“When is the arraignment?” Janet asked.
“Tomorrow. Shoals says he doubts the judge will grant bail.”
“Three counts of capital murder?” Megan said. “Not a chance.”
“That’s great news, Mia. We’re so happy for you.” Janet hugged her.
“Thank you all for everything.” Mia hugged her back. “I guess you’ll want us out of the guest cabin.”
Jack frowned. “Did anyone say that? You stay as long as you like. You’re among friends here, Mia. Feel free to come visit us anytime.”
Mia’s smile lit up the room. “Thank you.”
Nate headed toward the back of the house. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel like celebrating. Got any good champagne in the wine cellar, old man?”
“Damn straight, I do.” Jack walked up to Joaquin and Mia. “I hope you’ll join us for supper because I’m grilling steaks in your honor.”
Mia kissed Jack’s cheek. “How could we say no to that?”
20
Saying goodbye to the cabin was harder than Mia had imagined it would be. Drained by another night of bad dreams, she found herself close to tears as she packed her things and got ready to leave. The five happiest days of her life had been lived here. The cabin had been their sanctuary, their refuge, their little love nest.
Joaquin must have sensed her sadness because he pulled her aside while Nate loaded her bag into his truck. “Nothing is changing between us, mi amor. I was hoping you’d let me stay at your place tonight.”
Some of the tension she was carrying faded. “I would love that. I don’t think I could survive going cold-turkey off you just now. I warned you I’d get addicted.”
He kissed her, grinned. “I’m happy to be your fix.”
Fingers laced, they sat side by side in the front of Nate’s pickup, Mia doing her best to ignore the lingering anxiety that gnawed at her.
Powell was locked up. The FBI was sure he was the killer. It was over.
She drew in a breath, released it, willing herself to let go.
But a sick feeling stuck with her through the day, playing in her head like a wrong note, niggling at her, and she couldn’t shake it. Not when they unpacked, went shopping for groceries, and made lunch together. Not when they went to Joaquin’s gym to work out. Not when she drove Joaquin to the police impound yard so he could get his truck out of evidence and towed to a garage. Not even when they had dinner with Joaquin’s mom and dad, who treated Mia as if she were a long-lost daughter.
She thought she was doing a pretty good job of hiding her anxiety—until they got back to her condo and Joaquin brought it up.
“Hey, you don’t have to pretend with me. You’ve been troubled by something all day. Don’t keep it to yourself.”
So much for hiding anything from him.
“Do you have emotional radar or something?”
He drew her into his arms, chuckling. “I don’t need radar to read your emotions. I know you well enough to see when you’re upset. It’s in your eyes, hermosa. Everything you feel is in your eyes.”
She sank into the comfort of his embrace. “I’ve got this feeling that something is wrong, that something terrible is about to happen, and I can’t shake it.”
“You’ve been through a lot this past couple of weeks. I think anyone in your shoes would feel the way you do right now.” He didn’t use the term post-traumatic stress, but she knew that’s what he meant.
“I suppose that makes sense.” But it didn’t. Not really. “I served in a combat zone with a man who hated me and tried to make my life hell, and I didn’t feel like this. When I close my eyes, I’m there at the elevator again. When I’m awake, I keep seeing him standing up there on that balcony looking at me and then walking away.”
She pulled away from Joaquin and walked to the window, feeling too itchy to sit still. “It’s like I’m forgetting something—something important. I can’t put my finger on it. Sorry. I’m not much fun tonight.”
Joaquin got to his feet, came up behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t apologize. I don’t expect you to entertain me. What you’re going through—this is real life. I told you I wasn’t going anywhere, and I meant it. Tell me, Mia—what are you feeling?”
“Powell’s arrest—something doesn’t fit.”
“You’re not sure the cops have the right guy.”
She turned, stared up at him, his words hitting the nail on the head, unleashing a wave of panic. “I’m not. I can’t say why. I’m being stupid. It’s probably just stress, right? If the cops and the FBI say Powell did it…”
“Do you want to talk it through?”
A part of her just wanted to forget, but she couldn’t think about anything else at the moment. “I’ll get paper and pencils.”
Joaquin headed for the kitchen. “I’ll pour the wine.”
Joaquin looked at his blank sheet of paper. “Okay, what am I doing?”
Mia shook her head, frustration and anxiety lining her face. “Hell if I know.”
“Why don’t you list the things that make you feel uneasy?”
She did that, naming them as she went. “Why would Powell want to kill Andy and Jason? He thought Andy was funny—the company idiot, always getting himself into trouble. Everyone liked Jason.”
Joaquin grabbed at a straw. “Did either of them give away anything during the investigation into the looting that might have upset him or made him look bad?”
Mia thought about this for a moment, then shook her head. “I don’t know. I doubt Andy would have said anything. He was involved himself. Jason was the one who figured out that they’d been exposed to mustard agent. I remember him asking again and again how they’d been exposed, and no one would tell him.”
She made a note next to Jason’s name, then wrote down her next couple of questions. “Powell isn’t an idiot. Why would he leave shell casings and slugs? Why would he start killing people now all these years later?”
“Sometimes people grow more bitter over time. His life went to shit after Iraq, didn’t it? He went from being an Army officer to a disgraced asshole and a junky. Maybe he’s spent these past few years growing angry and vengeful.”
Mia wrote that down, too. “Why did he try to frame me if he planned to kill me?”
That made no sense to Joaquin either. “Yeah, I got nothing there—unless he’s half out of his mind on drugs or some shit.”
Mia hadn’t touched her wine, the distress on her face making Joaquin’s chest ache. “This isn’t helping.”
Joaquin reached over, pushed her wine closer. “Try to relax.”
She picked up the glass, sipped, set it down again. “Okay, I’m relaxed.”
He bit back a grin. “Right.”
“We’re getting nowhere.”
“We’re just getting started.” Joaquin had an idea. “Shoals talked about this being a puzzle. What are the missing pieces? There are questions about why he framed you. There’s Powell’s motivation for killing Andy and Jason. There are the questions you’ve already written down. There’s physical stuff, too, like Frank’s wallet and Jason’s wallet. There’s Andy’s body. He was the first to be killed, but…”
Chills skittered down Joaquin’s spine.
He looked up to find Mia staring at him through wide eyes.
She shot to her feet again, paced the length of her small dining room. “That afternoon when I saw Andy, he was angry. He felt betrayed by the Army. He blamed me for the fact that he didn’t get an honorable discharge and lost his disability benefits. Mustard agent left him with constant headaches, and he thought the VA owed him treatment. He didn’t understand that many service members exposed to mustard agent have been denied disability benefits. It has nothing to do with anything I reported and everything to do with mustard agent. In other words, it’s political.”
“What about Jason and Frank? Did he have any reason to want to kill them?”
Mia picked up her wine, sipped, then sat a
gain, a thoughtful frown on her face. “I was there with Andy in medical. He was terrified. He had inhaled the gas and gotten liquid agent on his skin and in his eyes. He shouted at Jason to help him, but Jason had a half-dozen others there, too. He was angry that Jason didn’t know what to do for them. Jason did eventually speak with investigators.”
“What about Frank?”
“Frank was the brigade commander and oversaw the initial investigation. He couldn’t stand Andy. He shouted at Andy in front of the entire company that Andy was a waste of a uniform. He probably played a role in Andy’s discharge.”
“What was Andy’s rank? What was Jason’s?”
“Their rank? Andy was an E2—private second class. Jason was young. I think he was a first lieutenant at the time.”
Joaquin took up his pencil, wrote down the men’s names again—and Mia’s—in order of rank. Andy was at the bottom, and everyone else involved was above him. “If it’s Andy, he’s taking out his chain of command.”
“Jason wasn’t in his chain of command.”
“But he was an officer, right?”
Mia stood, looked over at him, her face going pale. “The police have been through all of this, right? They must have eliminated Andy as a suspect somehow.”
“There’s only one way to find out. I’m calling Wu.”
Mia did her best to explain everything to Wu on speaker phone, telling him about her growing sense that something was wrong and walking him through the details of what she and Joaquin had discussed. “I can’t find any reason why Powell would kill Andy and Jason. It just doesn’t make sense until you flip it around. Andy blamed all of us for the fact that his life was a mess.”
Wu didn’t sound particularly impressed. “Ms. Starr, I see why you’re concerned, and I understand why you’ve reached this conclusion. But we’ve kept a close eye on Meyer—his credit cards, his bank account, his cell phone and even his car. It’s gotten us nowhere. If he’s alive out there, he has turned his back on everything he owned. He has no hope of returning without giving himself away.”
Mia hadn’t realized that. “What about the bloody towels and bath mat that ended up in the wood chipper? Was the blood his?”
“We did take hairs and a semen sample from his sheets so that we’d have something in case we found a body. I don’t know if they’ve processed it yet. We didn’t put a rush on it or the DNA in the towels, just the samples you two gave us and the blood from the crime scene. I can check on the other stuff in the morning.”
“Why can’t you check on it now?” Joaquin asked.
“Because, Mr. Ramirez, even people who work at the CBI lab need sleep.” Wu softened his tone. “How about you two come to the station tomorrow morning and we go through this then? We should have DNA back on Powell. We’ll know definitively whether he was in that parking garage or not. I suspect we’ll find that he’s our doer. He fits the height and weight of the individual in the security footage.”
“He and Andy were close in height,” Mia said.
Wu went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “The son of a bitch lied about his whereabouts and didn’t want to give DNA. We had to strap him down and take blood, because he wouldn’t open his mouth. Why would he do that unless he knows DNA will incriminate him? On more than one occasion, he told law enforcement how much he’d like to see you dead.”
Joaquin glared at the phone, muttered something in Spanish, his gaze softening when he looked at Mia. “What about Mia’s safety? You confiscated her firearm. Can you at least put a patrol on her house?”
“I can do that. I’ll do my best to get your piece back to you quickly.”
That was something.
“Goodnight,” Wu said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Joaquin pulled out his cell. “I’m calling Darcangelo.”
They went through the whole conversation again, telling Julian about Mia’s misgivings and their suspicions about Andy.
“I asked Wu if he could check on the DNA from the towels and bath mat. He said he’d do it in the morning. Mia would sleep a lot easier if we knew definitively that the blood belonged to Meyer.”
Julian must have been taking notes because he repeated what they’d told him. “I can call the lab, see if anyone’s there. If they haven’t processed it yet—you said Wu didn’t put a rush on it—then it’s not going to help you at all. You said Wu is putting in for extra patrols on your street?”
“Yes. I’m not sure Wu will follow through, but that’s what he said.”
“Wu is a good guy. If he said he’ll do it, he will. I’ll check to make sure the order has gone through. What’s your address, Mia?”
Mia gave him the information, then thanked him. “I’m sure I sound crazy.”
“You don’t sound crazy at all. You sound scared, and I don’t blame you. Let me check on this, and I’ll call you back. You still got your Glock, Ramirez?”
“Yeah, and Mia has a shotgun upstairs.”
“Good. Keep the firearms close by and ready.”
“Will do. Thanks, man. I owe you.”
“No, you don’t.” Julian ended the call.
Mia let out a relieved breath. “I know this will sound nuts, but I feel better. Just knowing they’ll look into this makes me feel safer.”
He took her hands, kissed them. “If you feel safer, then it was time well spent.”
They settled on the sofa, Mia’s shotgun propped against the wall nearby, and turned on the TV news, waiting for Julian to call them back. Wall Street down three hundred points. A school shooting in Alabama. More turmoil in Syria.
“This war—I feel like it’s never going to end,” Mia said.
Joaquin’s phone rang, making Mia jump.
“It’s Darcangelo.” He answered. “Hey, what did you—”
Joaquin’s eyes went hard, his jaw tight, making Mia’s pulse ratchet. “Got it. Yeah. Will do. Thanks, man.”
He ended the call, got to his feet. “The lab started the DNA test on the towels this morning. The blood on the towels and bath mat isn’t human blood at all. They don’t know what it is yet, but it’s not human.”
Mia’s mouth went dry.
Joaquin ran up the stairs behind Mia. “Darcangelo has a unit on the way. They’ll escort us to the police station and from there, Darcangelo will take us up to the Cimarron. He woke up Wu, who put a BOLO out on Meyer.”
Mia stopped so suddenly that Joaquin bumped into her, a stunned expression on her face. “Powell’s leg. His shrapnel wound. He has a limp. The man at the nightclub, the man who shot at me—he didn’t. That’s it. That’s what’s been eating at me.”
¡Carajo! That right there settled it.
The killer wasn’t Powell. It had never been Powell.
It was Andrew Meyer.
“That’s what your nightmares have been trying to tell you.” Joaquin texted that information to Darcangelo, then followed Mia the rest of the way up the stairs.
He hadn’t yet unpacked, so he grabbed his toiletries out of her bathroom, shoved them into his backpack and was ready to go. Mia had put everything away, so he helped her pack panties, toiletries, and a few changes of clothes into her duffel bag. They walked downstairs together and put their bags by the door.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
Joaquin pulled Mia away from the windows, not sure who might be out there. He was taking no chances where her life was concerned. He drew her into his arms. “You are incredible.”
“Not so incredible. If I had remembered the limp sooner, the police might have Meyer in custody instead of Powell.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You haven’t seen Powell in, what, five years?”
“I guess. You did your part tonight, too.”
“I supposed I helped—a little.”
She gave him a sardonic look. “You think?”
They sat on the couch, Joaquin glancing compulsively at his watch. “Darcangelo said the officer ought to be here in ten to fifteen minutes.??
?
It seemed like an eternity with Mia’s life potentially on the line.
While Mia ran upstairs to use the restroom, Joaquin checked his pistol again, tempted to keep it in hand. Using what he’d learned at the gun range with Hunter and Darcangelo, he found himself evaluating her condo in terms of security. Sliding glass door. Lots of windows. Open floor plan. Poor cover.
Yeah, not ideal.
He glanced at his watch again, saw that fifteen minutes had already passed. Where was this cop?
Mia hurried down the stairs. “The police car just pulled into the parking lot.”
“We’ll stay inside until he comes to the door.”
“Right. Okay.” Mia sat, her gaze moving over the windows.
A few seconds passed and then…
Red, blue, white. Red, blue, white.
The colors of police overheads flashed against her drawn curtains.
They got to their feet, Mia heading for the door.
Joaquin drew her back. “Wait. He’ll knock.”
“Okay. Have it your way, Mr. Protective.”
“Damn straight.”
Footsteps on the stairs. The chatter of a police pack set.
The doorbell rang.
Pistol in hand, Joaquin looked out the peep hole and recognized Petersen. “Oh, hey, we’re going to have a nice little reunion. Remember Petersen?”
“How could I forget the cop who patted me down, cuffed me, and shoved me in the back of his car?” She picked up her duffel, slung it over her shoulder.
Joaquin opened the door. “Hey, Petersen.”
“Ramirez. You two ready to go?”
Joaquin turned to pick up his bag.
It happened all at once. Gunshots. Mia’s scream. The stunned look in Petersen’s eyes as he toppled down the stairs.
Joaquin raised his pistol just as something hit him hard in center mass. His legs seemed to disappear beneath him, the world fading around him.
He’d been shot.
Mia.
She grabbed him, tried to pull him out of the doorway just as a man in a black hoodie stepped out from behind her car.