Every Breath You Take: A Novel (A Kristen Conner Mystery Book 2) (2 page)

I wanted so much to punish him . . . but not like this. This was never supposed to happen. I just wanted him to see me. I was so tired of him hiding me in the shadows of his miserable existence.

He thought that all I wanted was his money. I hated him for that . . . that he couldn’t see I loved him . . . that we were meant to have a real relationship.

I hated him, but I would never kill him.

I need to call the police. But how can I explain why I was here? And how I got in? Will they think I did this? They would have to. Why am I even asking? If they connect the dots, of course they’ll think I did it. Nothing looks right about me being here. There is no way to explain it and be believed.

But I can’t just leave. What if he’s not dead?

I’m sure he is—it looks like his head is caved in—but what if he isn’t?

Now my mind is playing tricks on me. He is dead.

There’s blood on me. They’re going to think I did it.

I can’t just leave can I?

Unable to pry her eyes from the gaping wounds, the shattered bone, the puddle of red, purple, and black blood, she backed away in a near stupor, bent over, and vomited. She closed his bedroom door behind her, and left his apartment quickly. Bypassing the bank of elevators, she flew down the stairs, all twenty-five flights, two steps at a time, and exited the back service entrance. She half-stumbled, half-jogged two blocks to a public parking garage. Tears streamed down her face as she drove from the area.

2

THE MARINES HAVE a saying that seems quite apt right now. Hurry up and wait. Maybe it’s the Army that says that. Maybe it’s the entire military. I’m living it right now. Patience is not my strong suit.

I’m wearing black from head to toe, including headgear that covers everything but an oval opening for my eyes. Lightweight night goggles and high-tech grease paint make me almost invisible. The black synthetic material—looks and feels like Under Armour to me—is designed for summer operations the quartermaster told me. It was ninety-eight degrees in the shade all day here in D.C. The sun has set so the temperature has dropped, mercifully. Can’t be more than ninety-five. There is no fabric that can make this sweltering humidity bearable. I feel like I’m cooking.

I feel like I’m cooking in the skin-tight, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene jacket protecting most of my torso. Definitely doesn’t make things any cooler. I was told I’m wearing state-of-the-art bullet-resistant material—ten times stronger than steel. But that word,
resistant
, is still bugging me. Why can’t the gear be bullet-
proof
?

Drops of sweat bead and then fall in rivulets down my forehead over and around my goggles, some seeping through the rubber ring that fits snug to my face. When Special Agent Austin Reynolds of the FBI called to invite me to participate in an FBI training program designed to help local law enforcement respond to terrorist activities, this wasn’t the type of assignment I was expecting. Sure, I’m way ahead of my rehab schedule from a knee injury I suffered on a murder case I helped bust this past summer. I had a torn ACL and MCL repaired just six weeks ago. The weeks I’ve spent running the rolling hills of the FBI Training Grounds in Quantico, Virginia, every morning have been nothing but wonderful for my recovery—along with daily therapy including electric muscle stimulation, ultrasound treatments, aggressive stretching, and joint manipulation—and glorious massage. Still, I hope I’m ready for this.

We’ve been poised for the strike for forty-five minutes now. A terrorist cell has been operating within thirty minutes of our nation’s capital. The FBI has moved cautiously on this one, letting the group move freely for more than a year in the hopes that members of Allah’s Fatwa would make a mistake, confident in the belief that they were still under the radar screen. It wasn’t cell chatter intercepted by the supercomputers at NEA that made FBI Deputy Director Willingham issue the order for immediate and terminal action. It was the lack of chatter. Change may be good for personal growth and corporate survival, but when it’s a homicidal cadre of mad dogs, change should always make you nervous.

Don’t use the phrase “mad dogs,” Kristen, unless you want to get chewed out for being culturally insensitive again.

Another bit of data came in from Virgil—real name is Operation Vigilance—a computer program developed by Homeland Security that gathers and collates information from federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies. Word from Virgil strongly suggested some bad guys, possibly and probably radical Islamists, got some weapons-grade uranium into the US through the Port of Charleston. Maybe one and one don’t equal two in this case, but who wants to risk that? Not Willingham. He’s a smart guy.

I listen to the transmitter and it sounds like things are a little behind schedule. Four agents have worked themselves within a few yards of the five-foot chain link fence in front of the two thousand square-foot house with all the blinds pulled and overgrown shrubs nearly enveloping the entire exterior. They popped a manhole cover above the cavernous sewer pipe they traversed from a couple streets away.

I see figures dart forward and drop to a crawl. They move forward, nearly invisible on the black grass, but ready to sprint again on signal.

Four more agents are within a few feet of the fence in the rear of the house, having come through the neighbor’s backyard. They are the hold-up. It is assumed that there are tripwires around their perimeter to sound the alarm of an imminent attack. They are being cautious, which means our job is still to hurry up and wait.

“Move it,” I hear Reynolds say, firm, calm, confident, like always.

Unlike me, these FBI people are smooth. Willingham and Reynolds are running the show from a mobile command center a mile away. Mobile command center sounds too sophisticated, no matter how proud Reynolds is of it. It looks like a Winnebago to me. And it is parked at Walmart, not Nordstrom’s.

But I bet they have air conditioning. We are cooking in here.

My patience is nearly shot. I feel claustrophobic. My outfit itches like crazy.

I’m sitting with three other agents in what looks like a converted UPS van, about a block away from the house. UPS may have fast service, but their trucks don’t have a thousand-horsepower engine and a front bumper with a six-foot-wide cast iron wedge that can open the side of a house as easily as a body builder hammering a screw driver through the side of a soup can. As far as I can tell, no one else is sweating and fidgeting like me.

Patience, Kristen.

My cell phone vibrates in four seemingly endless low rumbles for a fifth straight time. I can’t remember all the specifics of our pre-event instructions—the FBI calls these little assaults “events,” not me—but I’m pretty sure we were supposed to leave our Samsungs or iPhones or HTCs at home. I must have tucked mine in one of the pockets of the Batman-like utility belt that is the final accessory of my chic black on black ensemble. I can’t actually see anyone else’s eyes, but I think my teammates are giving me dirty looks.

I feel a new stream of sweat trace down my back. The inside of my goggles are fogging up. I’m not regular FBI so I didn’t get the custom made outfit and gear the others did. My eyes are watering and I am desperate to wipe the beads of sweat off my eyebrows. A maddening itch on my left shoulder blade is ratcheting up in intensity.

My phone starts a sixth round of low rumbling. I absolutely know better, but I can’t take it anymore. I snap open the belt pocket and bring it to my ear, pushing my goggles and hood back, all in one movement.

“Mom,” I hiss in a low whisper that probably isn’t nearly as quiet as I want it to be. Hope they didn’t hear that a block away. “When I don’t pick up it means I’m busy. Stop hitting the redial button over and over.”

“Kristen, there’s no reason for you to talk to me that way,” Mom says with her hurt tone, a regular part of her communication repertoire with me. “I just wanted to make sure your flight plans hadn’t changed so we can pick you up at Midway on time.”

“Mom, same as I told you last night, I’ll be there Thursday night at eight—and I’ve told you ten times I’m flying into O’Hare, not Midway.”

“See, it’s good I called.”

“Mom, I absolutely can’t talk right now. This is a bad time.”

“Honey, it never seems to be a good time for you to talk to me!”

I look at three sets of bug-like eyes that are now staring my direction. Oh the stories Don Squires, my partner in the Chicago Police Department, could tell them right now. I wonder if it matters whether they write me up since the CPD has only loaned me to the FBI. Maybe if they’d given me the custom gear that doesn’t let sweat trickle into your goggles, I wouldn’t be in this position right now.

“Mom, I’ll call tomorrow. I’ve got to go. Now.”

“You are going to church every Sunday while you’re there aren’t you?”

I’m exasperated. “Mom, I already told you—”

A voice barks in our earbud, “Now! Up position!” The engine fires into a roar and we are thrown sideways on the uncomfortable benches we’ve been perched on for what seems like hours. As the turbo-charged van powers from zero to at least fifty in about five seconds, I drop my phone and nearly fall completely backward. I hear it bounce against the metal door at the back of the van. I think I can actually hear my mom calling my name above the roar of the engine.

I am on the team designated to lead the troops into the battle zone. The team members on the ground are waiting for us to breach the house. Once we break through the fence across the entrance to the driveway and splinter the garage door open with the wedge, we will be spilling out the left side door and into the house through the garage entry. All of us are now standing and have belted ourselves into secure side straps that loop over one shoulder and halfway around the chest on the right side of the van so that we can enter the theater of conflict from a standing position without breaking an ankle from the jolting collision. I can still barely keep my balance as we carom forward, drift to the right, and then veer hard to the left as the driver—seems apt that he looks a little like Jeff Gordon—pushes the van on two wheels in the final turn to storm the fortress. I’m frantically trying to get my goggles situated on my face. The right window is covering my left eye. I can’t twist them into position, so I yank the hood off again and get the strap over and behind my ponytail. I probably waste half a second smoothing my hair back for no apparent reason. I barely have the goggles centered over my eyes and the hood up as I feel the first shudder of our assault vehicle slicing through the metal chain that serves as a gate like a hot knife through warm butter.

I’m ready, my Sig Sauer SP 2022 fully-automatic in hand, when the bigger impact occurs and we cave in the garage door. The Jeff Gordon look-alike slams on the brakes. There must have been a vehicle parked in there to help him stop because all four of us swing forward in the vertical straps, our legs nearly reaching waist level with the final impact. My head is filled with the sound of twisting metal. We were told to expect this and we got it. It’s still disorienting.

Here we go.

3

HE WOULDN’T LISTEN
to reason. Very typical of Jack. He got what he deserved.

Whoever coined the phrase Peter Pan Syndrome was describing Jack to a tee. He was ever the little boy, living in a man’s body—and wreaking chaos in a man’s world. Jack, you couldn’t live in Neverland forever, even if you could afford to throw the best parties to buy friendship.

The problem with Jack was he wasn’t just Peter Pan, flying from one adventure to the next with his posse of Lost Boys. Jack also had a little Captain Hook in him. It was amazing how mean he was—even to his friends.

No one knew how to rein him in. His parents gave up a long time ago and just wrote checks for his playworld.

I did the right thing. I wish it would have been cleaner. But the result was going to be the same. Jack had to die.

Some will miss him. But even the Lost Boys, most of them, will figure out that you have to grow up one day. His arrested development was contagious. Some of the gang will look back on their time with Jack and wonder why they wasted their best years in his little club.

The media and police will be all over this. But the list of suspects will extend as far as anyone who has ever known him. He’s ruined more than a few lives.

There are ways to keep the spotlight off of me. Who can question my alibi? It’s foolproof.

He was listening to “Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber. The melancholy strains fit his mood and the moment perfectly. Reluctantly, he changed the tuner to a 24/7 news station, anxious to hear first reports of Jack Durham’s grisly murder.

4

OUR SQUAD LEADER is first out and unleashes a violent side-kick to the entry door. I wince to myself when the door doesn’t budge. That had to hurt. Probably reinforced metal. He’s unfazed and quickly reaches into a belt pocket and pulls out three MCBs—Micro Concussion Bombs—that he slaps on the door surrounding the handle. All four of us are out of the truck, crouched with faces to the wall and hands over ears as he wheels from the doorway and positions himself next to me. I think all three MCBs explode at once as I hear front and back doors splinter at the same time our side door implodes. I race after my team through the jagged smoking entrance, my head on a swivel, weapon up and ready to fire.