Ultimate Kill (Book 1 Ultimate CORE Trilogy) (CORE Series) (24 page)

He climbed into the cab and started the truck. He thought about what the woman had said about people clearing the shelves at the grocery store and shook his head. A bit extreme in his opinion. Terrorists, bombings…yeah, that was scary shit. But this was Bloomington, Indiana. Nothing bad ever happened here.

Chapter 10

CORE Offices, Chicago, Illinois
 

12:42 p.m. Central Daylight Saving Time

“THANK GOD YOU’RE here,” a petite, pregnant woman with short red hair said as she motioned for them to follow her. A ball of nerves, Naomi let Jake latch on to her arm and lead the way.
 

“Ian, Owen and Dante are waiting for us in the evidence and evaluation room,” the redhead continued. “Wait until you see what we’ve come up with.” She stopped, swiveled in her flats and held out her hand. “Sorry, I’m Rachel Malcolm, CORE’s computer forensic analyst.”

Naomi shook the other woman’s hand. “Naomi McCall.”

“Right,” Rachel responded, skepticism clear in her green eyes. “Nice to finally meet you. This way.”
 

Feeling as if she were being led into a hungry lion’s den, Naomi reminded herself that she could, at any time, leave. She owed nothing to these people. The only reason she’d even agreed to come to Chicago was because of Jake. She’d kept him in the dark long enough and he deserved an explanation. How much she’d actually explain would depend on his counterparts. If she didn’t think they could help her, she’d go back to her original plan and turn herself over to the murdering bastard.
 

After they walked down a corridor, Rachel opened a door. “Here we are.”

Naomi froze and shifted her gaze around the room. One wall was covered with TV screens, another with white boards and corkboards. Several large tables sat in the center of the room and were filled with computers and a variety of other electronic equipment. Three men sat at the table. Her focus wasn’t on them, but the TVs. Five of the six screens held a still shot from the bombings, while the sixth screen looked as if it had been synced to a computer. The search engine clear, the subject line unsettling.

Rose Wood.
 

Jake took her by the elbow. “Let me introduce you. This is Ian Scott, owner of CORE and a former profiler with the FBI.”
 

A man with a thick head of salt and pepper hair rose and shook her hand. His familiar blue eyes studied her and, for a second, she swore she saw recognition in them.
 

Before she had the chance to shift through her memory bank, Jake nodded to the other men. “This is Owen Malcolm and Dante Russo.” As she shook their hands, Jake added, “Owen is former U.S. Secret Service and Dante is a former Navy SEAL.”

“Any reason you’re giving out our resumes?” Owen asked.

Jake held a chair out for her. “I want Naomi to understand that CORE isn’t the average private investigation agency. She knows who’s behind the bombings. We need her to trust us and give us his name.”

“You don’t trust Jake?” Dante asked, his dark eyes held a hint of amusement.
 

She set her oversized purse on the floor. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Yet you won’t give up the bomber’s name.” Owen leaned back in the chair and raised his dark blond brows. “It’s going to be one o’clock in about ten minutes. Another bomb could go off and another after that at two. Aren’t you the least bit concerned for the safety of—?”

“Of course I am,” she said louder than she’d meant and fought the tears brimming in her eyes. “How would you feel if you knew you were the reason people were dying?”

“Good Lord.” Rachel moved behind Owen and pinched his arm. “Way to break the ice.” She looked at Naomi. “Ignore him.”

“Actually, Owen has a valid point,” Dante said with a shrug of his broad shoulders.
 

“Agreed.” Ian nodded. “Why are you withholding information,
Rose
?”

Her skin prickled with irritation. She should have never come here. These people didn’t understand her fears or whom they were up against. She turned to the man who had revealed her identity. “You told them,” she said to Jake.

“No, I figured it out.” Rachel sat in front of a laptop. “All Jake said was to look for a rosewood connection. After some digging I found this.” She tapped at the keyboard. Within seconds Naomi stared at an old driver’s license photo taken the year before she’d changed her identity. Then Rachel revealed Naomi’s senior yearbook picture, then a copy of her old college ID. “
You
are obviously the connection. I suppose the why doesn’t matter, but who behind the bombings does.”

“Time’s flying by,” Owen added and looked at the clock on the wall. “Eight more minutes.”

She knew they were right, but couldn’t be sure they’d believe her even if she bared the truth.
 

You’ll never know unless you tell them.

 
Jake took her by the hand and held it under the table. “Make this stop,” he said, giving her a gentle squeeze.

“You won’t believe me, the FBI, the media…no one will believe me.”

“Thomas did,” Ian said.
 

She looked away from Ian’s piercing gaze as she finally remembered how she knew the owner of CORE. When Thomas had been in the FBI Academy, she’d gone to see him. At the time of her visit, he’d been taking courses hoping to eventually be part of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit—specifically BAU-1, which, ironically, dealt with counterterrorism and threat assessment. After taking several of Ian’s courses, Thomas had ended up requesting assignment in BAU-2, crimes against adults.
 

“How do you know her brother?” Jake asked Ian.

“This is how.” Rachel tapped a few keys, then Thomas’s photo and FBI badge emerged on the screen. “I also believe this is how you were able to change your identity without leaving a paper trail. Correct?”
 

Naomi met Ian’s gaze. “My brother is dead.”

“I know, and I’m sorry to hear he’d died.”

“
He
killed Thomas, and my parents, too.” She swiped at an errant tear. “What I say to you about Thomas cannot tarnish the excellent reputation he had with the FBI. Agreed?”
 

“You have my word.”

“After my parents were killed, Thomas and I collected their life insurance and our inheritance. A few days later, he made arrangements to give me a new name and new life. His superiors had no clue what he was up to. The only other person who knew was his girlfriend. She was also FBI, in an administrative capacity. With her help, Thomas was able to ensure that no one would know who I really was.”

“Who’s the girlfriend?”

“Does it matter?”

Ian crossed his ankles and steepled his fingers. “I suppose not.”

“The night my brother was murdered, they’d beaten his girlfriend and left her for dead.” Shame heated Naomi’s face as she recalled the once beautiful, vibrant and intelligent woman. “Because of me, because of the head injuries she sustained, she has the intellectual capacity and motor skills of a two-year-old.”

“Oh, my God.” Rachel looked to the ceiling as if searching for words. When she met Naomi’s gaze again, she shook her head. “How many other people are you going to let him hurt?”

“Enough,” Jake said, loud and firm. “I told Naomi we could help her. All that’s happening is a bunch of bullshit finger pointing.”

“Come on, Jake.” Owen smacked a hand on the table. “In six minutes more people are going to die. She’s so damned worried about protecting herself that—”

“Wrong,” Dante said, staring at her with patience and understanding. “She’s not protecting herself, she’s protecting Jake. Right, Naomi?”

She caught Jake looking at her through her peripheral vision, then faced him. “He’s killed everyone I’ve loved. The only reason you’re alive is because he doesn’t know about you.” She didn’t bother to fight the tears. These people obviously didn’t think highly of her and, at this point, she didn’t care if they thought she was weak. The only one she did care about was Jake. “The bombings could have ended hours ago if you’d let me go to him.”

Jake clenched his jaw. “Not an option.”
 

“I disagree,” Ian said.
 

 
The fury in Jake’s eyes should have had the other man shrinking back and shutting his mouth. Instead, Ian turned to Rachel. “Tell them what you’ve found.”

Rachel’s fingers danced across the keyboard until a map of the United States replaced Thomas’s FBI badge. Red markers indicated the locations of the past six bombings. A black line had been drawn from north to south, running from Texas, through the Midwest and ending at the northern border of North Dakota. A rainbow of markers had been placed across the half of the country that hadn’t been targeted. Yet.
 

“First, it’s obvious the bombings have been set up to go west to east.” Rachel stood and moved toward the screen. “Since the last bombing occurred in the Amarillo area, I’ve run a line through here under the assumption he’s not going to backtrack.” She pointed the black line separating the country. “These colored markers represent every variation of rose and wood I could find—cities, streets, counties, businesses, etcetera. Only…the pilots from Denver threw a wrench in my system. He didn’t use a place to send you a message. He used the pilots’ names. Do you have idea how many people have rose and wood in their names?”

“What I find interesting is that he knew those pilots would be flying that particular plane at a specific time and day.” Owen rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “I also find it interesting that the assistant manager of the Rosewood Bar & Grill in San Francisco remembers getting a delivery a week ago that she’d later learned wasn’t authorized by the owner of the restaurant. Because the delivery took place during the lunch rush, she said she had the guy bringing in the produce take it right back to their cooler rather than one of her regular employees.”

“Was the bomb detonated in the cooler?” Jake asked.

“No. The storeroom next to it.”

“Same goes for the Sun Valley Hotel and Conference Center,” Dante added. “Only this time it wasn’t produce, but linens. And the company responsible for the delivery is part of the hotel’s vendor list. Turns out the regular delivery guy and his truck have been MIA for six days.”
 

“How do you know this?” Naomi asked, shocked they had information that hadn’t been aired on the news.

“An FBI agent that’s part of the bombing task force has been giving us inside information,” Rachel answered. “We’ve worked with him in the past and he knows what we’re capable of doing here. He’s looking for an extra set of eyes and it doesn’t hurt that CORE is composed of agents with backgrounds in the military, FBI and CIA.”

Owen cleared his throat.

“Sorry,” Rachel added and rolled her eyes at Owen. “And the U.S. Secret Service.”
 

While Naomi could understand this agent’s interest in using CORE’s help, at this point she had bigger concerns. “Did you tell him about me?”

“No. Jake asked us to wait.” Ian rested his hands on the table. “Naomi, I have friends in very high places. We can’t wait any longer. If I give the name of the man behind this, they
will
investigate him.”

Ian might know people, but she knew in her gut they wouldn’t back him. Not when the bastard was a personal friend to the Director of the FBI. “You’re wrong.”

Ian sent her an arrogant smile. “Try me. Who is behind this?”

“Oh, no,” Rachel gasped as she stared at her laptop screen.

“What is it?” Ian asked without taking his focus off Naomi.

“There’s been another explosion. This time in Leavenworth, Kansas.” Rachel looked up from the laptop. “During a funeral at Chapel Woods Presbyterian Church.”

Naomi tensed and grabbed onto Jake’s hand. “Was anyone…how many people…” Unable to utter the words, she covered her mouth with her free hand. The killing needed to stop.

Rachel blinked several times, then cleared her throat. “Authorities estimate that there was close to one hundred people in the church at the time of the explosion. I…it’s too soon to tell how many survived.”

“Whose funeral?” Jake asked.

“The woman’s name is Rose Michaels.”

Dante stood and paced. “How in the hell could he plan
that
? How could he know the funeral would be held there, that her funeral would even take place?”

Rachel looked back to the laptop and began typing. She stopped. “Because Rose Michaels sat on the church board as one of the elders.”

Dante quit pacing. “Okay, I’ll give you that, but how could he predict…shit. When did the woman die?”

“She was found Friday afternoon.” Rachel continued typing, then hovered her fingers over the keys and looked at the laptop screen. “Cause of death…natural causes. She was eighty-eight.”

“Natural causes my ass,” Owen said and pushed out of the chair. He moved to the map Rachel had created and ran a hand through his hair. “Because these bombings are so frickin’ random, we can’t predict their next move, only how they managed to plant the devices. How much you want to bet the day Rose Michaels died, she had a delivery or her damned phone line inspected or some other horseshit?” He turned, placed his hands on the back of the chair and leaned forward. “Naomi, you have to stop this.”