Page 53 of Fatal Mistake
She punched a few buttons, located the right settings, and marked Cal’s location before doing the same with the rifle. By the time she’d finished, Cal dropped to the ground. He stepped to the rifle location, dug a tarp from his pack, and shook it out. The plastic waved in the breeze until he wrestled it under control to cover the rifle. He grabbed his phone and dialed.
“Gorton,” he said, and Tara recognized the name as belonging to the local sheriff. “We have a second shooter, and I have reason to believe he’s been injured. Not likely a gunshot wound, but more likely a puncture from a tree branch. I realize you have limited resources, but I need your people to check with local medical facilities for anyone recently treated for such a wound.”
Cal listened for a moment. “Get back to me either way.”
He stowed his phone.
Tara met his gaze. “It’s great that you found the other rifle.”
“We can’t be sure it belongs to Keeler.”
“But you can trace it and find out who it belongs to?”
“Someone filed the serial number off the rifle’s receiver.”
“So you can’t find out who owned it, then?”
“I didn’t say that.” His grin and the cute dimple came back. “We have several ways to recover the number in the lab, where I plan to go the minute our plane lands on the East Coast.”
Chapter 17
Fairfax, Virginia
Thursday, August 4
7:50 a.m.
Today was the day. The day Tara went back to the pump house. The day she dreaded, and yet she hoped the visit would help with the investigation.
She’d be lying if she said the thought of visiting the burned-out shell didn’t weigh heavy on her mind. It apparently weighed on Cal, too, because breakfast at the new safe house near D.C. was a silent affair between them. She’d tried small talk for the first few minutes, but it was forced and awkward, so she turned her attention to eating her yogurt.
Cal’s phone chimed, and he lifted it to read the text. His jaw tightened, and Tara took a deep breath to prepare herself for more bad news.
“The text is from Kaci.” He held out his phone, showing a picture of Oren captured by a security camera.
Her stomach knotted, unsettling her breakfast. “Where was it taken?”
“Eugene airport. He chartered a jet to D.C. Kaci spoke to the pilot and confirmed Keeler took the flight and touched down in D.C. in the middle of the night. Means Keeler could be looking for you, and we need to be extra cautious.”
Tara reached for her rubber bands. The first pull bit into her skin, but the ominous feeling remained. So what? She’d committed to helping catch Oren, and that meant taking risks. But she didn’t have to be a fool about it.
“I’ll follow your every direction today,” she said to Cal, but in reality the words were meant for her.
“I hate that Keeler’s back in the area, but if I’d known his arrival would make you so compliant…” Cal smiled.
Despite her misgivings, she couldn’t resist his playful attempt to brighten her mood. She let go of the rubber band and returned his smile. The tension fled and electricity charged between them.
He freed his gaze and gestured at the door to the garage. “We should get going.”
Cal said he wanted to keep his focus on the road and his mirrors, so they drove in silence. She also watched out the window, noting each and every car until they turned onto Pennsylvania Avenue and got caught up in the tourist traffic. FBI headquarters was located in the J. Edgar Hoover building, which sat between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, an area bustling with visitors on foot and in cars.
Cal fired a cautionary look in her direction. “With the congested traffic, this is the most critical zone, so stay alert. Look past the families crowding the street and search for any threat.”
His focus intensified, and she tried to comply, but she couldn’t see through the waves of people enjoying the sights. Tension mounting, she slid a finger under her rubber band and knotted it around her finger until Cal pulled into the secured parking area. Even then, her pulse continued to race, and settled down only after they stepped inside the FBI’s fortress locked down tight with metal detectors and screeners. Oren couldn’t get through the FBI’s defenses, and for the first time in months, stress flooded from her body and she could finally breathe freely.
Cal stood with her while the guards cleared her, and then they rode a nearby elevator to a small foyer. Cal swiped a security card to unlock a door and headed down a pin drop–quiet hallway. Professional men and women were hurrying about their business with single focus and thankfully not paying any attention to Tara’s jeans and T-shirt. She’d hoped someone on the Knights’ team could have gone to her house to grab nicer clothing, but Cal said it could tip off anyone watching the place.
How she missed home, a row house on a tree-lined street with brightly painted houses as far as the eye could see. She rented the place from another translator who was temporarily assigned overseas. Since she was still paying off student loans and saving money for travel, she could never have afforded such a nice house if not for her coworker, and each day when she arrived home, she relished the place, as she’d soon have to move back into a cheaper apartment.
