Pure Vengeance (On the Line Romantic Thriller Series Book 1)

by Lori Ryan

  He didn’t buy it any more than she did but the look on her face told him the conversation was finished.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They not only kept her on, they put her front and center as the face of the investigation. As soon as the Captain made his statement to the press, he would put Eve in front of them to answer questions and assure them they were doing everything they could to stop this killer before he struck again. It was a public relations strategy. Eve was sharp and fearsome, not taking crap from anyone. At the same time, she was beautiful and always seemed put together and on top of things, even when they were in the middle of trudging through crap-for-evidence without leads to follow or chase down. The Captain was betting the media would respond to that and the people of New Haven would find her trustworthy and worthy of their confidence.

  So, Eve was the point person for the press. Cal wasn’t happy about that. Not because he cared if the Feds took the limelight. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the credit or the attention. What he cared about was having Eve be out there as a potential target, and that’s what tended to happen when the pressure went up on a case and a suspect got antsy. Shit could go south on something like this fast. Too fast.

  “I don’t like it.” Okay, so that had come out a lot gruffer than he’d planned. They stood in the incident room, alone for the moment.

  “Don’t like what?” Eve looked up from the notes she’d been reviewing. The look she gave him said she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

  “I don’t like you putting your face out there like this.”

  She had her hands tangled in her long mass of hair. She’d been pulling the strands back into their tight bun, but she stopped and raised a brow at him. The look changed from confusion to you’re-an-ass-and-a-disappointing-one-at-that. “That’s my job he-man, get over it.”

  “Funny She-ra. Really freaking funny. I still don’t like it. If that makes me a macho ass, so be it. I’m a macho ass who doesn’t like your face out there as the center of our investigation. It’s asking for trouble.”

  She didn’t bother with an answer. She was smarter than him like that.

  Ten minutes later, he watched as she fielded questions from a room full of media.

  “You still haven’t made an arrest in the James case. And now we have a sniper loose in our city. Some people are speculating that this is a vigilante shooter, taking over where the police have failed to act. Do you have a response to that?”

  Cal had always hated the reporter from the New Haven Citizen. It was a lousy online blog that didn’t give a shit if there was any truth to any of the stories it published. The headlines this asshole chose were clickbait, always playing on people’s fears or biases rather than focusing on what the heart of an issue was. Leave it to Ray Lansing to bring up the James case. He failed to mention the community policing approach they used that was cutting crime. Or the successful arrests and prosecutions happening every day.

  Eve kept her cool and didn’t give anything away. “I can’t comment on the particulars of the James investigation or of this investigation. But I will say we’re investigating all possible motives.”

  Thanks to Lansing, the whole city was using the James case to judge everything the police department did. It was one case, but it had taken over every aspect of everything the department and its leadership did. They didn’t look at the closed cases or the closed case rate. They only cared that this one case had gone cold. Cal knew it hadn’t exactly gone cold. The detectives assigned to it were waiting for a witness to come clean and name their killer. She was scared though, so they had to work the case and hope she did the right thing in the end. It was all they could do; they didn’t have enough evidence without her testimony to bring the guy down.

  “So, it’s possible this shooter is doing just that? Taking the law into his own hands?” Lansing continued to press.

  Eve ignored him and pointed to another reporter.

  “Is there evidence linking the two shootings? Did the bullets come from the same gun?”

  “I don’t have that information yet, and if I did, I wouldn’t release it to you.” No anger or rancor in her voice at all. She simply answered the questions. He had to give her that. Eve was smooth.

  He was surprised when the next question was directed at him.

  “Detective Rylan, your partner was the officer that was shot yesterday. This is the second time a partner of yours has been shot.”

  Cal didn’t get a response out. He didn’t have time, but truth be told, his response wouldn’t have been all that politically correct. It was probably best he didn’t get to open his mouth before Eve jumped in.

  “That’s all for now, guys. We’ll let you know when we have more.” She nodded to him and they left the room as the reporters called out follow-up questions.

  The truth was, they hadn’t given them much of anything, except to say the FBI and local PD were working together. That had been the extent of it. The session had definitely told them where the public, or at least the media, were focused. They were locked in on this vigilante thing, whether it ended up being the truth or not.

  He followed Eve back to the incident room, where she slipped off the blazer she’d put on for the meeting. She wore it when they were out of the office, but when it was just the two of them, she would take it off. Today, the removal revealed toned arms in a sleeveless sweater. Saying it was distracting would be putting it mildly. His dick was like a lapdog, sitting up and begging for her to notice him. Perfect.

  “Okay, you’re going to have to fill me in so I don’t get caught off guard again.” She turned to him as she spoke. He didn’t see judgment there or concern. There was simply the need to do her job, and right now, representing them with the media was part of her job.

  “Ray Faulk. My partner eight years ago was shot and killed on a domestic dispute call. We misread the situation, thought we had the guy calmed down.” He relayed the facts in the only way he’d learned to cope with them: as if he were discussing a recipe for chicken soup. Not that he knew how to make chicken soup, but he’d learned a long time ago it helped to keep the explanation to the facts only. Not to picture the moment the man had spun and drawn a gun from Lord only knows where. Not to see the blood spreading over his partner’s shirt. “Pulled a gun. He and I shot at the same time. He took out my partner. I took him out.”

  She nodded. “You were cleared by IA?”

  “It was ruled a clean shooting. I was cleared of responsibility for my partner’s death.” His voice was flat, devoid of emotion. He wasn’t that way, but his voice was. Because as much as he’d tried, he’d never been able to clear himself for that day. Probably never would.

  The scene still flew back to him at times, with brutal clarity. Usually when he was just starting to fall asleep. There was something about that moment when your mind and body started to let go. Who knows, maybe he was on guard against the memory so much all the rest of the time, it needed that little moment of weakness to slip in.

  But when it did, it hit hard and fast. He could still see everything, smell every detail. Everything from the stupid peanuts Ray had been eating when they got the call to the smell of vomit as the man’s wife had lost her lunch when Cal shot her husband. He could hear the heaviness of his breathing, the way it seemed to echo in his ears as he performed CPR that day. Could hear the screams and sobs of a woman who moments before had feared for herself, but now lay over her husband’s dead body.

  He didn’t let those memories take him now, though. He never let them swallow him when he was fully awake.

  “Good.” She appeared to accept his explanation and move on. He rubbed at his forehead.

  Eve began to pace the small room. “Okay, we’ve got to look for military and law enforcement leads. It’s time for us to see who we have in New Haven that’s capable of making these shots. A one mile shot is a hell of a lot more doable than it used to be, but it’s still no simple matter to pull it off. This person has training an
d skill. The kind of training and skill we have.”

  Cal looked out the glass window of the door and saw Rebecca James walking through the bullpen, an officer escorting her. No doubt she was here to check in with Detectives Cafferty and Reynolds on the case. Ronan Cafferty and Zach Reynolds were damned good detectives. What was happening with the James woman’s case wasn’t their fault, but Cal knew it had to be taking its toll on the two men. No one wanted a case to go unsolved. Especially not a homicide.

  Rebecca James’s husband and son—Bryan and Christopher—had been shot and killed in a mugging gone bad and she wanted justice. It had become routine for her to come into the station to ask for updates.

  And wasn’t that a sad statement?

  She looked drained, but that came as no surprise. The road to justice was long and hard and sometimes took more out of you than maybe it was worth. Maybe.

  She came to check on the case every few days, doggedly determined to see her husband and son’s killer in prison for the crime. He knew she had no other family. Their son had been an only child. Star of his high school swim team and getting ready to graduate. Her husband, an associate professor at Yale. She was alone now.

  “Cal.” Eve’s voice drew his attention back. “So we’re in agreement? We need to run law enforcement and military?” she asked, looking for his consent.

  He nodded, rubbing at his forehead again. It had to be done. They couldn’t ignore the fact that very few people could make these shots, and most of that list was going to include their guys and the military.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I can’t say I haven’t thought of it.” Eric Sosnowiec crossed his arms over his chest, hands tucked under his arms. He was former military with a clean record who’d earned several honors to his name before he finished his tour. “I’ve seen the news. I see these assholes getting off. I’ve thought of taking the job into my own hands.”

  “Might as well, right?” Cal asked, playing along. Eve shot him a glare and he shrugged at her. She knew he was playing a part, and she was playing right back into it. In this scenario, she was the straight-laced one and he was the guy willing to stretch that line. Willing to break a few rules.

  “They fucking tie your hands, you know,” Cal said, lowering his voice and leaning in. “And then when they can’t make the case, the prosecutor’s in your face about not finding enough evidence.”

  “I hear ya.”

  Eve snorted and threw up her hands. “We have laws to protect people. The justice system works the way it does to be sure innocent people have the chance to prove their innocence.”

  “Well,” the guy said leaning back in his chair. “you’re looking at the wrong guy, anyway. I couldn’t do it if I wanted to.”

  “Oh? Why is that?” Eve asked.

  He held out a hand. A hand that trembled. “Trust me, these hands aren’t making a clean shot anytime soon.”

  “Injury?” Eve asked.

  “Traumatic Brain Injury. They say it might get better over time. Of course, that was three years ago, so I’m not holding my breath.” He laughed. “But I’m also not holding a gun.”

  Eve slid a piece of paper and pencil across the table to him. “I’ll need the name of your doctor to confirm that.”

  The man scribbled a name and phone number on the paper and tossed the pen down. Eve watched his hands shake throughout the exercise, and had to admit, it didn’t look like he’d be able to pull the trigger. Not with the shots their sniper was making. “We done?”

  Eve nodded. “We’re done.”

  Their other military interview had been a little more heated. Kevin Williams had taken the “Are you shitting me?” approach, apparently mortally wounded that they would even think such a thing.

  Eve rattled off the typical line about needing to check his whereabouts during the times of the shootings.

  The man had glared daggers at her as he wrote some names on the notepad she pushed in front of him. They released him, letting the uniformed officer who’d shown him in walk him back out of the building. Another detective would begin chasing the contacts down, verifying Williams’s whereabouts.

  Eve looked at her notes then back at Cal. He wasn’t going to like this. “We’ve got three law enforcement snipers within a twenty-mile radius of the city. By all reports, two out of the three can absolutely make these shots. The third most likely could, even though he isn’t finished with his training yet.”

  Cal shook his head. His arms were now crossed in a move reminiscent of the men they’d just questioned. She recognized the closed off body language.

  “There’s got to be a way to rule them out without pulling them in. If we do that, we tank their careers. They’ll have a cloud hanging over them, whether we clear them or not.”

  Eve remained quiet. He needed to come around to this on his own.

  “These are good men, Eve. I know them.”

  “How well do you know them?”

  “Enough.”

  The statement told her he wasn’t willing to debate it.

  She couldn’t give in to him on this, but she could give him some time. Not that they could stand still and do nothing. “We need to hunt down their alibis for them. Check to see if there’s anything on the record to clear these guys. If we can’t find it on our own—”

  “Fine. But we do it quietly.”

  Eve nodded. With any luck, they’d be able to rule these guys out easily. Hopefully, they were on duty and working with a partner at the times of the shootings.

  The door to the interrogation room opened after a quick knock and Detective Zach Reynolds poked his head in the room. “Rylan, you’ve got another shooting. This time, you’ve got a witness who’s saying your sniper just saved her life.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “This one is different.” Dr. Kane looked up at Cal and Eve as she knelt over the body of their latest victim.

  They were in a small park on the east side of town in an area used mostly by gangbangers and drug dealers. Cal doubted kids used the park much. The few swings were rusted and lopsided, and several of the slots where swings should have hung held only empty chains. The old merry-go-round looked like it would take a hell of a lot of muscle to make the thing go ‘round, merrily or otherwise.

  “How so?” Cal asked. The victim was a white man who appeared to be in his forties, dressed in dark clothing. His hands had the look of a man who worked with cars or something else that would get his fingernails grimy and greasy.

  And half his neck had been blown away.

  “The angle of this shot is different. This didn’t come from a height. Your shooter was the same level as this guy, or close to it. And speaking of close, this shot was a lot closer than the other ones. It was made with a sniper rifle, but the distance is…” she moved her head back and forth before offering an opinion. “We’re talking yards.”

  Dr. Kane didn’t offer any suggestions as to how this could be possible. He and Eve both turned their gazes to the surrounding area. Not that they hadn’t been checking their surroundings from the get-go. It was engrained into them.

  But now, they were looking for a possible sniper’s nest on or near the ground.

  “So, what, the guy just hangs out in the park and waits for an attack to happen?” Cal asked, letting the skepticism seep into his tone. They’d already been filled in by the officer on scene. A woman had been walking through the park on her way home from a shift at a restaurant down the street. She said she never came into the park after dark, but during the day she used it as a cut-through to shave time off her walk.

  A man had come out of nowhere and grabbed her. She screamed and fought, but even though it was the middle of the day, no one had come to help. The man got her down and was straddling her, pinning her with one hand on her throat while he worked at his belt buckle with the other. Before he could make much progress, a shot hit him in the neck. He collapsed on her and she screamed trying to fight him off. Eventually, someone came and dragged the bo
dy off her and helped her call 911.

  They hadn’t spoken with the woman yet, but she had been checked out and cleared by the EMTs. Now, she was with one of the forensic technicians, having evidence from her clothing and hands preserved and collected. They would speak with her next.

  “Pretty brazen attack. It’s barely dusk.” Eve looked at the man lying on the ground, no emotion showing on her face for the man.

  “Are you sure this is our shooter? The MO is different.” Cal looked down at Dr. Kane, who was taking off her gloves. He stepped back as she stood and signaled to one of her technicians to come take the body.

  “I can’t tell you for sure until we find the bullet. It’s not in him.”

  “I see that.” Cal frowned down at the man’s neck.

  Dr. Kane turned her gloves inside out, tucking them into a plastic baggie. They had people scanning the area with metal detectors searching for where the bullet had landed when it left the man’s body. It would be like finding a needle in a haystack. “If we find it,” she said looking at the scanners. “Right now, we’re going by the fact that it was a sniper shot as our only connection.”

  “That bullet could have traveled a long way after it passed through our victim. I can bring in a dog from one of our bomb squads if they’ve got one available. They can find the bullet for us.” Eve lifted her phone and waited for Cal to nod. Couldn’t beat having FBI on your side. He’d seen what dogs could do with their noses and it never ceased to amaze him. Bomb dogs were trained to detect dozens of kinds of explosive material, including the material that would still be present on the bullet. There only needed to be minute traces of it for the dog to zero in and show them where it was.

  While Eve called for a bomb dog, Cal texted one of the techs in the computer lab at the station and asked them to check for traffic cameras in the area. If a record existed, maybe they could get a recording of the shooter near the park at the time of the shot.