Counter attack, p.13
Counter Attack, page 13
“No, but maybe the camera can.”
Alex released a sigh of relief as she unmuted her phone. “We pulled it off.”
“What did we pull off?” Then Kayla frowned and pointed at J. R. “What’s he doing here?”
“It’s a long story,” Alex said.
Nathan crossed his arms. “And you shouldn’t have followed us. You’re not trained to investigate.”
“I didn’t mean to investigate. Like I told Alex, I was worried about her, and when she got out at the school, I don’t know, I wanted to know what was going on.”
Nathan sighed, and before he could say anything else, Alex held up her hand. “Don’t do it again. If those men had seen you or heard you, it would have blown it for us as well.”
J. R. cleared his throat. “Think I’ll head back to my car. If I hear anything you need to know, I’ll give you a call.”
“Thanks for the information.” Nathan tilted his head toward Kayla. “Can we drop you off? My truck is parked over by the buses.”
“I’m good. My car is parked that way at the railroad crossing.” She pointed down the track.
“See you in the morning,” Nathan called after her. Without looking back, she gave him a thumbs-up.
He shook his head. “That girl has way too much self-confidence.”
“Yeah, but if she does apply to the academy, the instructors there will take her down a notch or two. Then she’ll make a great detective.”
He smiled. “She reminds me of you.”
“I was never that cocky.”
This time he laughed out loud. “Yeah, right. Come on, let’s go.”
Nathan took her hand as they climbed the steep hill to the tracks, then they walked single file until they reached the place to cut over to his truck. A sense of peace settled in her heart. They worked well together as a team, something that wasn’t easy for her.
After her mom died and her dad dumped her on her grandparents, she’d created barriers to keep people out. Even in middle school, she’d kept her nose buried in a book so people wouldn’t approach her. As a cop, she’d been a team player at work, but Alex had never joined the others at the coffeeshop-slash-diner where they hung out.
She’d even found herself trying to withdraw from her grandparents since she’d returned home, especially after Gramps had the heart attack. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing him or Gram.
Nathan stopped walking and turned toward her. “You okay?”
She glanced down at their entwined hands then slowly raised her gaze to find him staring at her. The moonlight bathed him in a soft glow, and when he pulled her toward him, his embrace was so inviting. Funny how she remembered that she fit so well in his arms. And that he was just the right height that she could rest her head on his chest and feel his heart beat in time with her own.
Alex ignored the voice in her head yelling for her to move out of his arms. She was too tired.
“I’ve missed our friendship,” Nathan said softly.
“Me too.” Friendship. That was all she wanted. Right? So why did his words hurt? Before she could dig deeper into her feelings, her phone rang, shattering the quiet.
He dropped his arms from around her. “You better answer that.”
With a fortifying breath, she stepped back and fished her phone out of her back pocket. Dylan Wells. He wouldn’t be calling unless it was important.
“Stone,” she answered and put the call on speaker.
“Alex, thought you might need to know that we discovered a photo with writing on the back. It was under the driver seat of your SUV, and I’m assuming it’s from Gina Norman’s killer since a pawn is taped to it.”
Nathan tensed beside her as icy fingers gripped Alex’s stomach. How had the killer even known the vehicle she would be driving? “What’s in the photo?”
“It looks like a chessboard with the White king on its side. There’s an O minus written across the top.”
Alex didn’t have to understand chess to know the killer meant the note as a taunt, indicating she’d lost the game. She lifted her chin. The killer may have meant the note to intimidate her, but for Alex, it was a challenge. She would just have to prove the killer wrong. “Anything else on the photo?”
“There’s something written on the back.”
“Read it.”
Dylan cleared his throat and started reading. “This was to let you know I can find you anytime I want to.”
Alex swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. A mind game. That’s all it was. She couldn’t let the killer get into her head. “Anything else?”
There was a hesitation. She cringed, waiting for more bad news, and beside her, Nathan leaned closer to the phone, intensity radiating off him.
“Taylor found a tracking device under the back bumper.”
Alex shouldn’t have been surprised. “Get rid of it. Whoever put it there would expect our CSI team to find it.”
“Done,” Dylan said. “It’ll be in the property room with the other evidence.”
She disconnected the call and turned to Nathan. “Now all we have to do is find out who had access to my SUV.”
“Yes, but I keep coming back to why would anyone want to kill you in the first place.”
31
Nathan and Alexis were both quiet as he drove to her grandparents’ house. Although his mind formulated a plan for tomorrow night based on what they’d seen and heard at the field house, the memory of almost losing Alexis when her SUV wove all over the road kept intruding. If the SUV had crashed and seriously injured or killed her . . .
Alexis getting shot last month had reawakened his feelings for her like Mount Vesuvius erupting, but it had taken the near-wreck to make him realize if he didn’t do something, he would lose her for good. But what if she didn’t feel the same way? She certainly hadn’t said anything when he’d told her he missed their friendship.
What had he been expecting? Her to say she’d made a mistake ditching him years ago? That she still loved him? He stifled a sigh.
Yeah, sure, they got along fine . . . but what if she only thought of him as a friend? Nathan didn’t think he could take that. It’d be better to wait and not risk outright rejection.
He turned into the drive that circled the house and kept to the right, pulling around to a side patio that gave Alexis direct access to her bedroom. Then he turned to her. “Are you going to stay here, at your grandparents’, or get your own place?”
Alexis blew out a breath. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. For right now, I’ll probably stay here so I can keep an eye on Gramps. Gram told me this morning he wanted to start driving again, and I don’t think he should.”
“Good luck with that,” Nathan said and climbed out of the truck, scanning the area. The full moon was directly overhead now, making the shadowy interior of the woods adjacent to the Stone property even blacker.
Seeing nothing that alarmed him, he jogged around to the passenger door, surprised Alexis had actually waited until he opened the truck door for her. “Do you need the step?”
“I’m good. Thanks for bringing me home.” Once her feet were on the ground, she shivered and pulled her jacket close. “When did it turn so chilly?”
On the way home, she’d taken off the body armor and the baseball cap and loosened her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders. Now one strand clung to her cheek, and he wanted to brush it back. Instead, he found his voice. “I, ah, think it’s been chilly all along. I just don’t think we were focused on the temps.”
She glanced up at him, and the air charged between them. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the chill in the air now.
“You’re probably right.”
Her voice was soft, taking him back to other evenings when he’d brought Alexis home, and the memory of kisses they’d shared speared his heart like a flaming arrow. Maybe he would risk—
The sharp report of a rifle followed by his passenger window shattering into a thousand pieces sent his heart into orbit.
“Get down!”
Alexis dropped to the ground and rolled under the pickup. Two more bullets kicked up gravel as Nathan yanked his Glock from the holster and followed her.
They crawled out on the other side of the truck. Alexis had her phone out, calling 911 as they worked their way to the patio, where they knelt behind the brick half-wall. “Help is on the way,” she said, keeping her voice low.
Nathan strained to hear anything . . . footsteps, a twig breaking, but silence surrounded them. From the next street over, a motor revved and tires screeched. He slipped his gun in the holster. “I think whoever it was is gone.”
Alexis nodded and holstered her gun as she leaned against the side of the house. After a minute, she said, “I certainly hope it isn’t past midnight.”
“What do you mean?”
Sirens approached. “Just that I don’t want this to be the first thing happening in a new day.”
He stared at her, and they both burst out laughing and couldn’t stop. Before the squad cars reached them, Nathan drew a deep breath and got control of himself.
Alexis did the same thing. “What is wrong with us?”
“Reaction to being shot at?”
“I couldn’t stop laughing.”
“Me either.” He took another deep breath. “Did you get a sense of where the bullets were coming from?”
“The wooded area.” She nodded to the property next door. “There’s a street on the other side. That’s probably where the shooter parked.”
The next hour passed quickly as they filled in the two Russell County deputies and Nathan’s night officer who came to the scene, as well as Sheriff Stone, who was awakened by the commotion. Half of the county CSI team in the form of Taylor showed up and dug a slug from Nathan’s dashboard.
After Taylor packed up her evidence and the three officers left, Nathan and Alexis sat with the sheriff. Carson rubbed his jaw with his thumb. “What if you’d been shot again . . . or worse? Maybe I shouldn’t have made you chief deputy.”
“Gramps! I can take care of myself. Besides, I don’t think the shooter meant to hit us.”
“Unless the shooter was a really bad shot,” Nathan said.
Carson nodded slowly. “If they were that bad, they wouldn’t have used a rifle to attack you. Maybe they were just trying to scare you.”
Alexis shivered. “I think they were sending a message to let me know they can get to me whenever they want.”
“I don’t like it either way.” Nathan stared toward the woods where the shots had come from. “Even a bad shooter gets lucky sometimes, and if the purpose is to scare you, it’ll escalate.”
Carson nodded his agreement and then turned to Alexis. “Have Chattanooga send me all your cases. While I’m sitting here doing nothing, I can comb through them and maybe find a connection.”
“Good idea.” Nathan studied Carson. It was good to see that he was getting stronger and told him so.
The sheriff grunted. “Doesn’t seem like it to me. I don’t like standing on the sidelines.”
“No one does,” Alexis said softly, then she leaned forward. “It would be great if you could take a look at the files—I trust you a whole lot more than I do Madden.”
So did Nathan. He turned to her. “How about you? Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Shook up but alive.”
“Thanks for having her back,” Carson said.
“She’d do the same for me.” Nathan tapped the body armor she’d put on right after her deputies arrived. “Don’t take this off again until you’re in the house.”
“It’s one thing to have my back and another to hover.” She crossed her arms. “And you’re hovering.”
He shrugged. “I can’t help it.”
“That’s your last get-out-of-jail-free card.” Then she smiled. “But you don’t have to worry about me taking my body armor off until I’m undressing for bed.”
“Thank you.”
Alexis looked toward the wooded area. “I can’t believe I thought this job would be safer than the streets of Chattanooga. That I’d just be pushing papers. Tonight certainly changed my mindset.”
“It’s not every chief deputy who has someone gunning for them,” Carson said. “Russell County is generally a safe place, or as safe as any place can be.”
“I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies, so are we all agreed the shooter was probably the Queen’s Gambit Killer?”
“I think that’s a good conclusion,” Carson said.
She cocked her head. “How well do you know J. R.?”
“Who’s J. R.?” Carson asked.
“J. R. Whittaker,” Nathan said. “You should remember him. I arrested him when I was your deputy.”
“You arrested a lot of people.”
“We raided a drug party, and he offered to give up the dealer who arranged the party if we let him go, and you did.” When he still looked puzzled, Nathan added, “He’s Marilyn Whittaker’s son.”
“Oh, now I remember him. Lives in Chattanooga now.”
“Right. Still visits his mom sometimes.”
Alexis tilted her head. “So he’s been your CI since you were Gramps’s deputy?”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess he has. We went to Chatt State together before I transferred to UT, and then I ran into him occasionally when he came to Pearl Springs to visit his mother. Even back in school, J. R. liked to see how close he could get to the fire without getting burned. Why are you asking?”
“That night at the Lemon Tree when I was trying to lure the killer out, he was on my radar. Then he shows up here tonight . . .” She glanced toward the wooded area.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction. Both times he was meeting with me. Besides, I don’t think J. R. has the stomach for killing or scaring anyone, and he has helped me identify some of the drug dealers coming here from Chattanooga.”
Carson’s eyes narrowed. “They think that because we are a small town in a small county, we have a backwater sheriff and police department.”
“Absolutely. They start with the high school kids, get them to dealing to their friends, then go wide open. Back when J. R. first cooperated with us, the dealer found out pretty quick we wouldn’t tolerate dealers moving into our county.”
32
Alex peeled off the right Velcro tab on her body armor and slipped off the vest, tossing it on her bed. Nathan was right. She shouldn’t have taken it off until right now. It was a rookie mistake, one she wouldn’t make again.
What a day. She checked her watch. Two a.m. Had it only been seventeen hours since she was sworn in as chief deputy? And someone had tried to kill her twice. And had killed Gina Norman. Her stomach churned. Not the kind of day she’d expected at all, and if she didn’t get some rest, she wouldn’t be worth anything tomorrow. Make that today. She climbed into bed and didn’t fight the encroaching sleep.
At six, Alex’s alarm woke her from a troubled dream. In it she was driving the hairpin turns on Monteagle Mountain and couldn’t stop her car. Even though she was awake, her heart raced like she was still in the dream.
She sat on the side of her bed, trying to shake the dream, and looked up when there was a light tap at her door. “Come in.”
Gram opened the door and entered the room with a cup in one hand. “I heard your alarm go off and thought you might need this.”
“Bless you,” Alex said as she took the steaming cup and inhaled the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. “Sorry if we woke you last night.”
“Your grandfather is the light sleeper, not me.” Gram chuckled. “I think a bomb could go off in the bed, and I wouldn’t wake up until I got my seven hours of sleep.”
“How is Gramps?”
“Fine. I told him to go back to sleep, that I’d wake him at seven.”
“And he did?”
“Yep, but only because he wanted to be fresh in case you need to discuss anything with him before you go in today. I assume you’ll have a briefing first thing?”
“At eight.” Alex definitely wanted to talk to her grandfather before she left for her office. He was one of the best detectives she’d ever known, and last night had shown that neither a heart attack nor age had diminished that. Tapping in to his experience would be the smartest thing she could do.
Gram nodded toward the Bible on Alex’s bedside table. “Be sure to take time there.”
“I will.” Yesterday she had been so slammed from the minute she woke that she’d skipped her morning devotions. Alex had found herself doing that more and more lately.
Lately? She’d struggled with believing God cared about her ever since her dad died. The only reason Alex attempted morning devotions was her promise to her grandmother just before she went off to college. She shuddered remembering why. She and Nathan had just broken up, and for some crazy reason, she thought alcohol would ease the pain. It hadn’t.
Her grandmother had been waiting in her bedroom when she came stumbling in. Someone had called her grandmother and tattled that her car was parked in front of the local beer joint.
Alex had been so sick, she’d made the promise just to get her grandmother out of the bedroom before she threw up. But once she gave her word, she wasn’t breaking it and had read her Bible most days. Today’s reading was in Isaiah.
As she hurried through the chapter, one verse stopped her. “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.” She could certainly use all the help she could get to stop this killer.
So why hadn’t God helped her before now? Surely he didn’t want this person to kill anyone else. That opened the door to more questions. Why had he allowed it in the first place? If God was going to help her, why hadn’t he helped her before she came home to Pearl Springs? What was she missing?
Alex went in search of her grandmother and found her in the kitchen.
Gram held up the coffeepot. “More coffee?”
“Sure.”
Gram refilled her cup and settled at the kitchen table.
