“A mission could make sense. Killing Doyle just became necessary. After all, she literally held the key. I wonder if there were other people taken out because the sniper saw their deaths as necessary, too.” Kelly butted her head toward Marsha’s dead body. “Hopefully, the evidence the sniper left behind will give us another string to pull.”
The medical examiner looked up from his crouched position next to the body. “We’ll have the bullet extracted and analyzed, run through the system.”
“Have it rushed,” Jack told him.
“Was planning on it.”
“It might connect to other murders we aren’t yet aware of.” Kelly could only get a tad excited about any of this. Even if the gun used to shoot Marsha Doyle had been used in other murders, it only got them so far; it didn’t hand them the shooter.
Jack’s phone rang, and he answered and headed for the hall. He signaled for Kelly to follow him, and when he disconnected, he informed her it had been Paige and shared her message.
“Estella,” Kelly repeated the name he told her. “And they have video?” This could be a break they needed.
“The likelihood of her real name being Estella is slim,” Jack said.
“I agree, but I’d say the name might mean something to her.”
Jack remained quiet.
Kelly added, “Emotion, no emotion, I don’t think our shooter does anything without thinking things through. Maybe she is sending a message with the name or—”
Jack’s phone jingled. “Harper here…Yes, okay. What about the name Estella? Any of those show up for you?” He reentered Marsha’s apartment with Kelly hot on his heels and went into the kitchen where he put Nadia on speaker. Herrera joined them there.
“The Marines really don’t like parting with information,” Nadia said. “That’s what’s taken me so long, but there were five women who were trained at the facility in Pickel Meadows during the time range you gave me and who were also taught to snipe. You said Estella? Do we think that’s our sniper’s name?”
“The name came up for Paige and Brandon,” Jack cut in. “They’ll be calling you about it.”
“Well, I don’t recall any Estellas.”
“Any of those five women see an active war zone?” Jack asked. “Suffer PTSD?”
“All of them, Jack. Figured I’d narrow it down based on our previous thinking about mental instability and being trained in sniping.”
“Were any of the five women treated in any VA hospitals in or around the cities where the victims were shot?” Kelly asked.
“Not that I can see. The sniper was either not medicating or receiving treatment elsewhere.”
“She might not even realize she has a problem,” Kelly said. “If she’s operating from the standpoint of a mission, then she might just think she’s doing what’s required of her.”
“Send us the list of names you got there,” Jack directed. “But I want you to dig into the background of these women. See if the name Estella pops up anywhere.”
“You got it, Jack.”
He ended the call, and Kelly’s phone pinged a text notification, followed afterward by Jack receiving one. She looked at hers, and it was the list of names.
Jack stuffed his phone into a pocket and addressed Herrera. “Keep us posted on what transpires here.”
“I can do that.”
Jack led the way out of the apartment, and Kelly trailed, not sure where they were headed now.
“Jack?” she called out.
He slowed for her to catch up.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going back to the sniper’s nest.”
“Because…” She didn’t like questioning Jack, but she wasn’t sure why they’d be going there.
“Sometimes there are things you miss the first time.”
-
Thirty-Nine
The Lucky Pub, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Friday, October 25th, 2:30 PM Mountain Standard Time
Paige and I just got situated in Lucky Pub’s office in front of a monitor when our phones chimed with message notifications. It was an email from Nadia with a list of five women—any of whom could be our sniper. I scanned the list quickly, but there was no one named Estella. That would have been too easy.
“You ready to view it?” Hart asked.
“I am.” I glanced at Paige, whose nose was still in her phone. “Paige?”
She pulled her gaze from her screen. “Please, go ahead.”
Hart hit Play, and the stilled video on screen came to life. Hart had spent money on his video surveillance system—not HD quality by any means, but not the grainy black-and-white shit we were often given to work with.
The camera was positioned at the end of the patio, so we were given a good overview of the entire area. Barbie was taking orders from a table of four and laughing with her customers.
“Where’s Mr. Wise?” I asked.
“Right there.” Hart pointed out the backs of a man and woman sitting next to each other. “Now, the woman you’re curious about…Watch this table.” Hart circled a finger on the monitor, and seconds later, a hostess showed a woman to a table. It was farther away from the camera, but she was facing us.
“Freeze that there,” Paige requested, and Hart complied.
The woman was someone you’d least expect to kill four men. She was trim and pretty with blond hair, and she carried herself with grace. But the fact a woman of the same description had shown up the night before Reid’s murder, too, was more than coincidence to me. We were getting our first good look at our sniper. I glanced at Paige and nudged my head.
“Can you do a print screen of that image and send it to me?” Paige went on to give Hart her email address.
Hart clicked away, and seconds later, Paige’s nose was back in her phone. “I’m just going to forward this to someone real quick.” She tapped wildly at the screen, composing a message to Nadia with the photo attached. “Thanks,” she said to Hart, and he hit Play again.
On screen, “Estella” watched Wise intently, only to look away every now and then. Wise shifted—as if he were uncomfortable—and took his arm down from Alvarez’s shoulder. So what was it about “Estella” that made him anxious? Did they share a past like Reid and the mystery woman—presumably “Estella”—had?
The video went on to show “Estella” placing an order with Barbie and then the waitress setting off to take care of it. “Estella” immediately resumed staring at Wise, even as she unwrapped her cutlery from a paper napkin. Wise continued squirming and sipped on his drink, taking a few in rapid succession.
Barbie returned with something and placed it on the table. It appeared that “Estella” thanked her, still not taking her eyes off Wise. When Barbie left, “Estella” picked up what had been dropped off: a steak knife. She held the hilt in the palm of her right hand and put the tip to the pad of her left index finger.
“She’s threatening him, right there,” I said, and Paige nodded. Hart remained silent.
Josefina Alverez pecked Wise on the cheek and excused herself.
A bathroom break?
When Wise’s mistress was out of sight, he walked over to “Estella” and sat across from her.
They did know each other!
“Estella” was saying something. I wish we had sound, but a lip-reading expert might be able to figure out her words. Her face didn’t show any emotion. If anything, she appeared calm as she continued to toy with the knife. Wise, on the other hand, was visibly agitated when he left the table in less than a minute to return to his own. Alvarez reentered the camera range not long after that.
“Can you rewind, zoom in, and play it slowly?” I asked Hart.
He paused the video and looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m doing good playing and pausing. Rewinding, sure, but there’s no way I can
play it slowly. And don’t ask me to zoom in, either. I’m the least tech-savvy person out there.”
Again, where was Zach? He had a way with technology. But I’m sure if we got the video to Nadia, she could handle it. “We’ll have our analyst do that for us.”
“It’s just not going to be me.”
“Just send the segment of video to Agent Dawson—from the moment Mr. Wise is seated until he, his mistress, and that woman leave the pub.” I figured since he already had her email, it would make it easy for him.
“I can send the day’s footage. Again, I’m not a wizard. No video editor or splicer here.”
“That works,” I said. “For now, if you can, let’s rewind to when Mr. Wise goes to her table and watch it again.”
Hart narrowed his eyes at my dig, but he did as I’d asked without comment. Lips were moving far too fast for me to make out what was being said, but I’d wager the conversation was terse. Given Wise’s brisk movements, her few words were all that was necessary to get her point across.
This time, we let the video play out until Wise and Alvarez left, followed shortly by “Estella.”
“Well, that’s all folks,” Hart said. “I’ll get you the file.”
Paige and I waited until she had the video, then thanked Hart for his help and left.
Back in the SUV, I started first. “I’d really like to know what she said to Wise.”
“That makes two of us.” She was tapping away on her phone. “I’m forwarding the video to Nadia.”
“Have her find someone who can figure out what Estella”—I put finger quotes on the name—“said to Wise.”
“Already on that.” A few more taps, and Paige looked over at me. “We’re getting close, I feel it.”
“Yeah, we both saw the way she wielded that knife. I’d say we have our sniper’s face.”
“There’s something bugging me about what we just saw.”
I turned to face her more squarely. “And that was…”
“Yes, I agree that she seemed to threaten Wise with the knife play, but how does he go from acting intimidated…You saw how he was squirming in his chair?”
I nodded.
Paige continued. “How does he go from that to being brave enough, as it were, to join her at her table? And when he goes back to his table for the rest of his meal with Josefina, he seems to be more relaxed than before?”
“Good actor? False bravado? Though he was visibly agitated for a bit. And did he say anything to her? We couldn’t see his face.”
“If he did, she gave no visual tells. But for Wise to be uncomfortable one second, aggravated, possibly cocky the next, he underestimated her.”
“Isn’t that an understatement.” I thought back to “Estella’s” steadfast appearance—confident, chin high, and calm. So calm. “Whatever happened to that woman made her a cold-blooded killer.” Shivers tore through me. The killers who didn’t feel emotion were the hardest for me to comprehend—and the hardest to predict.
-
Forty
The Colonial Hotel, Arlington, Virginia
Friday, October 25th, 4:45 PM Eastern Standard Time
Kelly and Jack took a few detours on the way to the Colonial Hotel. Paige had called to tell them how she and Brandon had made out with the video from the Lucky Pub and armed them with a photo of “Estella.” She and Jack stopped by Powell’s, and the mistress positively identified “Estella” as the woman from Spencer’s the night before Reid’s murder.
After meeting with Powell, they dropped in at Spencer’s to see if they could get anywhere with identifying the mystery woman, but they met a wall. She’d paid cash, which was not surprising to Kelly. Something else that didn’t come as a surprise was when Brandon told them “Estella” had been devoid of all emotion on the video, even when confronted by Wise at her table. Kelly could feel it in her gut: “Estella” was their sniper. The hard part still remained: finding out her real identity and tracking her down.
As Kelly stepped into room 850 of the Colonial, she noticed immediately that the sniper’s hole had been covered with a piece of cardboard taped in place.
Jack was next to her, staring out the window, but he kept turning and looking over the room. “Paige said in all the previous cases, the sniper set up their nest on the eighth floor.”
Just like here, Kelly thought, but she wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself and chose to let his comment pass without a reply.
“Does the killer’s motive have something to do with the military?” he asked, then stared blankly at her.
“Jack?” She was certain she didn’t have to say it, but the victims were never enlisted—which he’d know.
He waved a hand. “I’m just talking out loud.”
She nodded, though he didn’t strike her as the talking-it-out type, just as he hadn’t seemed like a person who paced. “Serving in the military definitely changes you,” she said, and he turned to face her. She’d seen shifts in her grandfather’s behavior though he did his best to hide it. “It’s gotta be rough witnessing things…” She empathized with those who had seen an active war zone. They’d have seen people killed, maybe even before their own eyes. They could have even been the ones doing the killing. War would seem merciless and unjustifiable, even to those most dedicated to patriotic duty. Surely there’d be moments of reflection when the basic and bitter truth sank in: people were killing people because their governments told them to.
Something coursed across Jack’s face—pain, hurt, grief, all three?—and he looked out the window again. “It can get to you if you let it.”
Kelly watched his profile. Maybe his military past was responsible for his detached approach to life, his dislike for feelings, emotions. Her grandfather had given her a snapshot of Jack’s past—an ex-wife and a son he was rather distant from. Life could have been more kind. “Thank you, Jack.”
“For what?” He kept his gaze out the window.
“For your service, for all that you sacrificed.”
“When you’re in the military, you follow orders, you carry out your missions without question, without emotion.”
She replayed Jack’s comment in her head. It was similar to a thought she’d had a moment ago about people killing because their governments told them to.
Her eyes widened, and she touched Jack’s arm. “Do you think our killer might be acting on orders?”
He peered into her eyes and didn’t say a word for what felt like forever. “It’s possible, but it’s just as possible she’s ordering herself. I agree that she’s acting with order and logic. And every nest is set up on the eighth floor,” he repeated again.
“You really think there’s something in that?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time a number actually meant something to a killer.”
As was the case with the investigation that Jack and his team had helped her with in Miami. That killer had an attachment to the number three. “Okay, so why the number eight? We’re thinking she was a Marine. Maybe a battalion or regiment number?” she tossed out the first thing that came to her.
Jack met her eyes. “Could very well be.” He proceeded to pull out his phone, and Kelly could see he was looking at the list of names Nadia had sent over. “She didn’t include their assignments.” He called Nadia on speaker, holding his phone between them. Nadia answered on the second ring. “Nadia, did any of the women from your list serve with a regiment or battalion with the number eight?”
“Hang tight…” Keys clicked, and after a few minutes, she said, “There is one.”
Kelly’s heart fluttered. “Which one?”
“Lance Corporal Michelle Evans, currently thirty-five,” Nadia said slowly. “She served with the third battalion, in the eighth regiment. She was dispatched eleven months ago.” There was the sound of more clicking keys.
�
�Rather vague. Dig into that, but in the meantime, send us everything you have on her so far,” Jack directed.
“Wait,” Kelly called out, “Does this Evans lady have any Estella in her background?” Jack was watching her, seeking an explanation. “To provide that name to the server at the Lucky Pub, it tells me it means something to her.” It might not, but Kelly would rather see clues where they didn’t exist than miss any that did.
“Oh—” Nadia seemed to drift away from them as if something else had garnered her attention.
“Nadia?”
“We’ve got our sniper. You know I was getting the surveillance video from the Colonial Hotel. Well, I’ve looked at it and enhanced a closeup of someone going into room 850. I’d say she’s a positive match for the woman on the Lucky Pub video. But now I have Michelle Evans’ photo in front of me. Oh, yeah, we have her.”
“Find out everything you can on her immediately,” Jack said. “We’ll have a conference call with the entire team in one hour from now.”
“I’m on it, Jack.” Nadia beat Jack to hanging up—and it left Kelly hanging. Who was Estella, and how did she tie in with this Michelle Evans?
-
Forty-One
Undisclosed Location
Friday, October 25th, 5:05 PM Local Time
The sniper wasn’t born a killer; she was made into one. In place of pleasure and satisfaction was shame and regret—but there was also a sense of pride and accomplishment. The seeing through of a mission and getting the job done. She’d be lying to say she didn’t love the sense of power and control that came with pulling the trigger. She’d been trained, and she did her job—or she tried. But that fat man and the woman hadn’t been a part of the mission. In the field, they’d have been civilian casualties except for she’d killed them intentionally—heat of the moment or not. She’d gone to that door prepared to take life.
She was seated on a bench at a train station, her hands tucked under her legs in an effort to still them. But they continued to quiver like fish frying in oil.
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