by Karen Rose
Abigail’s forehead wrinkled. “There was a ‘Z’ at the beginning. It was bigger than the other letters and”—she made a face—“it looked like a snake. Fangs and everything.”
“Sounds scary,” Liza said, keeping her excitement tamped down. Tom would need this information, she was sure of it.
“Just yucky,” Abigail said. “And mean. The snake was trying to bite a bat.”
Liza heard Agent Rodriguez suck in a breath. She was about to ask what the significance of the tattoo was when the SUV slowed.
“Almost there,” Rodriguez said. “I’m going to pull into the garage. I don’t want to see anybody’s heads until the garage door comes down. Okay?”
“Okay,” Abigail agreed. She looked up at Liza. “Can we have cake when we get inside?”
Liza nodded, lifting her eyebrows. “Cake or bars?”
“Bars?” Abigail asked, then recognition sparked in her eyes. “You made Dream Bars?”
“I did. Mixed them up when you guys were talking this morning.” Because she’d needed something to do with her hands, and clanging the pots and pans had covered the sound of crying from the bedroom upstairs. “Miss Irina promised to take them out of the oven for me.”
Abigail’s eyes went sly. “I think it’s been a really hard morning, Liza.”
“Oh?” Liza couldn’t hold back her smile, because she could see where the child was headed. “I suppose it has, at that. But what does that have to do with my bars?”
“I think we need both.”
“Bars and cake?” Mercy asked, chuckling. “I don’t know. What do you think, Liza?”
Liza could see Rodriguez’s shoulders shaking in the front seat, laughing at Abigail’s soft-sell approach. “I don’t know, either,” she said. “Agent Rodriguez, what do you think?”
He brought the SUV to a gentle stop in the Sokolovs’ garage and Liza felt her own shoulders slump in relief at the sound of the door lowering. They were back. Safe. No bullets. No blood. No dead eyes staring up at her.
He turned around, leaning over the seat to look down at them. “I think cake, bars, and milk are in order. Small pieces, of course.”
“Of course,” Abigail agreed, grinning. “Can I pop my head up now, Agent Rodriguez?”
He smiled at her. “You can. You were very brave, Abigail. And very well-behaved. Your papa will be pleased.”
Abigail beamed, carefully climbing from Liza’s lap to perch on the back seat. “You’ll be sure to tell him?”
“You bet. Give me a second and I’ll let you out.” He helped Abigail out, then extended a hand, first to Liza, then to Mercy. “It’s a gang sign,” he murmured, so low that only they could hear. Abigail had already skipped into the house, going for the sweets.
Mercy had started to stretch her back but went stock-still. “DJ Belmont is in a gang?”
“It makes sense,” Liza said slowly. “The cult makes money selling drugs, right?”
Mercy nodded. “Pot and opioids in the past. Shrooms more recently.”
“I guess he was more deeply involved than just as a supplier,” Liza said.
“He shot both Ephraim and Amos with a long-range rifle,” Mercy said, then turned to Agent Rodriguez. “He must have learned to shoot from the gangs.”
“It fits,” Rodriguez said. “I’ll report it to my boss. Do I need to tell Agent Hunter?”
Or will you?
Liza shrugged. “You can call him, or wait until he gets here.” Although she knew she’d be contacting Tom. She was weak when it came to Tom Hunter. “He’ll be here soon enough. He’ll be worried about Mercy and Abigail.”
“And you,” Mercy said meaningfully. “He’ll be worried about you.”
Sure, Liza thought bitterly. Because I’m his friend. She forced a smile. “And me.”
Agent Rodriguez started to say something, then shook his head. “I think Miss Abigail has the right idea. I’m gonna have some chocolate while I make my report. After you, ladies.” He gestured to the door into the house, following them into the laundry room.
Irina was waiting in the door to the kitchen. She hugged both Mercy and Liza at the same time, her body trembling. “Rafe called me,” she whispered. “I was so afraid for you.” She let them go, then discreetly swiped under her eyes. “Come. Let me fuss over you.”
That was an offer too tempting for Liza to pass up. She’d get fussed over now and text Tom in a bit. He was probably busy at the scene anyway.
FOLSOM, CALIFORNIA
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24, 12:00 P.M.
Tom stepped off the stairs they’d taken to the office building’s roof, Croft right behind. They paused to study the scene on the roof. The first responders had cordoned off the entire stairwell and the crime scene unit had already constructed an evidence grid. Twine crisscrossed the roof, blocking off search areas, each a square foot.
A man in white coveralls approached and Tom flashed his badge. “Agents Hunter and Croft.”
“Sergeant Howell, SacPD CSU.” He offered them both protective booties.
“Report, please,” Croft ordered quietly, as they slipped the covers over their shoes.
“Someone was here,” Howell said. “Latent is taking prints from the stairwell and the railing around the perimeter of the roof. We’ve got a boot print in the dirt close to the railing.”
“Camera feed?” Tom asked, looking around them. He’d seen several cameras in the building’s lobby and in the stairwell. There was another one mounted to the outside wall enclosing the stairs, but it had been painted over.
“One of my techs is getting the feed from the building’s security.”
Croft picked her way to the edge of the roof. “Entry and exit points?”
“We can’t be completely certain until we get the security footage, but it appears he used the stairwell exclusively. There’s a brick off to the side of the ground-floor door.” Howell grimaced. “The security chief wasn’t happy to see the brick or the butts on the ground. Apparently, employees use the brick to prop the door open while they slip out for a smoke.”
Tom sighed. The best security systems were often ruined by a single human trying to circumvent the rules. “I’ll need copies of the footage, as soon as possible.”
Howell nodded. “Of course.”
Tom followed Croft to the edge of the rooftop. She was staring down, examining three depressions in the sandy dirt on the roof. “He had a tripod,” she said. “Set himself up here.”
Tom crouched down to simulate the shooter’s viewpoint. He could see through the glass door of the optometrist, but the signs in the windows blocked his view of the eye doctor’s interior. “He had only a narrow window of opportunity to get Mercy Callahan,” he noted. Or Liza, because he had not a single doubt that she would have protected Mercy and Abigail with her own body.
His chest constricted when he realized how close she’d come to being hurt. He drew a breath that physically hurt. Liza. Dammit. This was how he’d felt when she’d joined the army without telling him first. Like a sledgehammer to his heart. Worry and hurt and helplessness.
Howell crouched next to him. “Agent Rodriguez called it in after the woman accompanying the presumed target noticed a flash of light from this spot on the roof. The woman was standing in front of the door, but she must have a hell of an eye. I don’t know that I would have noticed it from there. Rodriguez said that once she’d pointed it out, he briefly glimpsed someone, and got them out of there.”
Tom’s jaw tightened and it was suddenly important that she be acknowledged as more than the woman who’d accompanied Mercy Callahan. “Liza Barkley. She spotted the shooter.”
She’d been standing in the direct line of fire. He wondered if she’d been scared. He knew he was scared at the thought of her in the path of a sniper’s bullet.
The Liza he’d known before the army would ha
ve been terrified, but she would have done the right thing anyway. Trouble was, he didn’t recognize parts of the Liza who’d returned from combat duty. That needed to change. He’d asked about her experiences in the military, but she’d always evaded his questions, and he’d respected her need for privacy.
He wondered if he should have. Maybe he’d left her alone with her memories for too long.
“Well, she’s got one hell of an eye,” Howell stated again. “Rodriguez said she was as cool as a cucumber. Just pointed it out and told him to bring the car. She got Callahan and the little girl to safety and made sure the optometrist’s receptionist was away from the window as well. She handled everything so calmly that no one panicked.”
“She served in Afghanistan,” Tom said quietly. “I think she’s seen much worse.”
He was going to get the specifics this time. Something had been bothering her for months and he was going to get to the bottom of it. He knew that she had PTSD, but she would never talk to him about what had happened to her over there, and that sent another sharp pain into his heart. He didn’t want Liza to suffer anything. She’d already had a hard enough time, with the losses of her mother and sister.
Slowly he rose, not taking his eyes from the glass door of the optometrist’s office. “Were any shots actually fired?”
“Not that we can find,” Howell replied. “Nobody reported any gunshots and there are no spent cartridges here.”
“We need to know where Agent Rodriguez was standing,” Croft said, taking out her cell phone. “I’m going to call him now.”
“He included that in his report when he called it in,” Howell said. “He was standing off to the side, against the plate glass window. He’d lit a cigarette and pretended to be taking a break. He also said that he didn’t see the shooter until Miss Barkley pointed him out.”
“It was a man, then?” Croft asked.
“Rodriguez thought so, but his glimpse was too brief for him to be certain.”
It was DJ Belmont. Of that Tom was completely certain. But they needed actual proof. “We’ll need access to any prints Latent lifts,” he said. “We think we know who this was, and we have his prints on file.”
“I’ll make sure you get everything we gather,” Howell promised.
They exchanged business cards and, after thanking the man politely, Tom and Croft walked back to the stairwell.
“I want to see that security footage right now,” Tom said as soon as the door closed.
“I agree. If this is Belmont, we need to know.” She angled him a look. “Miss Barkley does have a damn good eye. What did she do in the military?”
“Army medic,” Tom said.
Croft winced. “She did see a lot worse, I’m afraid. What’s she doing now?”
Tom lifted his brows. “You trying to recruit her?”
Croft shrugged. “You never know.”
“She’s starting on her master’s in nursing in July,” Tom said, “at UC Davis.”
Croft whistled softly as the doors opened. “Good school. She must be smart.”
“She is,” Tom said, and he could hear the pride in his voice. Then he remembered what Molina had said that morning, that Liza might be surprised to learn that he was proud of her.
That had to change, too.
They found the security manager’s office on the first floor near the lobby. A CSU tech wearing white coveralls sat next to a man in a black suit like Tom wore.
“Excuse us,” Croft said after knocking on the open door. “Special Agents Croft and Hunter. Can we have a moment?”
The CSU tech gestured to the monitor he was watching. “My boss just texted that you’d probably be by.” One brow lifted. “Even though he promised to share everything with you.”
Tom’s lips curved. “Busted.” He sobered, crossing the room to stand behind the tech’s chair. “You are?”
“I’m James Gray, head of security for the building.” The man in the suit rose from his chair, offering it to Croft. “Ma’am?”
Croft’s smile was tight. “Thank you, Mr. Gray.” Sitting, she peered at the image on the monitor, then looked over her shoulder at Tom.
The footage was paused, freezing on a man wearing jeans and a gray hoodie on the staircase. They’d found an angle that showed his face clearly. Tall and rangy with shaggy blond hair, the man looked like he could be a cowboy, despite wearing a baseball cap without a logo. He matched the descriptions of DJ Belmont given by Gideon, Mercy, and Amos.
Tom nodded curtly, unwilling to say Belmont’s name aloud. “Can you zoom in on his hands?” he asked.
Gray leaned over Croft to manipulate a mouse, bringing the man’s hands into prominence. “Gloves,” he said, anticipating what he was looking for.
“He had them on when he entered the building,” the CSU tech added.
“Dammit,” Croft cursed softly. “We still want Latent to process prints from the roof on the off chance that he took them off when he was setting up his shot.”
“I’ll let the sergeant know,” the tech said dryly, clearly unimpressed with taking orders from Croft. Tom wasn’t sure if it was a Fed thing or a woman thing, but neither was acceptable.
He directed his next question to the head of security. “Do you have a camera outside to show how he got away?”
Once again Gray leaned in to tap his keyboard, then stepped back, letting the video play. “He wasn’t trying too hard to hide his face,” the man observed as Belmont ran out the back door, then kicked the brick away.
Tom had noticed that. Of course, Belmont had operated under the radar for years. He probably thought it didn’t matter even if they did see his face. He probably figured that once he got rid of Mercy Callahan he’d disappear back under the Eden rock from where he’d crawled.
Squaring his shoulders, Belmont slowed his pace. In one hand, he carried a guitar case, which he slid across the floorboards of a box truck with a sign proclaiming him to be a plumber.
Tom’s throat thickened as he recognized the truck despite the bogus plumbing sign. It had belonged to the man Belmont had murdered a month ago as he’d fled the scene at Dunsmuir. Where he’d murdered five FBI agents, executed Ephraim Burton, and shot Amos.
The surveillance camera caught the license plates as the truck peeled out of the parking lot, kicking up gravel and dust. “Pause it, please,” Tom requested. He then took a photo of the monitor with his phone, capturing the license plate number. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll still need a copy of the footage. Sergeant Howell has my contact info.”
The CSU tech gave him a little salute. “Of course.”
Croft relinquished Gray’s chair. “Thank you, gentlemen.”
“Should we be watching for this man to return?” Gray asked. “My clients in the building are understandably shaken at hearing that a gunman was on the roof.”
“Probably not,” Croft said. “He was aiming at a specific target. It’s unlikely that the person he wanted to shoot will return.”
Gray nodded grimly. “Thanks. I’ll let my clients know.”
“Tell them that we said your surveillance system is excellent,” Tom said. “So many cameras get a grainy feed that’s all but useless. Yours is crystal clear.”
Gray dipped his head, his expression appreciative. “Now if I can only get the employees to stop propping that door open to take a smoke, my life would be peachy.”
Tom frowned. “Was the door alarmed?”
“It was supposed to have been,” Gray said with a scowl. “That door is entry by key card only. The alarm should have alerted everyone when it remained unsecured. Someone deactivated it, and I’m going to find out who.”
“I don’t think it was your guy, though,” the CSU tech offered. “He just walked in and didn’t seem to touch anything but that guitar case.”
“Unless he planned it,” Gray
mused. “He could have come earlier and set everything up.”
It was possible, although unlikely unless they had a mole in the field office who had alerted him that the women were visiting this optometrist. The security footage would reveal if Belmont had been there earlier. Tom gave both men his business card. “Let me know if you think of anything else.”
This time Croft opened the door for him, waiting until they were alone in the Bureau SUV before sighing. “Definitely Belmont. How did he know where they’d be this morning?”
“I don’t know,” Tom said grimly, starting the engine. “Either he followed them—which means he has a view of the Sokolovs’ house—or we have a leak.”
Croft shook her head. “Rodriguez is a good agent. He’s careful to a fault, but we’ll check his vetting process. I’m more inclined to believe Belmont has eyes on the Sokolovs’ house.”
“Me too.” He pulled the SUV out of the parking lot, looking for the stolen truck even though he knew it was long gone. “That was the truck he stole a month ago.”
“The one he killed that farmer over.” Croft’s expression said that she, too, knew exactly what he’d done for the farmer’s family. “Whose family someone anonymously donated money to.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Tom lied.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid for you, Hunter. This job will chew you up and spit you out, especially if you wear your heart on your sleeve like you do.”
“Have no idea what you’re talking about. Can you call in the truck’s license plate?”
Her eye roll said that she was unimpressed with his very clumsy subject change. “Sure. Send me that photo you took with your phone.”
Tom unlocked his phone and handed it to Croft. “Check my photos.”
She lifted one eyebrow. “You’re just handing me your phone,” she said, her disbelief clear. “I thought you hacker types were a lot more paranoid.”
“I’m driving. But that’s my work phone,” he told her. “Everything on there is stuff you already know.”
