by Amie Gibbons
“Yeah, he’s on his way,” I said, texting him where we were.
Wait, how much did I tell her? If it were me, I’d want to know everything, but who knew what Grant would want her to know. She was his kid, he’d want her to be safe, but he also wouldn’t want her to be scared.
I took a deep breath.
“Cora!”
Grant ran up and pulled his daughter into a hug so tight I was surprised she could breathe.
“Dad!” she said when he let her go, swatting at him playfully. “Geez, you’re embarrassing me.”
“We need to go.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her away.
“Hey!” she yelled, diggin’ her heels into the grass. “Dad! What the hell is going on? I thought we talked about this? You can’t just-”
“I can just,” he said, nailing her with the Grant glare I was all too familiar with. “I’m your father. We’re leaving.”
“Sir,” I said, “she deserves to know.”
“Know what?” Cora’s expression went from pissed to worried in one second flat. “Is something wrong? Is Mom okay?”
Grant took a breath. “We’ve been interrogating a serial killer. He escaped tonight. He left a message suggesting he was going after you here.”
She drew a sharp breath and swayed on her feet, all expression shutting down.
Her boyfriend rushed up and caught her arm, hugging her back against his chest.
“So we get her to a safe place,” the boy said.
“You’re not coming,” Grant said as his daughter nodded and stepped out of her boyfriend’s arms, drawing herself up straight.
“With all due respect, sir,” the boy said, “if she’s in danger, I’m not leaving her side.”
“Come on.” Grant jerked his head and we all walked back to the parking lot.
I glanced up as we went passed the tree and Pyro flicked a tassel at me.
I nodded and wiggled my phone at him before picking up the pace to keep up with everyone’s longer strides.
“We got anyone on the way to look for Truck, sir?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
Oooookay. Apparently I wasn’t getting more outta him.
“I’m Ben,” the boyfriend said, holdin’ a hand out to me.
“Ariana,” I said, shaking it.
Flash.
Ben held up a shotgun, flinching as his mama yelled.
She’d told him always to wait to shoot in a house. You never knew where everyone was. Had to see them, and know no one could be in rooms behind them, but what if they hurt his mama first?
He stood, keeping the gun up and ready.
His mama ran through the living room, the two men in ski masks following her.
Ben sat fast, pumped and shot, taking the first out with a roar and kick that left his ears screaming and shoulder smarting.
The second stumbled to a stop, looking around like he was confused.
Ben pumped again and shot the second guy.
His mama stepped over the body blocking the stairs and ran up them to him, wrapping her arms around him, saying something over and over he couldn’t quite hear the first few times.
“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry you had to do that.”
I pulled out of the vision, droppin’ Ben’s hand. He’d been about twelve and it was a house in Chicago. His mama moved them down here not a month later, soon as she found a job.
“Ariana, where’s your car?” Cora asked, voice small and so not her.
“A friend drove me, to get me here faster,” I said.
“Where is he?” Grant asked, unlocking his car and opening the door for me.
“Had to leave. Those friends have their own problems tonight, sir,” I said.
I climbed in and Ben beat Grant to opening the backdoor for Cora. They scooched in and Grant took off, drivin’ faster than even me.
We made small talk on the way and it took me a bit to figure out we were headed back to the office instead of Grant’s home in West Nashville.
“Sir?” I asked.
“No,” Grant said. “We’re keeping her at the office until we catch this bastard.”
“What!” Cora said. “What if you never catch him?”
Grant gave her a look in the rearview mirror.
“What? You’re not infallible, Dad.”
“Your dad’s right,” Ben said. “Houses are not defensible.”
She opened her mouth and shut it, rubbing his arm.
So she knew?
“Don’t worry, Cora,” I said. “We’ve got like fifty agents on this, and more coming. He had maybe twenty minutes head start before the first group was out there trackin’ him. There’s news alerts, dogs on his trail.” And one psychic.
“Couldn’t you put me in a safe house?” she asked. “Ya know, some place nobody knows about?”
I glanced at Grant and he shook his head.
We didn’t know what Truck’s powers were, so we couldn’t risk her out there just in case he could find her psychically, but we couldn’t exactly tell her that.
I stared at him. What were the odds he’d come up with something plausible?
“Dad?” Cora said.
“No,” Grant said.
So, odds not good.
She crossed her arms. “Why not?”
He didn’t answer.
She made that same lemon suckin’ face Grant does when he’s pissed and turned in her seat, leaning in and whispering with her boyfriend.
My phone buzzed with a text. It was Pyro saying he was hanging around the FBI building in case I needed him.
I texted him back a thank you and that I owed him some silk and a thorough petting.
We got to the office and upstairs without incident.
Grant led us to the room in the back off the breakroom. We had a cot with an actual decent mattress and pillows in there, but not much else. It was for agents crashing at the office for some reason or another.
“Better than the couch in the director’s office,” I said.
“Yeah, yeah.” She walked back into the bullpen and we all followed.
She flopped down at Jet’s desk and crossed her arms. “So, what am I doing?”
Huh?
“No,” Grant said.
“I’m here for the duration,” she said. “Put me to work.”
“You don’t have clearance,” Grant said.
“What about research?” Ben asked. “Is there something you could have us look up, sir? Like if you had parameters for motels he could be holed up at, or something like that? Stuff we could look up without actually knowing anything?”
Grant looked him up and down and made a harrumph sound.
Honestly, if I were a parent, this kid would be exactly who I’d want dating my daughter. He was cool headed, steady, helpful, obviously didn’t have a problem with work, even if it’d be boring.
Kinda like Grant, actually.
“Sir?” I tapped his arm and he followed me over to the breakroom.
I closed the door behind us. “Couldn’t we tell them?”
He shook his head. “No more than we can tell the media. They can’t see files. It’s classified. We might be able to put them on something like searching hotels like the kid said.”
“No, I meant, can’t we tell them about me being psychic and Truck being something like that?” I said.
“Why?”
“So Cora stops lookin’ at you that way, for one. And for two, Ben had some good suggestions there. What if he has ideas of what I could look for psychically? And maybe Cora should know what’s really out there.”
“So she can be more scared? No.”
“So she knows we got more on our side than just a bunch of agents and dogs combing a big city.”
“No,” Grant said, walkin’ out.
He set the kids up on computers and gave them something to look up.
We met Dan in the director’s office for privacy, set up some laptops, my incense, and files on Truck, and pulled out the bourbon.
Dan set up three glasses and Grant shot him a look.
“Don’t tell me you don’t need a good stiff drink, sir,” Dan said. “I know I do.”
Grant nodded and Dan poured three healthy glasses.
“Cheers,” I said, holdin’ up my glass. We clinked glasses and downed our drinks.
The bourbon burned my tongue and throat and I slammed the glass down with a, “Whoo!”
I tapped the floor. “Hit me.”
Dan poured me another and I drank it slower, letting the sweetness roll over my tongue.
“You know,” I said, “the vamps are busy, but I could see if they could spare at least one of ‘em.”
Grant nodded and I called Quil.
“How’s the search?” he asked.
I filled him in about the warning on Craigslist and how we had to rush to grab Cora.
Grant shot me a look and I covered the speaker. “What?”
“Didn’t Quil run you?” Grant asked.
Oops!
“No, he was busy,” I said, turning back to the phone, hopefully quick enough for him to not see the lie. “We’re hoping you could help us find him by scent tracking or however that works.”
“We can try,” Quil said. “But I have to find Carvi. If he’s up here after we came to an understanding, I really don’t know what he’s up to. I know this is bad, but you’ve got the entire FBI and all their resources. I have my people. That’s all. And it’s my job to protect them. The sooner Carvi’s found, the safer all my people are.”
“No, no, I know. I don’t expect you to drop everything,” I said. “I just was wondering if you could spare somebody, like Carla? Figure Carvi will have protection against being sniffed out, but Truck might not.”
“That I can do.” I could almost see him nodding. “Call you back in a minute, sweets.”
I turned off the phone and tapped the floor again. Dan poured me another and him and Grant a second.
“After this, we slow down,” Grant said.
“Yes, sir,” Dan and I said together, drinking.
Quil called back.
“Hello.” Quil’s thick purr made an iota of tension in my shoulders relax. “Carla said she can help. Just call and tell her where to meet you.”
Was it just me or was his normally non-existent accent sounding kinda thick?
“You going to be okay?” I asked. “I know finding Carvi’s important.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m not as good as a psychic, but I’m not without other resources. I’m not the investigator for our nest for nothing.”
“I know.”
“Call me when you find Truck. Good luck, sweets.”
“You too.”
We hung up.
“You can tell me who Carvi is and why finding him is important after we find Truck,” Grant said in his cool way.
“Loose vamp,” I said. “The guy I was going to help Quil find. He’s king of Miami, Milo’s brother, and looking for revenge.”
“I said after for a reason, Ryder.” He gave me that little ghost smile. “Now I’m curious.”
I had to smile. I just had to. It was either that or break down.
The second was not an option.
I called Carla and she said she’d go to the crime scene after she wrapped something up, and start sniffing. I sat on the floor and focused on the items.
And couldn’t get anything even as my head started swimmin’ with the booze.
“Cook a cat!” I said, pushin’ to my feet and stumbling.
Grant jumped up and caught my arm.
“I’m not gettin’ anything, sir,” I said. “This is useless!”
“Breathe, Ryder. Maybe you just can’t get anything in here.”
I nodded.
What was step one in sociopath hunting?
Go to his last known location.
So we left the kids with the laptops and two agents to watch over them, and went to the crime scene.
The transport was taken out right in the heart of Nashville at a light near the freeway entrance.
The transport changed its path to the freeway every time just in case a prisoner tried to set up an escape by telling someone where they’d be.
It was a circus. News vans blocked the street before we even got to the light and cops were directing people around the best they could. It still took us an extra twenty minutes to get up to the scene.
Police tape kept the crowds and reporters away from the bullet riddled van but they watched from the parking lot of the liquor store, the higher ground giving them a great view.
The bodies had already been packed up and shipped out.
I couldn’t even tell where the blood stains were, the asphalt was so discolored under the bright lights and the shadows they cast.
I had half a second to wonder if Kat had been called in to deal with those or if they had Dr. Snow on it, and then we crossed under the tape and I had a whole hell of a lot of other things to think about.
Like who sprang Truck?
And did he tell them when and where to do it through the signal boost he said he got from me?
Wait, if he was communicating as he went, did that mean he was still using me? Or did he just need the signal boost to contact his partner and tell him where he was initially and was able to communicate himself once they were both in the same area?
My stomach lurched. And not from the bourbon.
Either way, he used my powers to escape.
Jet and a few other agents were still here, processing whatever was left of the scene and getting the cleanup going so they could open the road again.
“How did it happen, Kowalski?” Grant asked when we reached him.
“Shot through the windshield while stopped at the light,” Jet said. “There’s another team on top of that building.” He pointed down the street to one of the buildings lining the road. “They found three oh eight, Lapua brass.”
“Sniper?” Grant asked.
“Likely. Measured at maybe two hundred yards, but it was at an angle through a windshield. They would have had to know how to calculate a shot through that to keep the bullet from deflecting. Here, it was dead on. One shot through the head.”
“Only one?” Grant asked, eyes widening, which is the equivalent of a normal person’s jaw droppin’.
Jet nodded.
“Not many people could make that shot,” Grant said.
“No, sir,” Jet said. “I’m good but I couldn’t make that shot. I already got agents running a list of trained snipers.”
“Good.” Grant walked up to the van. “What happened next?”
“The person changed position as the guys in back figured out what was going on and got out, and each was taken out, one by one, still at long range. Then the person ran up, unlocked Truck, and they ran out.”
“Traffic cameras?”
Jet shook his head. “Shot out, probably right before this happened. We’re checking security cameras of the business around here. The liquor store’s the obvious choice, but agents already got it and the whole thing is fuzzy.”
“Fuzzy?” Grant asked. “Magic?”
“That’s what my money is on, sir.”
“Somebody must’ve seen something,” I said. “It’s the middle of Nashville on a Saturday night.”
“Oh, people saw plenty. It’s getting them to be useful that’s the problem,” Jet said. “I swear everyone I talked to sounds like they’re high.”
“I don’t get it,” I said.
Jet flipped open his notepad. “Which do you want first? The girl who said he was beamed out by a UFO? The lady who said the van was blown up and can’t explain why it’s intact now? The guy who said the shooter was the KKK? Should I go on?”
“You mean the shooter was in the KKK?” I asked.
“No, he said it was the KKK, as in an army of big guys in white sheets, all shooting.”
Grant and I looked at each other.
“They’re all like that, sir,” Jet
said. “I know witness IDs are unreliable, but this is ridiculous.”
“Describe those witnesses,” Grant said.
“First girl was a twenty-year-old hipster. Asian descent. Physics major at Vandy. Second was in her forties. She’s a doctor who served in the Navy. She’s-”
“Overseas?” Grant asked.
Jet nodded. “Iraq.”
“Green Zone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any explosions near her?”
Jet shook his head. “I do not know, but could ask.”
“And the third?”
“Old guy, about seventy. Black. Retired. He was on his way home from babysitting the grandkids so the parents could have an evening out.”
“Seventies,” Grant said. “Meaning he lived through the days of the KKK terrorizing blacks in the sixties. What do you want to bet the physics major has a fear of UFOs?”
“I… um, you thinkin’ they all saw fears or something, sir?” I asked.
“That’s exactly what I think.”
“Spell?”
“Yep. Probie!”
“Yes, sir?” Kevin Menard, the tall, thin computer geek who was Crowley’s new probationary agent, scrambled up to us.
“Track down every witch, new age shop, voodoo priestess and anyone else who can make spells within a hundred miles of Nashville,” Grant said. “Get others on the areas around us.”
Menard’s mouth worked and Grant stared at him.
“Yes, sir.” Menard gulped. “But how… who do I get on it? And how do I find that.”
“Don’t care. Go.”
Menard rabbited, yanking his phone outta his pants, and ran up to Mender, probably asking her what to do.
“You think things are gonna get confusing in the office with a Mender and a Menard, sir?” I asked.
“Don’t care,” he said. “The van. I want to know what happened here.”
“Anything else we should be running down, sir?” Jet asked.
Grant nodded slowly. “Call the prison. I want every letter ever sent to him, the logs of every visitor, and the records of all the books he’s checked out or what he’s been looking at on the web since he was arrested.”
“Huxley’s squad’s already on it, sir,” Jet said.
I looked around. Patterson, call me Pat, Huxley is as big as Grant, near sixty, with a head full of thick gray hair. He has a friendly, wrinkled face and looks like everyone’s favorite grandpa. He acts that way, too.
