Striking Distance ti-6

by Pamela Clare

  Derek shrugged. “I knew you had things under control on the ground. Our perp would know that, too. There are a lot of tall buildings around the station. It was pretty clear to me that the person who wanted her dead had a military background. If I’d wanted to kill her myself, I’d have taken up position on one of the rooftops and shot her as she made her way in or out of the station. The top floor of the parking garage gave me a view of every rooftop in the area—and gave me an excuse to park my car.”

  Hunter, the sniper of the group, glared at him. “Why didn’t you contact police and share your hunch?”

  “I don’t play well with others.”

  McBride spoke up. “You want us to believe that you went to the parking garage on a hunch because you wanted to protect Ms. Nilsson.”

  “I can see why you’re a chief deputy. You’re real smart.” Derek tapped his temple with his finger. “Yes, that’s what I want you to believe.”

  “Or maybe it’s like this,” Corbray said. “Maybe you decided you didn’t need her after all. You hired someone to kill her, then showed up to get rid of loose ends. Only the loose end got wise to you and almost got rid of you instead.”

  He’d known that was what they’d think.

  Hell, if he were in their shoes, that was what he’d think.

  “Did you see who shot you?” Hunter asked. “Did you get a look at him at all?”

  “No.”

  McBride handed him a head shot of a man who was obviously dead. “Do you know this man? Have you seen him before?”

  Derek shook his head.

  “Is the name Sean Michael Edwards familiar to you at all?” Hunter asked.

  Derek shook his head again. “Sorry. Can’t help you. Who is he?”

  “The man we believe shot you,” Darcangelo answered.

  Derek wasn’t used to being in this position, and it was more than a little humiliating, not only because he’d let some fucker get the drop on him, but also because he was used to being the one asking the questions.

  “Look. I need Ms. Nilsson alive. She’s the only person who can clear my company of negligence in the matter of her abduction.”

  McBride frowned. “You want to blame her for what happened to her.”

  “My sources in Islamabad say that Al-Nassar’s men were tipped off by an American man who’d said she’d told him where she was going to be. She says she never broke my company’s safety protocols, but clearly she did. Maybe she let some guy fuck the information out of her.”

  The anger on Corbray’s face made Derek suddenly grateful that the other men were there. He had no doubt he’d end up in ICU again if he and Corbray were alone.

  McBride put a restraining hand on Corbray’s shoulder. “Your sources told you Ms. Nilsson was handed over to Al-Nassar by an American?”

  Derek nodded. “If I can prove that’s true, I’ll be able to clear my company and get back to work. So you see—I need her alive.”

  * * *

  JAVIER WALKED WITH McBride, Hunter, and Darcangelo out to the parking lot. “I know Laura, and I know she would never do anything to compromise anyone’s safety, including her own. We met in Dubai two months before her abduction, and she was plenty good at keeping secrets. There’s no way she leaked information about her whereabouts to anyone.”

  McBride held up the folder that held Sean Michael Edwards’s photo. “Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Hunter nodded. “This might not be the first time Sean Michael Edwards has tried to get revenge on Laura for her investigation against him.”

  That thought had crossed Javier’s mind, too, but some part of him still had trouble believing that the man who had blundered after him down the sidewalk could be behind the attacks on Laura, much less the one who’d orchestrated her abduction.

  “You got an extra copy of that surveillance footage from the parking garage?”

  “Yeah,” McBride answered. “Why?”

  “I’d like to take a look at it again.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  LAURA GOT UP early the next morning, showered, and fixed breakfast while Javier made coffee. They fed each other bites of omelet, last night fresh in Laura’s mind. These past few days with him had been the happiest she’d known since before her abduction. She felt like herself again, only better because now she was in love. Although she was still desperately afraid for her daughter—she had called Erik this morning, and he’d had nothing new to tell her—she no longer had to face that fear alone.

  It was almost painful to think that Javier would be leaving for Coronado in a matter of days. He had no idea when he might be deployed again, how long he’d be gone, or even whether he’d come home alive. He couldn’t even guess.

  The last time they’d said good-bye to one another . . .

  Don’t think about that now.

  Javier helped her clear the dishes from the table. “Mind if I spend some time on your computer while you’re at work? I want to look into Edwards a bit more.”

  She’d heard what Derek Tower had told them yesterday and had a pretty good idea what Javier was after. “You think Edwards was behind my abduction.”

  Javier shrugged. “Tower thinks your location was given to Al-Nassar by an American. It’s worth checking out.”

  “What he thinks doesn’t matter much to me. He also believes I leaked the information myself.”

  “Hey, you know I don’t buy that. If anyone was capable of fucking secrets out of you, it would have been me, and you didn’t tell me a thing.”

  Laura laughed despite herself, but she wished Javier would leave it alone. “Edwards is dead. What does it matter?”

  “It matters.”

  “You can use my computer—on one condition. Send me some naughty e-mails. I’m going to miss you.”

  “You sure someone at the paper doesn’t cache and read those?”

  She smiled. “All the more reason to write something really shocking. Give them something to talk about.”

  He grinned. “You got it.”

  She grabbed her leather tote and checked to make sure she had everything she needed. Car keys. VA files. Banana. Cell phone. Debit card. Her handgun.

  He walked her to the door, took her into his arms, and kissed her. “How about I meet you at the paper around noon and we head out for a little something?”

  “A little something?”

  “I have a big appetite.”

  Yes, he did. So did she.

  “I’m feeling hungry already.”

  They kissed again, and then Laura had to go.

  What had once been her normal routine felt strange—leaving home without a protection detail, driving her own car, making her way through the streets of Denver without a U.S. Marshal escort.

  She arrived at the paper to find dozens of reporters standing out front, cameras and mics ready. She’d issued a statement through her attorney yesterday afternoon after the FBI press conference, but apparently that hadn’t been enough. She walked through the crowd, taking the opportunity to thank the Marshal Service, the FBI, and the Denver police, mentioning Zach, Janet, and even Agent Petras by name.

  She found her desk festooned with balloons, a bouquet of calla lilies in the center.

  Sophie gave her a hug. “Welcome back!”

  “Thanks.” Laura sniffed the lilies. “These are beautiful.”

  Alex made his way past her to his desk, his black eye beginning to yellow. “Oh, look, it’s our celebrity.”

  Laura ignored him, getting settled in at her desk.

  “Hey, Laura, good to see you.” Matt walked up to her in a pair of black trousers and a wrinkled blue dress shirt, a big grin on his boyish face, sunglasses propped on top of his short red hair. “Glad that’s all behind you. I guess it wasn’t Al-Nassar after all. That’s good news.”

  “Yes, it is—and thanks.”

  She checked her voice mail, deleting a message from Gary in which he apologized once more—and asked her to come in for another
interview tonight. He even offered to send a limo. But she wanted nothing to do with him. Next, she answered her e-mails, including one from Javier suggesting she pick up a spray can of whipped cream on the way home.

  “For dessert,” he’d written.

  “My favorite,” she answered.

  She hadn’t had time to read through the paper this morning, so she quickly perused it. She was glad to see that Alex had asked Petras about Edwards’s ties to Ali Al Zahrani. Petras had declined to comment. She couldn’t be a hundred percent sure her hunch about Ali was correct, but it seemed to her that Petras wasn’t really interested in finding the truth. She might have called Zach and asked him to look deeper into the case against Ali, but she knew there was little he could do. The Marshal Service had coordinated her protection detail and the task force, but the bombing investigation had been left to the FBI.

  She wished she could write an article challenging the bureau to reexamine the evidence against Ali, but she had promised Janet that she wouldn’t reveal the contents of the file. Laura didn’t break promises. But she didn’t give up either. Maybe there was a way to get it in the paper without breaking her promise.

  She would have to think about that.

  Tom was in an unusually bright mood, probably because he’d just learned that several I-Team stories had won prizes in this year’s Investigative Editors and Reporters Awards. “We’re glad to have you back, Nilsson. Harker, what’s going on with the city?”

  Matt was working on a follow-up piece about Candy’s Emporium. When the property had been vacated, one of the employees had apparently left behind a little black book of clients that included several leading city officials—and a state senator.

  Sophie hoped to head into the mountains with a naturalist to see how the areas burned in last summer’s catastrophic wildfires had recovered. “It ought to make for a really fantastic photo spread if you’re up for it, Joaquin.”

  He grinned. “You know it.”

  Alex hoped to put to bed the first story in his series about prison gangs, this installment focusing on how gang members in prison, even those in D-seg—disciplinary segregation—managed to communicate with gang members on the outside. “I wore a camera for some of the interviews, so I’ve got video for the website.”

  “Nilsson, how’s the VA story coming together?”

  “I’m good to go. I’ll finish it today.”

  Syd turned to Joaquin. “Photos?”

  “They’re all turned in except for the shot of Ted Hollis. When I called, he thought I was part of some government conspiracy or something. He freaked out and told me Laura had never said anything about photos. He sounded really out of it.”

  “Sorry, Joaquin. I told him I needed a shot of him and said he could expect a call from you. I guess he forgot. I’ll call him.”

  * * *

  JAVIER SLID THE CD of the surveillance footage into Laura’s computer and played it, watching as the shooter with his strange glowing ball of a head scoped out his shot and waited. He fast-forwarded, then watched again as the guy set up the M110, got into position, and opened fire. He watched closely as the sniper spotted Tower and reacted, squeezing off two near-fatal rounds before getting in the vehicle and making his getaway.

  There was no way the man in this footage could be Edwards. The sniper moved smoothly, efficiently, demonstrating a kind of dexterity that came from practice and experience. Edwards had moved slowly with an almost shuffling gait.

  Javier stopped the playback, picked up his cell phone, and dialed a buddy of his in Coronado. He and Miles had gone through BUD/S together. Miles had been a SEAL until he’d lost both legs to a land mine in Afghanistan. Once he recovered, he’d found a new way to serve and now worked in naval intelligence. “Hey, you got a second?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “This wouldn’t have to do with a sexy reporter, would it?”

  “Yeah, and keep that to yourself.” He explained the situation to Miles. “I just don’t buy that this guy is the same one who shot me. Can you run this footage and get a height and weight off the shooter?”

  “Sure thing—but it’s going to cost you a steak dinner.”

  “You got it, bro.”

  “When do you need this?”

  “Now.”

  Miles laughed. “Make that a steak dinner—and a bottle of Glenfiddich.”

  “Deal.”

  “I’m creating a shared folder. Give me an e-mail address where I can send the password and the URL for the folder. Once you log in, upload the footage. I’ll get to work on it as soon as it’s here.”

  “Roger that.”

  * * *

  LAURA SAT AT her desk, listening with no small degree of satisfaction to the shouting coming from Tom’s office. She’d told Tom how Alex had behaved when he’d come over for lunch and demanded to know if Tom thought Alex’s actions were consistent with good journalistic ethics. It hadn’t been a rhetorical question. She’d been genuinely interested to hear Tom’s answer. She knew he was an aggressive journalist, but she’d always considered him to be an ethical one.

  She’d been pleased when he’d apologized for Alex’s actions—and then shouted, “Carmichael, get in here!”

  He’d made Alex apologize.

  She’d walked out with a smile on her face.

  She’d been working on her VA story since then, hoping to wrap it up well before deadline. She’d called and left a message on Ted Hollis’s cell phone about Joaquin and the photo situation, but Hollis hadn’t called back yet. She read through what she’d written so far and made a few tweaks to the nut graph, summarizing the findings that would be in the article. She was about to go get another cup of coffee when her phone rang.

  “Hi, Laura.” It was Ted Hollis. “I’m sorry I acted that way. I guess I should have trusted the photographer, but I thought you’d be coming and . . . I just don’t like dealing with strangers.”

  She tried to reason with him. “I’m a stranger, and you trusted me.”

  “I guess you don’t feel like a stranger. I feel like I know you.”

  “I can understand that.” People often thought they knew people they saw on TV or read about in the newspapers. “Joaquin is a friend of mine. He’s very good at his job. I know you’ll like him once you meet him. Can I send him out?”

  “Oh . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know about that. Let me think about it.”

  Under most circumstances, Laura would simply cut the photograph from the story package. But she knew readers would want a face to connect with his story.

  She looked at her clock and saw it was already ten thirty. Javier would be here at noon, and then Laura would be otherwise occupied—for a little while. That would leave her only a couple of hours of writing time before deadline, but she’d already made solid progress. If she could find Joaquin and meet him at Hollis’s place, she could get the photo squared away and be back in time to meet Javier.

  “If it makes you feel better, I’ll meet Joaquin there. Would that work?”

  “Oh, well, I guess that’s better.”

  She reached for a pen and pad of paper. “What’s your address?”

  He gave her his street number.

  “Would eleven be good? That’s a half hour from now.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t have anything else to do.”

  Laura called Joaquin, who said he thought he could just fit it in before heading up into the mountains with Sophie. She offered to text him the directions she’d downloaded, but he said he didn’t need them.

  “I’ll punch them into my GPS.”

  “Perfect. See you in thirty.”

  Laura e-mailed the directions to her smartphone and headed out.

  * * *

  JAVIER WAITED IMPATIENTLY on the line while Miles worked.

  “Infrared LEDs—this could be a problem. I don’t know if the program can extrapolate a height or weight when it can’t get a lock on the top of his head. Oh
, look, he brought an M110. Nice weapon.” More clicking. “Okay, got a great shot of him. Hang on.”

  Javier paced the short length of Laura’s office, the uneasy feeling that had been building inside him growing stronger. The FBI believed it had closed this case, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d seen Edwards in action, Javier would have bought it. But he had seen Edwards, and the lumbering image in his mind was nothing like the shooter in the footage.

  “Yeah . . . This isn’t going to work. The software doesn’t know what to make of his head. I’m getting nothing but an error message. Sorry, man.”

  ¡Que mierda!

  “No problem. I understand. You’ll still get that steak dinner. And the Glenfiddich.”

  “Happy to help. Sorry I couldn’t do more. Interesting to watch a left-handed sniper, though. You don’t see too many of those.”

  Left-handed sniper.

  Javier’s stomach dropped to the floor, his heart giving a hard kick.

  Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

  ¡Puñeta!

  “I think you just gave me what I need. Thanks, man.” Without explaining, he disconnected the call and dialed McBride, hurrying for his gear.

  “Hey, Corbray, what’s up?”

  “It wasn’t Edwards. The sniper wasn’t Edwards. The shooter was left-handed. Edwards fired at me using his right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Look at the footage. Also, I ruled out the possibility of Edwards being behind Laura’s abduction. He was lying in the hospital in a coma at the time.”

  “There went that theory. I’ll pass this along to the police. I’m on my way to the cop shop now anyway. Hunter called to say that Edwards’s social worker showed up insisting that Edwards couldn’t have done any of the things the FBI claims he did. She says he had trouble tying his shoes and struggled to live independently.”

  How had Petras and his crew not ascertained that key fact?

  Javier knew why.

  They’d found exactly what they’d expected to find at Edwards’s apartment and hadn’t bothered to look deeper. Just as they’d done with Ali Al Zahrani.