A few seconds of silence passed. Then the chief looked to Matt. “She’s met him.”
Matt nodded. “I thought so, but wanted to see what you thought.”
“I’ve met who? Who is he?”
Claire was glancing back and forth between both men, so it wasn’t difficult for her to catch the slight head shake the chief gave to Matt. They weren’t willing to tell her who he was yet, but neither of them seemed worried that she’d met him, so maybe he was on their side?
“So, what do I do? Is it okay for me to go home?”
Both men nodded.
“I don’t see any reason you shouldn’t,” the chief began. “Right now we have no reason to believe your attack was anything but a random crime downtown. Sad, but it does happen. Take precautions, make sure your doors are locked tight, and let us know if you think someone is watching you again, but I don’t expect you to have any more trouble. Matt can take you home now if you’re ready to go. That’s all we need from you for tonight. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.” The chief stood, approached the coffeepot, then shook his head and turned away from it.
“I don’t guess you’d want to make us some good coffee before you go?” The chief smiled and held up a hand when Claire moved in that direction. “I’m teasing you. Don’t make any coffee. I’ve got to head to a murder scene. But if you want to have a cup ready for me tomorrow morning early, I’ll pick one up before our morning roll call.”
“I’ll do that, sir.”
Claire and Matt walked out of the room and made their way through the building to Matt’s car parked outside. “Do me a favor and call Gemma to explain what happened?” he said. “That way I don’t have to try to answer all of her questions when I get home.”
“Scared of your own wife?” Claire teased, though she couldn’t say she really blamed him. Gemma could be rather determined when she wanted something, like answers. She pulled her phone out. She did need to tell her sister what had happened.
She took a deep breath, braced herself for the conversation.
When Gemma answered the phone, Claire opened with “First, you need to know that I’m fine,” hoping that the chief was right and this would be an isolated incident. If things got more dangerous, Claire knew she could count on Matt and Gemma’s overprotection.
What scared her was the thought that she might actually need it.
* * *
As protocol dictated, Nate hadn’t touched Jenni’s body since he felt for a pulse and found none. He hadn’t moved her at all, and she still lay there, stretched across the floor, looking so innocent in death, as his sister had. Murder was evil, never justified. And whoever the faceless man or woman who had pulled the trigger on Jenni turned out to be, the killer wasn’t the real villain Nate was ultimately after. That was the entire illegal drug industry itself. It bore a lot of the responsibility for deaths like this one. Like his sister’s.
He looked out the shattered back window again. Still nothing from there. It didn’t appear that the shooter was coming back, which was logical. He’d finished the job.
Nate shook his head, moved his eyes quickly over Jenni’s body as he looked back toward the front of the apartment. The police should be here any moment.
“Police!” an authoritative voice announced, followed by the sound of people coming inside. Nate couldn’t see them yet, but he judged by the footsteps that there were several of them.
He recognized the police chief—his presence at a crime scene might have been unusual in a city, but it wasn’t as surprising in a small town that probably didn’t even see a murder every year.
“Agent Torres.” The chief nodded like he wasn’t surprised Nate had been the one to make the call. Nate liked the chief well enough, had had coffee with him when he first got to town to read him in on the GBI’s case. When he’d worked deep cover in the past, that kind of cooperation with law enforcement hadn’t been possible, but since this cover was less about embedding with drug runners and more about blending in to the background in Treasure Point long enough to get the evidence his team needed, Nate and his boss back in Atlanta had decided that working with the police department was better than not.
“Chief.”
“I’m sorry it took us a couple of extra minutes to get here. I needed to listen to what happened to our town’s coffee shop owner earlier this evening.” He surveyed Nate, then caught his gaze and wouldn’t let it go. “Would you know anything about that?”
“I might, sir.”
“We’ll talk more about that later.” The chief moved toward Jenni’s body, which one of the officers with him was photographing. “How did you know Jenni?”
Nate might have read the police department in on why he was in town, but he hadn’t told them about Jenni. It was too risky to discuss it, since confidential informants all too often ended up dead. “She was my CI.”
“Makes sense.”
“She was helping me get more intel on my case. She knew some people with loose ties to the organization,” Nate finished.
The chief nodded. “I’m sorry this happened.”
“Me, too.”
Nate turned to the door when he heard more footsteps.
It was a woman dressed in dark coveralls. “No one better have touched my crime scene.”
“About time,” the chief said to the woman. She raised her eyebrows, didn’t back down in the face of the chief’s bravado at all.
“I got caught behind the train.” She seemed to take in the room, all the people working. Then her eyes landed on Nate. “I’m Shiloh Cole, crime scene investigator. Did you find the body?”
“Yes, I did. Nate Torres.” He lowered his voice. “GBI, but I’m keeping that quiet.”
“Good to meet you.” She looked over at Jenni. “And this is?”
“Jenni was my CI. I’m afraid she got too close to some answers I needed about how the drug smuggling ring I’m tracking is transporting their merchandise, and who their supplier is. Either that or they found out she was feeding me information about them in general.
“Could be either.”
Shiloh had a notepad out and was sketching the layout of the crime scene, including approximate distances. Then, starting at one side of the room, she started giving orders, having men bag up things she thought might be evidence, and getting out a crime scene kit herself. She dusted for fingerprints—high-traffic areas especially, but also a few places she could get good prints in general.
As she worked the rest of the crime scene in silence, Nate’s respect for her grew. He hadn’t been sure what to expect from a small-town crime scene investigator, but she was good at this.
He appreciated being allowed to stay, even if they were keeping what they found quiet, not showing him much. Ideally he’d find out more tomorrow. For now he kept his hands in his pockets and tried not to get in the way at all while he thought about the horrible turn this day had taken. Jenni’s death was tragic, but the fact that she was killed on the same night Claire Phillips was attacked couldn’t possibly be a coincidence—and it might mean he was closer to a breakthrough on this case than he had realized. Interested parties had most likely noticed his presence in Treasure Point, and it was making someone very nervous. Maybe this meant he was close to seeing the fruits of almost eighteen months focusing on the same case with hardly any break.
Tomorrow he’d go to Claire Phillips’s coffee shop. First he’d make sure she was okay after the attack. She’d seemed like it, but his mind kept replaying how pale her face was, how wide her eyes were.
And then he’d