Lock&Load (PASS Series Book 3) Page 13

  I was already running late after waking up about half an hour after I should’ve. I’m blaming Radar, not that I’ve seen him—he never made it home—but his bed is comfortable and smells of him, so when the alarm on my phone rang this morning, I turned it off just so I could linger a little longer. I promptly fell back asleep.

  Then I discovered I forgot my shampoo and relaxing conditioner when I packed a quick overnight bag before my shift yesterday afternoon. Apparently real guys use some three-in-one crap that comes in a convenient single bottle, but does nothing for my hair, which is air-drying into frizzy little curls. But at least I smell good, just like Radar.

  “Come on, girl. Wanna go home? I’ll give you a treat. You wanna treat?”

  Apparently, the promise of food works and Phil picks up the pace, or as much as she’s able to on those short legs.

  Unfortunately, we bump into Earl who’s hanging off the side of one of the dumpsters, pouring out what looks like a gallon of bleach.

  “Morning!”

  I open my mouth to respond when the smell hits me and I slap a hand over my face.

  “My God, what is that?”

  “Ah, yes. I’m afraid that’s from the other day. Roadkill? Gettin’ a little ripe,” he explains.

  Not sure the bleach is doing much other than turning it into a cocktail of noxious fumes that stubbornly clings to the inside of my nose as I give him a wave and hurry past.

  Inside I give Phil her promised treat, grab my purse and rush back out, locking the door behind me.

  When I run into the shelter almost ten minutes late, a gray-bearded homeless man is sitting in the lobby. Probably waiting for me.

  Technically I offer some basic medical care for our residents, but word gets out and these days I’m not surprised to see a random homeless person walk in with some kind of medical problem. The policy is not to turn anyone away, but there’s only so much I’m able to do.

  “I’m sorry, I’m running a little late,” I apologize. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

  He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me from age-drooped eyes and grunts. I give him a quick smile I know won’t be returned, as I start walking and promptly bump into Brad.

  He grabs onto my upper arms to steady me and I sharply suck air through my teeth. Shit, I’d almost forgotten about the deep bruises Jeff left on my arm, which reminds me; I should have a word with Rosie.

  “Tell me you have some coffee.”

  “Are you hurt?” Brad ignores my question when he catches me rubbing a hand over my sore arm.

  “Bumped it. Coffee?”

  He cocks a thumb in the direction of the cafeteria. “Banana nut muffins too.”

  “You’re a lifesaver.” I smile at him brightly and dart around him to get myself some much-needed sustenance.

  Rosie’s door is open when I walk past carrying my breakfast, but no one’s inside. I’ll have to catch her later.

  I groan at the first sip of my coffee and some more when I’m chewing Brad’s awesome muffin. Five minutes later, when I go to fetch the homeless man from the lobby, I feel a ton better.

  Talking to Eddie—the bearded guy’s name—is like pulling teeth, of which he has few left. Like a lot of longtime street people, he doesn’t trust easily, and despite admitting he’s here for medical attention, it takes me a while to talk him into letting me examine him.

  Diabetic neglect would be my guess when I see the necrotic ulcers on his ankles and toes. Probably Type 2 because it’s not likely he’d still be alive without treatment for Type 1.

  “Eddie, are you diabetic?”

  A grunt is my answer and I take it as confirmation.

  “Take any meds?”

  “Nah. Used to.”

  I look at the darkening tissues around the sores. At best they need debriding, but part of me worries there may already be too much damage done and he may need to have at least that big toe amputated. It’s a miracle he can still walk.

  “I’m not sure I can help you here, Eddie. This looks pretty bad. That dead skin has to be cut back, but I worry that might not even be enough.”

  “So cut it off.”

  An hour later Eddie hobbles out of my office, his wounds taken care as best I could. Of course, he refused to go to the hospital, and I winced as he pulled his grimy-looking sock and running shoe over the clean bandages I wrapped his feet with.

  I tried to get him to stay here at the shelter so we could monitor his diet and maybe get him on Metformin, but he wouldn’t have any of it. At least he promised to come back in a few weeks so I can check on him

  “Who was that? New customer?”

  I’m wiping down the treatment table with disinfectant when Willa walks in.

  “That was Eddie.” I crumple up the paper towel and toss it in the garbage. “Untreated diabetic with major foot problems.”

  She winces. “Let me guess; won’t take a trip to the hospital?”

  “Eddie has trust issues.”

  “Don’t they all,” she sighs, letting herself fall back in a visitor’s chair.

  “Tough day?” I feel compelled to ask, sitting down across from her.

  “More like frustrating. Have you seen Jeff? He skipped out on the group yesterday and was a no-show this morning for his counseling session. I checked and he wasn’t here last night.”

  My inner alarm goes off and I sit forward in my chair.

  “He didn’t come back?”

  Something in my tone must’ve alerted Willa too, because suddenly she sits up straight.

  “You saw him leave?”

  “Yesterday around lunchtime. Watched him walk out the front door. He was…upset.”

  “About what?”

  Now it’s my turn to sigh. As much as I don’t want to betray his confidence—again, I guess, since I already told Radar—I’m concerned about his safety.

  “Remember last month when he had a black eye and stitches? I gave him those.” At Willa’s shocked expression I quickly clarify, “I mean the stitches. He insisted he wouldn’t go to the hospital.”

  I relay the story he’d given me about the attack on him but leave out the part about the kid with the broken arm. That was just conjecture on my part, and I already got in trouble for sticking my neck out. Besides, Radar was going to look into him and I’m sure if he’d found any connection he would’ve told me by now. In any event, he’s dealing with more important things.

  I continue to tell Willa how Jeff pulled me into the group room yesterday morning.

  “He was drunk?”

  “Had alcohol seeping from his pores.”

  “Shit. And I thought he was doing so well.”

  “Not so much. He hurt me. He was so out of it, he actually scared me.”

  “Hurt you?” Now she looks alarmed. “What did he do?”

  I pull up my sleeve and show her the dark bruising on my arm.

  “I had to struggle to get free,” I admit.

  “You should’ve mentioned that right away,” she admonishes me gently.

  I know I should’ve, but with the shelter’s no-tolerance policy it would’ve meant him getting booted and I didn’t want to be responsible for that.

  “Yeah. I’m aware. I guess I was hoping maybe—”

  She leans forward and puts a sympathetic hand on my knee.

  “You could fix him? Don’t we all. The hardest part about working with these people is coming to terms with the fact you can only help them as far as they will allow you. You can lead a horse to water…”

  “But you can’t make it drink,” I finish. “I know.”

  “He can’t come back, Hillary. The no-tolerance policy is there for our safety.” She pats my knee and gets to her feet. “Come on, let’s go talk to the boss-lady.”

  Rosie looks up from behind her desk when we walk in. A big grin appears on her face.

  “Are we finally gonna talk about that thing between you and Radar Saturday night?” She sounds hopeful.

  “Actuall
y, we need to talk about something else,” Willa announces, and Rosie’s smile drops at her serious tone.

  “Close the door.”

  Radar

  “His face was caved in. The coroner actually thinks they used the removable showerhead to beat him with it. But strangulation was the cause of death.”

  SAC Sanders just got back from Montrose and is updating us on the latest attack. Pretty gruesome photographs from the scene are tacked up beside the pictures of the other crimes in our conference room.

  “They all have that in common,” Bree points out. “Even the victims in San Luis Obispo and Saginaw were unrecognizable. Five victims we know of and in each case great care was taken to obliterate their faces. What does that tell you?”

  “They know their victims,” Kai, who drove back from Colorado Springs this past weekend, suggests.

  “Exactly,” Bree agrees before turning to Sanders. “Each attack conducted by a different team, but at least one of them would’ve had a personal connection to the victim.”

  “Teams? You make it sound like some organized group of killers,” the agent reacts.

  “I think in a way they are,” Sarah confirms, sliding a piece of paper across the table. “We’re pretty sure each time one of these hashtags is used it links to a crime that was committed. There’s one to correspond with the dates of four out of the five murders. Unfortunately, we only have the name for one possible suspect and that was only because we lucked out with a partial license plate. We haven’t been able to get further than online identities with the other three.”

  “I can’t bloody well do much without an actual name or an address,” Sanders grumbles.

  “We’re working on it,” she says with an edge, and her boss seems surprised at her tone.

  This time I hand him a sheet.

  “Those are IP addresses. They will tell you the location of a computer or network a certain signal originated from,” I explain.

  “I know what an IP address is,” Sanders snaps.

  “Good. Saves me time,” I respond dryly. “If you look at the list, it shows the IP address, the date of the signal that included the hashtag, and the corresponding location. It also shows the online identity used. Aside from Jeremy Loman, we’ve been able to cross-reference two other identities with social media accounts, and you’ll see the names and geographical location on there as well. Neither of those are local and only one corresponds with an attack we know of.”

  It’s up to Sanders to follow up on those. I tune out when Sarah takes over again, explaining yesterday’s system crash. I mentally go over what we’ve discovered since then.

  First of all, this Fury-guy is slick. Before I managed to pull the plug on the system, he already managed to syphon off most, if not all, of the information from my computer. I spent most of last night and this morning in damage control. I ran checks on my online server—the nerve center of our network—to make sure no one and nothing had accessed it, and built an additional layer of protection on top of the tight security already on there. Then I checked every other computer in the office connected to our network, ran a deep clean to make sure no spyware was hiding, and instructed everyone to change all their passwords.

  While I’ve been busy with that, Sarah divided her attention between Lock&Load and the piles of printouts, scanning for any information that could lead us to whomever is behind >Fury#1.

  I rub the heels of my hands in my gritty eyes. What I wouldn’t give for a few hours of sleep, preferably with Hillary in my arms, but I’ll probably have to contend with a measly hour or so on the cot in the locker room. We need to stay on top of this and can’t afford to lose traction, or we’ll never catch up with him.

  “Radar? Got a minute?”

  Jake is standing beside me and I notice everyone else is already filing out of the conference room.

  “What’s up?”

  If I sound testy it’s because I am. I’m still pissed about what transpired Saturday night and I avoided him yesterday.

  “You and Hillary.”

  I bite my tongue and wait to see if he’s going to elaborate, but apparently not.

  “Still not sure what business it is of yours what happens between Hillary and me. I don’t know where you get the idea she needs to be protected from me, Hutch. Who do you take me for?”

  “That’s not what…” He seems flustered. “Look, Hillary is special.”

  “You don’t think I know that?”

  He throws up his hands. “Hear me out. Hillary has no family other than Rosie and now me. She’s like a sister to me. You can’t blame me for worrying what’ll happen if this thing between you and her blows up.”

  I surge to my feet and get in his face. Not something I’d normally do—he may be shorter by a couple of inches but could wipe the floor with me ten different ways—but no sleep, frustration, and yes, hurt at his lack of trust has me lose my temper.

  “Blow up? You’re a hypocrite; you know that? Wasn’t that long ago you put the company at risk when you fucked around with a witness, now was it?”

  “She’s my fucking wife.”

  “Exactly my point. And what about Dimi? Did you give him a hard time when he started sniffing around Willa? Rosie’s employee? I didn’t think so. Guess I know where I stand with you. Fuck you, Hutchinson.”

  I turn on my heels and almost run into Yanis.

  “The fuck is going on here?”

  He glares at me, so I cock my thumb over my shoulder.

  “Ask that asshole. I’m outta here.”

  Bree starts to say something, but I cut her off with a raised hand. I’m still vibrating with anger. I need to get a handle on myself before I say something else I may regret.

  I can feel eyes following me to my office, where I stuff my laptop and a stack of printouts in my backpack with Dunn quietly looking on.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I mumble on my way out the door.

  By the time I pull into my parking spot the anger is gone and I’m left with an unhealthy mix of hurt and regret. So much for well over a decade of building a rational, level-headed, and reliable reputation on the team.

  Shot to shit in one go.

  I open the door to my apartment where Phil is already waiting to greet me.

  “What happened?”

  I look up at the sound of Hillary’s voice.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hillary

  I should go.

  In the past two hours the door I’ve been keeping an eye on down the hall has stayed firmly closed. Radar disappeared in what I assume is his home office about two seconds after he unexpectedly walked in the door.

  I’m not blind. I could tell something was up when he walked in, but I didn’t expect him to breeze right past me without a word and slam that door shut behind him. I thought I’d give him a little space and took Phil for an extended walk—something I’d been about to do when Radar showed up—but that lasted only half an hour when the pooch started pulling me back toward home.

  Since then I’ve been sitting on the couch, flipping through his copy of The Art of Happiness, waiting for him to make an appearance.

  I’m not sure if I’m more pissed or hurt. I mean, he’s the one who insisted I stay here, that he wanted to think of me in his bed.

  Whatever.

  Either way I’m an idiot for sitting around waiting for him to pay attention to me. I’ve done enough of that in my lifetime and promised myself I wouldn’t go that route ever again.

  My mind made up, I go to put the book back on the shelf, take my water glass to the kitchen, and tiptoe past the closed door to the bedroom to pack up my stuff. I’m on my knees next to the bed, pulling my phone charger from the outlet I found behind the nightstand last night when I hear a door open and footsteps head into the bathroom next door. Angry tears blur my vision and I turn, sitting my ass on the floor and my back to the wall, hoping to stay out of sight.

  Definitely more hurt.

  I sit an
d listen to water run in the sink and moments later turned off again. I hear him walk down the hall and wait for the sound of the door closing. It doesn’t come. I’m ridiculous, a grown woman hiding behind the bed. Using the hem of my shirt, I wipe my face and get to my feet. It takes me two seconds to throw everything in my bag before I walk out of the bedroom.

  I force myself not to peek at the open door, but I can’t escape his voice as I walk past.

  “Hey, Sarah. Sorry I took off. Yeah, things got a little heated, didn’t they?”

  I can taste bile as I listen to him chuckle with whoever the woman is on the other end.

  Sarah.

  No one by that name works for PASS, I know that much.

  I tiptoe through the living room giving Phil—who is curled up in her bed—a scratch between the ears in passing, grab my purse, and as quietly as I can slip out the door. I manage to hold it together until I close my own door behind me, and then I let the sob I’ve been holding escape. It’s followed by another one, and then another, but that’s all I’ll allow myself.

  I’m such an idiot.

  Taking a deep breath in, I swallow the rest and angrily swipe at my eyes. No more. It doesn’t even matter who this Sarah is, but he was clearly able to talk to her. Hell, he even apologized to her when he didn’t even bother with a simple hello for me. I listened to his excuse before, claiming communication is not his strong suit. Well, he communicated just fine with this other woman.

  That’s what hurts. Especially after convincing me to let down my guard this weekend.

  Damn him.

  I toss my bag in the bedroom and duck into the bathroom, splashing my face with cold water. Then I quickly change into jeans and running shoes, toss a bottle of water, my wallet, and phone into a small backpack, and head back out.

  I need some nature, a bit of exercise, and some fresh air to clear my head. It’s been a while since I’ve hiked Devil’s Kitchen Trail. It’s about a mile and a half—a couple of hours at most—and perfect this time of year when it’s not that hot yet.

  The drive is only fifteen minutes or so from town. All this beauty within easy reach and most of the time I forget it’s even there. There is only one other car with Kansas plates in the parking lot at the trailhead. Come summer this place will be busy, but for now I’m glad for the peace and quiet.