Shoot for the Heart: The Complete Series Boxed Set (Shoot for the Heart Series)

by Cassia Leo

  As my mom walked out of my hospital room, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wouldn’t have to put on a brave face for her anymore. Tomorrow, if all went well, I would check out of this hospital room and my parents would head back to Minnesota the next day. My dad didn’t say it aloud, but I could see he was dying to get back to his dental practice to take care of his patients, who obviously needed him much more than I did.

  I was about to turn off my phone so I could go to sleep, when it started ringing. But it wasn’t the ringtone I was used to hearing. When I looked at my screen, I was surprised to see that I had a call coming in on my Skype app. I couldn’t even recall downloading the app. In fact, the last time I remembered using Skype was on the Panasonic Toughbook my dad bought me for my last deployment. But that was in the beginning, before we relocated to a different COP — combat outpost — and internet access was pretty much non-existent for almost four months.

  The username of the caller was empress25. I didn’t recognize the name, but I still had a pretty good feeling I knew who it was. And I couldn’t help but smile.

  I tapped the blue button to answer the video call and the image that materialized on the screen was very unexpected. The woman looked to be in her early to mid-twenties; twenty-two if I had to guess. Her dark, wavy hair cascaded over her svelte shoulders, the left side tucked behind her ear. Her skin was as fair as milk, cheeks flushed pink, and full lips a natural shade of rose.

  She appeared distracted for a split second, then she gasped. “Oh, my God! I didn’t think you were actually going to answer.”

  I chuckled. “I can hang up, if you’d prefer.”

  “No!” she exclaimed, her cheeks turning a gorgeous shade of flame-red. “I… I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

  I decided to have a little fun with her. “And you are?” I asked.

  “Oh, crap. I can’t believe I just expected you to know who I am. I’m Emily. I’ve been talking to your mom for a while. She’s the one who told me about your leg.” Her eyebrows scrunched together above her gray eyes, waiting for me to say I remembered her, but I stayed quiet. “I’m the creepy girl who’s been leaving you voicemail messages for the last two years.”

  I laughed harder this time. “I’m sorry. I totally knew who you were before I even answered the call. I was just messing with you.”

  “That’s so mean!”

  “I know. I’m real sorry. It’s just getting kinda boring in this hospital bed. Gotta get my kicks wherever I can.”

  She smiled as she shook her head. “You really had me going there. I thought maybe there was a chance you hadn’t actually listened to any of those messages.”

  “Well, it would be kind of hard to keep from listening to at least one when you left me over a hundred voicemails.”

  “Oh, God. Now it sounds even creepier,” she said, folding her leg up so she could rest her chin on her knee. “So how’s the leg doing? I was so worried when your mom told me you’d been shot.”

  “You Skyped me to ask about my leg?”

  She let her leg drop off the chair and she hid her face in her hands. “God, I’m so bad at this.”

  “Hey, I was just teasing you,” I assured her. “It’s not like I haven’t been dying to see the girl who’s voice I’ve grown so… accustomed to. Actually, I was going to say that I’ve grown so attached to your voice, but that would be even creepier than you leaving me a hundred voicemail messages.”

  This time, she laughed. “That would definitely not be creepier than a hundred voicemails.”

  “Okay, maybe not creepier, but definitely in the same creepy neighborhood.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you all my life? I… I can’t explain what made me want to get in touch with you after I got those calls from your VA worker. It was just… something I had to do.”

  I had never seen a woman so eager to wear her heart on her sleeve. Especially a woman with such natural beauty. She was quirky and unsure of herself, yet something about her was also stately and bold. She was going to speak her truth, no matter how uncomfortable it made her. It was breathtaking.

  “Well, I’m glad you did,” I said. “Look, I was about to go to sleep. The good drugs are kicking in. Maybe we can chat again later?”

  She smiled as her gaze seemed to wander over my face. “You look different than I imagined. Better, but different.” She shook her head as if to clear away whatever thoughts were clouding her mind. “Of course! Yes, we can chat later. I’m sure you’re really tired. I’ll let you get your rest.”

  “Goodnight, Emily.”

  “Goodnight.”

  “I actually think about going home pretty often,” I said, answering Laurel’s question about whether I ever thought that maybe I should have stayed in Minnesota.

  She unwrapped her arms from around her knees and stretched her legs out as she rested her feet on the coffee table. “So why don’t you go home?”

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  She gasped. “No! Of course not. I’m just… trying to find out if you’re planning on leaving any time soon.”

  I shook my head. “Why would you think I was leaving?”

  “Because everybody leaves.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said, repeating the words she’d spoken when she visited me in the hospital last week.

  She glanced at me as she suppressed a grin. “Maybe you should put on the movie.”

  One hour and four more trick-or-treaters later, I got an idea I couldn’t believe hadn’t come to me sooner.

  As Laurel closed the front door and made her way back to the sofa again, she cocked an eyebrow. “What’s with that wide-eyed, crazy look on your face?”

  “You should go to the shooting range with me,” I declared excitedly. “Have you ever been to a shooting range?”

  She shook her head. “No way. You saw what happened to me when your car backfired. Guns and I don’t get along.”

  The truth was I didn’t remember a whole lot of what happened when she had a panic attack the day my car backfired. I remembered hearing her screams and running toward her house. I remembered bits and pieces, like breaking her window to get into her house, then my memory skipped forward. Suddenly, I was outside Laurel’s house, carrying her in my arms as Boomer yapped at me to try to stop me from doing something stupid.

  “I know you don’t like guns, but my VA therapist says that prolonged-exposure therapy is the treatment with the highest success rate for severe PTSD. It’s difficult in the beginning, but I can teach you some of the breathing and visualization exercises we go through.”

  “I think I’ve been to enough yoga classes to know how to do breathing and visualization exercises. I’m just so afraid of what will happen if I have another panic attack. I… I can’t end up in the hospital again.” She turned to look me in the eye. “Promise me you won’t let that happen and I’ll go.”

  “I promise the moment you start feeling uncomfortable, we’re out of there.”

  Without a trace of a smile, she nodded. “My sanity is in your hands. Don’t let me down.”

  Chapter 12

  Laurel

  Trying to resist the urge to look in the mirror and check my hair and makeup was like trying to resist a drink of water in the middle of the Saharan desert. A Herculean task. Nothing good could come of obsessing over my appearance today. I was going to a shooting range, not a classy restaurant or a nightclub.

  I didn’t have anyone to impress.

  This wasn’t a date.

  I was going to a shooting range to attempt to confront my fear of guns.

  This wasn’t a date.

  I was going with a friend.

  This wasn’t a date.

  My cell phone buzzed loudly as it vibrated on the nightstand. I scooped it up, my heart thumping wildly as I turned it over to look at the notification on the screen.

  Dylan:

  how’s your date going?

/>   I gasped and almost dropped the phone as I fumbled with it, clumsily unlocking the screen and typing my response.

  Me:

  It’s not a date!

  Dylan:

  whatever you say, love-bug. are you with him now?

  Me:

  No. We’re leaving in about 20 minutes. Did Frank give you the merch box?

  The marketing director at Barley Legal Brewery offered to send me some Barley Legal merchandise to use as inspiration for the app mockup I was creating. I would be billing the brewery hourly as a freelance software developer, creating a few drinking game apps. If they liked any of the mockups, we would then negotiate a price for developing and delivering the final product.

  If I did a good job and worked my ass off, I could probably make enough in the next few weeks to support myself for the rest of the year. That would give me a nice cushion of time to find more freelance gigs.

  Just thinking about this stuff made my stomach ache. I had worked to support myself through college, but I was painfully aware now that I had lived a charmed post-college life. The days of yoga class, coffeehouses, and planning my blissful future were gone.

  Part of me was glad to have something to work for. Supporting myself made me feel stronger and more purposeful than I had in years. But I couldn’t deny the part of me that yearned to be taken care of. I just wanted to know that if I lost my grip, someone would be there to break my fall.

  Dylan:

  he said someone will bring it by in a couple of days. he’s swamped.

  Me:

  I thought you were going to bring it. I miss you.

  Dylan:

  I would bring it, but I promised avery we’d go to the gym after work every day this week.

  Me:

  The gym? Are you trying to bulk up?

  Dylan:

  are you saying I need to bulk up?

  Me:

  No! You’re perfect the way you are.

  Dylan:

  I’ll definitely see you next week. don’t think I forgot you’re turning 30.

  Me:

  Thanks for reminding me.

  Dylan:

  see you on the 11th!

  When I pulled into the parking lot of The Rodeo in Hillsboro, I took one glance at the tinted storefront windows covered in garishly-colored signs, depicting guns and shooting targets, and the hairs on my arms stood at attention. Isaac was taking me target shooting today.

  I had forced myself to watch him load up the trunk of my SUV with gun cases, ammunition, and protective gear. The whole twenty-five-minute ride to The Rodeo, his mouth kept moving as he spouted off gun etiquette and one safety rule after another. I tried to pay attention, but when he got to rule number twelve, I began to tune out his voice out of sheer self-preservation.

  It was too much to remember.

  Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.

  Don’t point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy.

  Always treat a gun as if it’s loaded, even when you’re certain it’s not.

  Always know what’s behind your target.

  Always be aware of your surroundings, especially if there are staff members walking around.

  Observe the range facility rules, especially when it comes to check-in, cold and hot range rules, and changing targets.

  And those were just the rules I could remember. This outing was beginning to seem like a worse idea than I’d anticipated. As I pulled into a parking space, I turned off the Tesla and stared at the dashboard in silence.

  “Hey, like I said, if you’re feeling uncomfortable, we can turn around right now,” Isaac assured me, softening his voice to try to put me at ease.

  But it wasn’t working.

  “I’m not ready. I’m sorry you came all the way out here with me and now I’m chickening out. Maybe…” I glanced at the hopeful look in his eyes and quickly turned away. “Maybe if we just sit here and chat for a bit, I’ll work up the nerve to go inside. Is that okay?”

  “Absolutely. You make the rules today.”

  I let out a soft sigh as I turned in my seat to face him. “Okay, you told me before that you were a sniper in the Marines. Did you get any awards or medals for hitting targets?”

  His smile waned. “Yeah, I’ve got some medals. Some I’m more proud of than others,” he replied. “The farthest target I ever hit was a touch shy of 3,300 meters.” Suddenly, as quickly as his smile had disappeared, it was back, along with a proud gleam in his hazel eyes. “At that distance, your heartbeat is enough to throw you off target, so I had to wear a heart rate monitor. Once I was in position, I closed my eyes and did deep breathing exercises to slow my heart rate. I got it down to forty-seven beats per minute, less than one beat per second. In that one second space between beats, I opened my eyes, aimed, and pulled the trigger. I set a record for the 148th.”

  “The 148th?” I asked.

  “The 148th Infantry Regiment.”

  My stomach tensed at his reply. Isaac was a man who was trained to shoot to kill. I wondered if the man who murdered my son had also trained in the military. Did the country I love create the one man I loathed?

  I took a deep breath to release some of the tension in my muscles. “Okay, I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time, but I’m afraid that you won’t want to answer, or that I may not want to know the answer.”

  He narrowed his eyes as he silently contemplated my words. “I’m an open book,” he finally said. “Ask away.”

  I cast my eyes downward, my gaze focused on the console between us. “What’s the one thing you did in the military that you’re most ashamed of?”

  “Not speaking up,” he answered without hesitation.

  I looked up at him and the way his pain distorted his handsome features made me sick to my stomach. “What do you mean?”

  His jaw was set as he replied. “There’s a thing most soldiers will deny doing, because it’s a practice that’s supposedly been banned, but it still very much happens. It’s called… canoeing.” He looked me in the eye. “Don’t google it unless you want nightmares.” He waited until I nodded in agreement before he continued. “Anyway, it’s a way of completely assuring the enemy combatant you just neutralized is definitely not getting back up. And… I never did it myself, but some of the men I looked up to did. There’s something that breaks inside you when you see someone you admire doing something so completely… hideous. It’s… Well, I should have spoken up.”

  I let out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding and mentally resolved to never Google the term “canoeing.” If it was the one thing he regretted most, and he had already admitted to me a few weeks ago how he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt when he killed an enemy combatant, then it must be pretty bad.

  I suddenly realized the muscles in Isaac’s forearms were corded with tension as he clenched his fists. Was he about to have an episode?

  Before I could stop myself, I reached forward and gently placed my hand on his fist. “Hey. Are you okay?”

  He shook his head as he seemed to come out of a trance. “Oh, shit. I’m sorry. How long was I gone?”

  I put on my best reassuring smile. “Just a few seconds. You’re okay.”

  He glanced at my hand on his. His fist slowly unfurled, then he took my hand in his, staring at it for a moment in wonderment.

  “Your hands are soft,” he whispered.

  I knew I should pull my hand away. I knew Isaac wanted more from me than I could give. And I was technically still a married woman.

  But my body longed to be touched. My heart longed to be acknowledged.

  I savored the sensation of his rough skin against mine, his thumb brushing gently over my knuckles. A sudden throbbing between my legs made me yank my hand back. I clutched it to my breast, breathless as my chest ached with guilt.

  I quickly turned the car on. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to do this,” I said, looking over my shoulder before I pulle
d out of the parking space. “We should go home. Maybe… Maybe we can try it again another time.”

  I didn’t look at Isaac the entire ride home. I couldn’t even bring myself to put on music. In between commands from my navigation system, the silence in the SUV was deafening. But neither of us made any attempt at small talk. Because we both knew that whatever just happened between us had changed everything.

  We had crossed the threshold beyond idle chatter. Every word we spoke to each other now would have underlying subtext. And there was no turning back.

  Chapter 13

  Jack

  Right after the murders, when the first thread was opened on the websleuths.com forum, I used to sometimes go two to three days without sleeping. Half of that time I was reading up on other unsolved cases in the Pacific Northwest, trying to hone in on similarities. The other half of my time was spent offering my keen eye and coding skills to help other families of missing and murdered individuals. I helped them get in touch with private investigators, even paid for PI services a few times. I registered domain names and built entire websites for them.

  Part of me did it out of the kindness of my heart. But a larger part of me hoped that, if there was a God or an ordered universe, I was stacking my karma points. And maybe one day, I’d have enough good deeds under my belt to earn the answers I so desperately craved.

  As I entered the 50s-style diner off State Street in Boise, I looked around for what I assumed would be a lonely, unshaven, out of shape man in his late fifties. To my left, I found no one sitting alone at the booths or chrome stools at the counter. Turning around, I spotted him right away.