Fatal Mistake--A Novel Read online

  “Then you think the shooter ditched the rifle.”

  “If Keeler was the second shooter, it’s very possible. He didn’t fly cross-country with a rifle, so I’m guessing he stole the weapon he used or it was provided by his ISIS contacts. In either case, if he was in a hurry to escape unseen, he could ditch it to move more freely through the scrub. And if that’s not reason enough, if he was driving home and was stopped by a law enforcement officer for any number of reasons—speeding, taillight out, et cetera—Keeler wouldn’t want the gun in his car.”

  “Makes sense, I guess.”

  “We’ll get a search started, but we have a large, heavily wooded area to cover. Depending on the resources available to us, that could take days, and we won’t get home for some time.”

  “Home? So you’re based in D.C., then?” she asked, despite knowing that posing a question about his private life wasn’t a good idea.

  He nodded. “Our team is part of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group out of FBI national headquarters.”

  She applied the second butterfly strip at the bottom of the gash. “I didn’t realize I was considered a critical incident.”

  He scowled but said nothing for a moment, and the air between them sizzled with tension.

  “Someone will go for food at some point,” he said, ignoring her comment. “And I’ll arrange a safe house for tonight.” He met her gaze for a long stressful moment, then escaped from his seat and eased past her without touching her. “I hate that you have to sit in here all day, and I’ll do my best to get you out of here as soon as possible.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied, though she couldn’t imagine what she might do for the rest of the day in this tin can of a vehicle, but maybe she could concentrate on the pump house and try to remember additional details. “When we do get back to D.C., will it be possible for me to call June and my friend Penny? I’m sure they’re both worried about me.”

  “I can arrange for you to see June when we take you to the pump house, but I’m afraid contacting Penny is too dangerous right now for you and her.”

  Tara wouldn’t put anyone else in danger, so she nodded her understanding and settled for the fact that she would soon see June.

  Instead of leaving as she’d expected him to do, he leaned against the wall and crossed his ankles. “Tell me more about Keeler before your friendship ended.”

  “You’ve asked me about him so many times, I’m sure I shared everything that’s pertinent.”

  “The tiniest detail that you left out could have meaning to the investigation.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “When you hung out, were you involved with video games, computers, music, that sort of thing?”

  She closed the first aid kit and thought back to her childhood with Oren. “Computers weren’t big in those days. Neither of our families had one. Oren did get a PlayStation in junior high, and we played that together. We both listened to music, but we didn’t share it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oren was into heavy metal bands like Fear Factory and Marilyn Manson. I liked alternative rock. We didn’t agree on tastes, so we both listened to our own stuff. But I don’t see how any of that could be important.”

  “Love of heavy metal music is a way to express dissatisfaction in life and can be one of many predictors for radicalization.” He held up a hand. “Now before you think everyone who listens to heavy metal is a bomber, that’s not true and the music doesn’t turn them into terrorists. It’s only one predictive trait in a slew of marks that helps behavioral analysts create a profile.”

  “But it sounds like you think Oren’s love of this music might have been a sign.”

  “Perhaps. More important is finding out what happened in his life to kick off his bombing spree.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Our research shows that he’s been involved with ISIS for quite a few years without taking any action. He didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to begin targeting and killing women. We’ve tried to find a connection between them to make sense of his bombs. But despite running down thousands of leads in the past six months, the only thing the women in the first bombings have in common is their Muslim faith. So we continue to look for a catalyst of some sort that set off his spree.”

  She thought back to everything she’d learned about the current-day Oren and came up empty. “I don’t know what it could be. Like I said, I haven’t really known much about how he thinks or feels since he started acting really weird in high school.”

  “You’ve mentioned weird before.” Cal arched a brow. “What exactly do you mean by ‘weird’?”

  “We went to the same church growing up and were active in our youth group in junior high. When we started high school, he suddenly stopped attending. He kept passing it off like he was too cool for church, but one day I heard June and his mom talking. She said he’d converted to the Islamic faith. At first, I didn’t believe her, so I asked him about it. He confirmed it and even tried to get me to convert.”

  “Did you ever consider it?”

  She fixed her gaze on his. “Do you think I’d do that?”

  “No, not after everything I’ve learned about you in my research, but I have to ask to cover all bases.”

  “I was raised in a traditional home with Christian values, and I’d never turn my back on my faith. It’s too important to me,” she said, but the moment the words came out she knew she’d overstated her current trust in God to protect her from Oren.

  Cal frowned. “You might think that now. I once did, anyway. But trust me when I say I’ve been in situations where it doesn’t seem so far-fetched to turn your back on your faith. I’m not saying converting to another religion, just letting go of innocent childhood beliefs.”

  So he was a man of faith. Or maybe not anymore. His comments were too cryptic to tell, but she hoped he had faith to sustain him during all of the difficult trials he must face on the job.

  Of course, she’d experienced horrific events lately, too, and what had she done? Trusted in God? No, when He let Oren get to her at the hospital, she’d taken things into her own hands and fled from D.C., and as Cal had suggested, that wasn’t working out so well for her.

  Maybe Cal would explain turning his back on his faith, and that could help her, too. She opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but as usual when they got sidetracked in an area where he might need to share something of himself, he rushed on. “So after this conversion, what happened to your friendship?”

  “By the end of that year, he’d gotten into the whole underground Goth thing, and we had nothing in common. He became a real loner. Sure, we said hi when we passed in the halls at school, but that was it.” She shook her head. “Maybe I had a part in his weird changes when I turned him down.”

  “Turned him down as in dating? You didn’t mention that before.”

  “It was no biggie. He asked me on one date. I said no. Turns out he had a thing for me for years, but I didn’t know it until after we both left for college.”

  Cal pushed off the wall, his attention rapt and unyielding. “Did he ever ask you out again or make his feelings for you known?”

  Uncomfortable rehashing such private information, she didn’t want to answer. She looked down at her wrist and twisted the band around her finger until it cut off the blood flow, and then she released it in a big snap.

  “Tara?” he prodded.

  “Like I told you at the hospital, I ran into him at my aunt’s place in January. He wasn’t as harsh and withdrawn, and I was more comfortable around him. We started talking…catching up, you know? And when my aunt left the room, he asked me out again.”

  “He asked you out, as on a date?”

  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 wh
en 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.”

  “It definitely provides more of a challenge in finding him.”

  “Exactly. And it could mean he’s escalating in his need to inflict harm. We could be dealing with another necklace bomb sooner than the first of next month. Means this scene is more important than ever, and we have to find something here to stop him.”

  “I hate to interrupt, Agent Riggins,” Deputy Andrews called out from the truck as he jumped down and hurried over to them. “My sergeant just contacted me. Keeler’s been spotted, and we have a lead on his current whereabouts.”

  “Credible lead?” Cal asked, adrenaline already racing through his body.

  Andrews bobbed his head. “We have an eyewitness who can take us right to the cabin where the jerk’s been hiding out.”

  Chapter 12

  Dufur, Oregon

  3:05 p.m.

  On a hill above Keeler’s rental cabin, Cal walked the length of the lot, making a final assessment before he and Rick breached the door. The one-room log cabin with a red metal roof and stone chimney sat at the base of a hill, cowering in a thick stand of tall pines much the way Cal thought Keeler would cower when they barged through the door.

  The FBI SWAT team had arrived from Portland, and they, along with Cal and Rick, were on hold while their sniper crept into position. Then it would take the rest of their team a few minutes to set their outer perimeter and take a secondary stance at the back door.

  Cal stopped next to Rick, who lay behind a log, his binoculars trained on the house. “Any movement?”

  “None.” Rick swatted at a mosquito buzzing around his head, but he didn’t take his eyes from the cabin.

  “Then either Keeler’s not home or he’s hunkered down. We’ll follow standard protocol in case he’s there. You sure you don’t want to take the long shot?”

  “Where’s the challenge? The range is so short any trained sniper can make that shot.” Rick offered a rare grin and came to his feet. “I’d rather bust down the door with you.”

  “Nothing like the rush of not knowing what’s waiting on the other side.” Cal strode to their SUV, Rick following.

  Before picking up his weapon, Cal dialed Shane. “Everything good back there?”

  “Quiet as can be. That is if you don’t count Kaci’s bad jokes.” Shane laughed. His easygoing attitude was legendary for a man in such a high-pressure job.

  “We’re about to breach the door, and I’m going silent,” Cal said. “Text me with any issues, and I’ll look at them on the other side.”

  “Roger that,” Shane replied. “And, hey man, relax. We’ve got this.”

  “See that you do.” Cal clicked off, and after silencing and stowing his phone, he glanced at Rick. “Ready to do this?”

  Rick stood silently appraising Cal with a focus so pointed that it cut to Cal’s soul. “You know I was born ready. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Me? I’m good.”

  “You sure about that?” Rick strapped on his helmet. “You seem distracted.”

  Cal couldn’t lie and say the disappointment on Tara’s face before he left for this raid didn’t keep playing in his mind. He’d promised to put her safety first, but then something came up requiring his attention, and he reneged.

  Right. Required.

  The well-tra
ined SWAT team could handle this raid without his or Rick’s help, but Cal wanted to be there to see the look on Keeler’s face when they slapped handcuffs on his wrists. To be there to put away another bad guy so he could chip away at his guilt.

  You’ve put away a lot of bad guys this past year. The thought popped into his mind. And has that honestly made your life better?

  “I’m talking about looks like that one.” Rick picked up a Heckler and Koch MP5, the standard-issue submachine gun for their team. “You’re a million miles away.”

  As a former sniper, Rick had to understand and deal with guilt that the loss of life caused.

  “You ever lose someone on a mission or on the job, and you can’t let it go?” Cal asked.

  Rick nodded. “We’ve all got our incidents that we can’t shake. Most everyone in the military and law enforcement does.”

  “And does it ever get in your way?”

  “In the way like here on a mission?” He tapped his rifle. “Nah, I’m good to go on the job.”

  “But it might affect your personal life?”

  Rick went motionless, his fierce sniper gaze homing in on Cal. “Sounds like that’s what’s going on with you, but maybe it’s spilling over into the job, too.”

  “It’s Tara,” Cal said before thinking it over. “Keeler’s killed women right under our noses, and man, that’s hitting me hard, you know? But him going after Tara? That’s different. We didn’t know the other women, but we know Tara, and we’re getting to know her better every day. If Keeler gets past us…gets to her…I…” He shook his head.

  Rick arched a brow but said nothing. Cal had never seen Rick open up, and Cal should have thought of that before beginning the conversation. It was patently clear now that he’d chosen the wrong guy to talk to. He should have spoken to Shane instead. Better yet, he should keep his big mouth shut and his thoughts on the job.

  “Never mind, man.” Cal picked up his gun. “I’ve got my head in the game, and you don’t need to worry about your back.”