Sinner Realized

by Morgan Kelley

  This was her forte.

  “There was no sign of struggle, and he was surrounded by weapons. Let’s look at it this way. You’re home alone, and someone breaks into your home. You know he’s going to kill you. Why don’t you fight or go for your weapon? This was a Marine. He’s not going down without a fight.”

  “Maybe he was caught off guard or just relaxed. I’m not thinking guns when I’m at home,” Nate said.

  Then she added more. “Yeah, that’s because you’re trained to know they’re there. Many times, I’ll watch you or Quinn walk around with a weapon on your hip, well after shift. You’ve worn your side arm to picnics and parties too. They’re extensions of both of you. While I have a gun, I don’t clip it on daily. This man was trained by the military, loved collecting weapons, but wasn’t carrying?”

  “Yeah, that’s odd,” Quinn admitted.

  “You bet it is,” Callie stated. “You’re a cop twenty-four- seven. I’m betting a soldier is even more obsessive about things like that.”

  “Okay, let’s find out if he had a permit to carry. Then, we’ll go from there,” stated Nate, making notes.

  “What else do we have on him?” Quinn asked.

  “He was the newest member of the team,” Callie stated, looking at the dates on his psych evaluations. “He’d only been on Bravo Ghost for a year. He replaced someone else. I have his evaluations right here,” she said, pulling them out.

  “Who was it?” Quinn asked, making notes.

  “The man in question is Captain Leroy Walker. He was the original weapons expert when the team was formed. My papers have his start date as the same as the other seven team members. He was replaced for some reason.”

  “Why?” Nate asked.

  “No idea. Somehow, we have to figure out how to find the answer to that, or when Maura checks in, we ask,” Callie stated.

  “I’ll put it on our ‘to do’ list,” replied Nate, scribbling down more notes.

  Callie flipped the pages to the next team member who had died. “We have Captain Christian Bleu. From his reports, the man was more than stable. Rarely did he crack under pressure. They relied on him to work out the tricky ways into a mission or the fast ways out. He would have minutes to revise or work out a situation. You have to have a cool head to do that.”

  “So, he wouldn’t make a simple mistake with his own ropes on his day off,” Quinn stated.

  “Not likely. Despite being cool, he was a total alpha male and adrenaline junkie. From his answers on his evaluations, he wasn’t thrilled working with a woman, but he respected her authority. Maura outranked him, and never once was there mention of issues with discipline.”

  Nate made more notes.

  “Of the three so far, he was the most likely to die in a mission. He took risks with his own life, but often was cautious with his team,” Callie added.

  “He would die for his team or country then too,” Quinn stated.

  “Yes, likely. He viewed it as his duty, job, and mission in life.”

  Quinn dug through his papers and pulled up the autopsies. They were pretty sparse too.

  “Yeah, it just says that he had injuries conclusive to a fall from the cliffs.” Then, he began reading the papers.

  They were all quiet while he read. Since Quinn was a homicide detective, he was accustomed to looking at death. He was studying something intently.

  “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “The cause of death is head trauma,” he stated.

  Nate wasn’t getting it. “He fell from cliffs and landed on his head. That fits.”

  He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. When you rappel off cliffs, you do it feet first. Christian Bleu was still in his gear at the time. If he fell he would have landed on his back or legs. If the rigging snapped free of the rocks, he would have tumbled backward. The COD was blunt force trauma to his face. There’s no way he could have flipped around in the ropes and landed that way. Plus, if he did, instinctually, he would have put his arms down and they would have broken his fall.”

  “They weren’t damaged?” Callie asked.

  “No, they had a couple cuts, but if I were to look at this case, I’d say he was protecting himself. Those types of injuries look like he put his arms up to block a frontal attack.”

  “So maybe someone was at the top waiting for him. When he climbed up, they hit him in the face,” Callie offered, picturing it in her head.

  “Yeah, and he fell. Someone might have yanked the rigging out to make it look like he fell to his death.”

  Nate didn't get it. “How did a coroner miss that? A homicide detective picked it up in a few minutes.”

  He didn't have an answer for that. “It smells fishy, if you ask me.”

  Callie knew the truth. “We’re going to have to really dig into their autopsies, and that means they might need to be redone.”

  Quinn knew the chances of that happening were slim to none. “To get one soldier exhumed is tough, but to get four done is going to be hard unless we’re sneaking into the cemetery and digging them up after dark on our own.”

  At his smirk, he added, “Which breaks the law.” Nate wasn’t taking a chance the man was planning on going there.

  Quinn hated to burst his bubble, but this whole thing was very illegal. They were three days past jail and headed right for Guantanamo. “Yeah, let’s worry about that when we get to it,” he offered.

  Her husband had a very good point. There was no use sweating it now. They were already in the thick of it. “Okay, the last Marine killed was Sergeant Thomas Archer. From the psych exams, there was no sign of any type of mental issue. Like Maura said, he was exuberant, happy, and excited to be getting married.”

  “You can tell that from a psych exam?” Nate asked, curiously.

  She laughed. “Not usually, but in his testing, the Marine mentioned numerous times that he was getting married. Someone who isn't excited doesn’t bring that up five times.”

  They agreed that was probably a very good point.

  “He was found in the garage,” Quinn began.

  “Yes, he was.” Callie flipped papers. “I don’t think he was a likely candidate for suicide. Not by these papers,” she stated.

  Quinn dug through his to find anything. “Again, we don’t have any tox report. For all we know, he was shitfaced drunk, put the key in the ignition, and fell asleep.”

  Callie got up and headed toward him to read over his shoulder. The minute she touched him, he dropped a kiss to the top of her hand.

  “Care to share your autopsy report?” she asked.

  When he handed it to her, Callie scanned the paper.

  “Well, I can tell that he didn't die of carbon monoxide poisoning,” she said, handing it back to him.

  Both men stared at her.

  “How?” Quinn asked. Sometimes, he forgot that his wife had gone to medical school too. She didn't just shrink brains for a living, she’d studied medicine.

  “When you cut off the air passages, there’s petechial hemorrhaging.”

  Quinn reread the paper. “It says that he had that, so I’m not getting it.”

  “He barely had any. If he sat in that car, for as long as it took to kill him, his eyes would have been a mess. Was his hyoid broken?” she asked as she pointed at the paper.

  “It doesn’t say.”

  Callie had seen this before.

  It was called sloppiness.

  “Did he have a full autopsy? Is there any mention of his organs or anything else being compromised? How big was his heart?”

  He shook his head, finding nothing.

  “I’m willing to bet that whoever did the autopsies took one look at the surroundings before calling it. We had a man who was found in his garage, filled with carbon monoxide, and his car running. What would you guess killed him?”

  “The same thing that the paper says,” offered Nate.

  “Yeah, and I’m willing to bet that our coroner did the
exact same thing. He never did a full autopsy. He took a short cut. Here was a perfectly fit Marine, and he was found in his car, dead. Conclusions were made, and that’s why it was called suicide.”

  “Now, we need to figure out if it was intentional or just a screw up. Did someone want to bury the truth, or did they just not care enough to dig deep and find the answers?” Quinn asked.

  “Yeah, that’s a set of questions that we need to answer,” Nate replied, agreeing with them.

  But how?

  “I know how we can get some answers,” Callie offered.

  Quinn was the first to reply, “How?”

  “We need to interview the grieving fiancée. She should be able to tell us a little more, including a timetable. Maybe she talked to him an hour before he died.”

  “We do have a TOD,” Quinn offered.

  “Well, then that’s a place to start,” she replied. “Only, we’ll have to be careful and ask it off the record.”

  “That’s not going to be easy,” Nate admitted.

  Yeah, they were all aware.

  * * * C a r t e r C h r o n i c l e s * * *

  Monday Evening

  Outside the house stood the Marine smoking his cigarette. It was hard to miss how he kept nervously looking back and forth, as if something was going to jump out and bite him.

  If he only knew the truth.

  Someone was indeed watching.

  Before long, the man who was not far away would find himself paying for his sins. He wasn’t worthy, or as just, as they made him out to be.

  The truth be told, he was foul.

  A disgrace.

  Nothing but a waste of flesh.

  It brought nothing but pleasure to see him edgy and jumpy. With every single sound, he flinched. That was funny in itself. Here stood a Marine, and he was scared to death.

  The bitch had warned him, sending out the alarm.

  She was ruining all the fun.

  If only she was aware of the sins that they all had, maybe she wouldn’t be so quick to help them. All of those who had perished deserved to die, and the remainder wouldn’t be far behind.

  One by one, they would be eradicated.

  Wiped from the Earth.

  Murdered in cold blood.

  It would bring pleasure and joy to be the one who took care of it. Such filth had no place in the world.

  This man was disgusting.

  And soon, he would die.

  It was only a matter of time.

  While the woman had gotten away, her day was coming too. Once Maura Gaines was found, her life would also be forfeited. While her sins were nothing compared to theirs, she turned a blind eye.

  That was a big no-no.

  She should know that.

  Maura Gaines could run, but she couldn’t hide.

  Not this time.

  * * * C a r t e r C h r o n i c l e s * * *

  Already, it had been one hell of a hike in the dark. With each step, it was getting increasingly harder. Luke was far from tired, but his fear was that they wouldn’t see someone coming toward them.

  Or lying in wait.

  Yeah, they needed to stop now.

  “Maura, we’ll set up camp here. We knocked off a good four miles. At dawn, we’ll pick up again. I don’t want to get caught off guard by anyone.”

  She almost forgot that it was dark out. Most of their missions, she was forced to adjust to the black of night, using only the moon and stars to navigate her way.

  Unfortunately, Luke wasn’t trained to work like that.

  It looked like they were calling this small area their campground.

  “Works for me,” she offered. “How about I start a fire, and you can find us a soft place to bed down?”

  Before he could offer the lighter in his pocket, she pulled out a wicked looking bowie knife and hunk of flint. Maura worked quickly, getting a small fire started. As it grew, she added some brush to keep it going.

  “Here I was going to give you my Zippo. Why am I not surprised?”

  She laughed. “I’m used to having very little out in the woods. I like to stay old school and not get too soft. In my line of work, chances are, you won’t have access to the comforts of everyday convenience.”

  “Why do I feel like you just insulted me?” he teased. “I’m not soft.” As if to make her laugh, he flexed his arm.

  Immediately, it drew her focus. Yeah, she’d seen his body, and Lucas Mars was anything but soft. He was built and sexier than sin itself.

  Holy shit!

  Was it getting hot in the forest?

  Quickly, she changed the subject. “I’ll get us dinner.”

  Again, he went with humor. “Are you going to find a bunny and cook it over the open flames? That sounds oddly romantic and delicious, all at the same time.”

  Maura found his teasing a welcomed thing. She was worried about the rest of her team, her family, and now him too. “I was actually going to go into my pack and pull out some meal rations, but if you want Thumper on a stick, I can probably catch you one for breakfast. Bunnies like to forage really early in the morning. Give me your boot laces and I’ll get you some not so rascally rabbit.”

  He pictured her hunting, and it turned him on. “I think I can eat military rations. It sounds like less work,” he teased.

  Pulling some jerky and water from her bag, she settled down beside him in front of a log. It was kind of nice to hang out with him. Luke was easy to be around.

  “You’re bothered by something, Maura. How about you share it, and I can carry some of the weight?” he offered, chewing on some jerky.

  “I picked them, Luke. Each one of those dead men was recruited by me. I sought them out because of their skills, brought them to my team, and now they’re gone.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m their boss or was. Everything that’s happened is all my fault. I led them and now they’re gone.”

  He didn't buy that at all. “If you could talk to them now, they wouldn’t blame you.”

  Maura wanted to know how he knew that. Before she could even ask, he anticipated her question and was ready for her.

  “Because Nate is my boss, and I’d follow him into hell and back. If something were to happen to me, I trust that he would have done everything to keep me safe or saved me. Your men had that same faith in you. None of them would blame you. This madness is on the nutjob who is killing them.”

  “You’re very deceiving, Luke,” she stated.

  He didn't get it. “Why do you say that?”

  “When people first look at you, there’s this impression that you’re shallow, a jokester, or some beach bum. Then, you talk and the truth comes out.”

  Luke was touched that she saw beneath the surface. Maybe he hid behind the façade to save his heart.

  Too many times, it had been broken by the opposite sex. Few actually saw the real him.

  “What’s the truth you see?” he asked.

  “You’re very stable and sturdy. There’s no doubt that you’re laid back and let the leader do the job. You’re caring and gentle. I appreciate that.” She almost added more, but found the fortitude to stop herself. After all, she would only make a fool of herself if she continued.

  Maura didn't need to do that.

  He grinned, popping the last piece of jerky into his mouth. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but is that a good or bad thing?”

  Maura hesitated.

  “Come on. Your secret is safe with me.”

  Throwing caution to the wind, she opted to trust him. After all, he had stood by her. “In this case, it’s a good thing. You’ve got all the excellent qualities a man should have.”

  There was a part of him that was grateful it was dark. Surely, a flush was creeping up his face. Already, it was warming his body.

  He needed to stop thinking about her. What he wanted to do was pull her into his arms and kiss her. Now wasn’t the time or the place.

  “We should turn in. There’s one
hell of a long hike tomorrow. Even if we start at dawn, we won’t arrive until dark.”

  She was good with that. What was coming made Maura want to bounce with joy. She was about to curl up in a sleeping bag with the man in front of her.

  Hell yeah!

  Oorah!

  Bring it on.

  “Want me to…” he began, pointing at the bag.

  “I’m smaller. I can wiggle in a lot easier than you can,” she replied. Already, Maura’s heart was pounding in her chest.

  “Okay,” Luke said, pulling off his shirt. It wasn’t too cold, and with another body curled around his, he didn't want to sweat to death.

  Maura watched in eager anticipation. As the light danced wickedly across his back and shoulders, she said a silent prayer. If there was a God, he was obviously watching.

  “Thank you,” she muttered.

  “What?” he asked, glancing over his tattooed shoulder, right before he climbed into the sack.

  “Oh, nothing,” she stated.

  After climbing in, Luke made room for her body. While they would both fit, it was going to be a tight squeeze. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing at that point. While spooning Maura would be heaven, it would also be hell.

  “Ready for me?” she asked, grinning in glee. Her hormones were having a party, and she couldn’t wait.

  “Yeah, come on in.”

  Normally, he’d say something lecherous or teasing. Now, he was just praying that his lower anatomy didn't take over, thinking on its own. In fact, he was praying to anyone who would listen.

  Don’t get erect.

  Don’t get erect.

  When she wiggled in, it caught him off guard. While he had expected to fit against the long, lean length of her back, she was now lying with her head on his shoulder.

  Oh. Bloody. Hell.

  He was erect.

  “Did you sleep like this with the men on your team?”

  Maura snorted. “Uh, Luke, that was total bullshit. I just wanted to see if you’d fall for it. I always carry my own pack.”

  Thank God he had. This was one hell of a memory that he would carry forever.