She had studied maps of the town and surrounding areas until she had every street memorized, but she kept a map handy as she carefully negotiated the traffic signals and stop signs. Locating the house she wanted wasn’t difficult at all, and she was proud of herself. So far, so good.
The house was actually just outside the city limits, where the residences were farther apart and fields were beginning to appear. She parked in front and sat for a moment, studying the scene. Pretty. Nice tall trees and mature landscaping, lush green grass, and a house that looked affluent without being ostentatious. White, with dark blue shutters, and a nice deep porch that wrapped around the right side of the house. Four steps led up to the porch and directly to the front door.
Dark green bushes, covered with a multitude of pink flowers, hugged the foundation and hid the brickwork. Nikita wasn’t much on horticulture, but she thought the bushes might be azaleas. Maybe. The bushes were neatly trimmed, the grass recently cut. Two giant oak trees—she did know oaks, at least—threw shade across the entire front yard and part of the house. Yellow crime-scene tape was strung between the two trees, blocking the driveway, and extended around the house in a garish perimeter.
Slinging her bag onto her shoulder, she got out of the car, camera in hand, and took several quick photographs to have something to back up her memory when she was writing reports, or working theories. Ducking under the yellow tape, she walked up the paved driveway, snapping photographs as she went. She didn’t expect to see anything that would point the way to the killer, something that another experienced agent had missed, but she was fixing distances and measurements in her mind. Slowly she circled the house, noting every window and door, the state of the shrubbery under the windows, the distance to the ground from each window. Such knowledge might come in handy, might not. She already knew how; she just didn’t know who. Or where the who was.
In back there was a small door in the foundation that gave access to the crawl space beneath the house. She studied the ground to make certain there weren’t any footprints in front of the door, then crouched down in front of it; there was a handle, but she didn’t want to touch it and disturb any of the local cops’ evidence. Instead she worked her fingers into the seam until she could pull the thin slab of plywood outward, noting as she did so how the front corner dragged in the dirt. Taking a penlight from her shoulder bag, she directed the light on the ground directly inside the access door. It looked undisturbed, no scrape marks or hand imprints in the dirt.
The lack of marks reassured her that she was on the right track. Returning the penlight to her bag, she shoved the door back into place.
“What the hell are you doing in my crime scene?”
The deep voice, coming from directly behind and above her, shot through her nervous system like a bolt. She jumped, but managed to stifle the shriek that rose in her throat. “Good thing I don’t have a tricky heart,” she said as she stood and turned to face the owner of the voice.
“Answer the question,” he said, expression hard and blue eyes cold.
He was broad-shouldered and tall, a good six or seven inches taller than she, and she was five seven. He wore jeans, scuffed boots, and a blue jacket over a white polo shirt. His brown hair was a little on the shaggy side, not quite regulation. Maybe he just hadn’t had time to get a haircut, but maybe he had a little bit of rebel in him.
At her hesitation he put his left hand on his hip, a deliberate move that opened his jacket and exposed the badge clipped to his belt, as well as the big weapon tucked into his shoulder harness. “If you’re a reporter,” he said, evidently having noticed her camera, “your ass is in big trouble.”
Just as deliberately, Nikita opened her own jacket, showing him her weapon; then she lifted the flap of her shoulder bag and flashed her badge at him. “Nikita Stover, FBI,” she said, and held out her hand to him.
His eyebrows lifted, and if anything, he looked even more displeased. “Last time I checked, murder wasn’t a federal charge. What are you doing here?”
She shrugged and let her hand drop. Things would go better if he was friendly, since he was evidently in charge of the investigation; he’d called this “his” crime scene. This was the tricky part; she just hoped her documentation was good enough that he wouldn’t investigate her. “Following a trail,” she said, and sighed. “There has been a string of attacks targeting attorneys and judges, and we think it’s the same person doing all of them. A federal judge was killed in Wichita last year, remember that? We’re following up on every crime that could be remotely connected, looking for a break, because so far we aren’t having much luck.” She glanced at the house. “Mr. Allen was an attorney, so here I am. I’m not looking to take over your investigation; I was hoping you could help me.”
The set of those broad shoulders relaxed somewhat, but his eyes remained cold. “So why didn’t you contact me?”
“You were my next stop. I just wanted to see the house first. I didn’t intend to go inside, and I was careful not to mess up any evidence.” Mentally she took a deep breath, then gave him a little smile and held out her hand. “Let’s try this again. I’m Nikita Stover, FBI.”
This time he took her hand. His palm was slightly rough, and very warm. “Knox Davis, county chief investigator.”
A sharp crack split the morning air, and splinters exploded from the wall almost directly behind her. The backyard provided no good shelter and they moved simultaneously, both of them sprinting for the far side of the house. He shoved her ahead of him, sending her stumbling. When she recovered her balance, she flattened herself against the wall, weapon in her hand, though she had no recollection of drawing it.
He too had his big automatic drawn, pointing upward as he took quick peeks around the corner. “Don’t see a thing,” he said, and grinned as he glanced at her. His blue eyes danced. “Welcome to Peke County.”
“You think this is funny?” she barked.
“It’s sure as hell interesting.” His voice held a lazy drawl, as if he couldn’t get too excited about something as mundane as being shot at. “Somebody evidently doesn’t want you here, which makes me wonder how he knew you’d be here at this particular time.” While he talked, he kept taking those quick peeks, and he pulled a radio from his belt. After keying it, he said, “Code 28, 10-00, 2490 West Brockton.” He glanced at her. “The cavalry will be here in a minute.”
“So I gathered.”
“Who knew you’d be here?”
“No one. Not at this location, and not at this time.” A chill went down her spine, because the ramifications of this were about as bad as she could imagine.
“Someone did. That bullet was aimed at you.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Considering the angle, either she’d been the target or the shooter had bad aim. Discounting the bad-aim angle, she was forced to confront an ugly conclusion: one of her own was trying to kill her.
5
Investigator Davis remained plastered against the side of the house, looking for all the world as if he intended to stay right there until the cavalry, as he termed it, arrived. “Aren’t we going after him?” Nikita asked in frustration, crowding her shoulder against him to nudge him along. She needed to know who had shot at her, and if this mission had perhaps been compromised from the beginning. Was this why McElroy had failed, and Houseman died?
“I must have forgot to put on my white hat today,” he replied, not looking at her.
“So you don’t have a hat,” she said, driven almost to snapping because he was making inane remarks instead of doing something. “It isn’t raining.”
He glanced over at her, an incredulous, slightly baffled expression flitting across his face. “I mean, I’m not wearing my hero hat today. You know, the good guy always wears the white hat? The cowboy?”
“Got it.” Uh-oh. She should have made the connection, especially since she’d been thinking in cowboy idioms just a short while ago. She cringed inside at the unaccustomed mistake, and her cheeks be
gan to grow hot. “Then you can stay here, and I’ll go after him.”
She started to move forward and his arm swept out, pinning her to the house. “No way. I didn’t see any movement or smoke, so we can’t pinpoint his location. There are a lot of places out there for a sniper to conceal himself, and a lot of open ground where you’d be a sitting duck. You stay.”
“I’m a federal agent—” she began, fully prepared to pull rank on him. She used both hands to tug on the arm that pressed across her collarbones, too close to her throat for comfort. The effort was useless; she couldn’t budge him, unless she was prepared to use a much more violent method.
“That’s right, and I’m damned if I’ll be stuck filling out a lot of paperwork explaining how you got your ass shot off. County paperwork’s bad enough; with federal, I’d still be filling out forms a week from now. So you stay right where you are.”
She pursed her lips while she pondered the situation, her dark eyes narrow as she stared at him. She needed to stay on his good side, but she also needed to find out who had shot at her, and obviously she couldn’t do both at the same time.
On the other hand, he had delayed her long enough that whoever had shot at her was probably gone, and even if she dumped him on his ass and went after the shooter, she wasn’t likely to find out anything. “Okay,” she finally said. “You’ve probably waited too long to catch him, anyway.”
“So put the blame on me when you write your report.” He sounded completely unconcerned that she might do so, as if there was nothing she or the FBI could do to him on a professional level that caused him any worry.
She shrugged—as much as she could, anyway, considering she was pinned to the side of the house. “No, there’s no point in whining and giving excuses. It’ll still come down on me, regardless.”
He gave her a quick searching look as he moved his arm from her chest, then resumed his vigil in the other direction. “Pull back to the porch. If the shooter can work his way around to change his angle, we’re completely exposed here.”
She looked around and saw that the angled steps to the wide porch began just a few yards behind her. What he’d said made sense, so she moved swiftly in a low crouch to the steps, then up them and around to the front of the house. He was right behind her, watching their six while she guarded their front.
He said, “Anyone who’s studied logistics will know that moving across that open ground was a death sentence.”
He was trying to comfort her, and she was a little touched by his concern. “Yeah, well, TPTB aren’t always well-versed in logistics.”
There was a slight pause. “ ‘TPTB’?”
Now it was her turn to give him an uncertain look. She’d used a common acronym, one that had been around a long time. “The Powers That Be,” she explained, a little warily. “Internet shorthand.”
“Got it. I’m not much on the Internet thing; the guys who work juvenile cases have to stay up on the latest stuff, though.”
Her life was so tied to computers she couldn’t imagine not being totally conversant with them, but in a way she envied him the freedom to not be. Then it struck her that while she was on this assignment, she was essentially just as free as he was. She couldn’t be monitored, and she had no way of contacting her superiors without physically returning to the base. At first that lack of a tether had bothered her, but a few minutes ago when someone had shot at her, her outlook had changed considerably.
Since she couldn’t be monitored, the only way the shooter could have known where she was, was to have followed her. But why hadn’t he taken a shot earlier, while she’d been alone? Or when she was walking to her car from the motel room? Why here, and why now?
The sound of sirens in the distance interrupted her chain of thought, but she knew she’d be returning to it, gnawing over the facts and possibilities until something made sense.
The cavalry arrived in the form of six county patrol cars sliding in on squealing wheels, followed by a large armored van built more like a tank than a van. The double doors of the van swung open and a squad of stalwart men, dressed in dark blue and armed to the teeth, swarmed out.
“A SWAT team?” she asked in astonishment. “You said cavalry, not the heavy armored division.”
“They don’t get a lot of action, so I guess they needed the practice,” he said easily. “Besides, they love me.”
She snorted, but didn’t reply as they were abruptly surrounded by the deputies, all with weapons drawn and shouting a cacophony of orders at her. Belatedly she realized all of those weapons were pointed at her and she quickly said, “Federal agent,” while she slowly raised her gun hand and with the other hand lifted the flap of her purse to flash her badge.
The weapons were immediately lowered, but no apologies were issued and she didn’t expect any. If she’d been thinking, she’d have anticipated that reaction; the deputies had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
“This is Agent Stover,” Davis said. “We were behind the house and someone fired a shot at her from the tree line across the back field.”
“You sure the shot was aimed at her?” a deputy asked.
“Reasonably, considering the angle. If not, the guy was a lousy shot.”
Davis walked off a few feet with the deputies, talking to them in a low tone. Nikita stood in place, effectively excluded and trying not to let it bother her. She was the outsider; these people worked side by side every day. But it was her life that was evidently most at risk and she not only wanted to be involved, she needed to be at least a half step ahead of them.
Until the area was secured, it would be foolhardy to leave the security of their position, so she was forced to remain on the porch. Walking a few feet away in search of her own pocket of privacy, she took a small cellular phone from her purse and punched in a series of numbers. The numbers were random and connected her to no one, because there was no way she could apprise her superiors of the situation. If what she suspected was true, one of them was possibly sabotaging the mission and she wouldn’t contact them even if she could.
But for what reason would anyone sabotage her? It was to everyone’s advantage if she solved this problem. That was what didn’t make sense, but then a lot about this case hadn’t made sense from the beginning.
A feeling of panic welled in her and she fought it down. So what if she was alone, cut off from any real help? Someone had made a tactical error in missing that shot and now she had the advantage in that she was forewarned.
She dug an electronic notebook out of her bag, propped it on the porch railing, and began making notes directly on the screen. Putting things in writing always helped her see the cohesive whole of any situation, and besides, she had to do something other than stand there looking useless.
Point one: She had picked her motel at random, so she had been followed from the time she arrived.
Point two: If that was so, why hadn’t the killer shot her at the point of arrival, rather than waiting until today? Or broken into her motel room last night and killed her? She hadn’t been on guard then, and now she was.
Point three: There weren’t that many motels in Pekesville, so how hard would locating her have been? Maybe her exact arrival hadn’t been known, and instead the killer had checked out the local motels, found her rental car, and followed her to a more isolated location.
“What kind of squiggles are those?” a familiar voice asked as Investigator Davis moved close to her side and squinted down at her notes. He reached down and took the EN from her and examined it, turning it from side to side.
“A sort of personal shorthand I developed to keep nosy men from reading over my shoulder,” she said smoothly, though a smile twitched at her lips. She winked at him. “Seen any nosy men around?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said, not sounding at all guilty. “This is a pretty cool gadget. Guess the feds have the budget to buy toys like this for their people.”
“Guess so,” she said.
He leaned his sh
oulder against a column. “Got any ideas about who would want you dead? Discounting the small possibility that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was a random shot, someone firing without a clear line of sight. This isn’t deer season, but people don’t always obey the law, now do they?”
The area was definitely what she’d call rural, even though it was just outside the city limits. And things did occasionally happen for no reason; they just happened.
“I like the idea that this was an accident, but I can’t afford to believe it,” she said ruefully. “One other agent has been killed on this case; we thought he’d gotten close to the killer, but now I have to consider the possibility that his mission was sabotaged.”
“Meaning someone in your office is working with the killer to eliminate judges and attorneys who they think are working for the Dark Side.”
“Plenty of those around,” she said neutrally. Dark side? That was so quaint she was charmed. “What about the attorney who lived here? What kind was he?”
“A pretty good guy, for a lawyer. He didn’t do many criminal cases, though he’d take some of the small stuff. Mostly he handled property disputes, divorces, wills, that type of thing. Not a guy I’d say would attract anyone’s attention.”
“So there goes the ‘dark side’ theory.”
“There’s another angle. Mr. Allen’s murder may not be connected with your cases at all. But whoever killed him could have been lurking nearby, maybe watching the house for some reason, and when he saw you poking around, he took a shot at you.”
That theory had a bit more weight than the “accidents happen” theory. Killers did tend to hang around, for some reason, maybe because most of them weren’t very intelligent. Except . . . “So why not shoot you? You’re a bigger target.”
“There’s that,” he conceded. “But until we prove one way or another what’s going on, it’ll be safer for you to leave town and not tell anyone where you’re going. I saw you talking on your cell phone; did you report in?”