons there. Nothing. There were weapons, but none that weren’t legally owned. None of the heavy munitions we expected to find. The General was killed in prison and we never made a case for anything other than the initial drug charges.”