dark ops 3 - Renegade (17 page)

Jill needed some answers.

Sitting at a stark table with six chairs, she looked around the vault room, underground at Nellis Air Force Base, and figured she wasn’t going to find any clues on the bare walls. She didn’t know what to think of the turn of events.

Two hours ago, an official car from Nellis had pulled up at Uncle Phil’s. A nondescript guy in a dark suit had flashed ID from the air force’s Office of Special Investigations and informed her she needed to come with him. The brusque agent only said it had to do with the Killer Alien and that at this time, it was best not to speak with anyone else. Beyond that, he wouldn’t answer anything, not even about the guy who’d broken into her place.

She’d freaked for a second, wondering if “suit guy” was the serial killer with forged credentials. But his partner driving the car had equally good credentials, and the vehicle bore an authentic government license plate. Just to test things, she’d insisted on bringing her work gun, and they hadn’t argued. The whole encounter had been so surreal she could have half sworn she’d really been swept up into a sequel to
Men in Black
with two men in suits, one of whom could have been Will Smith’s even hotter cousin.

Now, instead of researching crime data on the Internet over a bagel, she waited in the vault room with the OSI guy and his partner. At least he’d owned up to a name, Special Agent Barrera. But everything else apparently had to wait for the rest of his
guests
—

The vault door clicked, then hissed louder than the vent recycling air. Her stomach rumbled for food, the bagel long gone, and she hadn’t eaten anything else in hours. Not to mention, it really sucked being dragged out in ripped jeans and a Hello Kitty T-shirt that was a hundred years old. God forbid she keep anything in her life that wasn’t kick ass, or her rep as a tough girl would be shot for good. She would just have to brazen it out while displaying a bow-wearing cat on her chest.

The vault hinges gave an exaggerated groan that set her teeth on edge. If tentacles wrapped around that iron portal, she was feeding the darn thing Agent Barrera.

Mason walked in wearing his flight suit, followed by his squadron commander and her boss, Gallardo. Her eyes zipped back to Mason. He didn’t have the same ready grin as the man she’d met back in sector two-five-zero that night he’d fallen out of the sky. His brows were drawn back in a grim, determined line. Still, she relaxed for the first time in two hours, seeing him.

Oh, right, and seeing her boss, too.

Agent Barrera slid slickly to his feet and gestured to the empty seats. “Thank you for joining us on such short notice, Miss Walczak. I believe you’re already acquainted with Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon and Sergeant Randolph.”

“Yes, sir. Has there been any word about the intruder you arrested in my home?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Barrera’s deep brown eyes slid over her with a brief flash of compassion. The weary circles under his eyes were darker than his chocolate-brown skin and attested to how much overtime he’d put into this investigation. “We realize you’ve already had an upsetting couple of days. So far, it appears he’s telling the truth. There’s even footage from a security camera of him entering your place, and he didn’t spend any time in your garden. Although oddly enough there is a patch of missing footage from before he arrived, like somebody messed with the tape. Looks like we have a techno-savvy villain on our hands.”

Her garden, where she’d found the killer’s alien-like signature she wasn’t supposed to have told Mason about. She glanced at Gallardo for direction on what to say.

“They already knew about the dirt swirls. Their intelligence is in contact with local authorities. You were lucky this time, Walczak.”

She relaxed a little, but not for long. Mason’s tense shoulders broadcast that something bad was coming. When had she grown so attuned to nuances in his body language? Jeez, spend one night with a man wearing a hospital gown, and apparently she became an expert on him. And there had been that toe-curling lip-lock . . .

Agent Barrera leaned closer as if suddenly trying to make friends with her. “We believe we have uncovered the reason you were targeted.”

She sat up straighter.

“Our link is thin”—Barrera paused, glancing at Mason then back—“but it appears all the victims had a connection to Sergeant Randolph.”

A chill settled in her chest. “What’s the connection?” she asked, looking at Mason.

“Connections, plural,” Mason answered. “I didn’t put everything together until this morning when I heard another victim’s name and realized I knew both people. In checking with Agent Barrera to confirm all the names, well, I knew all of them.”

What a hellish realization that must have been for him. She was tortured over knowing Lara, only
one
of the murder victims. She couldn’t imagine if five of her friends had been attacked so viciously. “How? When?”

“The woman who survived the attack, Annette Santos, worked in the same office with me two years ago. I heard that Annette was attacked a while back, but I didn’t make the connection to the serial killer.” His fists went white-knuckled. “The second victim, the first known to die, was Lara Restin, a nurse from the base hospital.” He looked at Jill. “As you know, I dated her a couple of times.”

Agent Barrera pulled a pencil and pad from inside his jacket, all PDAs and cell phones having been checked in before they entered the vault. “Why did the two of you break up?”

“Nothing traumatic. She decided after a couple of dates that it wasn’t going anywhere for her, so she broke it off. I still can’t believe—” He looked away, clearing his throat. “The third victim, Craig Walker, played intramurals with me, baseball, but not on the same team. Definitely a thin connection at best, since at some point I’ve played intramurals with nearly everyone on this base.”

Scanlon nodded for the first time, his easy support of his men obvious to her, even if she hadn’t been privy to all of the guy’s words to Mason back in the medical facility. “True enough. The same can be said for the fourth person, Heidi Green, who worked at the base barbershop. We all went there at some point.”

Mason scrubbed a hand over his head, his hair askew from what appeared to be helmet head. “Heidi gave a great cut but never talked much. She wasn’t there when I went in last week, the day after I got back from a TDY. I didn’t ask.”

Scanlon tapped beside Barrera’s pad. “There was no reason to assume anything other than it was her day off. But now suddenly Jill Walczak has a suspicious break-in with somebody leaving this signature mark like the serial killer did. When Sergeant Randolph pointed out the connection, we decided it was time to inform the OSI.”

Jill’s mind raced with possibilities. She considered the notion that they could be looking for a whacked-out, jealous woman—a strong possibility, without question. Still, serial killers were almost always men, so they needed to explore both sides of the gender issue. “Could it be a boyfriend who got pissed off or a husband? Wasn’t the fifth victim married?”

Mason’s eyes were cool. “I don’t date married women. She and I saw each other before she hooked up with him. We met when she worked in the commissary.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to insult. What about some guy, already unbalanced, who could have assumed his wife was having an affair?”

Agent Barrera’s eyes narrowed. While he kept his silence, he obviously wasn’t missing a beat. Jill knew firsthand that sometimes people relayed more when you just let them talk.

Mason clasped his hands together so tightly his arms flexed and bulged inside his flight suit. “I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I couldn’t let you just wander around out there.”

They’d been looking for the common link among the victims since they’d identified the similar killing pattern. A couple of them went to the same gym, but beyond that, they’d come up dry. Sometimes these sickos had the weirdest quirks that drew them to pick a particular victim. Trying to figure out why they’d targeted Mason could still be an impossible task unless she figured out how to think like a psychopath.

Scanlon filled in the heavy silence. “Up until Jill Walczak, the connections are so generally military-based, not focused on any one unit, we could have said they’re connected just as strongly to me. Anybody I know could be next.”

Gallardo opened his mouth for the first time. “I know this is frustrating. Walczak and I have felt the frustrations of the military and civilian community since our job seems to give us a foot in both worlds. But the good news is we have a real lead on this guy now, one we hadn’t foreseen.”

Barrera tapped his pencil on the table for emphasis or attention, but either way, it drew all eyes toward him. “Our people are refining his profile every day. Each new crime paints a more precise picture.”

Gallardo leaned in. “And each crime brings him closer.”

Jill had worked with her boss too long not to recognize the glint in his eyes, the hard determination and the absolute commitment to law enforcement, whether he worked on the police force or contracted for special duties in Area 51.

Gallardo gripped the edge of the table. “With luck and a little prodding, maybe this sick bastard will try to get Walczak again.”

What the hell?

Mason bit back the words. Shouting wouldn’t go over well with this vault crowd. It was one thing to be cool about Jill staying behind a concrete barrier in a parking lot to avoid runaway cars. It was another thing altogether to stand by while someone used her as bait for a serial killer.

There had to be another way. He searched for the right argument, any way to jump-start the discussion to a different direction—

“Gallardo,” Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon leaned forward, “I have another bit of information to add.”

Thank God. Having the boss chime in would add oomph to the argument, a good thing, since Jill would likely be the toughest to convince to back down. “Please, go ahead, sir.”

“I’m not so sure this guy is going after Smooth’s friends. All five of these people had a beef against you, not with any great cause that I could see, but a couple of them took it to an extreme.”

Jill bristled visibly.

Mason couldn’t blame her. That wasn’t where he’d seen this going at all, and he wasn’t sure he even agreed. “I would say that’s more than a little harsh, especially considering they’re dead.”

“Now isn’t the time for their glowing eulogies. Their mamas and daddies aren’t around.” Scanlon turned in his seat to face Mason full-on. “Annette Santos insisted you stole a promotion from her. Rumor had it around the squadron that Lara Restin broke it off with you because you didn’t ask her to marry you by the second date, and then she stalked your every move for two months afterward.”

Jill sat up straighter, her face devoid of all emotion, too much so. He hated like hell that she had to hear something so derogatory about her dead friend.

Barrera quirked a thick eyebrow. “I take it we can put that one in the hate column.”

Scanlon nodded. “Now, it was no secret that Craig Walker disliked you. He couldn’t stand the way you always got the best of him on the ball field. Remember the time he was pitching, and he clocked you upside the batter’s helmet?”

“That’s just sports, sir, nothing personal.”

“There you’re wrong, Sergeant. It was definitely personal to this guy who had a serious Napoleon complex. To him, you were Waterloo.”

Barrera tapped his notepad. “The barber—Heidi Green—was rumored to have disliked everyone. What made Sergeant Randolph different?”

“When Mason came in, he talked a lot.” Scanlon looked back to Mason. “She cut your hair faster to get you and your conversation out of the chair quicker.”

He scratched his forehead right at his cowlick, a nervous tic. Damn it. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Have I been walking around in a freaking bubble?”

Scanlon pulled off his dark-framed glasses with a heavy sigh. “No, Sergeant, you’re just a genuinely nice guy.”

“What about Erin Murphy? She and I were friends a while back.”

“Friends? She told it differently.”

“According to squadron gossip again?”

Scanlon put his glasses back on. “As a squadron commander, it’s my job to keep my ear to the ground. Her husband works over in the base fire department. Word has it there was trouble in their marriage, and he blames it on her feelings for you.”

Barrera jotted a notation.

Jill cleared her throat. “I knew Lara Restin. We met in the mess hall a few times when I pulled shifts out here.”

That made sense. Lara had participated when some of the exercises out in the field required a nurse on hand. Mason shifted his attention back to Jill’s explanation.

“We became friends, hung out when we were at loose ends, shared the occasional pint of ice cream when we needed to vent.” Jill looked at Mason, unsmiling. “She really did hate you, like he said.”

“I take it that means she shared my more negative qualities with you.”

She winced. “In detail.”

“Great.” That explained how hostile she’d been when they’d first met.

“But Mason was out of the country when a couple of them died. We already figured that much out. Not to mention you were both in quarantine when the fifth victim was killed. So you have a rock-solid alibi.”

His chair got all the more uncomfortable, but this was Scanlon’s call to make on what could be shared about their test project.

The investigator tapped his pen end on end. “You could have hired someone.”

Mason shoved back his chair an inch, needing breathing space, ironic while locked in this tightly closed room with no escape. He’d never been a fan of round robin discussions of his flaws, a family-preferred format for years. Hell, he’d enlisted in the air force partly just to ensure a fair fight of future enemies. “Sure, as could a lot of people, but I did not kill these people.”