Blood Ties

by Kay Hooper

  Dammit.

  Broken glass had been swept from Main Street, the other rubble—made up of wood and brick and concrete and twisted metal—had also been removed, and numerous men had worked through most of the night to board up the shattered windows in the blast radius. One by one, the fire engines had departed, along with several EMS crews from neighboring counties.

  The black van labeled EXPLOSIVES DISPOSAL UNIT, whose technicians Naomi would have sold her best shoes and possibly her soul to interview on camera, had slipped away early on, though another larger van—some kind of mobile command center, she guessed—remained parked across the street from the sheriff’s office.

  Visibly alert men wearing obvious body armor and holding guns were stationed in front and back of the van, not even bothering to try to be casual about it, and both agents and deputies continued to go in and out as they had for hours, all night long. But they had positioned the big work lights in such a way that none of the news crews had been able to get a shot of the van that wasn’t obscured by the glare.

  No way to shoot the good stuff, and all the rest was boring as hell. Even the electric crews had calmly and methodically—and with a minimum of sparks, dammit—restored power to most of Main Street sometime after midnight and were now working on blown transformers farther out.

  And not one of the numerous FBI agents coming and going throughout most of the night had spared even a glance toward the media, no matter how loudly the questions were shouted.

  “Give it up,” Rob, her cameraman, advised dryly. “We should go home and get some sleep. They aren’t going to say a damn thing, on or off the record. The deputies might as well have tape over their mouths, and the feds just plain know better.”

  “They have to talk to us sooner or later,” Naomi said.

  “No, they don’t. They let the sheriff be spokesman because it’s his town, but the truth is they aren’t going to tell us squat until they’re damn good and ready. And if that explosion was caused by a bomb—”

  “You know it was.”

  “I know witnesses think it was and cops aren’t saying. But if it was a bomb, you can bet it’ll be days—if ever—before anybody official confirms that. With all the terrorist shit going on in the world, people hear the word bomb and panic. Nobody wants a panic, especially in a nice little town that depends on tourists for at least some of its livelihood.”

  Naomi had stopped listening after the bit about it being days before anybody official would confirm what had happened. She didn’t have days. She was lucky Keith hadn’t already sent another reporter out here and recalled her. And if it was a bomb he most surely would.

  Unless, of course, she managed to get something really juicy on tape.

  “Whatever you’re thinking,” Rob said, “please put it out of your pretty blond head. I’d like to live to a ripe old age and retire with a gold watch, or some shit like that.”

  She smiled at him very sweetly. “You just keep the camera ready—and for Christ’s sake keep the shot in focus.”

  “Hey, you do your job, Barbie, and I’ll do mine.”

  “Oh, I’ll do my job, all right. Shut your mouth and follow me.”

  Rob followed her as she began to work her way back from the crime-scene tape and closer to the buildings on one side of Main Street. But he didn’t shut his mouth until he’d muttered, “If I’m staying awake all fucking night, there damn well better be something to film.”

  That wish would haunt him for a long, long time.

  There was more room inside the mobile command center than one might expect, even with all the machinery and other equipment, but it was still very crowded, despite the fact that most of the agents and Sheriff Duncan remained standing.

  “Unfortunately, we don’t know much more than we did when you left, Miranda.” Special Agent Dean Ramsey, SCU, had arrived with the first wave of agents after the bomb blast and shooting. As one of Bishop’s senior primaries, it had fallen on his shoulders to make order out of the chaos in the temporary absence of Miranda, who had been and still was the lead investigator on this case.

  Ramsey, who had recently retired from the military when Bishop recruited him, was older than most of the other agents at forty-five but kept himself in peak physical condition. He was above medium height and slender, an auburn redhead with level brown eyes and a tough look about him that said you’d want him on your side no matter what the fight was about.

  And he had retained something of an army crispness in how he relayed or requested information, wasting few words. “But we have managed to determine at least a few facts. Tony?”

  “We identified the body on the roof of the old theater,” Tony reported obediently. “Not that it’s going to help us much. He’s a local, and the sheriff confirms he’s a known hunter.”

  “Even out of season,” Duncan said with a heavy sigh. “But he follows—followed—the rules otherwise, and he was a careful, safe hunter.”

  Tony nodded. “Cal Winston, forty-three. Divorced, father of two kids, who live with his ex in Gatlinburg. Neither of the guns found with him is registered to him; his own guns are still in his home here just outside town—with the exception of his hunting rifle, which is missing. All of his guns were duly and legally registered, and he kept them in a gun safe.”

  “His kids,” Duncan murmured. “Didn’t want to take any chances there. He was… a careful man, like I said. He was a good man.”

  Gravely, Miranda said to him, “I’m sorry, Des.”

  “Yeah, me too. Has anybody called his ex?”

  “Not yet,” Tony volunteered.

  “I’ll do it, then. I knew them as a couple before Cal had a stupid summer and ran Sheila off.”

  Nobody asked him to elaborate.

  Tony said, “Appears he was very well liked. No enemies we’ve found yet, and everybody seems honestly stunned that he’s dead. Apparently wasn’t the type to get anybody stirred up against him, and definitely wasn’t the type to commit suicide.”

  Miranda was silent for a moment, then frowned. “The guns found with him—anything?”

  Tony shook his head. “Not much. Serial numbers filed off both guns, but the handgun’s probably the gun that killed him. No gunpowder residue on his hand; plus he was a lefty but shot in the right temple, so it’s a safe bet he didn’t off himself. It was a close-contact wound, though, so whoever it was all but pressed the barrel against his head before pulling the trigger.”

  “Up close and personal,” Jaylene murmured.

  “Yeah. So I’m guessing either the sniper practically fell over him and had to kill him, planned to make this kill different just to mix things up, or else needed him on his feet right up until he got him on that rooftop.”

  “What about the rifle?” Miranda asked.

  “Could be the weapon used on Tuesday and yesterday—it’s the right caliber—but we won’t know for sure until the ballistics report is in. Probably later today.” Tony paused, then added, “Hell of an expensive gun to waste. The real killer must have known that leaving it on a roof with a fake sniper-slash-bomber wouldn’t fool us for more than five minutes. That bugs me. I don’t know why, though.”

  There was another brief silence.

  “We inventoried the backpack found with him,” Dean said, picking up the report in his methodical way. “Nothing unusual for a hunter expecting to spend a few days in the woods, and looks like everything belonged to him. Only his own prints were found.”

  Miranda looked at Jaylene with a lifted brow, and the other woman nodded, saying, “There was… no sign it wasn’t his stuff.”

  Returning her gaze to Dean, Miranda waited.

  “The explosives experts say there was nothing special about the bomb, certainly no signature they recognized. It was some of the newer plastic explosive, but the stuff is fairly easy to come by if you know who to ask. The remote detonator was ready-made and could have been purchased from just about any well-equipped gun or munitions dealer.”

  “Whi
ch we have a lot of around here,” Duncan offered.

  Tony nodded. “I’ll say. And a few of them on the watch list, Miranda. But nothing jumps out.”

  “Okay. Still, we’ll run the usual checks and see if we can chase down the dealer. It’s an assumption but a fair one that our sniper was here Tuesday evening, left, and apparently returned by early yesterday morning with the explosives. I’d like very much to know where he got them.”

  Dean said, “The time span gives us a rough radius for our search, since he couldn’t have gone all that far—and back—in only a few hours. We’ll have some extra personnel to search: The Bureau field office in Knoxville is happy to help. They’ll send out agents as early as possible this morning and start canvassing gun and munitions dealers, army surplus, weapons experts, and anybody else the sniper might have dealt with. It is, as the sheriff said, a pretty long list, and it’ll probably take several days to cover all the ground, but we’ll go through it as fast as we possibly can.”

  “Good. Did Dr. Edwards confirm time of death for Mr. Winston?”

  Without the need to consult his notebook, Dean said, “Eighteen to twenty hours before he was found.”

  She drew a breath and let it out slowly. “So there’s no way he was our shooter on Tuesday. No big surprise, I think.”

  Sheriff Duncan said, “What I don’t get is why the shooter went to all that trouble. Maybe Cal being in his way was just happenstance; that was probably his deer blind your people found on Tuesday, and maybe he was in it when the sniper needed it. Or maybe he came along later and was a serious problem for the sniper. So killing him I get. But then to transport a sizable man a considerable distance—whether he was on his feet and protesting or literally dead weight—only to haul him to a rooftop and prop him up for window dressing? What would be the point?”

  “A distraction,” Miranda said. “For us. And we’ve been distracted. We’ve had to use resources to identify Mr. Winston and eliminate him as a suspect. Had to take time. Trouble.”

  Duncan was frowning. “So—what? The whole point was to slow you—us—down? Stall for time? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Miranda said.

  “But you believe that was why?”

  She hesitated, then said, “I believe that was part of the reason. I also believe the shooter was mocking us. Taunting us. He believes he’s smarter than we are. More clever. And he wants us to know that.”

  BJ had waffled back and forth for the better part of an hour while trying to decide on his target. He had put the crosshairs of his scope on first one possible and then another, his finger caressing the trigger and a soft “Boom” whispering from his lips each time.

  But he didn’t pull the trigger.

  None of them was quite right.

  He noted that the activity was winding down on Main Street and knew his time to choose and execute for maximum shock value was running out, but a voice in his head kept urging him to wait.

  Not yet. Keep watching. Mark them all. Remember them.

  We’ll get to them all in good time.

  Wait. The timing has to be just right.

  It was a voice he knew. A voice he listened to.

  He waited.

  Even when the helicopter touched down near the courthouse and she joined her team, stood talking to them for several minutes near the van housing their mobile command center, he waited. Even though it would have been so easy.

  So very easy.

  He put the crosshairs of the scope on her face, a face so close he felt he could reach out and touch it. The scope didn’t allow him to see the electric blue of her eyes, but he’d seen them in the daylight so they were easy to imagine. Electric blue eyes in a just-about-perfect face.

  He thought about how quickly he could destroy her beauty and her life, but he waited. His finger caressed the trigger, and he whispered “Boom,” but he waited.

  He watched her go into the mobile command center, wondering if he had missed the shot for tonight.

  No. Wait.

  He waited.

  Naomi lurked. She didn’t think she was very good at it, since her pale blond hair made her sort of neon, and with power for the streetlights back on it wasn’t like it was truly dark out there anyway, but she did her best. She was a little surprised at first that none of the deputies or agents appeared to notice her—or didn’t feel she was worth shooing away if they did notice her. She was, in fact, a bit miffed by that. But eventually she decided that everybody was probably just tired.

  It had been a long night.

  Besides, there really wasn’t anything much to see anymore.

  Still, she didn’t dare go near the mobile command center. She had a hunch the guys with the visible guns were a whole lot more alert, a whole lot less tired, and a whole lot more inclined to view her and her cameraman as threats worth taking note of.

  And possibly shooting.

  Ignoring the way Rob grumbled under his breath, she lurked in the spot she had chosen carefully, in the shadows beneath the now-ragged awning of one of the downtown restaurants, not more than twenty yards from the command center.

  “The deputy was killed right over there,” Rob said suddenly, pointing to a spot only a few feet away from them.

  “I know that.” They hadn’t cleaned the street of everything.

  “And the agent was shot not far from where that command center of theirs is parked now.”

  “I know that too. What’s your point, Rob?”

  “Just that we’re not very far away, that’s all. And they haven’t caught the guy, you know.”

  “He’s miles from here by now,” she said.

  “You know that for a fact, do you?”

  “What, you think he’d be stupid enough to hang around with this whole place crawling with cops and feds?”

  “He was stupid enough to shoot a cop and a fed. That puts him high on the stupid list, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Naomi took her eyes off the command center temporarily to look at him. “You’re scared.”

  “I’d be right up there at the top of the stupid list if I wasn’t.”

  “For God’s sake.”

  “What? I’m not allowed to admit this whole situation gives me the creeps? An explosion Fears apart a nice town, one deputy—just a kid!—killed and a federal agent critically wounded, a nutjob sniper on the loose out there, probably watching us right now for all we know, and I’m not supposed to let it shake me up a little? Jesus, Naomi, you take the cake. Is there anything you can see other than that anchor chair in New York?”

  She was surprised and knew it showed when he laughed.

  “It’s no secret, believe me. I’ve been with the station for fifteen years, and I’ve seen about a dozen like you come and go. All puffed up with their plans to sit in one of those big chairs in New York. And you know what? Not one of them made it there.”

  “I will,” she told him flatly. “I’ll make it there.” She returned her gaze to the command center and saw that several of the feds were coming out of it. She immediately hurried forward, gesturing for Rob to follow her. “Turn the camera on. Now. Film everything.”

  “Christ, if I get arrested for this—”

  As they neared them, she heard one of the men ask, “Where’s Galen, anyway? He missed the big meeting.”

  “He had an errand,” replied a tall, gorgeous brunette.

  Man, she’ll make great television.

  “Agent? Agent, Naomi Welborne, Channel 3 News. If you could say just a few words to calm some of our nervous viewers?”

  To her delight, the woman paused in response, though her expression could hardly be said to be encouraging. If anything, she seemed a bit distracted.

  “Look, Ms. Welborne—”

  “Just a few words, please.” Naomi smiled with all the charm she could muster. “Please, we’ve been standing out here all night. If I go back to the station without anything at all, my boss will can me.”

  The brunette gave her a wry look. “N
ice try, Ms. Welborne.”

  Don’t let her walk away, dammit.

  Desperate, Naomi said, “Okay, maybe he won’t can me, but I’ll be doing the fu—freaking weather again. Come on, give a fellow professional woman a break, won’t you? I’m not asking you to spill your guts, just give me something I can run with for the morning news. Do you believe the explosion and shooting yesterday are connected with the remains found here this week of two murder victims? Do you believe locals are involved?”

  “Sheriff Duncan gave the press a statement hours ago, Ms. Welborne. I really have nothing to add.”

  She would have moved away, but Naomi took a couple more steps and turned a bit so the other woman would see her face more clearly in the glow of the streetlight.

  “Come on, at least let me confirm the report that agents of the FBI are spearheading the investigation into yesterday’s bombing—”

  “Nice try,” the fed repeated.

  She won’t admit it was a bomb. Shit.

  “Okay…. There was a federal agent wounded yesterday, right? That’s what everybody is reporting, what the police scanners said. Shot with the same bullet that killed that young deputy. Do you think it was a freak shot, or do you believe he was that good?”

  “Ms. Welborne—”

  “The agent was airlifted from the scene almost eighteen hours ago, isn’t that so? How is she?”

  “She’s… holding her own.” The brunette glanced at Rob with a slight frown as he shifted a bit to the side to get a better angle.

  Naomi hurried on. “Then she’ll be okay?”

  “We don’t know yet. Ms. Welborne, I appreciate that you’re trying to do your job, but I can’t say anything more. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  Oh, shit.

  “Agent—”

  ——

  There. Now. You know what to do.

  BJ smiled. He centered the crosshairs of his scope, and his finger caressed the trigger.

  “Boom,” he whispered.