Page 45 of Counter Attack

“I know. But we had to look at it with fresh eyes. As far as Phillip Denton, we hit a dead end—couldn’t find any relatives or even friends.”

Nothing new there, but why hadn’t Madden told her they were reviewing her cases? Because that was Madden. Secretive. “How about his background? Did he always live in Chattanooga?”

Since she was the officer involved, Alex hadn’t been allowed to participate in the investigation, and she’d never seen the final report. But that was about to change.

“We have no way of knowing,” Madden said. “The background on his job resume turned out to be fake.”

There were plenty of sites to buy fake IDs on the dark web, and a good hacker could manipulate records to authenticate the IDs.

“We were able to trace back to his first Tennessee driver’s license five years ago,” Madden said. “No idea where he lived before that or if he had any family. He paid for everything in cash or check and was such a loner that none of his neighbors or coworkers could tell us anything except that he was odd.”

Denton’s strangeness was the reason a neighbor had turned him in after someone planted a bomb at the mall. “I’d like to see the interviews with his neighbors.”

“Sure. I’ll have copies made for you, but there’s not much to send. Want me to email them to you?”

“That’d be great.” She gave him her new email address. “Send the whole file, if you don’t mind.”

Reading it would probably trigger more nightmares. Not that she didn’t relive the shooting at least once a day anyway.

Alex had been so proud of being assigned to the task force investigating the bombing, and while her supervisor hadn’t put much credence in the tip from Denton’s neighbor, every call had to be checked out. She’d been given that job.

When Denton came to the door and discovered she was police, he went ballistic and she’d been forced to kill him in self-defense, only to learn after the fact that Denton’s gun wasn’t loaded.

“By the way, in case I never told you, that was good detective work on finding out he was the mall bomber.”

“Thanks.” She managed to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“I never got a chance to ask you, but how did you figure it out?”

Never got a chance?She worked one floor below him.Play nice.You might be working with him one day.

“Some of it was luck,” she said. After Denton’s shooting, she’d been cleared to return to work after two weeks, but she hadn’t returned to the task force. “A month after what went down at the condo, I was working burglary and caught a case involving a construction company and missing laptops. When I took the report and the secretary described the computers, I remembered looking around Phillip Denton’s condo while I waited for the medical examiner and seeing three laptops like she described.

“I asked if he ever worked there, and it snowballed from there when she confided that he had and that laptops weren’t the only thing missing—they’d just discovered C-4, wiring,and detonators were missing as well. You guys took over then.”

“Yeah. The crime scene techs went over the apartment. Never found any of that stuff, but we didn’t have a bomb detection dog then. They did find a few pieces of wiring in his spare bedroom that matched the wiring in the mall bomb. I just hope you never lost any sleep over the shooting.”

Her fellow officers, superiors, Dr. Hudson, Gramps ... everyone told her she’d had no choice. But none of that helped when the nightmares came and she was left with replaying her actions that day.

25

Alex disconnected from the call to Madden as Nathan entered the living room.

“Learn anything about George Smith?”

She repeated what Madden had told her. “I don’t get it. The man doesn’t have a criminal record, so why start now?”

“That’s a good question. Chattanooga PD needs to keep digging into his past. Did Madden have anything else to say?”

“He agreed to give us the files on the interviews with Denton’s neighbors.” She crossed her arms. “Tonight was the first time Todd Madden opened up about the Queen’s Gambit murders. Before when I asked anything about the investigation, he’d be so tightlipped that I wondered if his lips were sewn together. I also found out that they’re looking at all my cases and even the people I know.”

He rubbed his jaw. “When I looked at the photos of the victims today,Iknew there was a connection to you. All of the women are about your height and build. Same color red hair as yours. The second victim, Rebecca Daniels, even had the same style.”

Because Alex had taken the girl to her stylist. She’d onlywanted to help Becky. A heavy weight settled in Alex’s chest, and when Nathan pulled her into his arms, she didn’t resist.

His gentle touch as he stroked her back calmed her racing thoughts, and she relaxed against the steady beat of his heart. Suddenly she stiffened.

“What?” Nathan pulled back and looked down at her.

---