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“Kira Laneer.”
Luke sat on the bench heavily. “Garth Davis’s mistress. She’s dead?”
“Theoretically, yes. In reality no.”
“Chase, you’re not making any sense.”
He sighed. “I know. I’m tired. And now I know for sure I have a mole on my team. I mentioned Kira in the meeting this morning on purpose. She didn’t really call in a tip.”
Luke frowned. “You suspected one of us?”
“I suspected somebody. I had Ms. Laneer socked away in a safe house and good thing I did. Someone fired into her home a few hours ago. They hit a ma
Luke closed his eyes. “And?”
“One stable. One critical. Shooter got away. One of the agents managed to get off a few shots. We think he nicked an arm, but it didn’t slow him down.”
“God, Chase.”
“I know. We made sure we’d watered the flower bed under that window really well. We got a good shoe impression in the dirt. Man’s shoe, size fourteen.”
Luke shook his head. “No way that’s Bobby’s size. I can’t even wear a fourteen.”
“No, she wears a woman’s ten. She wouldn’t have been able to run if she’d been wearing these shoes, plus the deformation was even in the impression. The shoe was fully filled with a size fourteen foot. We got pictures of the shooter, but he had a mask covering his face.”
“So every time we mention someone in team meeting, they get whacked.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I can’t see it being any of us. Even Germanio.”
“Hank wasn’t there when we talked about Je
Luke winced. The Office of Professional Standards was a necessary evil, but every cop, good or bad, instinctively hated them on sight. “What are they going to do?”
“Investigate the hell out of everybody. The investigation goes on, but all cell phone and land line calls will be monitored.”
“So why are you telling me this? Does this mean you don’t suspect me?” Luke tried to keep the a
“I don’t suspect any of you,” Chase said harshly. He took a long drag on the cigarette and started coughing. “Dammit, I can’t even smoke right today.”
“How long since you slept, Chase?”
“Too long, but with this… I can’t sleep knowing we’ve got a traitor in our ranks.”
“What do you want from me?” Luke asked, more kindly.
“I need you to keep your eyes open. That’s one of the reasons I sent you home. When Bobby killed that nurse, she just as easily could have killed Susa
“Am I the only one who knows?”
“Yeah. And if I die mysteriously, OPS will be on your ass like white on rice.”
“Thank you,” Luke said dryly. “I’ll do my damndest to keep you alive, too.”
Chase dumped the popcorn. “Knock yourselves out,” he muttered to the ducks.
“It’ll be okay,” Luke said. “We’ll figure this out.”
“Yeah, but will I have any agents left when we do?”
Atlanta, Sunday, February 4, 3:55 p.m.
From her carefully chosen place on the standing-room-only sidelines, Bobby counted six of them on the stage. Five women Garth had raped plus sweet Susa
But the six women didn’t. They were sober, some visibly nervous. Gretchen French had her arm in a sling. That made Bobby satisfied. But Susa
It didn’t matter, though. Soon she’d be dead, a bullet straight through her heart. The nine-mil in Bobby’s pocket would accomplish the task nicely.
She’d passed through the metal detector with a smile, her press credentials hanging around her neck. Even at a hard glance, the makeup, bra padding, and Maria
But half a lifetime of caring was a hard habit to kick. She still wanted to prove herself. She had pride. She had skill. Soon Charles would see it, along with every person watching live and on the endless CNN loop later.
Bobby resisted the temptation to touch the gun in her pocket. It was real. It was loaded. She’d checked it, taking it into a ladies’ room stall minutes after it had been passed to her from behind, wrapped in a jacket and stuffed in a backpack. Her contact had done well. See, I have something, old man. She had a mole in GBI.
That Paul gave you. And Charles gave you Paul. It left a bitter taste. When she thought back, she realized how she’d been played. That she’d met Paul exactly when she’d needed a cop inside APD had seemed like fate at the time. Now, she knew she’d been just like one of the pawns Charles carried around in that ivory box of his.
But for now, she needed to focus. For the next hour she was Maria
Don’t think about him or you’ll fail. Think about… She searched for a topic. Maria
Their friendship had continued over the years, mostly since Garth had been elected mayor. Since then, a lot of the rich bitches who hadn’t given her the time of day were suddenly more attentive. She’d gone to their charity lunches and smiled, secretly smirking at the knowledge they had welcomed a murderer and a high-priced whore to their Irish-lace-covered tables where they sipped tea from antique silver teapots.
But the day she’d been invited to tea at Judge Vartanian’s house had been very difficult indeed. Sitting amidst the quiet elegance of old money without screaming MINE and grabbing Carol Vartanian by the throat had taken every bit of her self-control. It had taken a meeting with Charles beforehand to calm her. It had taken his assurances that her time would come. That someday she would be sitting in the big house, drinking from her great-grandmother Vartanian’s silver tea set.
That would never happen now. Now that the police knew who she was. Now that Susa
Now even Charles had abandoned her.
Don’t think about Charles. Keep your hate sharp. Think about the Vartanians. She’d so wanted, needed to break Carol Vartanian’s scrawny neck. The judge’s wife had been the reason the Styvesons had been forced to move from the well-paying Dutton parsonage before Bobby’s earliest memory. It had been Carol’s interference that had kept her father in low-paying churches in the middle of nowhere. It had been Carol Vartanian who’d ruined her life. Her mother had told her so.
And it was Susa
Bobby resisted the temptation to fiddle with Maria