Troubleshooters 09 Hot Target

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Hey, guys, what’s going . . . on.” Jane stopped just inside the door. “Oh, God, no.”

  She looked from Tom to Decker and finally to Cosmo, her eyes begging him to tell her it wasn’t so.

  “Angelina died a little while ago,” Cos told her quietly.

  “Oh, God,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “Oh, no . . .” He moved toward her, but she backed away. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

  She turned and ran out of the room.

  Cosmo followed, even though he had no clue what he could possibly say to her to make this be all right. He caught her at the top of the stairs. “Janey.”

  She was crying. Sobbing. With enormous tears that she could no longer hold back.

  Cosmo tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away.

  “I’m going to Idaho,” she told him. “I’m gonna go to Idaho and I’m going to stand in front of the Freedom Network’s compound gate, and I’m going to fucking tell them to come and get me! Just come and get me!” she shouted. “Just shoot me down, on national television!”

  Now was not the time to try to reason with her. He reached for her again, offering only comfort. “Jane, I’m so sorry.”

  “I was glad,” she told him between sobs, clinging to him at last. “When I saw all the blood and Murphy lying in the driveway, and I thought it might be you, but then I saw Angelina, and I was glad. I was glad. Thank God. That’s what I thought. Thank God it’s not Cosmo. Thank God!”

  “Ah, Janey, it’s only human to—”

  “I can’t stand this!” She pulled away from him again. “I want you all to leave. Tell Tom and Deck that they’re fired. They’re all fired. You’re fired,” she shouted down the stairs. “Go home! I’m shutting down production! It’s over—I’m done!”

  “Jane—”

  “Who’s next?” she asked, wiping furiously at her tears.

  “God, please, just let yourself cry,” Cos said as she asked, “Who’s going to be next if it’s not me?”

  “We’re going to find this guy,” he told her, grabbing her and holding on this time. “Don’t let him win.”

  “I don’t want you to find him,” she wept. “I want you to be safe. I want you to go back to San Diego and be safe.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m breaking up with you,” she told him.

  “—going anywhere,” he finished as she struggled to get free again.

  “It’s over,” she cried, and he had to let go before she opened up her stitches. “Except, you know what? That’s stupid, because we weren’t really going out together. We never went anywhere—we just had sex. So, here. I’m telling you we’re not going to have sex anymore, so you might as well just go home.”

  Cosmo made the mistake of laughing.

  “You think this is funny?” she shouted.

  God, of course he didn’t. “You really think the only reason I’m here is for the sex?” he countered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone would want to risk dying for me!” She went into her office and slammed the door in his face, locking it behind her.

  “Jane, come on,” he said, his forehead against the door. “Let me in. Talk to me. Please?”

  “Well, that was totally Real World.”

  Cosmo turned to see Robin standing on the stairs, unable to keep from cracking a joke despite looking like shit warmed over. “Angelina’s dead,” he informed him.

  Robin winced. “Oh, shit, I’m such an asshole. I’m so sorry. You must be . . . Were you very close?”

  “I just met her,” Cos said. “And I’m still in that surreal place, you know? It hasn’t quite hit.”

  “If there’s anything I can do . . .” Robin started, then rolled his eyes. “Yeah, like that’s going to help.” He sighed and looked wistfully at Jane’s door. “I guess she’s too upset to talk to me.”

  Cosmo stepped aside. “You’re welcome to try.”

  Robin shook his head and continued on up the stairs toward his rooms. “She doesn’t need my crap right now, on top of everything.”

  “You okay?” Cosmo asked. “Get anything figured out?”

  Robin looked back at him, horror in his eyes. “Does everyone know where I was?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s just me and Jane,” Cos reassured him. “I think she’d be okay with me speaking for her and saying that she loves you. Whatever you decide. Or don’t decide. You don’t have to decide anything.” Christ, way to fuck that up. He was totally on a roll today.

  Still, Robin seemed touched. “Thanks, but . . .” He turned his face away, hiding the sheen of tears in his eyes in what was apparently a time-honored Chadwick tradition. Never let ’em see you cry for anything less tragic than death.

  Of course Cos should talk.

  Robin didn’t speak for several moments, but he didn’t leave, either. So Cosmo just waited.

  “Last night was . . . a mistake,” Robin finally told him. “Things got completely out of control. I shouldn’t have . . . It wasn’t . . .”

  Cos nodded, remembering that phone conversation with Jules Cassidy, who so clearly cared about Robin. “Made the wrong choice, huh?”

  “No, I didn’t choose anything,” Robin said. “Not really. I was . . .” He shook his head. “Too drunk to—”

  “Bullshit,” Cosmo said, and Robin took a step backward, startled at his volume and vehemence. “Take responsibility. You drank. You chose to make some very important decisions while fucked up. Deal with it. You did it. You think it was a mistake? Then do whatever you have to do to clean it up.”

  “I don’t know if I can,” Robin said.

  “Do your best,” Cosmo countered. “But start by taking responsibility. Be a man.”

  Robin stood there for several long moments. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Yeah.” He headed for his room. “Janey’s a fool for locking you out.”

  The locked door wasn’t the biggest problem here.

  Cos had to figure out a way to get Jane to listen to him—or to Deck or Tom or PJ or any of them. He didn’t care who delivered the message.

  Forget the locked door. Even when it was wide open, he wasn’t getting through to her.

  She was too scared to hear what he was saying—that they weren’t going to underestimate this guy again. The big danger that she was imagining was out there, sure, but the TS Inc. team and the FBI were taking precautions.

  This guy—Mr. Insane-o—wasn’t going to fire his weapon unless he was certain he could get away. He wanted to win, and winning meant he’d make sure they wouldn’t catch him. Or kill him.

  The profilers were certain he wasn’t suicidal, and Cosmo had to agree.

  With that information in their pocket, they could stay one step ahead of him and take care—all of them—not to go places where a sniper had both a position to shoot from and an escape route.

  Like freaking Idaho. She couldn’t have been serious.

  The additional security cameras and sensors they were placing, with permission of neighbors, at all of the good sniping locations around Jane’s house were going to help them feel more secure.

  Robin stopped, turned back. “Do you know if Jane’s really going to halt production, or, God, shut the movie down?”

  “I don’t know,” Cosmo admitted. “I don’t think she should, though. It gives the shooter power.”

  “It might make him go away,” Robin pointed out.

  “Not according to his latest e-mail to Jane,” Cos told him.

  “Which was?”

  “ ‘This ends when you’re dead.’ ”

  “Shit.”

  “He’s wrong,” Cosmo vowed. “It’s going to end when he’s dead.”

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  B y the time this was over, Cosmo was going to be able to write a thesis on all the things people hide from each other.

  So far he’
d found some drugs, which he’d flushed, a couple of handguns that weren’t locked up and that he’d made inoperable, and a shitload of porn. Alcohol, an entire collection of old Partridge Family albums, diaries, photos of former girlfriends, candy.

  He wasn’t expecting to find a shrine to Jane. Even though that wasn’t just a device that played well in the movies—sociopathic individuals tended to display obsessive compulsive behaviors—he knew that their guy was smarter than that.

  The killer surely knew they were looking for him. He’d be careful about what he left around for them to stumble across.

  Because it was evening now—the time of day most people came home from work—Cos was doing drive-bys. Surveillance. Looking for the best way inside a house, noting which neighbors were nosy, what kind of cover fences and landscaping provided.

  Checking the cars in the driveways at the addresses on the endless lists of suspects Jules Cassidy had given him.

  Looking for that fucking elusive truck.

  A dog barked, and a kid on a tricycle stared at him balefully from the driveway of the house he was checking out.

  A black truck was in the driveway, too, a six in the license plate. But it wasn’t the truck he’d seen that night. Different model. No dent in the bumper. And no honor student bumper sticker. Which of course didn’t mean anything. Bumper stickers could be removed. As could dents.

  Cosmo drove on.

  The truth was, the man who killed Angelina Murphy, the man who wanted to snuff Jane, could be inside any one of these houses.

  Cosmo’s cell phone rang. He checked, and it was Jane’s number. “Hey, I’m glad you called,” he said into his phone. “I’ve been thinking—”

  “Okay, stop before you say something we’ll both regret,” a very male voice said into his ear.

  “Robin.”

  “Yeah, Chief,” Jane’s brother said. He sounded tired. “We’ve got a little problem here at Psycho Central. I had to lock Jane in the pantry. You better get over here.”

  Cosmo did a U-turn. “You had to what?”

  “Jane wants to go to Idaho. She has this crazy idea and she’s fired the entire security team, so— Shit! She’s trying to kick down the door. If she gets out . . .”

  Cosmo swore. “Sit on her if you have to. I’m on my way.”

  The finality of death affected people in different ways.

  For some, Decker knew, it was a wake-up call.

  Others pretended not to care, and they ran from it and hid from their overwhelming emotions, partying all the harder.

  For yet others, it brought with it an overpowering sense of fear—so much so that they nearly stopped living.

  For people like Jane, it pushed all of their “fight back” buttons, and they went to war.

  Often without considering the consequences.

  Decker could relate. He was part of that same subset. A seriously healthy chunk of himself was ready to march to Idaho, too. Except, unlike in Jane’s plan, he’d blow past the Freedom Network compound’s gate, kick in the front door of the main building, and tear out Tim Ebersole’s throat with his bare hands.

  Even though the FBI continued to find no evidence that connected Ebersole’s group to their shooter—and they probably wouldn’t—Decker knew as well as Jane did that the Freedom Network’s hate-spewing doctrine had started the ball rolling.

  Jane’s plan had a little less throat-ripping. She was intending to surround herself with TV news crews and stand outside the Freedom Network’s gate, demanding to speak to Tim Ebersole, to accuse him of the murder of Angelina Murphy, to serve him with a lawsuit. She was going to sue the entire Freedom Network on charges that were completely ridiculous. There was no chance she would win.

  But that wasn’t the point.

  Accompanying the process server and standing there while the papers were slapped into Ebersole’s hand was a great visual.

  It made for a kick-ass news story. And it would link Angelina’s murder to the Freedom Network, at least in the public’s mind.

  But there were just a few little glitches that Jane obviously hadn’t quite worked out.

  “You really think the fact that news cameras are there will stop this guy from shooting you?” Cosmo asked at a very high volume as he and Jane went toe-to-toe in the kitchen of her house.

  Decker wasn’t certain which subset the SEAL fit into—how Cosmo was affected by death. All Deck knew for sure was that the normally taciturn, allegedly emotionless chief had finally lost his cool.

  “He’ll be here in L.A.—how can he shoot me?” she argued.

  “What, he’s not capable of following you to the airport, hopping the next flight to Idaho Falls?”

  It was clear from her expression that she hadn’t considered that, but she was unwilling, or maybe unable, to back down. “If we timed it right—”

  “But what if something goes wrong and—” Cosmo grabbed his head. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation!” He also looked a little shell-shocked at the fact that this argument was so public. He glanced at Deck and PJ and Robin, then stepped even closer to Jane, lowering his voice. “Jane, look, I’m happy to talk about this—I’m ecstatic that you want to talk—but let’s—”

  “I don’t want to talk,” she shot right back at him. “I want to go to Idaho! My flight leaves—”

  “—go upstairs,” he said, “and really discuss the—”

  “—in less than two hours,” she continued, shouting over him. “I’m packed, I’m ready, I can’t just hide in here any longer! I can’t!”

  “Janey,” Cosmo said, “God, I know what you’re feeling, but please, please slow down and think about the danger—”

  “Maybe it would be good if he did shoot me,” Jane countered. “Think of the publicity that’ll get for HeartBeat and American Hero. Film producer murdered in cold blood—film at ten.”

  Cosmo took a step back. “Jesus Christ, Jane!”

  “Come on, Cos, you know she doesn’t mean that,” Jane’s brother apparently felt compelled to interject.

  “It ends when I’m dead. That’s what he said. Maybe that’s what we have to do to end this.” She looked at Decker. “If I wore a bulletproof vest . . . We talked about setting me up as bait, but what if we went in there intending to make it look as if I were dead—”

  “Over my dead body!”

  “No,” she shouted, her attention firmly back on Cosmo. “That’s the point—not over your dead body or anyone else’s! Angelina’s was enough, God damn it!”

  “Damn straight!” Cosmo shouted back at her. “Angelina’s was enough! I will not let you put yourself at risk like this, so help me God—”

  “Yeah?” she said, getting in his face. “What are you going to do? You gonna restrain me—you gonna lock me back in the pantry?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I will.”

  Jane appeared to be stunned.

  Cosmo wasn’t done. “I’m not letting you go to Idaho just to make yourself feel like you’re doing something, just to fucking feel better—excuse me!—for something that is not your fault! You know how many people blame you for Angelina’s death, Jane?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. He was in full roar now. “One. You. So get over it. Putting your own life in danger isn’t going to bring her back—nothing’s going to do that. It’s just goddamn selfish.”

  His words—selfish—had to have cut deeply, but Jane played her hurt as just more anger. “What right do you have to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

  He said nothing. He just shook his head.

  She went on the attack. “You take risks all the time. You go out there, doing God knows what—you could come face-to-face with this psycho and then what?”

  And then I kill him. Cosmo didn’t say it, but Decker knew full well that if any member of his team did a one-on-one with the man who killed Angelina, odds of the man living to stand trial were slim to none.

  Jane pressed what she perceived to be her advantage. Little did she know
. . . “If I can take a risk that could make this end—”

  “What if he takes a head shot, like he did with Angelina?” Cosmo asked. “No Kevlar vest in the world can save you from a bullet to the brain.”

  “That’s why it’s called a risk—”

  “No,” he said. “Uh-uh. I’m not going to let you do that.”

  She widened her eyes. “Let?”