Page 35 of Fatal Mistake
She sighed at the memory. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer, pushing and pushing, relentless like Nolan.”
“Your former fiancé, right?’”
She nodded, hating that Cal had dug into her life and knew all about her when she hadn’t a clue about his life beyond his job.
“So what happened with Keeler?” he asked.
“I’d just managed to get my life back from my disastrous engagement to Nolan, and Oren’s attitude rubbed me wrong. So I snapped, and I didn’t let him down very gently.”
Cal stepped closer, intensity burning bright in his eyes. “He was upset? Maybe mad?”
At Cal’s over-the-top reaction, alarms began going off in her head. “Both, actually. He stormed out and slammed the door. I watched him march down the driveway to the hired hand’s house. He kicked stones on the way. Got in his car and raced off, sending gravel flying.”
“Why didn’t you mention this before?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant, but clearly you do.”
“Maybe,” he replied.
His vague answers whenever she asked him a question grated on her last nerve. She pushed to her feet and looked him in the eye. “You’ve been grilling me like a well-done steak since you found me, and it would be nice if you answered at least one of my questions.”
She crossed her arms and waited for him to argue, but he gave a quick nod. “Our profiler believes with Keeler targeting women, a woman hurt him in the past, and he’s using the bombs as a means to vent his frustration.” Cal met her gaze and held it. “We thought the loss of his mother was the catalyst for the bombings, but he started killing women on the first of February, mere days after what you’re describing, so…”
“You’re not saying that…” A fist squeezed her heart, and she couldn’t drag in any air. “It’s me, right? You think I’m the reason Oren’s killing women. But I have no connection to the Muslim community.”
“True, but you rejected him, and for some reason he’s taking out that rejection on these women. We may not figure out why he chose Muslim women until we catch him. And even then, he may not tell us. And, of course, this is a working theory, so we could be wrong about the catalyst, or there’s an added component in his desire to target Muslim women, but—”
“But you think he started killing because I turned him down.” She clamped a hand over her mouth, then as the shock settled in, let it fall to her lap. “If it wasn’t for me, these women would be alive.”
* * *
Five hours later, Cal wrapped up his reports and headed toward the command truck to escort Tara to the SUV for their trip to the safe house. Temperatures had mounted, hitting the midnineties, and he couldn’t wait to get out of the heat and humidity that had the entire team wilting. And he couldn’t wait to move Tara into a more secure location. He wasn’t about to let Keeler get to her again.
Brynn waylaid him and held out a clear plastic evidence bag with a severely deformed slug. “Found this near the truck bed. It’s looking like Rick is right about the Tannerite.”
Cal took the bag and didn’t have to look too closely to identify the bullet. “A .30-06. Hickson’s Browning uses that caliber. Maybe he lied to me.”
“Wouldn’t be surprising,” she said.
Cal studied the slug. He found very few land and groove impressions from the rifle barrel, but only firearms specialists with proper equipment could determine if a sound comparison could be made under a microscope. He’d get the slug to the Firearms and Toolmarks Unit at the FBI lab.
Cal looked at Brynn. “If Hickson’s telling the truth, and there is a second shooter, we can compare the slugs from the tower with this one and hopefully prove the same weapon was used for both.”
“I’ll get a tech over to the tower right away to process the area,” Brynn said.
“And how about Tannerite? Any idea on when we’ll know about that?”
“I’ll run the tests the minute I get back to the lab. With the way things are going, that won’t be until tomorrow night at the soonest.”
“We can’t land at our airstrip in D.C. or Tara will learn the location,” Cal said. “Might as well put down at Turner Field, where we can pop over to the lab and drop off the slug, rifle, and sample to check for Tannerite at the same time.”
“Perfect. I’ll make sure everything’s packaged for transport.”
“Let’s go ahead and assume you’re going to find Tannerite. I’ll get analysts on the task force to start tracking down large purchases in the area.” The potential lead should have cheered Cal up, but even that hadn’t helped alleviate the tightness in his chest. “Is there anything you need from me before I take off?”
“No.” She sounded offended. “I come prepared.”
“I didn’t mean that, I…” He shoved a hand into his hair to stem off his ongoing frustration. “With this change in Keeler’s methods, he’s become unpredictable, and it’s throwing me off my game.”
