Exposed (29 page)

But not tonight. Tonight she felt like a quivering bundle of nerves, and if he so much as touched her, she was afraid she’d dissolve into tears. And all that talk about not wanting any complications in her life would fly straight out the window.

Obviously taking her silence for assent, he sank into an armchair and started taking off his shoes.

“Brian, I’m serious. You can’t stay here.”

He sighed. “You think I’m trying to hit on you, and I’m not. I’m not even thinking about sex.”

She tipped her head to the side.

“Okay, that’s a lie.
Now
I am. But—”

“Stop. Just stop.” She held up her hand. “This isn’t a good idea. For you to be here.” She watched his gaze drop to her mouth, confirming what she already knew, which was that she couldn’t be around him for an extended period of time. “I don’t need you here.”

Something flashed in his eyes: hurt. But it was quickly
replaced by anger. “Don’t push me, Maddie. It’s been a shit day.”

“You’re telling
me
that? I got shot tonight, thank you very much. And I have to be at work in a few hours.”

He looked startled. “You’re seriously going to work tomorrow?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why the hell
would
you?”

“Because it’s my job. I’ve got evidence to send out. I’ve got prosecutors breathing down my neck who have trials to prepare for.”

“Can’t you take a day off?”

“No, as a matter of fact. I’ve got responsibilities, deadlines. You think you’re the only one who has a job that matters?”

“Fine.” He tossed his watch onto the table. “Work it is, then. But your car’s not back yet, so looks like I’m driving.”

Scott pulled off the highway and parked his truck on the shoulder. He surveyed the area, glancing behind him at the ridge about a quarter-mile back, which ran parallel to the road. He’d just hiked to the top of it and taken a look around. It was a good place to set up and wait. According to the police report he’d read early that morning, that was exactly what had happened. Someone had staged an accident at the juncture of two rural highways, called Maddie to the scene, and then lain in wait for her.

Anger tightened Scott’s gut as he got out of the
truck. He glanced around, noting the orange spray-paint marks denoting the place where her car had been before it was towed away.

Word of Maddie’s attack had spread through the law-enforcement community like wildfire. Cops, paramedics, and firefighters—basically, most of the area’s first responders—had heard about the incident before they’d finished their morning coffee.

People were bothered by the attack on a visceral level. Scott understood why. Anyone who made a habit of showing up at crime scenes, often at night and alone, to sort through the aftermath of violent events harbored a secret fear of what had happened to Maddie.

The incident went beyond the day-to-day hazards of the job. Most people accepted those dangers before they scribbled their names into a scene log for the first time. Crime scenes were messy. Unpredictable. Often, the people who’d committed the crimes were still around when first responders arrived. They could be high, drunk, crazy—take your pick. And they were known to turn on police like rabid animals.

But what happened to Maddie was different. It was an ambush. And hearing about it rekindled a deep-rooted fear that every first responder had and no one wanted to talk about. Everyone dreaded the prospect of being summoned to a scene to help a victim and then becoming one.

Scott glanced up the roadway but saw no orange paint marks for the other two vehicles, because those vehicles, according to the report, were “unconfirmed.” Maddie claimed to have seen a black tow truck and a white hatchback at the scene of her shooting, but when
FBI agents and sheriff’s deputies arrived, they’d seen only Maddie’s Prius and her abandoned equipment.

Scott glanced around. The air smelled of cedar and rain. The ground was still damp from last night’s storm. He hiked up the road about fifty feet, carefully scouring the area to his right. The buzz of tires on asphalt had him turning around, and he wasn’t surprised to see an FBI sedan pulling to a stop behind his truck. Beckman got out and slammed the door.

“Looks like you’re doing the same thing I am.” The agent walked over. Scott noted the crisp dress shirt and tie and was glad he worked for a private lab that didn’t require him to wear a noose around his neck unless he had to appear in court.

Beckman stopped beside the orange markers and frowned down at the pavement. He glanced at Scott. “No bullets recovered.”

“That’s what the report said.”

Beckman watched him carefully, probably trying to figure out if there was a theory buried in that statement somewhere. There wasn’t. Not yet. But one of the things Scott had always loved about ballistics work was that it was based on the simple laws of science.

“What goes up must come down,” Scott said now.

Beckman nodded. They were on the same page. They were on the same page about Maddie, too. Not that Scott was fucking her. He’d never had the privilege. But he cared about what happened to her, and the prospect of her getting ambushed on the job was unacceptable. Scott wouldn’t stand for it.

And he could see Beckman wouldn’t, either, which
was a big point in the man’s favor. Added to his military service, it made Scott inclined to trust him.

They trekked up the roadway now, scanning the shoulder off to the right.

“Shooter was on the ridge,” Beckman said. “At least, according to the report. You been up there?”

“No brass, no beer cans, no cigarette butts.”

“That would be too easy.”

Scott paused at a curve in the road. He studied the stand of oak trees, then turned back to look at the rocky outcropping.

“You got a laser kit?” Beckman asked.

“I’ll bring it out tonight, if it comes to that. Anyway, because of the rain, it might not be accurate. I was hoping I might find something hiding in plain sight.”

Beckman crossed the ditch with a long stride. He grabbed a tree limb and pulled himself to the top of the embankment, getting an impressive amount of mud on his shoes. Scott followed.

“Maddie reported three shots,” Beckman said, reiterating what was in the paperwork. “One sounded like it hit metal, she said. Since her car is clean, we can assume it hit the white hatchback, near where she was standing.”

“Makes sense,” Scott agreed. “She said the tow truck was a good twenty yards up.”

“So we can probably forget recovering that one. It’s probably in a junkyard somewhere, along with the car. That leaves two rounds.”

“One of the Clarke County deputies says he spent an hour out here with a metal detector right where Maddie says she was shot.”

“Never met the man. You trust him?”

Scott shrugged. “He’s pretty green.”

“You have a metal detector?”

“In the truck. I wanted to eyeball it first.” He did a slow turn, noting everything in the two-hundred-seventy-degree arc that he figured for the target area. Maddie had said it was the first shot that hit her, so he figured that was the most carefully aimed. The other rounds might have gone wild if the shooter panicked.

But Scott wasn’t counting on a panicked gunman. The attack had been carefully planned and orchestrated. It involved at least two people—a shooter and a driver—and three separate vehicles. And if Craig Rodgers was to be believed, it also involved the theft of a deputy’s cell phone.

Scott skimmed his gaze over the dirt, the leaves, the tree trunks. He looked at a tangle of mesquite and studied a nearby oak.

A yellow chip in the brown bark caught his eye.

“Look,” Beckman said, noticing the same thing. He walked over and crouched at the base of the tree as Scott reached into one of his zipper pockets.

“You have a knife?”

“Nope.” Scott pulled out a mini flashlight and aimed it at the wound in the tree. Embedded deep in the wood was a shiny bit of metal. “I’ve got a handsaw in the car. Better to remove the whole chunk, then dig it out at the lab. Metal tools could screw up the lands and grooves.” He paused. “I bet that’s a three-oh-eight. In wood like that, we might even get some rifling marks.”

“You’re thinking deer rifle.”

“Maybe a Remington 700. That’s what I’d use, anyway.”
He looked at Beckman. “We’ve got a bullet. Now we just need to find the gun.”

Brian swapped with Sam to have the late shift at Maddie’s. He spent a few minutes getting an update from the agents parked in front of her house before knocking on her door. The peephole went dark, and he heard a few faint beeps as she deactivated her security system and pulled open the door.

She was in the jeans and black sweater she’d worn to work earlier, but her hair was pulled back now, and she’d stuck a pencil in it to hold it in place.

“What happened to your sling?”

“It was in my way.” She stepped back to let him in. “I don’t have a broken bone, so I don’t really need it.”

He glanced at her bandage and felt a fresh surge of frustration. Maybe she sensed his mood, because she turned without comment and walked into the kitchen. He followed her, glancing at his shoes to make sure he wasn’t tracking mud on the floor. He’d changed into ATAC boots and tactical pants earlier so he could hit the firing range.

“You hungry?” she asked over her shoulder. “Sam brought sandwiches. Meatball subs, I think.”

“I could use some food.” Brian peered into the white paper sack sitting on the counter, and the scent of Italian seasonings wafted up to him. Still hot. He pulled out a foil-wrapped sandwich.

“We need to change out that peephole,” he told her.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It goes dark when you stand behind it. They make ones that don’t.”

He glanced up, and she looked annoyed.

“How’s the arm today?”

“Fine,” she obviously lied. “Did you talk to Agent Hicks? He just left here about three minutes ago.”

Something in her tone caught his attention. “We connected on the phone. What’s wrong with Hicks?”

“Nothing. He tried to ma’am me to death, though.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a jug of cranberry juice.

“Beer?” she asked.

“No, thanks.”

He took a plate down from the cabinet. He set his sandwich on it, then got out a glass and filled it with water as she watched him.

Yes, he’d learned his way around her kitchen. He’d learned his way around a lot of things this week, and he could tell it made her uneasy.

He’d discovered that she wasn’t much of a housekeeper, but she kept her photo equipment meticulously arranged on a wall of shelves in her guest bedroom. The room also was home to a collection of gourmet cookbooks that didn’t seem to be getting much use. And Brian had noticed the rocking chair in the corner with the tattered Peter Rabbit sitting on the cushion.

She poured cranberry juice and added a splash of Grey Goose from the bottle she kept in her liquor cabinet. It wasn’t fully stocked, just vodka and a bottle of expensive scotch about two-thirds full. Maddie’s ex struck him as a scotch man, and Brian wondered if he was in the habit of dropping by.

“You can sit in the living room,” Maddie said. “My table’s a mess.”

“What’re you working on?”

“Framing.”

She returned to the dining area, where she checked the screen of the laptop that was open at the far end. The center of the table was blanketed with sheets of cardboard in various shades of beige. On the far end of the table was a large paper cutter and a metal T-square.

“It’s a service I offer my clients,” she explained. “Frame shops charge a fortune. I can undercut them and still make a profit.”

Brian set his plate down on one of the chairs that had been shoved back against the wall. He stood in the doorway and chomped into his sandwich.

She glanced at the computer again before pulling a sheet of cardboard from the stack. Taupe was the color, same as the walls in his apartment.

“It’s a time-consuming process.”

He eyed the ruler and the curls of cardboard littering the table. “Looks tedious.”

“It is. But it’s a good way to channel nervous energy. Mind if I keep going?”