Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2) Read online

  “You can’t know that. The building’s just being evacuated.” Well, that might not be true. Had I passed out? Nick responded with a long stare.

  “How long have I been laying here?”

  “About fifteen minutes. Long enough for the paramedics to clean you up and make sure your bumps, bruises, and burns are only skin deep. But, given how long you were out, you may have a concussion.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. For me.” It came out a whisper that should have sounded stronger—more confident, with a little swagger. But an invisible knife had creased my stomach lining. Is my mother going to make it? What about the others?

  Nick pushed my bangs out of my eyes with one hand. “It’s okay, Josie—everybody got out. Your mother’s fine.”

  “How many explosives?”

  “Three that we know of so far. Jibes with Gino’s description of your hallway interlude. And the timing was almost flawless.” He pulled me several feet away from the ambulance, giving us some makeshift privacy.

  I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Awfully convenient explosion—that’s what I’m saying.” He leaned against a young pine tree on the lawn, pulling me into his chest.

  I trembled as our bodies touched, then inched away. Public displays of affection, when I didn’t know what I wanted between us and couldn’t remember what had just happened, were not on the menu right now. I pulled his arm out from around me. “What are you trying to say?”

  The annoyed look in his eyes melted into resignation. He shifted on his feet, maintaining eye contact. “Josie, it took about fifteen minutes to evacuate the building just now. And, that doesn’t take into account any time lost when we were working on getting your mother to safety.”

  Is Nick getting all paternalistic over me knocking out the window? I shook my head, filing that away for later. “Enough about my daring escape strategies. Where’s Kira?”

  Nick stared at me and smiled. “Welcome back, Chief.” He traced a finger over my cheek.

  “Forget me for now. Where’s Kira? Where’s Angela Murray?” Was she still alive? Too many mysteries.

  “We have four teams out scouring the surrounding areas while we continue to work the case from here. But we did answer one question.” He was calm, watching the comings and goings of the emergency crew.

  “And?” Where was this going? Kind of like me and Nick.

  “And Kira thought she could pick us all off with one big bang. A trifecta, of sorts.” Anger laced his words. “She set us up—arranged it so we’d all be in the same place. She lured us here—like mice. She held the wedge of cheese and watched us dance at the pull of her strings.”

  “But how could she know we’d all be here at the same time?” I blinked back some lightheadedness. I had to stay in the game. “The photos? From this morning?”

  “She had to know that would be good enough to lure at least two of us out here. Probably even knows us well enough to predict that it would be you and Gino. Knows you well enough to expect that you’d want her files searched. Personally. Confidentially.” His eyes bored into mine.

  “And that I’d send you to do it. And that you’d find something in them.” She was that calculating.

  “Written to send me straight back to you.” The anger crept back into his voice. Directed at Kira… or me? “I got here just before the explosion.” He flicked his eyes down. My eyes followed his to his bandaged hand.

  “Wait, before the explosion?”

  “Yes. I told you that. The explosion happened less than five minutes after I entered the assisted living wing to find you. We need to talk.” His voice was welcoming, but not the look in his eyes.

  What did he find in those files? My gut was a cold fist. “Okay, but not now. We have to make sure everyone is accounted for, and then we’ve got to get back into what’s left of the director’s office and look for anything that can tell us where Kira might have taken her.”

  I’d sat on Kira’s overstuffed couch, session after session, whining like a school girl. Sharing all of the unthinkable secrets that lodge themselves inside the nooks and crannies of the human heart. No doubt, lots of it was ugly, unflattering, vulgar even. But what had I said that would rattle Nick enough to get him here that fast?

  I’d said things about Nick that no man would want to hear or read. But he’d been around the water cooler enough times to know that was S.O.P. when dealing with women. Most women. And now he knows it applies to me, too. So what? That couldn’t be it. Could it? Only one way to find out.

  “Nick?” I didn’t have to fake the puzzled voice.

  He stared at me, in silence, his kind eyes brimming with tenderness. He’s so perfect. Why can’t I just let him love me? Why am I so afraid? Gino trudged toward us, a smoky silhouette against the glowing building. I ran up to him and almost toppled him with my hug.

  He was a dark gray mass of sludge and soot. There was a broad, jagged gash on his forehead. Paramedics appeared, as if summoned, but Gino waved them away.

  “You were already my hero, G. How many did you save?”

  He shook his head, closing his arms tighter around my quivering frame. “They are the heroes of the greatest generation. They saved me, m’hija. And I would walk through fire for them again.” The whispered words sank deep within me. I stored them away to pull out and dissect with him in the weeks ahead.

  “Nick’s got something.” I pulled away from him, nodding at Nick.

  Gino turned, keeping one arm solidly around my waist.

  “She’d written what had to be an imaginary quote from an imaginary conversation. But it was spot on. Definitely you. Even though it wasn’t. And when I got here… it was almost too late.” Nick pinched a fold of skin between his eyebrows.

  “What was the quote?” I was throwing him a lifeline, ignoring the open Kira-and-Nick door. For now.

  He sighed, dropping blank shields down over his eyes. “She’d written lots of drivel, interspersed with what could be legit—it was hard to tell. Then she’d dive into your supposed psyche, typical mother-daughter, love-hate kind of stuff. But when I read your alleged raging statements about me and what could have been Kira, I knew it had to be a set up. And my next step was to your side.”

  He was like a lighthouse, head rolling to fix his gaze on Gino, scanning me, and back to Gino again.

  Gino linked arms with me. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, chuffing in thought. “And you knew she was here, so you flew into the trap. Like a cat to the catnip.”

  “From one hot mess to another.” Hmmm. That reminds me of something. And then it was gone. “But you still haven’t shared the mystery quote.” He was getting weirder and weirder.

  “I’m not sure it matters.” He scuffed his heel on the ground. “But for what it’s worth, you were talking about feeling like a victim.”

  “Of what?” I furrowed my brows.

  “‘You are a victim of the rules you live by.’ Does that phrase mean anything to you?” Nick searched my face. “What’s your number one rule?”

  “Rule?” I gave him a blank stare. “You lost me at ‘victim,’ and this isn’t making anything clearer.”

  “One of the golden rules: ‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ Ring any bells?” He stepped closer to me, prompting Gino’s arm to tighten around my arm.

  “‘Honor thy father and thy mother.’ That’s it? That’s the big clue? You know my father’s been so far out of my life it isn’t even worth talking about, and my mother…” I cast a glance over to where the ambulance carrying my wounded mother had been moments ago.

  “You honor your mother, m’hija. To know you is to know this about you. To hear this is to know it means this place, where you honor your mother. But it is not to know who said this thing, you or la mala, and if indeed it was la mala, then I am inclined to Nick’s point of view.” Gino unlinked his arm from mine. He needed his other hand to emphasize his point. “This, this was part of her design from the very beginni
ng.”

  I soaked it in for a moment. The complexity of it, the weight of it, the sheer evil of Kira’s planning oozed in like concrete all around me, sucking me under, waiting to seal me in.

  “But if she planted the evidence to lure us all here before she took Angela, how would she have known when to detonate the explosives?” I put my jangled nerves aside, unleashing the cop within.

  “What does it mean—Wait. Cameras?” Nick looked up at the remaining light poles and nearby trees, scanning for surveillance equipment.

  Maybe. “What if it was simpler than that? What if she somehow managed a line of sight?” I paused. “She’d want to watch, right? The whole cat and mouse thing—she’d want to watch. And if that’s the case, then her hidey-hole can’t be that far away.”

  “And if there is any chance that Miss Murray is still alive…” Gino picked up my trail. “She’d be in that killer’s lair, facing la mala, perhaps right now. If only we knew where…”

  “No. Not right now. Right now, Kira’s watching us. She’d have to. It’d be too much fun for her to miss.” I spun around, searching the bluffs jutting up behind the cornfields. “She’s out there somewhere. In a cave, in a mound, in a deer blind. She’s not that far away from us. She can’t be.”

  Nick had been texting furiously while we talked. I opened my hands wide, stretched my fingers, closed them again. “Please tell me that whatever you’re ordering up over there includes a couple of canine teams.”

  “And the cavalry. And a few of my own best hunters. I got a guy or two loves this kind of thing.” He didn’t look up from his phone.

  “The actual cavalry, or is that some sort of nickname? If you’re talking about the Hoof Beat Club, they’re not going to be able to do much more than kick up some noise. They’re pretty much just a volunteer horse club with shotguns.”

  “And you no doubt went to high school or horse camp or something with half of them.” He finished texting and looked up at me, amusement dancing in his chocolate brown eyes.

  “I may know one or two of them.” I’d ridden either rodeo or competitive trail rides with most of them at some point in my life. “And I know they’re all solid riders and pretty good shots. But if Kira feels cornered, she’ll shoot her way out. She has everything to lose now, and I don’t want any of them getting hurt. I don’t want any of them coming up against her. It’s not worth it.”

  “They won’t be. They won’t ever get close enough. Think of them as decoys. Trotting catnip to pull Kira’s eyes away from us long enough for us to get a bead on her, keep her on the run. Anything to keep her from getting up close and personal with Angela.”

  “But for how long?” Even though my horse buddies volunteered to help protect and serve, they hadn’t volunteered to be bait.

  Gino stepped up and pulled a rectangular box from his back pocket. “Long enough for us to catch the big cat. This little reloj may be of some use.” Gino opened the box and picked up what looked like a watch, holding it up for us to see.

  “Go on. What’s it do?” Gino wasn’t a watch guy. This had to be one of his high-tech security gadgets.

  Nick studied the device. “That a GTL?”

  “It is.” Gino’s eyes sparkled.

  Nick let out a low whistle. “I thought it wasn’t out yet, something not quite right with the trials?”

  “Technology and politics do not mix. That is what we have learned from the hold ups in Springfield and Washington. It does not stop us from experimenting in the meantime.” Gino fidgeted with the thing, twisting small dials, holding it up to face the bluffs, fidgeting again.

  Nick signaled for a few of his men to come forward. Two large men in dark khaki jumpsuits emblazoned with FBI on the back stepped up. “You’ll like these two, Gino. Straight off the line from the computer crimes boot camp in Virginia.”

  Gino’s eyes lit up, and he crooked a finger, inviting the agents to lean in before explaining the nuances of his latest toy.

  Nick moved close enough to touch me, but didn’t. “There were quite a few other clues that were pretty telling in Kira’s notes. Lots of things I don’t think you’ll want to read yourself, let alone submit officially for the investigation.” He crossed his arms, brushing my side with his elbow.

  I stiffened. Any one of a dozen unpleasant themes from my sessions with Kira could be involved here. Had she targeted her victims after people we’d talked about? Who else had we talked about? Sam! Was my little girl safe from her?

  “Nick! I’ve got to check on Sam. What if that psycho goes after my girl!”

  Nick pulled out his cell and offered it to me. “Call her, beautiful. We’ll take five, and I’ll get a team assigned to her while you’re checking in.”

  I pulled my own phone out of my pocket and dialed her number, but she didn’t pick up. A second later, a text came through.

  CAN’T TALK NOW. LUV U! CU LATER?

  The tightness in my shoulders fell away. I answered her.

  LOVE YOU MORE! SEE YOU SOON. CALL YOU LATER. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE YOU!

  Thank you, Mighty God. Please protect her. And bring me back, bring all of us back, to love this little girl and raise her up right.

  What else might be in Kira’s files? This was my chance to steer Nick away from sacrificing himself by ‘cleansing’ the files in a valiant attempt to safeguard my integrity in front of my men. “It’s too soon to say what will be important from Kira’s files and what won’t be necessary. I have no way to gauge that now. Not without taking a look myself. Not without getting Kira behind bars. And we won’t have time for the one until we do the other.” Not my most eloquent speech, but I think I made my point.

  “I’m less worried with how intact the files remain than how intact the woman I love remains.” He put his hand on my arm, turning me to meet his eyes. Unfettered love swam there. What would he find in mine?

  “Nick…” I had no way to finish that sentence. This was not the time or place to have this talk. Again.

  “There’s a new thread in her notes that I didn’t know about. If it’s even true.” He coughed and looked at the ground.

  “Why do I think this is going to be another bit of news I’m not going to like?” My guts clenched.

  Nick took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Kira says in her notes that you were convinced that Del had been sleeping with lots of women. That you even wondered out loud about her and Del… She suggests you were obsessed with it, couldn’t shake it, and it was powerful enough to drive you to irrational behavior. Maybe even violence. But that’s not all. I found audio files. With the initials D. R. on at least one of them. As in ‘Del Reed,’ maybe?”

  “What?”

  I moved over to lean against the tree, Nick following me. Gino and the men gestured toward one set of bluffs, voices muffled.

  “It does kind of make sense, in terms of the perfect frame up. Luring Del into some sort of weird relationship, taping it, and then using it to tighten the noose she’d worked so hard to tie around your neck.” Nick stood alongside me, our bodies touching, his warmth shielding me from another round of frigid breezes.

  If you thought about the evidence like a killer would, it did make some sense. Pretty low-hanging fruit. Especially if she had been sleeping with Del. Which wasn’t the point. “Is there anyone I care about she hasn’t slept with?”

  The muscles in Nick’s jaw tightened. He kept his gaze on the horizon. “There was more in the notes. A lot more. Most of it had a staged quality about it, but there were threads of you in almost every case she worked on. She was obsessed.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean, ‘threads of me’?”

  He shifted his weight to the other leg, and his hip pulled away from mine. “It almost didn’t matter who she was counseling. Her notes had a common denominator in them—you. You were referenced in the dirty cop’s files. But not from Schlichting—that wouldn’t have bothered me. She made separate notations in her files wondering how his actions would make you feel. I had to work
a little to find them, but they were there, password protected and filed under ‘Miscellaneous J.’”

  “But why me?” Fog circled my brain.

  “That one we may never fully understand. But a quick walk through her notes makes it clear that you were, are, and have probably always been, her main target. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I only combed through your files, Del’s files, Deter’s files, and Schlichting’s files. And found enough data in all of them to paint a killer picture. She had it out for you. Wanted to be you maybe? Take what you had? Punish you? I don’t know. I just know it’s all there.”

  “Which is another thing that makes no sense. Why would she leave so much evidence? Why incriminate herself?”

  “The psychopath in her, maybe? I don’t think she ever dreamed anyone could come this close. And she must’ve thought today’s ruse was good enough to take the three of us out with one big boom.” Nick’s ruminations were interrupted by the flushed appearance of Gino and the two field agents.

  They’d found something.

  “Several possibilities have emerged. We’re using a series of satellite heat sensors as simple tracking devices.” Gino was breathless. “Field teams are on their way to each location indicated on our monitors now. We’re running a program designed to track any heat signature fitting the basic footprint of a living creature over one hundred pounds. Once the mass requirements have been met, a simple body-type recognition program eliminates any non-human forms. And if we pinpoint any remaining heat signatures, it looks something like this.”

  Gino held up a handful of topographic maps. “Teams have been dispatched to every site but the two closest to where we are standing right now.”

  “Which one rings your internal alarm the loudest?” Nick’s voice was steely.

  Gino help up his ‘watch,’ as if we could see what he knew was there. “Given the location of the heat stamps, this one big black dot makes the most sense to me. And given that our lovely Chief knows this area perhaps better than we do, I am thinking she could best verify which of the two locations we would wish to attend to personally.” Gino floated next to me, hand outstretched to give me a good view of his glowing doo-dad.