Deadly Sins (32 page)

“Mister, you look like a pack of wild dogs got hold of you and used you as a chew toy.”

“A flattering description. And not as far from the truth as you might think.”

“Mrs. Vale is trying to decide if she’d like us to leave while she waits for her husband or if she’ll accept our help getting to the house with a broken leg.” Jaid looked over her shoulder at him.

“Seems like a no-brainer, Sarah. May I call you Sarah?” Still transfixed, the woman nodded. “I’d think the thing to do is have the agents here be of some use to you. Get you to the house. Call your husband and possibly a doctor. And then you can order them off your property.”

“I . . . yeah, I guess you’re right.” Jaid and Shepherd bent to help her to her feet. “But my rifle. Don will skin me if I leave it outside.”

“I’ll get it.” Adam headed in that direction. “But I draw the line at fetching the dead turkeys.”

They got Sarah to her feet, and she slipped her arms around their shoulders. The height difference between Jaid and Shepherd made it a bit awkward, but Jaid thought they would have moved along easily enough if the other woman hadn’t kept twisting her head to watch Adam.

“I’ve never met anyone like him before.” And despite the earlier description she used, Jaid recognized female fascination when presented with it.

“No.” A feeling of resignation filled her. “Nobody has.”

In the end Adam beat them to the house. He had the door open and a steaming mug ready to hand Sarah Vale once Jaid and Shepherd deposited her in a sitting position on the couch. She seemed a bit bemused as she took the mug from him. “Green tea,” he told her. “I found it in the kitchen and assumed you were the tea drinker.”

“Yep.” She took the cap off and raked her free hand through her shoulder-length red hair. Then she frowned. “Wasn’t the door locked?”

“Was it?”

Jaid managed, barely, to avoid rolling her eyes. The woman seemed absolutely addled with Adam in the vicinity.

“Maybe I forgot to lock it. Didn’t figure I’d be gone long.”

“Who would you like to call?”

“Oh.” She took a sip of the hot tea. “I probably ought to call Don. He’s in town. Maybe he can bring the doc out here with him. I’m really not looking forward to bouncing over these roads on the drive into town. My cell is plugged in on the counter in the kitchen.”

Jaid said doubtfully, “I’m pretty sure they’ll want X-rays.”

The other woman waved off her words. “Why bother. I already know it’s broken.”

Raising her brows, Jaid looked at Adam. He headed to the kitchen for the phone.

“I understand you already had one group of agents speak to your husband recently.”

“They tried. Don ran ’em off with the rifle.” She sipped again. “He doesn’t have much use for most in the government. He’s probably not going to like you being here, either.”

Adam pulled a straight-back chair closer to the couch. Sat and handed her the cell.

Since Jaid didn’t appear to be needed, she moved to join Shepherd on the opposite side of the room.

“Get a load of this,” the man muttered as she joined him.

One wall was lined with glassed-in gun cases. It was easy to see where the Vales spent their money. She studied the weapons closely but didn’t observe one that matched the model used to assassinate Justice Reinbeck. But then Vale would hardly be likely to keep that weapon on display if he were behind the shooting.

“Don’t start hollering at me.” Jaid turned at Sarah’s sharply raised voice. She was speaking on her cell. “What’d you want me to do, lay out there until you decided to come home and then maybe a few hours more before you even noticed I wasn’t around?”

A long silence during which the woman’s pale, freckled face flushed a deep red. “The hell I will. What am I supposed to do if I go into shock or something waiting for you? They aren’t hurting anything. Well, if you move your tail, you can tell them that yourself, can’t you?” She flipped the phone shut, transferred her glare from it to Jaid. “He’s not happy about you all being in the house, I can tell you that much.”

That, Jaid thought, was the understatement of the century. She could hear every word the man had spoken on the other end of the line, since he’d been speaking at an eardeafening decibel. “I’m sure he’s mostly worried about you.”

Sarah stared at her as if to determine if Jaid were joking. Then she snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m never going to hear the end of this. Of course, falling out of the tree wasn’t my brainiest move, but he’s pulled some boneheaded stunts, too. Got himself booted out of the marines a few years back for one of them. Didn’t say much about that did I? Too late to cry over spilled milk, I said.”

“That’s a broad-minded way to look at it.”

The look she sent Adam was grateful. “I thought so.”

“So many of our servicemen are returning to civilian life with problems caused by combat. Did he have trouble adjusting when he came back the States?”

His words seemed to require thought. “I don’t know. He’s always been a bit of a hothead. But when he came home, his fuse seemed even shorter. And he has terrible nightmares. He was never very political before, but he sure has strong opinions now. He’s convinced there’s a conspiracy afoot to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.”

Which would explain his letter to Reinbeck, Jaid thought. “It’s easy to see his interest,” she said with a nod toward the wall of guns. “That’s quite a collection. Does your husband compete?”

“They’re all mine,” Sarah said quickly. She was obviously aware of the penalty of buying guns for someone prohibited from owning one. “I got a bunch of trophies in the basement. Every time we add another gun case, I have to clear out more space for it.”

“Do you compete with the rifles or handguns?”

“I’m better with handguns. Walt has his military training, so he’s . . . he used to be a hotshot with the high-powered rifles. His favorite was the M14.”

Since more than half of the weapons in the collection were high-powered rifles, it was clear that Walt’s interests remained the same. Jaid would be willing to bet that a good number of those trophies in the basement had Sarah’s husband’s name on them. From what Jaid recalled, no one checked at those competitions whether the contestants were supposed to have access to guns or not.

But of even more interest was the fact that none of the weapons in the case was the type ballistics had linked to the gun that had killed Reinbeck. “Has he ever handled a Remington 700?”

“Oh, sure.” She moved slightly, wincing as she responded to Jaid’s question. “He talks about me buying one sometimes. But I said, before I bring one more gun in this house, the place could use a coat of paint. I’m sure you noticed,” the aside was intended for Adam. “The whole house could tumble down around our ears before he’d ever worry about the roof.”

“I suppose you get the opportunity to fire a number of these weapons when you go to these competitions.”

“Not just at competitions.” Sarah turned to where Shepherd was still looking at the weapons. “Hey, Slick! Bring me that big black scrapbook on top of the dark brown gun safe there, will you?”

Slick. Suppressing a grin, Jaid slid a gaze at Shepherd. It was an apt enough nickname, one he responded to with little more than a cocked brow. He retrieved the scrapbook and brought it over. Adam vacated the chair he’d been sitting on so the book could be laid on the seat, within reach of Sarah.

“Here’s a photo of me after winning a competition where I used a Glock G34, a personal favorite of mine. I’ve placed before with the Smith & Wesson 625, but I’ve never won without the Glock.”

“It’s a reliable weapon.” Adam perused the picture closely. “Might as well go with what works.”

“That’s what I say, but, Walt, he likes to shake things up. He’s got more wins than me, but I’ve placed more overall.” She seemed to have forgotten the need to keep quiet about her husband’s competing. Sarah reached out to flip the pages to show them. There were a number of pictures with one or the other of them posing, never together, with a trophy or certificate. Jaid tried to position herself close to Adam to get a good view of the photos. She wanted to look for any showing Walt with a Remington 700.

She didn’t find one. But she was intrigued to notice that interspersed between the endless pages of competition photos were tucked campaign letters and posters.

“These must be Walt’s.” Adam reached down for one and unfolded an NRA flier with a list of the organization’s political endorsements for the last election. “You said he’d gotten interested in politics.”

“Yeah. I hate politics and politicians myself. But Walt thinks we have to support those who are committed to preserving second amendment rights.” Adam tucked the sheet back in the book and flipped some more pages. “Like that one. There.” He stopped at a page Sarah was indicating. “Like I said, we don’t only shoot at club-sponsored competitions. More and more politicians are trying to show how pro-gun they are by hosting informal competitions of their own as campaign events. Went to this one last year.” The poster she unfolded was emblazoned with the Reelect Newell banner. Jaid lifted a knowing gaze to Adam. Newell definitely talked the talk. It was hardly surprising that he’d release a photo op of him with a gun.

But seeing Adam’s unswerving attention to the poster, she looked at it again. And noted that it wasn’t just Newell in the photo, but three younger men, all bearing rifles like the senator. Two of them bore what she thought was an unfortunate family resemblance to Newell. The third was Joseph Bailey. The caption below the photo identified the others as Newell’s sons.

But a moment later she saw what held Adam’s focus. Her breath stopped in her throat.

Jonas Newell’s face was wreathed in a creaky smile that struck her as more than a little spooky.

And he was holding a Remington 700.

They’d discussed it on the way back from Purcellville. Their chance of getting Hedgelin to seek a warrant for Senator Newell’s private residence was zero unless they could present him with a copy of that campaign poster. A copy that was proving exceedingly difficult to produce.

They were back at headquarters, having commandeered another small conference room. Jaid had ensured this one had heat before approving it. They were all on their laptops, trolling the Internet for a copy of the poster that had been tucked inside the Vales’ scrapbook. With a singular lack of success.

Adam’s phone rang, interrupting his search. Jaid found herself much more interested in his one-sided conversation than in the pages and pages of online Newell stories. Her own cell buzzed, signaling an incoming text.

With a measure of trepidation, she took it out and read it, her mouth tightening.

Bolton, the son of a bitch, wasn’t giving up. She slipped the phone into her pocket again, not even considering responding. Her lack of response wouldn’t stop him from trying again, however. Sooner or later she was going to have to confront the man once and for all.

And she would. Just as soon as she could figure out a way to make him back off and still have him lose interest in digging up more details regarding Royce’s birth.

Adam ended his call and slipped his phone into his pocket. “That was Sarah Vale. She’s on her way home from the hospital. X-rays showed her leg broken in two places, as predicted by the nurse her husband returned to the house with. She’ll be in a cast for six to eight weeks.”

“We could have taken her there ourselves and saved a lot of time,” Jaid pointed out.

“Apparently, that wasn’t a possibility until her husband was convinced of the need. It doesn’t sound like she makes many decisions without his say-so.”

“Think she knows that as a dishonorably discharged former member of the military, he’s prohibited from buying or owning a weapon?” Shepherd glanced up from his computer as he spoke.