Crossfire (19 page)

‘‘The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis has all the military records of discharged and deceased vets of all services after World War I. NPRC also stores medical treatment records of retirees from all services, as well as records for dependents and other persons treated at naval medical facilities.

‘‘If I were you, along with those who didn’t have honorable or general discharges, I’d have them run a computer search for any vets who’d gotten DD458s or Article 15s in the last few years.’’

‘‘I realize the military lives on numbers and acronyms,’’ Cait said. ‘‘Which, granted, the Bureau does too. But would you mind spelling that out for us civilians?’’

‘‘Sorry. It gets to be ingrained after a few years. A DD458 is a Court-Martial Charge Sheet. An Article 15 is a nonjudicial punishment imposed by a field grade officer. Normally a battalion commander.’’

‘‘But if it’s nonjudicial, would it even be in the records?’’

‘‘A formal grade article is permanent. A lesser, summarized one that’s not placed in a 201 file remains at the unit level.’’

‘‘But that still represents a helluva lot of information,’’ Joe said.

‘‘Yeah. I thought it was silly, naming the case,’’ Cait said. ‘‘But since it looks as if we’re going to need a lot of money for additional personnel to sift through all this, if the military does come through—’’

‘‘They will,’’ Quinn assured her.

Cait shot him a look. ‘‘And you know this how?’’

‘‘The guy currently in charge is a three-star who transferred in from Armor. Tossing out my name should be like saying ‘Open Sesame.’’’

‘‘You’re that good friends?’’

‘‘No. Only met the guy once.’’

‘‘Wow.’’ Cait cocked her head. ‘‘You must have made one helluva impression.’’

‘‘Probably more so on his kid. Who was taken hostage in Iraq.’’

‘‘And whom your SEAL team rescued,’’ Joe guessed.

‘‘Got it in one,’’ Quinn confirmed.

‘‘Well.’’ She blew out a breath. ‘‘Seems like you might just be a handy guy to have around, McKade.’’

He flashed a grin. He was getting to her. She might not want to admit it, but those razor-band-topped barricades she’d erected around herself were beginning to crumble. The bitch was, his situation was a lot like what she’d said about getting more clues the longer the shooter stayed out there.

If some bad guy hadn’t started targeting Somersett residents, he doubted she’d even be speaking to him. Which meant that the longer the wannabe sniper kept treating the town like his own private shooting gallery, the better chance Quinn had of getting the luscious special agent into his bed.

If he had a bed.

Definitely getting a decent rack had to be moved to the top of his to-do list.

Cait stood up and gave Joe another hug. Quinn respected the former murder cop, who was hugging her again. Liked him a lot, actually.

He also wished he’d keep his damn hands off the woman.

Mine.

The thought struck with the force and power of that RPG that had brought down the team’s helo in those Afghan mountains.

Fast, hard, and every bit as dangerous.

He suddenly realized Joe Gannon was looking at him over the top of Cait’s head. With, damn it all to hell, laughter in his cop eyes.

You can run, that look said, but you cannot hide.

Although the shootings of the crossing guard and the maid pretty much took terrorism off the table, the Somersett PD chief was more than happy to keep the feds and their deep crime-fighting pockets around. Which was why, when Special Agent in Charge Brooke Davidson arrived from the FBI field office in Columbia, Chief Billy Ray Carter ceded command and control of the operation.

While interagency rivalries were a normal occurrence, since this was a far from normal situation, everyone seemed willing to put competition and long-held resentments aside. At least until the guy was behind bars. Which not a single task force member was willing to think wasn’t going to happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

Every detective on the Somersett force was ordered to report for duty. As were the county sheriff’s deputies. The U.S. Marshals Service arrived to increase the federal force on the scene and even the Secret Service sent an officer from each of the Savannah, Charleston, and Columbia field offices. In addition, operators began having to handle calls from police departments as far away as Seattle, offering officers. It seemed everyone wanted to get in on the hunt.

Carter went on TV, asking citizens to go on about their lives but stay vigilant. Easier said than done. Although many residents called for the schools to be closed, most administrators instead went to a ‘‘code blue’’ alert, keeping the children indoors.

The streets became so deserted that had they not been so neat and tidy, the city would have looked like a scene from one of those end-of-the-world movies. A deluge of calls overwhelmed 911 operators as people reported such benign things as car backfires and turned in suspicious-seeming neighbors.

Unsurprisingly, there were the usual crackpot calls, none of which could be dismissed out of hand.

The Somersett Buccaneers baseball team was forced to cancel a game when its opponents decided not to bring their guys into the city from Rhode Island. The road over the bridge became a parking lot as cops with sniffer dogs searched each and every car.

‘‘Somebody saw something,’’ Cait complained to Angetti, who was stuck on the phones again. ‘‘This guy isn’t the Invisible Man. We’ve got four separate crime scenes scattered across the city. Someone, somewhere, had to have witnessed something unusual.’’

As if on cue, one of the patrol cops brought in to man the citizen call-in line came up to her.

‘‘I think you need to talk to this one,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s a woman who was dropping her kid off at school this morning when the guard got hit.’’

Cait exchanged an I told you so look with Angetti. ‘‘She saw the shooter?’’

‘‘No. But she says her son claims to have seen him.’’

Not as good. But not impossible, either. ‘‘How old is the kid?’’

‘‘He started third grade today.’’

Terrific. Not exactly the gold standard of witnesses. But as she left the basement office, Cait told herself that it was at least more than she’d had five minutes ago.

Valentine Snow was as furious as Brendan had ever seen her. She stormed into the pub, flags flying in her cheeks, eyes blazing.

‘‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’’

Brendan swished a pint glass in the sudsy water at the bar sink. ‘‘It would seem I’m washing glasses.’’

‘‘Don’t be a smart-ass. I want to know why you felt the need to hire’’—she waved a manicured hand toward Joe Gannon, who, having predicted this reaction, was right behind her—‘‘this man.’’

‘‘You don’t care for him? If you’d like me to call Phoenix Team and ask for a replacement—’’

‘‘I like him just fine,’’ she snapped, her usually perfectly modulated voice sharper than the crystal wine-glass he began drying with a white linen towel. ‘‘I just don’t need anyone hovering over me like some sort of damn rottweiler guard dog.’’

‘‘That’s your opinion.’’ Brendan hung the glass by the stem in the rack over the bar. ‘‘I’d be having an entirely different one.’’

‘‘Excuse me.’’ She folded her arms. Tapped a toe clad in an alligator high-heeled shoe that he suspected cost more than his entire inventory of stemware. ‘‘Since when do you have an opinion concerning my life?’’

‘‘Since I began falling in love with you,’’ he responded.

‘‘What?’’ Her eyes widened and she shot a look at Joe Gannon, whose shrug said, Don’t ask me.

‘‘I said, I’m falling in love with you.’’ He held up a hand. ‘‘Now, whether that’s wise or not, under the circumstances, I can’t say. But since I didn’t seem to have a choice about that, I’m not going to question it, but merely go with the flow, as you Americans are fond of saying. There is also no way that I’m willing to stand by and watch while your life is in danger.’’

‘‘I don’t believe this.’’

‘‘Believe it.’’

‘‘You can’t be serious.’’

‘‘On the contrary. I’ve never been more serious in my life. Now, I understand how it might be coming as a bit of a surprise to you—’’

‘‘Talk about your Irish understatement.’’ She splayed her hands on her hips. ‘‘You can’t be in love with me.’’

‘‘And why not? Surely you know that you’re a very appealing woman.’’

‘‘You just want to get me in bed.’’

‘‘Aye,’’ he agreed easily. ‘‘But didn’t I want to do that from the moment you first walked into the pub carrying that newspaper ad for the apartment?’’ He swished another pint glass in the sink. ‘‘The other, the love, came more gradually.’’

She was clearly thunderstruck. Having watched her for years on television, and more closely these past months, with the both of them living beneath the same roof, Brendan had come to the conclusion that very few things unsettled the coolly sexy newscaster. He also decided that, as bad as the timing might admittedly be, he liked being one of them.

‘‘I can’t deal with this right now,’’ she insisted on a flare of heat. ‘‘I have a stand-up to do at the supermarket where that latest shooting occurred.’’

‘‘Then I’d suggest you be doing it,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ll be here when you return.’’

He wanted to go with her. To hover over her, to protect her, as he was paying Joe Gannon to do. But, as he’d told Cait, he didn’t own a weapon. He also knew there were limits to what the sexy reporter would stand for. And he was already pushing them.

She stared at him for another long moment. Then shook her head.

‘‘I so don’t need this right now.’’

Brendan watched her march back out of the pub, perversely, despite the circumstances, enjoying the way her hips swayed in that short bright red skirt.

Then as Gannon followed her, Brendan sighed and went back to work, wondering how in bloody hell his life had gotten so complicated.

Tyler Long was an eight-year-old redhead, with a sprinkling of freckles across a pug nose and too-serious-for-his-age brown eyes behind round-lensed Harry Potter glasses.

‘‘I like cars,’’ he explained to Cait. ‘‘I like to draw them. And put together models.’’ He’d shown her several of the plastic models when she first arrived at the Longs’ apartment. ‘‘For a while, when I was just a little kid, I thought maybe I’d be a car designer when I grew up.’’

‘‘Well,’’ Cait said, looking up at the pictures he’d tacked up all over his bedroom wall, ‘‘I think you’d certainly be a good one.’’

‘‘Maybe.’’ His small brow furrowed. ‘‘But I mostly outgrew that. These days I’m thinking about becoming an actor. Or maybe an animator. For some place like Pixar. And make movies.’’

‘‘That’d be way cool.’’ It also worried her. ‘‘I wonder if people who create stories for movies and books ever get fiction and reality confused.’’

Her attempt at subtlety was not lost on him. ‘‘I know the difference between make-believe and real life.’’

‘‘That’s good to know.’’ She was not going to lie and tell him she wasn’t concerned about that. ‘‘Because this is a very serious situation.’’

‘‘I know.’’ The forehead furrows deepened. ‘‘That lady’s not going to die, is she?’’

‘‘No. The doctor says she should be able to go home tomorrow.’’

‘‘That’s good news. She seemed really nice.’’

‘‘That’s what people say,’’ Cait agreed. ‘‘So, your mom called and said you saw a car that caught your attention?’’

‘‘Yeah. A Nissan Altima. It drove by just before I got out of the car. I noticed the taillights right away. They were inspired by fighter jets, and are really, really cool. They wrap all the way from the back to the C-pillar.’’

‘‘The C-pillar?’’

‘‘That’s the roof support between the back side window and the back window. Most taillights aren’t so radical.’’

‘‘I guess not. What color was it? And did you notice anything else that stood out?’’

‘‘Pebble Beach. That’s sorta a boring brown color.’’

Boring being all the better to blend into the surroundings, Cait considered.

‘‘Did you happen to see the license plate?’’

‘‘Yeah. That was one of the weird things. It was muddy. But the rest of the car was clean.’’

The better to conceal the numbers. Cait felt a little spurt of excitement.

‘‘And it had a decal on the back.’’ He furrowed his brow as he tried to picture it. ‘‘It was white. And in cursive, but I can read that too. It said SANDMAN’S SOMERSETT NISSAN. I didn’t think that much about it, because I was concentrating on what I was going to say at school,’’ he said. ‘‘I kinda have this stutter that makes kids laugh at me.’’

‘‘I never would’ve realized that. You’re not stuttering now,’’ Cait said.

‘‘Yeah.’’ He looked surprised at that idea. Exchanged a look with his mother. ‘‘I guess those speech utilities are working.’’

‘‘I guess so,’’ Dara Long agreed with an encouraging smile.

‘‘Do you think that was the shooter’s car?’’ he asked Cait.

‘‘It could be.’’ Mindful of the way all the D.C. task force had gotten sidetracked by looking for a white van, Cait was determined not to jump to any conclusions.

‘‘Because, if I was a bad guy looking to shoot people and drive away, I’d pick the Altima,’’ the kid said.

‘‘Why is that?’’

‘‘Because it’s got the biggest trunk in its class. Plenty of room for a guy to set up a rifle.’’ He frowned thoughtfully. ‘‘But he’d probably need another guy to drive it so he could make a quick getaway.’’

Which was exactly what Quinn had suggested.

‘‘Well, thank you,’’ Cait said. ‘‘You’ve been very helpful.’’

‘‘We’re supposed to help the police,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s what Officer Friendly said when he came to my school on Swann Island last year. He said it’s part of being a good citizen.’’

‘‘Officer Friendly’s right.’’ Because he seemed so much older than his years, she extended a hand. ‘‘I appreciate you being such a good citizen. Maybe, after we apprehend the shooter you’d like a tour of the police station.’’ She figured he’d enjoy that a lot more than her dark and dingy basement FBI office.

‘‘Wow. That’d be cool.’’ He beamed, his grin lighting up his freckled face.

‘‘That’s quite a kid you’ve got there,’’ Cait said to his mother as she left the apartment.

‘‘He’s a joy,’’ Dara said. ‘‘Smart as a whip, but sweet, too. May I ask a question?’’

‘‘Sure.’’

‘‘You’re not going to put his name out there in public, are you? Because if the shooter knew there was a witness—’’

‘‘No.’’ Cait had already made that decision. ‘‘I’m going to keep him a confidential source. At least until we get this guy behind bars. He may be called as a witness in the trial, but I’m going to try to gather enough other evidence we won’t need him.’’

She absolutely believed the boy, but knew a jury might not be so open minded. Then there was the fact that she didn’t want to submit him to cross-examination by a pit-bull defense attorney unless absolutely necessary.

‘‘Thank you.’’ The woman’s relief was palpable.

Cait had never given much thought to having kids, other than thinking about all the sacrifices her mother had made for her family, which didn’t make the idea all that appealing, but as she drove away from the apartment building, she decided that if she could have a son like Tyler Long, it might just be kind of cool.