The Guardian

by Dee Henderson

  Shari placed the rose she held on the smooth casket. I’m going to miss you, Dad. Until we meet again in heaven . . . Her hand rested one last time on the polished wood and then she stepped away.

  A chapter of her life was over.

  * * *

  It was a good night for a sniper, Marcus realized as he checked with the men securing the perimeter of the church property. They were running behind schedule and Marcus could feel the danger of that. Twilight was descending. In the dusk settling in the open areas around the church, around the clusters of towering oak trees, the shadows themselves spoke of hidden dangers.

  The perimeter was tight, but there was a lot of open ground around this building. Marcus scanned the area as he headed to the side entrance leading into the sanctuary. With the lights on in the building and dusk turning to darkness outside, Shari was rapidly becoming a clear target. The building had too many glass windows and doors to keep her away from all of them as she mingled with the guests.

  It was time to move.

  Judging from the cars in the parking lot, there were still about thirty guests present. The governor and his wife had left not quite half an hour ago, and with them most of the remaining VIPs, reducing the security at the church to its lowest point for the day.

  The press was being held at a distance at the entrance to the church grounds, but several were still there with their long camera lenses, hoping to get a picture or even a few words from those who had attended the private funeral.

  Marcus raised Luke on the security net. “I’m changing the travel plans. We’re going to take the family out the back entrance. Cue us up to leave in five minutes.”

  “Roger.”

  Shari, her mom, and Joshua were all near the front of the sanctuary talking with the minister and his wife. Marcus had been too occupied during the last hour to really look at Shari, an unfortunate reality that went with the job, it was everyone else who was the threat. He looked now and what he saw concerned him. She was folding. He could see it in the glazed fatigue, the lack of color in her face, the betraying fact Josh had noticed and now had his hand under her arm.

  Definitely time to leave.

  Marcus moved to join them and relieve Craig.

  Shari saw him coming and broke off her conversation to join him. “Marcus, could—”

  The window behind her exploded.

  * * *

  Shari heard someone gasp in pain and the next second Marcus swept out his right arm, caught her across the front of her chest at her collarbone, and took her feet right out from under her.

  She felt herself falling backwards and it was a petrifying sensation. She couldn’t get her hands back in time to break her fall and she hit hard, slamming against the floor, her back and neck taking the brunt of the impact. His arm was pressed tight across her collarbone, his hand gripping her shoulder. He wasn’t letting her move even if she could.

  “Shari—”

  She couldn’t respond her head was ringing so badly.

  That had been a bullet.

  She wheezed at that realization; her lungs feeling like they would explode. Around her people were screaming.

  Another window shattered.

  Oh, God, I don’t want to die. I’m sorry for getting angry with You. Help me!

  Marcus yanked her across the floor with him out of the way. “South. Shooter to the south!”

  She could hear him hollering on the security net, and it was like listening down a tunnel. Who was bleeding? Someone was bleeding, she could see it on his hand.

  He swore. A firm hand settled on her face. She gasped.

  His elbow had nearly broken her nose.

  It was coming home to her now, very much home. Someone was trying to kill her . . . again.

  “Cover us! We’re going out the back.”

  Shari felt herself being lifted, sandwiched between Quinn on one side, Marcus on the other. “Mom!”

  “Craig’s got her. Go!”

  Quinn grabbed her hand to propel her forward. She knew this church, and as they moved left past the music room she got her bearings well enough to realize where they were going and managed to take the stairs with good speed.

  In the back of the church they exited into darkness, surprising Shari because there should be building lights on. A van was waiting. Shari found herself literally lifted inside, after her mom. She was dazed with the speed it was happening. Joshua was helped into the front seat. She hurriedly moved over on the bench as Marcus slid in beside her and the door slammed shut. Quinn stood outside the van and slapped the side door to let the driver know he was clear, and they immediately started to move.

  As they turned the corner of the building the streetlight shown through the van windows and Shari saw the bright red blood. It was a brutal flashback. The shakes hit hard. She looked toward Marcus. And she panicked.

  * * *

  “You’re hit!”

  “It grazed me,” Marcus replied forcefully, trying to get a look at her face. His left arm burned with fire as painful as getting hit directly, but he wasn’t worried about himself. Shari was bleeding profusely.

  She was nearly frantic. “I’m okay, Shari.” He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her tight, absorbing the shakes. “I’m okay,” he said deliberately. She’d seen enough people bleed.

  “Lean her head back,” Beth urged. “And get pressure on that bleeding.” She passed up what Kleenex she had left. Marcus looked back at Shari’s mom, was relieved to see her color was still good.

  He turned back to Shari. “Lower your hands, let me see.” His own hands were shaking as he worked to stop the bleeding. Thank goodness it didn’t look like her nose was broken.

  “Was anyone else hurt?” she struggled to ask.

  Great question. “Craig?”

  Craig was already on the closed circuit radio. It took a minute to get an answer. “No one else was hit. Tactical is moving. They are getting the last guests safely out of the building.”

  “What about the shooter?” Joshua asked.

  “Quinn’s working it,” Marcus replied, knowing it was too early to get an answer to that. He had seen the cold fury on his partner’s face. The shooter would likely be caught; he had to have known that, and still he had made the choice to try and kill Shari. Marcus felt a fear that went deep. They had to stop him tonight. The next time it might have a very different outcome.

  They had already worked out contingencies for this; they were heading toward the Hanfords’ house. They had established good security there before allowing the Hanfords to land in Virginia, and they didn’t need another variable tonight. Marcus looked forward to the driver. “Luke, call ahead and get us a doctor at the house.”

  “Already done.”

  “Josh, how’s that shoulder?”

  “Fine.”

  Marcus glanced back toward the front of the van again. Not fine. If Josh had ripped those stitches . . . one problem at a time. “The press is going to be heavy at the house. News of what occurred will be out, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a television helicopter show up. So even after we stop, stay put until I clear you to move,” he instructed.

  It was a brief drive, for the Hanfords lived only a few miles from the church. When the van arrived at the house, Luke pulled through the security perimeter and around to the back of the house.

  Marcus pushed open the van door. He counted nine men in the security detail that had assembled to meet them. “Jim?”

  “We’re secure.”

  Marcus opened the door for Josh, helped him ease out. “Keep your mom and Shari in the kitchen for a minute,” he asked Josh in a low tone. “And next time lie better. You’re pale as a ghost. You nailed that shoulder hard.”

  “Yeah. But Mom will forgive me, and what Shari doesn’t know she won’t worry about,” Josh replied grimly. “Besides, you don’t look too good yourself.”

  Marcus knew again why he admired this man. “Go.”

  He slid open the van door. “Beth.” He
extended his hand and helped her out. Her face was tense, but it was worry for her daughter not for herself. Marcus had come to love this lady, for she reminded him of his own mom. He gave her a brief hug and passed her to Jim. “Into the house.” He turned back to the van. “Okay, Shari.”

  She didn’t want to take his hand because of the blood staining hers. He reached in and grasped her forearms, sympathetic to the problem. She was showing definite tremors as adrenaline faded.

  He didn’t expect her balance to be good, and he didn’t intend to risk letting her stumble. He lifted her down, ignoring the pain that tore through his arm. She started to say something, but he shook his head. “Inside.” He tucked her close and hurried her toward the house.

  When they entered the house the doctor who had been called was waiting and Marcus didn’t give Shari a chance to turn her focus on him or her brother. He eased her into a kitchen chair and let the doctor take over. “I’m so sorry about the nose.”

  She leaned her head back, closed her eyes, and relaxed. “Josh has done worse. He nearly broke it one time. But if you could find a couple aspirins, I would dearly love you.”

  Dearly love you . . . In the emotions of the moment, the words first hit his heart and made him blink before his mind sorted out the figure of speech. If she ever said it and meant it . . . he shook his head as he inwardly smiled at his reaction, part of him still caught off guard. “Not a problem.”

  He got them for her, then wordlessly handed the bottle to Joshua. Finally admitting to himself how seriously he also was hurting, he swallowed four.

  “Marcus, let the doctor take a look at that arm,” Beth insisted.

  Shari struggled to lean around the doctor to see him. The last thing he needed was Shari seeing the reality of someone else who had been shot. “In a moment,” he assured Beth. He stepped out of the kitchen. “Jim, what are you hearing?”

  “They got plates on a black SUV. An APB just went out. They’re looking. So far—” Jim shook his head.

  The shooter had gotten away. It physically hurt. “Are we in a position we can hold here for tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. The detail is yours while I get this gash bandaged. After the doctor looks at Joshua’s shoulder, send him back to the spare bedroom.”

  Marcus had not yet unpacked; he wrestled his suitcase open with one hand, found a clean short sleeve shirt. He walked into the adjoining bathroom.

  The bullet had scored through his suit jacket and shirt. Marcus sucked in his breath as he eased off the material. The O’Malley clan was going to be all over his case when they heard about this.

  The gash wasn’t deep, but it was long with very ragged edges, and it burned like fire. Marcus was grateful it hadn’t cut deeper into the muscle. Another two inches over and it would have shattered bone and possibly ruined his career. And if a fluke of glass hadn’t deflected the shot, Shari would be dead.

  That was the source of the real fury he felt. He should have overruled them on the funerals and refused to let Shari attend. He should have gotten her out of the area immediately after the graveside service. Regrets didn’t change reality.

  He hated being shot. He was trying to wipe off the blood when the doctor joined him. “How’s Joshua?”

  “Bruised, but the stitches held.”

  The doctor was good, efficient, but did not have the bedside manner of Jennifer. “I can try and butterfly it closed or just stitch it.”

  Marcus did not like needles any more than Kate did. “Butterfly it.”

  He let out a deep breath when the doctor finally wrapped gauze around his upper arm.

  “Change it tomorrow morning. If the bleeding seeps, we’ll have to stitch it.”

  He nodded and slipped on the clean shirt. “Let Jim get you past the press out there.”

  “Will do.”

  Marcus headed back to the kitchen.

  Beth had put on coffee. “Let me,” she gestured to the collar he was trying to straighten one handed. “Shari went up to change, and Josh is handling the onslaught of phone calls.”

  “I’m sorry that William’s funeral was touched this way. I’m more sorry than I can say.”

  She looked at the bandage on his arm, then back up at him. “We knew this risk existed, Marcus. We took a gamble and we lost, and it looks to me like you paid the price for our decision.”

  “It’s just a graze.”

  “Sure it is. I’m grateful for what you did. Thank you for keeping my daughter safe.” She reached up and kissed his cheek.

  Marcus blushed slightly. “You’re welcome.” His mom had been like this, always calm despite the circumstances. And those were the best memories he had, of an innocent time before his own life had gone wrong. “I need to head back to the church. Jim will keep security tight here.”

  “Please be careful.”

  He gave a rueful smile. “You’ve got my word, for what it’s worth at the moment.”

  “It is worth a lot. Godspeed, Marcus.”

  * * *

  “Let’s go back on videotape, Ben,” Lisa requested. She broke the seal and entered hotel room 1319, pulling on a fresh set of latex gloves. They were looking for blood, for gunpowder residue, for fibers. With thirty-seven rooms to cover, the process was painfully slow. They had been at it for a week, working late into the evenings. This was the third room she had looked at today, and she was only doing the quick tests, a complete team was coming behind her.

  She broke open the tape on a rolled up plastic guard used to give a safe footpath until fiber collection could be done. Every precaution that could be taken to preserve evidence was being made. She just hoped the effort would only be wasted in thirty-six of the thirty-seven rooms.

  “Lisa.”

  She paused and came back to the doorway. “Yes, Walter?”

  “You’re going to want to see this.”

  She pulled off her gloves, made sure Ben had her on tape as closing, sealing, and initialing the tag for the room. She was determined to make it hard for a defense attorney to challenge the evidence collection.

  She moved to join Walter at the door of room 1323.

  Two technicians were working with him, and they had both stepped out into the hallway, leaving the room empty. She scanned the room. It was orderly, the bed made, but she noticed the less than straight way the bedspread draped. Someone had disturbed it since housekeeping had last made up the room. A light gray dust used to raise fingerprints coated the furniture showing the progress the technicians had made.

  There were no fingerprints. It hit her like a shock, how even the gray dust was. Not a single tape lift had been made of a print. And that made this room shout like it had been painted red. “No prints at all?” she asked, incredulous.

  “Not even on the wooden coat hangers,” Walter replied.

  It couldn’t be this obvious. “Where’s the room paperwork?” Walter handed her the clipboard. She flipped through the stack of notes. “This room was not done by housekeeping since the last guest checked out on Saturday?” she asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “Maintenance had been pushed off until the conference was over. This was one of a block of rooms marked unavailable so that they could upgrade fixtures in the bathroom, replace the closet doors. They were planning to also replace the shower caulking and the bathroom tile grit. The work order is here; they just hadn’t gotten to this room yet. Housekeeping wasn’t scheduled until after that work was done.”

  Lisa looked at Walter, and her friend who rarely reacted to what evidence suggested until the last lab tests were run actually smiled. “We’ve got the room exactly as he left it.”

  She looked back at the paperwork. Henry James. He had used a credit card for payment. “Fingerprints, what else?”

  “We were just getting ready to luminol for blood.”

  “Ben, I want both you and Tom videotaping. Mark, go to the highest contrast film you have. We’re going to do this room a foot at a time. Expect the traces to be faint.”
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  Fifteen minutes later, with preparations complete, the room lights were shut off. They worked clockwise around the room.

  Lisa shifted back on her heels to avoid brushing against the bedspread. Faint places began to glow as Walter sprayed the carpet. “Hold it there,” Lisa asked as a streak appeared.

  Against the tight weave of the carpet it appeared at first as a quarter inch wide straight line and then the smudge appeared. It rolled to the right. She frowned, studying the surprising pattern. She was expecting something from his shoes or his clothes . . . “He sat down, took off his shoes, and one rolled on its side.”

  “Shoe polish?” Walter asked, indicating with his pen dark spots in the pattern.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  She waited until Mark had photos taken, then moved to collect several samples, using a penlight clamped between her teeth for light, sealing the swabs in vials. “I may want to cut out this piece of carpet. Grid it off.”

  “The hotel will love you.”

  “And I’m just getting started.”

  She completed the evidence tags on the vials.

  They moved to the bedspread and found nothing. “Give us the room lights,” Lisa requested. She blinked as her eyes adjusted. “Fold up the spread, we’ll take it to the lab. The same with the sheets. Walter, I’m going to start working fibers on the carpet. See what you can raise in the bathroom. If he washed up—”

  “I’ll find it.”

  She used what had once been a lint brush, tape sticky side out to collect the fibers, rolling it on the carpet, then rolling the tape onto evidence strips of paper, documenting where each lift was made. It was slow work, hard on the knees, as the carpet was gone over with care to insure nothing was missed.

  This evidence analysis would take hours of microscope work back at the lab. Lisa found the first visually promising fiber an hour into the work. Against the white of the paper strip, the fiber trapped by the tape was dark.