Targeted (Callahan & McLane Book 4) (30 page)

41

F
ive days later

His neighbor across the street was putting up Christmas lights, fake deer, and an inflatable Santa. Mason watched through his front window and felt a subtle tug to keep up with the Joneses. Lights could wait. Hell, maybe he’d hire someone to do it this year. The thought of climbing a ladder with a broken bone in his foot held no appeal. He’d gotten by with a splint and a pair of crutches that he’d refused to use after the first two hours—they pushed on his broken ribs. His nose and throat had turned all sorts of vibrant colors, with impressive levels of swelling the first few days. Now his tissues were primarily yellow and brown, the swelling almost gone.

He wondered if his voice would ever sound the same. It was rough and raspy. The doctor had told him it could take months to return to normal. Or never return to normal at all.

Ava joked that their matching voices were a sign that they were meant to be together, but Mason didn’t agree. Her low voice was sexy and bluesy; his was horror movie villain material.

A car pulled into his driveway and Zander Wells stepped out. Ava’s footsteps sounded on the wooden staircase behind him and Bingo’s nails announced he was right beside her.

Good homey sounds.

Last Christmas Ava had been in a hospital room, her shoulder permanently damaged by a gunshot. This Christmas would be drama-free—he hoped. Jayne appeared to be settled in her new rehab facility in Costa Rica. Ava was cautiously optimistic. He saw it on her face and heard it in her tone. He hoped three thousand miles was enough distance to keep Jayne’s drama at a minimum. New drama had appeared in the form of someone claiming to be Ava’s father. For now Ava was content to keep him at a distance. David had pressed for a DNA test; Ava wasn’t in a hurry. She still hadn’t accepted that she might have two half siblings.

Mason wasn’t going to push her.

Knowing the truth wouldn’t change who she was.

Bingo pressed against his leg and Ava’s hand slipped into his as she watched Zander come up the walk. “He said he had more news about Scott Heuser.”

Mason didn’t care to ever hear the director’s name again. “I can’t believe I admired that guy.”

Ava said nothing. They’d talked the subject of Scott into the ground. Murderer. Psychopath. Son of a crazy mother. Good program director. It added up to a profile that’d made Special Agent Euzent stay in town for two extra days to dissect the killer’s background.

Halloween night haunted Mason’s dreams. The sensation of falling. The rope around his neck. His hands useless behind him. Ava’s scream. Scott’s eyes.

Sometimes it was fourteen-year-old Scott who pushed him off the platform.

Sometimes his feet never hit the ground.

Sometimes Ava found him hanging hours later.

He squeezed her hand, feeling his palms start to sweat, and hobbled to the front door before Zander could ring the bell.

A wave of brisk outdoor air entered with the FBI agent, and he looked run-down from a grueling week of investigation and cleanup. Ava had taken the week off as her shooting was reviewed, but ASAC Duncan had privately assured her of a positive result. The victim who’d been stabbed in the minutes before she shot Scott had provided clear testimony about the threat Scott posed.

Ava got Zander a cup of coffee and they took seats next to the woodstove. Bingo laid his head on Zander’s knee, staring at the agent until he received a head rub.

“We found Heidi Nickle,” Zander said with a grim look. “I didn’t tell you about the initial discovery two days ago because I wanted confirmation from the medical examiner.”

“He killed her,” Ava said flatly.

“We found remains buried in a shed near the home. One of the investigators had questioned some odd pavers that’d been laid in a rectangle in the corner of the shed. They seemed to serve no purpose, and we brought in a cadaver dog to see if there was a point in digging beneath them. Euzent had theorized that Scott had killed her and buried her body somewhere close to the property, because we couldn’t find any recent records of her. It was like she’d vanished.”

“Did the shed have two narrow high windows? And the rest of the floor was dirt?” asked Mason.

“Yes. We also found a couple of baseball bats with blood on them in there. We’re having them analyzed.”

I shared a room with a corpse?

“She was in a shallow grave under the pavers. We covered the rest of the property with the dog, but didn’t find anything else.”

I could have ended up under the pavers, too.

“What did the ME say?” asked Ava.

“Based on dental records, it’s her. She had one huge fracture from a bash to her skull and her h
yoid was broken. Dr. Rutledge suspects the blow to the head came first and then Scott strangled her.”

“And continued to live in her home as if nothing had happened,” added Mason.

Sick.

“One of the bedroom closets was full of her clothing. And the attached bathroom still had a woman’s hygiene products.”

“I wonder when he killed her.” Ava gave a deep sigh. “He seemed so normal. I genuinely liked him when I interviewed him.”

“That’s the general consensus. He was a master at hiding his other side.”

“What pushed him to target the cops?” asked Ava. “Why now?”

“Euzent theorizes that Regina Zuch might have triggered some anger in him.”

“Micah’s mother?”

“Yes, Scott mentored Micah for an entire year, and Regina admits she pursued him pretty hard. I guess his position as the director appealed to her as much as a uniform.”

“She’s at least ten or fifteen years older than him,” stuttered Ava.

Mason elbowed her.

“We’re different,” she argued.

Mason straightened. “Scott didn’t believe that his mother pursued me. He said I crushed her with my lies and behavior. Maybe he didn’t want to believe his mother had been like Regina.”

“What’s Micah doing now?” asked Ava.

“We released him to his mother. He confessed he’d been stalking Scott Heuser for a long time, even following him to the coast when Scott targeted Denny Schefte. He was a bit obsessed with the director. Regina says he’s supposed to take medication for OCD, but she suspects he throws it away. I think this shook her up enough to reevaluate how much help her son needs.”

“It’s over now,” said Zander. “We’ll probably never know what went on in his brain, but Euzent will do his best to figure it out.”

Mason didn’t doubt it.

“We also found more horror masks and a silicone finger with the happy face fingerprint at Scott’s place. All he had to do was touch his nose with it to pick up some oils and press it where he wanted to leave the fingerprint.”

“Did he plan for more victims?” Ava asked.

“Good question. No other mentors had worked with him, but he killed Vance Weldon for some reason. I suspect his mother hooked up with Weldon through a different element of Cops 4 Kidz and Weldon’s wife didn’t know about it.” Zander met Mason’s gaze. “You were lucky that rope was an inch too long.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It was a brand-new rope. Somewhere I read that the experienced hangmen would use an old, well-conditioned rope because it doesn’t stretch. New ropes stretch.”

Mason shuddered. He hadn’t meant for Zander to
literally
tell him about it.

“Can you come for Thanksgiving dinner?” Ava changed the subject. “I’m excited to cook in my new kitchen and we’d love to have you.”

A small smile crossed the agent’s face. “I’d be honored.”

“Good. My neighbor Cheryl is coming, too.” She paused. “I’m not trying to set you up. You both happen to be two of our favorite people. No pressure.”

The smile faded a bit. “None taken. I’m looking forward to meeting her.” Zander stood. “I need to be going.”

Ava watched Zander’s car back out of their driveway and wondered if she’d pushed too hard. “Did I scare him?” she asked.

“He needs a little shaking up,” said Mason. “He’s too set in his ways.”

She gave him a side eye.

“I’m proof,” Mason stated. “Shaking up is good. You just don’t appreciate it until it’s over.”

“I’m glad you appreciate it now,” she stated.

“I do. I’m stunned at how dense I was. I’d sat back in my easy chair and was content to let life stream past me. You came along and yanked me into the rushing water.” He took her hands and made her face him. “Now. When are we holding this wedding?”

She swallowed hard, blinking under the intensity of his brown gaze. “I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“You choose,” she countered, unable to answer his question.

He was silent a moment, his gaze searching hers. “There’s something between us that’s stopping you. Is it the age difference?”

“No! I’ve told you a dozen times that I don’t care about our ages.”
Truth.

“Then what is it?”

“Do you want kids?” she blurted. Her lips pressed into a tight line. She’d said it. The one little anomalous piece that couldn’t find its proper position in the puzzle of their lives was now out in the open. It hung between them, heavy and dense. A turning point.

Mason took a half step back. “Do you?” His brows furrowed.

She felt raw and exposed under his scrutiny.

“I don’t know,” she whispered as her brain shot into fifth gear and her fears tumbled from her tongue. “You’ve said you’re done with kids, and I’m scared that Jayne’s weaknesses will be passed to my child, and I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a mother, and what if one of us dies on the job and—”

He yanked her close, wrapping his arms around her and pressing his face into her hair. “I want whatever you want. Forget what I’ve said in the past. All that matters is that we move forward together. We’ve got a lifetime to figure it out.”

I almost lost you.

She burrowed into his chest. “But I don’t
know
what I want and it’s not fair to you—”

“I know what’s fair,” he said. “I’d love to share a child that’s a blend of me and you, but I also believe we can be happy if it’s just the two of us. We don’t have to decide right this minute. It’s something for us to explore together.”

She pulled back, studying his brown eyes for honesty.

Pure truth stared back at her.

“After we’re married.”
He raised a brow at her.

She owed him a wedding decision.

Decisions on children could wait; they’d find the answer together.

The silent burden lifted from her shoulders, and her doubts vanished. Her vision filled with a crystal-clear picture of the two of them exchanging vows. “I want a summer wedding at the winery.” She couldn’t speak fast enough. “I know it’s farther away, but I want to see blue sky and smell fresh flowers . . . and for the sun to shine on us as we say our vows.”

His face lit up. “Done. It sounds perfect.”

Contentment filled her heart.

She couldn’t wait.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It felt good to return to Mason and Ava. I’d taken a break to write a new Bone Secrets book, and during that time readers contacted me, hoping
Spiraled
wasn’t the last book for this couple. Readers also begged me to take it easier on Ava. One asked me to get her pregnant and simply let her enjoy her new kitchen. I love to hear how readers have connected to the characters. I’d never planned for
Spiraled
to be the final book, and I don’t plan for
Targeted
to be, either, but there will be another break while I write a few books in a new series, starting with
A Merciful Death
. You’ll find a few familiar faces in the new series, and a new couple in the spotlight.

Thank you to my Montlake team, which gives me amazing support to write my books: Anh, Jessica, Marlene, Kimberly, and Hai-Yen. A high five to my agent Meg Ruley; I smile when I see that New York area code pop up on my phone. A gigantic thank-you to Charlotte Herscher, the only person I allow to see my work in its unedited state. I don’t use beta readers or critique partners before my publisher sees my books; I only have room for one other voice in my head when I’m writing, and it is Charlotte’s.

My girls are my cheerleaders and always want to know what’s going on with my books. This week my youngest pointed out that she hadn’t seen me writing lately. I explained that I was between books, which in turn made it clear why there’d been fewer frozen pizzas for dinner. My husband is fantastic about clearing my path so I can focus on writing. Everyone knows he’s zombie- and horror-obsessed, so this book is for him.

READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF KENDRA ELLIOT’S NEXT BOOK,
A MERCIFUL DEATH
.

This is an uncorrected excerpt and may not reflect the finished book.

1

Mercy Kilpatrick wondered who she’d ticked off at the Portland FBI office.

She stepped out of the car and walked past the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Department cruisers and two SUVs to study the property around the silent, lonely home in the woods in the eastside foothills of the Cascade Mountains. Rain plunked on Mercy’s hood, and her breath hung in the air. She tucked the ends of her long, dark curls inside her coat, noting the large amount of debris in the home’s yard. What appeared to be a series of overgrown hedges and casual piles of junk to anyone else, she immediately identified as a carefully planned funneling system.

“What a mess,” said Special Agent Eddie Peterson, who’d been temporarily assigned along with her to the rural setting from their Portland office. “Looks like a hoarder lives here.”

“Not a mess.” She gestured at the thorny hedge and a huge, rusted pile of scrap metal.
“What direction do those items make you want to go?”

“Not that way,” stated Eddie.

“Exactly. The owner deliberately piled all his crap to guide visitors to that open area in front of the house, stopping them from wandering around to the sides and back. Now look up.” She pointed at a boarded-up window on the second story with a narrow opening cut into its center. “His junk positions strangers right where he can see them.”

Eddie nodded, surprise crossing his face.

Ned Fahey’s home had been hard to find. The dirt and gravel roads weren’t labeled, and they’d had to follow precise mileage-based directions from the county sheriff to find the house hidden deep in the forest. The tired-looking cabin was far from any neighbors but close to a natural spring.

Mercy approved.

She’d smelled a light odor of decay in the yard. As she climbed the steps of the porch to the house, it slapped her full in the face.
He’s been dead several days.
A stone-faced Deschutes County deputy held out a log for her and Eddie to sign. Mercy eyed the deputy’s simple wedding ring. When he got home with corpse scent clinging to his clothes, his wife would not be happy.

Next to her Eddie breathed heavily through his mouth. “Don’t puke,” she ordered under her breath, as she slipped disposable booties over her rubber rain boots.

He shook his head. She liked Eddie. He was a sharp agent with a positive attitude, but he was a young city boy and looked the role out here in the boonies, with his hipster haircut and nerdy glasses. His expensive leather shoes with the heavy treads would never be the same from the mud in Ned Fahey’s yard.

But they looked good.

Had looked good.

Inside the home she stopped to examine the front door. Custom-made with heavy, dense wood, the door had four hinges and three deadbolts; the additional bolts were positioned near the top and bottom of the door.

Fahey had built an excellent defense. He’d done everything right, but someone had managed to break through his barriers.

That shouldn’t happen.

Mercy heard voices upstairs and followed. Two crime scene techs directed her and Eddie down the hall to a bedroom at the back of the house. An increasingly loud buzzing sound made Mercy’s stomach turn over—it was a sound she’d been told about but never heard for herself. Eddie swore under his breath as they turned into Fahey’s bedroom and the medical examiner glanced up from her inspection of the bloated body on the bed.

Mercy had been right about the source of the noise. The room vibrated with the low roar of flies that’d discovered the corpse’s orifices. She tried not to look too closely at the distended belly that strained the buttons of his clothing. The face was the worst. Unrecognizable behind the black screen of flies.

The medical examiner nodded at the agents as Mercy introduced herself and Eddie.

Dr. Natasha Lockhart peeled off her gloves and laid them on the body. “I understand this was a
friend
of yours,” she said, lifting a brow.

“He’s on the no-fly list,” Mercy said. The FBI relied on the list for their domestic and international terrorism persons to watch. Mercy guessed the medical examiner wasn’t much older than she was. She was tiny and trim, making Mercy feel abnormally tall. The corpse on the bed had a history of brushes with the federal government. His preferred company was sovereign citizens and right-wing militia types. From the reports Mercy had read on the long drive up the gorge from Portland, she gathered that Fahey talked the talk but couldn’t walk the walk. He’d been arrested several times for minor destruction of federal property, but someone else was always the ringleader. Fahey’s criminal charges seemed to slide off him as if he were coated in Teflon.

“Well, someone decided they no longer needed Mr. Fahey around,” said Dr. Lockhart. “He must have been a sound sleeper to not hear our killer enter his house and place a weapon against his forehead.”

“Against?” Mercy asked.

“Yep. I can see the tattooing of the gunpowder in the skin around the entry hole. One nice hole in and one out. Through and through. Lots of power behind the round for it to go through that cleanly.” Dr. Lockhart grinned at Eddie, who slightly swayed as he stood by Mercy. “The flies brush away easily enough. For a moment.”

“Caliber?” Eddie asked in a strangled voice.

Dr. Lockhart shrugged. “Big. Not a puny twenty-two. I’m sure you’ll find the bullet burrowed in something below.”

Mercy stepped forward and squatted next to the bed, shining a flashlight underneath, intending to see if the round had gone into the floor. The space under the bed was crammed with plastic storage containers.
Of course it is.

She glanced around the room, noticing the heavy-duty trunks in neat stacks in each corner. She knew exactly what the closets would look like. Floor to ceiling storage neatly labeled and organized. Fahey lived alone, but Mercy knew they’d uncover enough supplies to last a small family through the next decade.

Fahey wasn’t a hoarder; he was a prepper.

And he was the third Deschutes County prepper to be murdered in his own home in the last two months.

“Did you handle the first two deaths, Dr. Lockhart?” she asked.

“Call me Natasha,” she said. “You mean the other two prepper murders? I responded to the first, and an associate went to the second. I can tell you the first death wasn’t nice and neat like this. He fought for his life. Think they’re connected?”

Mercy gave a smile that said nothing. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

“Dr. Lockhart’s damned right about that first death,” said a new voice in the room.

Mercy and Eddie turned to find a tall, angular man with a sheriff’s star studying both of them. His gaze grew puzzled as it lingered on Eddie’s thick, black glasses. No doubt the residents of Deschutes County didn’t see a lot of hip, fifties-era throwbacks. Mercy made introductions. Sheriff Ward Rhodes appeared to be in his sixties. Decades of sun exposure had created deep lines and rough patches on his face, but his eyes were clear and keen and probing.

“This room looks like a tea party compared to the scene at the Biggses’ place. That place had a dozen bullet holes in the walls, and old man Biggs had fought back with a knife.”

Mercy knew Jefferson Biggs had been sixty-five and wondered how he’d earned the title of
old man
from this sheriff who shared his age group.

Probably an indication of Biggs’s get-off-my-lawn attitude more than his age.

“But none of the homes—including this one—showed forced entry, correct?” asked Eddie politely.

Sheriff Rhodes nodded. “That’s right.” He scowled at Eddie. “Anyone ever tell you that you look like James Dean? With glasses?”

“I get that a lot.” Eddie smiled.

Mercy bit her lip. Eddie claimed to be surprised by the comparison, but she knew he liked it. “But if there’s no forced entry here and Ned Fahey was asleep, then someone knew how to get inside the house or was also sleeping in the house.”

“He’s wearing pajamas,” agreed Dr. Lockhart. “I don’t know the time of death yet. The putrefaction is very progressed. I’ll know more after lab tests.”

“We examined the house,” said Sheriff Rhodes. “There’s no sign that anyone was sleeping here or of any forced entry. This is the only room with a bed, and the sofa downstairs doesn’t have any pillows or blankets to indicate that someone else was here.” He paused. “Front door was wide open when we got here.”

“I take it Ned Fahey was the type to keep his doors locked tight?” Mercy asked, half in jest. The short walk through the home had shown her a man who took home defense very seriously. “Who reported his death?”

“Toby Cox. Young teen who gives Ned a hand around here. Was supposed to help Ned move some wood this morning. He said the door was open and when he saw the situation he called us. I sent him home a few hours ago. The boy’s not quite right in the head and this shook him up something fierce.”

“You know most of the residents?” Mercy asked.

The sheriff shrugged. “I know most. But who can know everyone? I know the people I know,” he said simply. “This home is far from any city limits, so whenever Ned had an issue, he called us at the county.”

“Issue? Who’d Ned have problems with?” Mercy asked. She understood the politics and social behaviors of small towns and rural communities. She’d spent the first eighteen years of her life in one. The residents tried to make everyone’s business their own. Now she lived in a large urban condo complex where she knew two of her neighbors’ names. First names.

She liked it that way.

“Someone broke into a couple of Ned’s outbuildings one time. Stole his quad and a bunch of fuel. He was pretty steamed about that. We never did find it. Other calls have been complaints of people hunting or trespassing on his property. He’s got a good ten acres here and the borders aren’t marked very well. Ned’s posted some ‘Keep Out’ signs, but you can cover only so much ground with those. He used to fire a shotgun to scare people off. After that happened a few times, we asked him to call us first. Scared the crap out of a backpacking family one time.”

“No dogs?”

“I told him to get a few. He said they eat too much.”

Mercy nodded.
Fewer mouths to feed.

“Income?” she asked.

“Social Security.” Sheriff Rhodes twisted his lips.

Mercy understood. It was common for the antigovernment types to raise hell about paying their taxes or buying licenses, but don’t you
dare
touch their social security.

“Anything missing?” asked Eddie. “Is there anyone who would even know what’s missing?”

“As far as I know, Toby Cox was the only person to step foot in this house in the last ten years. We can ask him, but I’ll warn you he’s not the most observant type.” Rhodes cleared his throat. “We’ve come across one storage unit outside that’s been broken into. Follow me.”

Mercy sucked in deep breaths of fresh air as she followed the sheriff down the stairs from the porch of the house. He led them through the junk-lined funnel and fifty feet down the dirt road before veering off on a path. She smugly noted her toes were dry in her cheery rain boots. She’d warned Eddie to dress appropriately when told their destination, but he’d brushed it off. This wasn’t rain on concrete sidewalks in downtown Portland; this was autumn in the Cascades. Mud, heavy brush, wandering streams, and more mud. She glanced back and saw Eddie brush the rain off his forehead, and he gave a wry smile with a pointed look at his mud-caked shoes.

Yep.

They ducked under a yellow ribbon of police tape that surrounded a small shed. “The crime scene techs have already processed the scene,” Sheriff Rhodes advised. “But try to watch where you step.”

Mercy studied the mess of crisscrossing boot prints and didn’t see a clear place to step. The sheriff simply walked through, so she followed. The shed was about fifteen by twenty feet in size and was hidden by tall rhododendrons. From the outside, it looked as if a strong wind would flatten the tiny outbuilding, but inside Mercy noticed the walls had been heavily reinforced and the room was lined with sandbags along the dirt floor.

“Chain on the door was cut. I should say all
three
chains on the door were cut,” the sheriff corrected. He gestured toward a big hole near the back wall of the shed. The lid to an ancient deep freezer opened out of the hole.

Bodies?

Mercy peered into the buried freezer. Empty. She sniffed the air, catching the minty odor of a weapon lubricant she knew some gun enthusiasts swore by and a hint of a faint musty gunpowder smell. Ned had packed an arsenal in the ground.

“Weapons,” she stated flatly. Fahey had three registered guns. He wouldn’t have worked this hard to hide three guns. More sand bags were packed between the freezer’s walls and the dirt pit. Mercy wondered how Ned had controlled the humidity for the guns. As far as weapons storage went, this wasn’t ideal.

“There was one of those little cordless humidifiers in there,” Rhodes stated, as if he’d read her mind. “But someone had to know where to dig to find the freezer.” He gestured at the piles of fresh dirt around the shed. “I wonder how well camouflaged the freezer was. This isn’t a place I’d come looking for weapons.”

“You said there were three chains locking the door?” Eddie asked. “To me, that screams, ‘I’ve got something valuable in here.’” He pointed at a narrow steel rod on the dirt floor. “If I broke through three sets of locks and chains and found an empty shed, I’d start plunging that into the ground until I hit something.”

Sure enough, there were narrow holes in scattered places across the floor of the shed.

“He’s a prepper,” Mercy stated. “It’s expected he’d have a stash of guns somewhere.”

“They didn’t have to murder him in his bed to steal his guns,” pointed out Rhodes. “I think the guns were a bonus.”

“They?” asked Mercy, her ears perking up.

The sheriff raised his hands defensively. “No proof. Just going by the amount of work I see here and the number of footprints found in front of this shed. The techs are running a comparison on Fahey’s and young Toby Cox’s boots to see what’s left. They’ll let us know how many people were here.”