The Scarlett Bell FBI Series

by Dan Padavona

The bungalow next door looked dead. No silhouettes crept toward its doors. The person she’d seen was likely a neighbor, perhaps a teenager cutting through the yard.

  She thumbed the radio’s call button. Neither Adames nor Haggleston answered. Dammit, the van was only a two-minute walk, one minute if she jogged. They could solve this mystery in a hurry if one of them risked running to the van.

  Her phone rang, and she jumped. Hayward moved to the edge of his seat, and for the first time he wasn’t probing for a scoop. The reporter’s nerves were piano-wire-tight.

  “Bell.”

  “Phalen here.” Bell braced herself, but the expected antagonism didn’t come. “I wanted to confirm your phone number and get our ducks in order before we locate Schuler.”

  “Anything new on our target?”

  “We’re trying to locate his position now. You’ll hear from me if we get a hit. Shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  Bell switched the phone to her other ear as she traveled to the front window. This gave her the best view of the van.

  “I still can’t get Adames and Haggleson on the radio. When will the cruiser get to them?”

  Phalen lowered the phone and requested an update. A female voice answered.

  “Don’t look for a police vehicle. We sent an unmarked car so we don’t blow the operation. Should arrive in five minutes.”

  An SUV crawled along Levydale, the first vehicle she’d seen in a long time. Anxiety gripped her heart when it slowed outside the bungalow. Then it took off toward the interstate.

  “Hey, Detective? About what happened with the interrogation.”

  “Not now, Agent Bell.”

  The line went dead.

  Shit. She knew she’d gone overboard this afternoon. It was too soon to expect reconciliation. What could she have done differently to prevent an innocent man from taking the rap?

  Hayward watched her from the gloom.

  She felt like a rat in a maze.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FOURTEEN

  Years of stakeouts had taught Gardy never to let his guard down. The old adage, the quiet before the storm, was a cliche, but when the action began, it always happened fast.

  He pawed through the darkened downstairs, careful not to use his flashlight or phone for lighting. The entire downstairs was hardwood though an area rug in the living room silenced his footsteps as he cut between two sofas and a glass table. A piano sat at the front of the room beside the window. He turned and checked the den, then the dining room and kitchen.

  Arched windows everywhere, some almost as long as the walls were tall. He couldn’t recall the last time he was this unsettled during a case.

  He felt watched. Exposed.

  Instinctively, his hand drifted to the Glock as he crossed a pool of moonlight in the kitchen.

  The air carried a fecund, humid scent unlike the rest of the downstairs. The wind touched his face. Someone had cut a piece of glass out of the deck door.

  Gardy swung his body against the wall, the gun in his hand.

  “Jesus, Bell,” Gardy whispered before the butt end of the flashlight smashed against his head.

  ***

  A thud downstairs brought Bell away from her post at the window. She moved to the attic doorway and listened. The house was silent again.

  “Gardy?”

  She meant her whisper to carry downstairs, but no reply came. Hayward started in her direction.

  “Stay there, Hayward.”

  “What was that noise?”

  She shook her head and listened. A cavernous whistle came from downstairs as if someone edged a window open and let the wind inside the house.

  “Gardy?”

  This time the quiet unraveled her self-assurance, and as she removed the gun from her holster, the growing trepidation in Hayward’s eyes set her on edge. Someone was downstairs.

  Back to the wall, she peered around the door frame and ran her vision to the living room. It was too dark to see if anyone was coming up the stairs. Bell contemplated flicking the wall switch and flooding the house with light. She didn’t want to make another mistake today and blow the stakeout.

  She swung past the doorway and shot Hayward a warning glare.

  “Get back in the chair.”

  “Hell, no. You’re not leaving me up here alone.”

  “Stay in the attic, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in your kneecap.”

  The reporter raised his hands in acceptance and backed away.

  Bell tried to convinced herself Gardy was outside, patrolling the backyard perimeter. Something was terribly wrong. Screw this. She decided to call Phalen and demand the detective send backup. To heck with being discreet. The operation had spun out of control. The phone shrilled in her hand. Glancing down, she recognized Phalen’s number. Thank goodness.

  “Phalen, I can’t find Gardy—”

  “Agent Bell, we tracked Schuler’s phone. He’s inside the house.”

  For a frozen moment, Bell thought Phalen had messed up and traced her own phone. Then she saw the shadow creep past the bedroom door. Schuler’s face materialized out of the gloom, and she saw the insanity, the crazed obsession in his eyes.

  The blunt object clipped the side of her head and sent her reeling against the wall. A club? No, a flashlight. The phone flew out of her hand and smashed at the bottom of the stairs. Gunfire exploded, deafening in close quarters. The errant shot blew a hole in the plastered ceiling.

  Click of the Glock as she racked the slide forward, and Schuler’s fists hammered her arms. The muzzle flashed as the gun blew another hole in the plaster. The dark stairway dusty. Gun out of her hands now. Somewhere on the floor as she groped blindly with the madman atop her.

  Two powerful hands gripped her neck and choked. She grasped his wrists and pulled, but he was much too strong. Her legs flailed as he lifted Bell off her feet and slid her up the wall.

  She smashed her palm into his nose. Bones cracked. He released his grip and stumbled backward.

  Schuler touched his ruined nose, and his hand came away with blood.

  Enraged, the madman bellowed and threw his shoulder into Bell’s stomach and drove her against the wall. Everything broke inside her. Ribs crushed, oxygen ripped from her lungs. Schuler kicked at her head and bashed her neck backward with a geyser of blood.

  She lay in the dark. His footsteps thundered on the floorboards. He drew the knife and plodded toward her.

  Bell drew her knees toward her chest and kicked out. Clipped him in the groin and backed him up a step. The pain only infuriated Schuler, and he came at her again with the knife raised above his head like a nightmare maniac from a horror movie.

  She twisted out of the way as the knife plunged at her chest, driving her palm into his nose again as she spun onto her side. He fell to his hands and knees, the knife still gripped.

  Another shadow passed through the hallway as she teetered on the edge of consciousness. Schuler scrambled to his feet, stunned by the intruder. As Bell watched, the second figure brandished his own knife. He slashed and jabbed at the maniac and forced him toward the stairwell. Gardy’s skill with a blade shocked her. She’d known he was an expert in close combat, a lethal weapon with his hands. Schuler was no match with the knife and vied to knock the blade from Gardy’s grip.

  Only it wasn’t Gardy.

  Bell struggled up to her elbows and collapsed from the pain. Dragging herself through the hallway, she saw Logan Wolf duck under Schuler’s knife and drive the blade into the maniac’s side. Wolf was a shadow among shadows, black coat and pants, black gloves. A stunned look came over Schuler’s face. He clutched at his side and backed away from Wolf, who rolled the knife hilt in his hand and followed.

  “Get up, Scarlett.” Wolf’s voice.

  Pain froze her in place as if dozens of tiny daggers pierced her ribcage.

  “I can’t.”

  “You can, and you will.”

  Quick as a cobra, Wolf lashed out with the knife and flipped the blade
out of Schuler’s hand. Stunned, the killer glared at Wolf.

  Wolf circled around Schuler, and when he was close enough, the nation’s most wanted fugitive knelt and retrieved Schuler’s knife. He tossed both knives toward Bell. The blades clanged against the hardwood and slid to a stop.

  Bell tried to rise. Pushing through the agony, she fought up to her knees and stood. The hallway wobbled, then the dizzy spell passed.

  The fear melted off Schuler’s face. He eyed the smaller man before him.

  Wolf turned his head toward her. His eyes were black holes with no beginning or end.

  “Kill him, Scarlett.”

  Her breath hitched at the sound of his voice.

  “He murdered three women and meant to make you his fourth victim. You’ll find the female reporter in a glade five miles south of Palm Dunes off county route 24.”

  “What are you doing, Wolf? Where’s Gardy?”

  “He’s not here to help you. This is up to you, Scarlett.” When she didn’t react, he glared between Schuler and Bell. “He stalked you, meant to murder you. How does it make you feel?”

  “I don’t feel anything, Wolf. It’s my job to stop him.”

  Schuler shifted closer to Wolf. It wasn’t until then that Bell realized how much larger the Palm Dunes killer was.

  “Do not lie, Scarlett. I can see it in your face. End him.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “You’re ten times the killer he is.”

  The look of derision Wolf gave Schuler rekindled the murderer’s rage, and as he lunged at Wolf, a sudden need to defend the fugitive gripped Bell.

  What happened next Bell wouldn’t fully recall. Schuler springing at Wolf, who remained a defenseless statue. A sudden, desperate need for Bell to protect Wolf, who stood motionless as though waiting for the younger killer to eviscerate him. Bell racing between the two killers and stopping Schuler in his tracks with a jump kick. The shadowed hallway tinged red by her fury.

  The kick knocked Schuler backward, but the killer recovered and came at Bell. She dropped to the floor and swung her legs at his shins. Knocked Schuler off his feet. As he crashed forward, she clamped her legs around his neck and twisted. The break was instantaneous.

  A horrible cracking sound.

  Schuler went limp.

  Bell lay prone, the fight drained from her. The sound of thunder she heard was the beating of her heart. Schuler’s arms splayed across her legs, and she kicked them off with a shudder.

  It was then she remembered Wolf was behind her. She twisted to her stomach and spun up to a crouch. The hallway was empty.

  Bell sprang for the fallen Glock and swept the weapon from the stairway to the end of the hall. A whisper of breathing came from behind, and she spun around to Gavin Hayward. He yelped and threw up his hands as she touched the trigger.

  The reporter slumped to the floor, legs splayed like doll parts.

  Bell lowered the weapon. Wolf was gone.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIFTEEN

  Bell located Gardy’s body hidden in the den. Somebody had dragged the agent from the kitchen, a red smear of blood marking his journey. It made her wonder who’d relocated her partner—Schuler or Wolf? Perhaps Schuler put Gardy there with the intention of finishing the agent off after he murdered Bell. But if it was Wolf…

  That possibility made her head swim. Why did Wolf pull Gardy out of harm’s way?

  Gardy’s eyes looked glazed and unfocused, and he took several seconds before he sat up and responded to her questions.

  Her phone was a puzzle of plastic pieces set inside a zipped evidence baggie. She’d used the police radio to contact Phalen. It had only been a few minutes, but the red and blue lights streaking over the window told Bell the police had arrived.

  The first officer on the scene, a tall male she recognized from the first night they visited the police department, joined a female EMT who worked on Gardy. Several minutes later, Phalen arrived, grim faced and pallid.

  “You okay, Agent Bell?”

  She barely had enough energy to nod. The bright lights flooding the downstairs drove railroad spikes through her forehead.

  He followed a team of officers upstairs. Another male officer hissed through his teeth. When Phalen returned, he stared at Bell the way he might a strange and undocumented animal who’d straggled into the room. The detective escorted the whey-faced reporter, who tottered out the door and into the night. A flashbulb flared. The media‘s cameras pointed at Hayward now.

  Several minutes later, they were both under the stars near the whirling lights of an ambulance as the police backed away a growing mass of reporters. The female EMT pointed a light into Bell’s eyes while her partner, a mustached male wearing an overabundance of cologne, bandaged Gardy’s head.

  Gardy’s eyes flicked to her when he didn’t think Bell was looking, but she noticed. She recognized the expression, something between confusion and horror. It was the same look Phalen had given her.

  “Bell, you know what happened to Haggleston?”

  She lowered her head and glared at a crushed cigarette butt flattened against the blacktop. Yes, she’d heard the other officers talking. Adames was on his way to the hospital with a bloody gash on his forehead where the killer had clubbed him when the officer slipped out of the van to search for Haggleston. He was fortunate to be alive.

  Against their better judgment, Bell and Gardy conceded to an ambulance ride to the hospital. Both underwent MRI exams and answered a battery of questions aimed at diagnosing concussions. To the surprise of the attending physicians, both agents passed their tests and stumbled out of County General at three in the morning.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

  Bell sat on the beach in Capri pants, a blanket thrown around her shoulders to stave off the wind, feet buried in the sand. The temperature had cooled on Chesapeake Bay, and the sharp bite blowing in from the Atlantic portended winter‘s return. Gardy removed his sneakers and dug his toes into the beach. Promising to watch over Bell, Gardy had told the agent charged with guarding the property to grab a late lunch.

  She eyed the time. Lucas was due to arrive home from work soon. She’d tell him what she could of the Schuler case, and when she worked up the courage, she’d explain why she shared a room with her partner. To this point, Bell had avoided discussion of Logan Wolf around Lucas. With the impending release of Hayward’s new article detailing Wolf’s connection to Bell, Lucas would learn soon enough. Best he heard it from her first.

  “There’s still time,” Gardy said. “One phone call from the FBI will put the article on hold.”

  Bell grinned inwardly. Gardy had read her thoughts.

  “No. I’m true to my word, even with a snake like Hayward.”

  “But the consequences.”

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

  In exchange for the pictures which identified Schuler, Bell had granted Hayward an exclusive interview about the serial killers they’d tracked in the last year—why ordinary men became murderers and how the BAU caught them. For the first time, she revealed to the world her reason for becoming a BAU agent: the abduction and murder of her childhood friend.

  The article had reached the Deputy Director’s desk, and she’d done her best to avoid Weber in the office yesterday. In due time, Weber would order a closed door meeting. An embarrassing feature in The Informer wasn’t enough to lose Bell her job, but the glass ceiling over her head was lower now.

  “When are you going to tell me what happened in Sowell’s house?”

  She glanced at him, then moved her attention to a pair of gulls dodging the tide.

  “It’s in the report.”

  “Save the bogus information for Weber. This is your partner you’re talking to.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Schuler had multiple stab wounds from his abdomen to his ribcage.”

  “As I’ve told you countless times, he knocked the gun from my hand. I had to defend myself. What did
you expect me to do—call a timeout so I could pick up the gun?”

  “Cute, but you’re not escaping with jokes this time. How did you get the knife?”

  The wind whipped sand at Bell’s face. She rubbed the grains out of her eyes and leaned back on her hands.

  “It belonged to Schuler. He had two knives and dropped one.”

  Gardy’s lips were tight, teeth grinding.

  “Forensics didn’t find Schuler’s prints on that knife. As a matter of fact, they didn’t find any prints. Not even yours. You weren’t wearing gloves, so I need you to explain this to me.”

  A figure approached from the far end of the beach. Lucas. Bell waved her arms over her head, and Lucas swerved in their direction.

  “Bell?”

  “I can’t tell you why they missed the print, Gardy. Probably for the same reason they missed an obvious thumb print in Lori Tannehill’s attic.”

  He stood and brushed the sand off his pants, offered his hand and helped Bell to her feet.

  “So the theory we’re going with is bad police work.”

  Bell shrugged.

  “Does it matter at this point? We caught Schuler. He‘s dead. That’s what we were there to do."

  Lucas was closer now. Gardy gave the man a half-hearted wave and gathered up his sneakers.

  “You don’t have to leave, Gardy. Join us for dinner.”

  “Nah. You know what they say. Three’s a crowd.”

  Before she could reply, Gardy started away. He trudged up and over a sand drift, then she only saw beach grass and the top of his head.

  The wind turned a shade colder as Lucas approached. Bell fretted with her hands.

  It was time she told him the truth.

  ***

  Lucas didn’t take the news well. He held an understanding smile as she spoke, but it looked forced, painted on. The kiss he planted on her cheek was without passion, the kiss he’d give his niece on her birthday. Then he left her with an ambiguous promise to get together and talk more. When? Soon, whenever that was.