The Trigger

by Jacqueline Diamond

  How could she blame him for wanting to control his surroundings when work took him to the brink of disaster? he wondered as he stalked into the house. Perhaps Nora lived comfortably amid chaos. To Sam, the order and harmony of his home offset the unpredictability of his job.

  Not that he intended to mention it. He didn’t have to justify himself to anyone, especially not his temporary partner.

  He found no sign of his guest in the kitchen. A glance into the living room showed her sitting on the floor, Japanese-style, with her files spread across the coffee table.

  “Why don’t we eat in the kitchen?” Sam called as he stuck pronged holders into the cobs and added salad to the plates.

  “Because we can’t afford to waste time,” her voice drifted back. After a moment, she added, “Man, these are all over the place!”

  “What are?” He hoped she hadn’t discovered a new invasion of ants. The exterminator had been out only two weeks earlier.

  “These other murders. There’s a shooting, a strangling, a beating death and a suspicious plane crash. If it’s one killer, he’s pretty creative.” When he entered with the plates, she muttered, without looking up, “Just put those anywhere.”

  Sam couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. “You have the social skills of a bull moose.”

  “So people tell me.”

  Amused by her lack of repentance, Sam plopped her dish and tableware in the middle of the coffee table. Taking a seat on the couch, he prepared to dive into murder and mayhem.

  NORA KNEW HER MANNERS verged on rudeness. Still, in her present mood, she couldn’t bear to sit across a kitchen table from Sam and make polite conversation.

  Maybe it was the aftereffects of surviving today’s bombing that had made the sight of his tasteful home and charming yard so appealing. To her dismay, she’d experienced a sudden longing to make a nest of her own—to curl up and let a man keep her safe, just for a while.

  She didn’t want to sit across from him at dinner and risk having her leg brush his beneath the table. What if she did something really stupid like ending up on his lap and stroking that thick blond hair?

  Sam would laugh himself sick should he ever suspect that his nemesis-cum-partner had a soft side. Besides, if she searched to the ends of the earth, Nora knew she couldn’t find a man less suited to her.

  She hadn’t been kidding about her reaction to his domestic setting. The whole place shouted “Control freak!”

  The aroma from the plate he’d slipped in front of her slowly drove out any negative thoughts. The man had a gift with the senses, she allowed.

  She took a bite. Steak a bit overdone but flavorful. Another bite: tasty salad. And out-of-this-world corn.

  “Exactly what are we looking at here?” Sam asked from the sofa.

  “The cases Max wanted us to consider.” Nora dragged her focus away from the food. “The department always has unsolved murders, of course, but I narrowed them down to four that seem to fit together. They all occurred during the past year, and in each case, the victim had previously escaped justice after being accused of a felony.”

  “You think we’ve got a vigilante operating here?”

  “Possibly. The chief calls these the Avenger cases.” After handing the first folder to Sam, Nora hefted her ear of corn and treated herself to a mouthful.

  “I’d use both of those corn holders, if I were you,” Sam observed dryly. “Otherwise, if you keep waving that around, it’s likely to turn into an unguided missile.”

  “What? Oh, sorry.” She corrected her grip and waited while he read the material.

  Sam scanned the preliminary report. “The Trigger’s victims aren’t suspected of wrongdoing as far as we know, so that’s an important distinction.”

  “But you admit revenge might be his motive?”

  “Sure. But revenge and vengeance are a little different. One’s specific and the other’s more general.”

  She found herself wanting to argue for the sake of it, but the truth was, she agreed that the Trigger’s motivation didn’t appear to be the same as the Avenger’s. So she kept quiet while he read.

  Despite her antipathy to anyone who took the law into his own hands, Nora could understand why the Avenger might have gone after the first victim. A film producer, Dylan Deeb, had been strangled in his home last November. Six months earlier, he’d faced charges of demanding sexual favors from underage actresses in exchange for movie roles. The case had to be dismissed when the young witnesses declined to testify, apparently frightened by Deeb’s threats to blackball them in Hollywood.

  Sam closed the file thoughtfully. “What an ugly business. This sounds like the work of an angry father or boyfriend.”

  “If it were an isolated incident, I’d concur.” Solving Deeb’s murder wasn’t their problem, however. “You agree it most likely isn’t the work of the Trigger?”

  “Absolutely.” He polished off more steak before continuing, “Our guy has chosen a method that lets him stay far away from his victims. Strangling someone is about as up close and personal as you can get. And even though he took the chance of making contact with Fran Garcola, he stuck with a cell phone bomb. I don’t think this is his work.”

  “Me either.” Honesty prompted Nora, who’d been eating steadily, to add, “This meal is great. I’d forgotten how good barbecue tastes.”

  “Thanks.” Sam favored her with a sideways grin that sent an unwanted thrill through Nora. “I agree. I’m a fabulous cook.”

  “And modest, too.” Knowing he must be fully aware of his effect on women, she moved to the next case. “Tell me what you think of Number Two.”

  The next victim, Bruce Nepom, had been a dishonest, unlicensed contractor. His defective materials and shoddy work had caused a roof to collapse, killing a retired couple. After the district attorney failed to collect enough evidence to bring criminal charges, Nepom had been found dead in his home in January. At first, a collapsed roof during a storm had taken the blame, until it was discovered at autopsy that he’d died of blunt trauma to the base of his skull.

  “That doesn’t sound like the Trigger, either,” Sam said. “I also don’t see any connection between Mr. Nepom and Mr. Deeb, other than the fact that both men appear to have escaped justice.”

  Nora had heard the homicide detectives voice the same reaction. “Considering how often bad guys go free, someone must have taken these particular cases personally, but I agree, nothing about them points to any one suspect. Well, read on.”

  “Am I allowed to take a few more mouthfuls first?” Sam teased.

  “Sure. Just not too many.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He tackled his ear of corn.

  Despite Nora’s attempt to pretend absorption in the other papers, her peripheral vision tantalized her with glimpses of the way Sam’s twill pants hugged his long legs and his gray-green shirt brought out the depths in his eyes. If she’d figured she was safer from temptation in the living room than the kitchen, she’d been fooling herself.

  He flipped to the next file, a shooting death. “Lorna Sinke.” Sam read the victim’s name in a puzzled tone. “That sounds familiar.”

  “She served as an aide to the city council,” Nora prompted.

  Recognition dawned. “That hostage situation at city hall a couple of months ago. Now I remember—it made all the papers.”

  Lorna Sinke, one of the hostages, had been shot and died later in hospital. Surprisingly, ballistics tests had revealed that the lethal bullet hadn’t come from the hostage takers’ guns.

  “She’d been charged with killing her elderly parents for an inheritance.” Nora decided to save Sam the trouble of finding the information in the report. “The judge threw out the evidence because of a problem with the search warrant. I have to admit, this case bothers me the most.”

  “Because the victim was female?”

  “No. Because the perpetrator might be someone in law enforcement. I don’t like to imagine anyone at the PD resorting to murder,
no matter how frustrated we get with the revolving-door system.” Nora started to take another forkful of salad and discovered she’d consumed her entire meal. She’d been hungrier than she thought—and it had tasted better than expected.

  “I presume someone’s checked to see which officers were involved in the original investigations of each of these victims,” Sam said. “They’d have reason to get angry about seeing justice denied.”

  Nora had asked one of the homicide dicks about that. “There’s no one who worked all the cases. So maybe I’m wrong about that law-enforcement angle.” She hoped so.

  “Whoever the Avenger is, he’s a crack shot.” Sam studied the report for a minute longer before closing it. “He’s cool enough to plan and execute his schemes, but inside he’s got to be seething. Beating one man to death and strangling another shows tremendous rage. Or we might be dealing with some kind of vigilante group, but in a small city like this, it’s hard to imagine they could keep such an organization secret for long.”

  “The Trigger must be angry, too, but he strikes me as more calculating,” Nora observed.

  Sam opened another folder. “That brings us to last month.” He skimmed the fact sheet. “I remember this one. The plane crashed into the ballroom of the Grand Hotel, killing the pilot.”

  “Turned out the plane had been tampered with,” Nora told him. “Take a look at the man’s background.”

  Carlos Espasito, the pilot of the private plane, had escaped going to trial for smuggling illegal aliens because someone murdered the chief witness.

  Sam set the file aside. “You’ve read these more closely than I have. Do any of the reports mention Wonderworld or its subsidiaries?”

  Nora shook her head. “Not one. Even though it’s hard to believe we’ve got two serial killers at one time, that appears to be what’s happened. I have to admit, I think we’d be confusing the issue if we spend too much time on this Avenger material.”

  “Is Max going to accept our decision?” he asked. “You know him better than I do.”

  Nora had the greatest respect for the chief’s common sense. “He trusts us. If he didn’t, he’d never have given us such an important case.”

  “Then, let’s get back to the Trigger,” Sam said.

  Feeling cramped on the floor, Nora moved to a stuffed chair. “At this point I believe we can narrow down the motive. Someone’s obviously angry with Wonderworld and certain of its employees.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Leaning back on the couch, Sam folded his arms.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “It looks that way, but it’s too soon to zero in on a motive,” he told her. “Jumping to conclusions could make us miss important threads.”

  Just when she’d started to feel comfortable around him, he’d reverted to type. To Nora, the Trigger’s motivation stood out clearly.

  “Fine. If you see any other angles, I’m open to hearing them.” The long, stressful day had taken its toll on Nora’s patience, never her strong point. “Otherwise, I’d say we’re wasting time if we don’t narrow this down.”

  “I didn’t say we should abandon this line of inquiry, only that we need to consider other possibilities,” Sam pointed out.

  “Have you got a better theory?” she responded grumpily. “It’s fine to weigh all the scenarios, but sometimes the most obvious conclusion is the right one.”

  “And sometimes it isn’t.” He kept his tone level. His ability to retain his composure in the face of her crabbiness irritated Nora more than if he’d argued with her. “Try this on for size. Suppose someone’s laying a trail to mislead us. Maybe the real target is only one of the victims and the rest are a smokescreen.”

  Wearily, Nora ran a hand through her hair. “It’s possible, I suppose. But the fact he’s tried to take out Carl twice makes that unlikely.”

  “What if Bethany’s husband is the real culprit?”

  “He has an alibi.” She refrained, barely, from pointing out that it was Sam who’d tracked the man to his Houston hotel.

  “He could have put out a contract hit.”

  “Contract killers don’t spend nearly a year blowing up warehouses, trucks and random people just to cover their trails,” Nora fumed. “Look, this guy’s not going to stop trying to kill Carl, and if there’s anybody else on his list, they’re in imminent danger too.”

  They’d reached an impasse. Sam broke it. “How about this. I’ll agree that what you’ve suggested is the most likely scenario. You agree to keep an open mind in case any evidence contradicts your theory.”

  “That’s reasonable.” Of course she would consider any solid leads, wherever they led. What investigator wouldn’t?

  “Now, why don’t we go over what we’ve learned so far and see if we can dazzle each other with any further insights?” Sam asked.

  “You’re on.” She did like having someone to bounce ideas off, Nora admitted silently. Much as she trusted her own instincts, she wasn’t egotistical enough to consider herself infallible.

  He cleared away the dishes, Nora tucked the Avenger files into her briefcase, and they sat down to review what they’d learned so far about the Trigger.

  A couple of hours later, they hadn’t made any breakthroughs. Still, both of them accepted that the thread linking the victims appeared to involve a product under development, probably a computer chip, that had been handled by each of the three local subsidiaries.

  “My brain is fogging up.” Sagging in her chair, Nora rubbed her eyes and immediately realized she’d smeared her makeup. Well, Sam had seen her with smoke and dirt all over her face, so what difference did it make? “I’m hoping Ramon Nunez can help us tie them together.”

  “I think we should take a break and then push on.” Despite lines of weariness on his face, Sam reached for the preliminary data from the search of Carl Garcola’s airplane. “How about some coffee?”

  “Not at this hour.” When a case required her to stay up all night, Nora drank cup after cup. She’d learned to refrain on other occasions. “Hey, I’m aware of the urgency here, but we’ve got to pace ourselves.”

  “We’re missing something. I don’t intend to go on missing it until it’s too late. When’s the last time the guard at the hospital checked in?”

  “Fifteen minutes ago,” Nora reminded him. Carl’s condition hadn’t changed. “Usually I’m the one who drives everybody crazy by pushing too hard. How come you’re so wound up?”

  Sam stretched his neck. “I keep thinking I should have considered that the Trigger might take another crack at Carl. Instead, I had to stand there and watch that bomb go off. It’s just plain luck that Mrs. Garcola escaped.”

  “I had the same thoughts but they’re not tormenting me. What’s this all about?” Dealing with death and destruction put stress on an officer, regardless of how tough-minded he or she was. Nora considered it essential to release tension, and talking was the best way to do that. Well, second best, after making love, but that didn’t apply here.

  “It’s not about anything.”

  She checked her watch. Nine o’clock. “We’ve been racing around since early this morning, and we’re going to do it again tomorrow. If you’re beating yourself up, you need to get it out in the open or it’ll eat you alive.”

  “What’re you, my shrink?” Sam snapped.

  “I’m your partner.” She’d accepted that fact, like it or not. It was time he did, too.

  He scrutinized her for a long moment. Deciding whether to trust her? Nora wondered.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Sam said at last.

  “What?”

  “You get the kink out of my neck and I’ll tell you what’s bugging me.”

  She considered asking whether he would have made a similar suggestion had his partner been a man. On the other hand, she didn’t suppose a female partner would have sheltered her during a bomb blast, either. In law enforcement, she’d come to realize that the sexes complemented each other. So why quibble about a littl
e neck rub?

  “Okay. But I can’t do it while you’re sitting on the couch with your back to the wall.” She yielded her place in the chair. When he shifted over, she stood behind him and rested her hands lightly on his shoulders.

  He hadn’t been kidding about the crick, she discovered. A cord of tension ran down his neck, connecting with rock-solid muscles.

  Gently, she traced it with her thumb, then pressed harder. Sam closed his eyes and a sigh breezed out of him. Nora worked her way along his back, kneading the tightness until she felt him relax.

  He hadn’t started talking, though. “Well?” she demanded.

  “It’s personal,” he said.

  “You want a massage or not?” She stopped working.

  “I just don’t see what my personal background has to do with this case,” he quibbled.

  “Let me be the judge.” The soft edges of his hair brushed her hands and, standing so close, Nora tingled with the man’s heat.

  “Okay.”

  Taking his assent at face value, she resumed rubbing. Probing the shoulder blades, she waited for him to speak again.

  Finally he complied. “You may have heard my father was a firefighter,” he began.

  “Ben Prophet. His photo’s up at the Bar and Grill.” She’d heard that he died in a fire.

  Sam tilted his head back. The contact felt more intimate than she’d expected, as if his emotions flowed through her.

  “To me, he seemed like a force of nature,” Sam told her. “Even when I joined the department and understood the risks involved, it never occurred to me he could get killed.”

  “I know what you mean.” She never worried about her father or brothers despite the dangers posed by explosives. It must be a defense mechanism.

  “Dad had just gotten off a regular shift.” Sam’s voice roughened. “On the way home, he spotted a fire in a vacant building and called it in.”

  Her hands dug into the strained shoulders, then worked upward to the neck. The scent of him enveloped her.

  “I arrived with the first unit. Dad called on my cell phone. He said he’d gone inside to look for a homeless woman but she must have escaped.” Sam gazed into the distance as if watching a movie roll. “I looked up from the fire truck and there he stood in a third-floor window, waving at me. He went inside to check one more time. A minute later, the roof collapsed.”