Page 16 of Facing the Enemy
I have people fooled. They think I’m a good guy ’cause I make sure they see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear. I’m safe, a role model for their kids. But not tonight. I’m on the prowl. She shouldn’t have gotten in my way.
My sweet beauty crosses the street a block from her apartment at an intersection and enters the corner restaurant. I swing into the adjacent parking lot and park where I have a direct view through the windows surrounding the dining area. She slips into a booth near a window on the street side. But I have a straight view from my car. She’s alone. Deep into her phone. I’d pull the trigger now, but I prefer to see blood up close. I bite into a piece of Canadian bacon and extra cheese pizza, my favorite. Then another. And another. I should have gotten myself a Coke.
Twenty minutes go by, and a tall guy joins her. They hug. She swipes at a tear. They’re both in jeans, and she’s in a navy-blue tank top. The two sit across from each other. He picks up her hand. Are they together? I haven’t seen him before. They order and talk, but she doesn’t eat. My gut’s growling even after the pizza. Wish I could read lips. Is he FBI too?
I gasped and spilled coffee on my quilt. Heat rushed into my face. I’d worn a blue tank top the night Trenton was killed. I’d tossed itin the trash afterward. How could I continue reading Carson’s story, the one that mirrored mine and Trenton’s? An eerie tug on my heart drew me back to the screen. I had to read more, find out where it led.
The guy pays the bill, and I pull my car to the one-way street. They leave together. He must be walking her home because they wait at the crosswalk until the signal indicates it’s safe to cross the street. I hope he doesn’t plan to stay the night. Then I shrug. If he does, then I’ll have two for the price of one. I laugh at my own joke. An idea settles on me. I’m brilliant!
I pull my car first into the line of traffic. At eight seconds remaining on the crosswalk, she nears my front hood. I press on the gas pedal. I’m anticipating rich, red blood from her and maybe the guy too.
But he sees me coming and shoves her out of the way! How dare he! I race through the intersection, dragging his body a few feet. He deserves his fate. Blood is blood.
I speed down the street for several blocks and whip around a corner to an area where security cams are nonexistent. I park and take off on foot in a state of euphoria, an empty pizza box in my hand. Several blocks later, I start up my own car.
Sweet blood. Until we meet again.
I covered my mouth while a cauldron of horror swirled through me, and I hurried to the bathroom. My stomach revolted against the milk and cereal I’d eaten earlier. How many times had I relived that night? The walls of my apartment closed in on me as though whispering, taunting me that I was to blame for my brother’s death. I rinsed my mouth and washed my face, then stared into the mirror.
You were the one supposed to die. Trenton’s death is your fault.
Carson’s story mocked my sorrow.
How did he know I was that woman?
How did he know about the FBI?
How did he know I wore a navy-blue tank top?
How did he know I waited twenty minutes for Trenton and busied myself on my phone?
How did he detail our dinner?
How did he create the exact scene when Trenton sacrificed his life for me?
Only one way. Carson had driven the SUV that killed my brother. I’d been duped by a nineteen-year-old who thirsted for blood.
9
Walking the floor only tightened the wrench gripping my heart. As an FBI agent, I should process Carson’s story as a professional, which meant separating myself from despairing emotions. But the monster called grief took priority over logic, and I hated it.
I completed a background on Carson Lowell, and he was squeaky-clean. By digging deeper into secure sites, I searched for a cover-up crime committed before he turned eighteen. Again clean. For all who read his experiences, Carson played the role of a young man stepping his feet into the waters of college life. The nightmarish question rolled like credits of a bad movie.
Gage and I had worked cases together. Why target me and not him? Not that I wanted anyone to hurt Gage—or worse—I simply wanted to learn the motive and perpetrator.
Had Carson been recruited to commit murder?
Was he a psychopath who’d gone undetected?
Had I unknowingly angered him in the past?
I returned to the sofa and cleaned the coffee stain on my quilt while my mind spun with what-ifs. I searched my laptop and rechecked the few cases I’d worked alone. Minor incidents with little or no evidence of conviction. I recalled a missing child case in which the child had wandered off at a mall and was recovered hours later. I’d testified onseveral cases, and I had a list of those names and altercations, some with Gage.
I was fishing for answers with an empty hook, and yet I cast farther.
Twice I picked up my burner phone to call Gage, but was I using Carson’s story as an excuse to reach out to him? Dare I risk putting him in danger? Or was my discovery destined to end the trauma that had torn us apart? My eyes rested on the phone again. Carson might have killed my brother or witnessed the hit. Perhaps been in the car with the person who committed the unthinkable.
Gage had clarity of thought, and he’d analyze Carson’s story and sift through the facts and fiction. How in the world I managed to receive my doctorate in English by age twenty-four was a mystery when I failed to analyze a teen’s short story.
