Smokies Special Agent

“Johnson had his assistant send me an email. I forwarded it to you. It makes for some interesting reading. Skim it before you talk to her.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.” The line clicked.

Duncan sighed and flipped open the laptop. There were fifteen unread emails since just this morning. Most had to do with the case he was in the process of closing, a string of vehicle break-ins and vandalism he’d been working for the past four months. The small band of local teens behind the crimes was in jail. Now it was just a matter of paperwork and testimony once the trials were underway—assuming they even went to trial.

None of the kids had criminal records. And knowing his friend Clay Perry, the district attorney, Duncan figured he’d likely plead them out. Clay was a father of five and had a seemingly endless supply of patience and empathy for kids—whether they deserved it or not.

Their parents would pay hefty fines and the little hoodlums would soon be back on the streets. And Duncan would have to arrest them all over again a few months down the road when they started up again, or turned to other types of crimes. It was an endless cycle, one that he and Clay often debated over cold beers, sizzling steaks and friendly poker games.

Not seeing anything particularly urgent in the subject lines of the emails, he clicked on the one from his boss. The message was brief, simply telling Duncan to read the attachment.

It took half a minute for the memory-hogging document to load on his screen. When it did, he frowned. Why would Remi’s boss feel it was necessary to send this? And why would Lee want Duncan to read it prior to the interview? How could this possibly be relevant to the shooting?

He let out a long breath and dutifully clicked through several pages, quickly scanning the headings of each section. He began to wonder whether he’d missed the punch line to an inside joke. Then, five pages in, he quit scanning. He leaned closer to the monitor and read every single word. Then he went back to the beginning and read it all again.

Chapter Five (#uc1159ce7-9924-5646-b7b1-7f0147169007)

Remi’s fingers tightened against the windowsill as she watched the snow falling even harder outside the conference room window. She was trying to find her center, calm her nerves in anticipation of the upcoming inquisition. But so far it wasn’t working. She’d interviewed suspects dozens of times over the years. But she’d never once been on the other side of the table. And she wasn’t looking forward to the experience. Especially since she couldn’t even explain to herself what had happened this morning.

She was sick at the thought that she could have shot an unarmed man. But every time she replayed the confrontation in her mind, the memories ticked through like the frames of a movie, replaying exactly the same way that she remembered, never changing.

Scuffling sounded behind her.

She turned, gun in hand, finger on the frame, not the trigger.

A man in camouflage, a look of such menace on his face that she had zero doubt he was the one who’d been stalking her. Or was he just angry that she was pointing a gun at him?

She told him to freeze.

He pulled a gun out of his pocket. It had gotten caught on the fabric of his jacket. But he still pulled it out. She could picture it, clearly. He couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away. It was a Glock 19, 9 mm, a weapon she’d seen many times during her career.

She’d moved her finger to the trigger, because she had to. Shoot or be shot. Kill or be killed. She’d fired, in self-defense, only one shot, because there was another threat, off to her left.

Duncan. Knowing he was there had likely distracted her just enough to save Vale’s life. Normally, she was an excellent marksman.

He’d tackled her, knocking her pistol loose.

A few minutes later, the man she’d shot lay on the ground, a cell phone hanging out of his pocket. The phone was black. So was the gun. But the first was a rectangle, the last a pistol. Nothing alike. She could never mistake the two.

Could she?

Her knuckles grew white against the wooden sill. Could she have been so distracted by thoughts of her sister, by the same grief and anger that had plagued her for years, that she’d seen something that wasn’t there? Had she wanted so badly to believe that the man in front of her was the one responsible for the disappearances, that her mind had played tricks on her?

Five years. She’d been in law enforcement for five years. She was far from being an expert, still new in many ways. But she found it hard to believe that after all that time she could screw up this badly. The man, this Kurt Vale guy, had to have had a gun. But if he did, then where was the gun now?

“Hello? Remi? Anybody home?”

She blinked, bringing the room, and Duncan, into focus. She instinctively scrambled back several steps to put more distance between her and this rather tall, intimidating man in front of her.

His eyes widened and he, too, stepped back, giving her more space. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” His jaw tightened and his dark blue eyes looked down toward her side.

She followed his gaze and realized her left hand was balled into a fist and half-raised, as if she was going to slug him again. Her face flushed hot and she forced her fingers to uncurl. “Sorry. You...surprised me.”

“Like Kurt Vale surprised you up on the ridge? Right before you shot him?”

Her face grew hotter. “He had a gun.”

“The only gun I saw was in your hand.”

“That’s because you saw my gun first and assumed that I was the threat. You probably never looked at him after that. If you hadn’t attacked me, you’d have noticed that he was pulling out a weapon, too. A Glock 19, 9 mm.”

He spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’d like to believe you. I really would. But it’s hard to support your story when only one gun was found—yours. A crime scene unit processed the scene. The evidence they collected where Vale was lying included bloody gauze and a broken cell phone. That’s it.”

“Broken?”

“From the fall. The phone fell out of his pocket. Hit some rocks on the ground beside him, which shattered the screen.”

“Why did it fall out, unless he was pulling something else out of his pocket and knocked it loose?”

His brows arched. “Like his hands? To hold them up and show you he was unarmed?”

She pressed her lips together.

He sighed. “Let’s take it step by step.” He motioned toward the table, which had a laptop sitting on it. Across from that were a bottle of water and a container of over-the-counter pain pills. Both were open, their caps lying on the table. “I imagine that shoulder’s hurting quite a bit. Why don’t you get some pain meds on board, before we officially start?”

“He had a gun,” she insisted.

“I’m sure you thought that he did.”

There was no judgment in his tone, no condemnation. Instead, he sounded surprisingly empathetic. Which of course meant that he was good at his job, good at defusing her anger, making her feel less defensive. Not because he cared about her or felt solidarity with a fellow law-enforcement officer, but because he wanted her in an agreeable mood so she’d answer his questions. She wanted to be angry at him for using interview tricks and techniques on her. Instead, she couldn’t help but admire him for it. If she was in his position, she’d do the exact same thing.

She stepped around him and sat in the chair with its back to the door. She figured she’d hear the door if someone opened it. And more important, she didn’t want to turn her back on Duncan, who was still standing by the window where she’d left him, watching her as if he was trying to figure her out. Fine. She’d just watch him right back.

Taking her time with the pills, she studied him from beneath her lashes. He was a handsome man, no denying that. He wasn’t much older than her, maybe thirty or so. His tanned face was a study in angles and hard edges a camera would love, made even more interesting by the combination of nearly jet-black hair and midnight-blue eyes. But it was his height—about six foot three—and those broad shoulders and toned, muscular body that made her hyperaware of her own small stature. If he was just a man, and she was just a woman, she’d have probably been excited and intrigued by his size and strength. But as a federal agent with her freedom and her career on the line, he intimidated her, which made her resentful.

Two long strides later, he was sitting across from her, pulling his laptop toward him. His gaze settled on her with an intensity that was unnerving. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him. But from the skeptical look on his face, she didn’t think he believed her.

“Everything in here is recorded.” He waved toward the camera anchored near the ceiling on the wall to her left. “For your protection and mine.”

“I saw the camera as soon as I walked in. I assume someone is also watching us through the one-way glass in the top of the door behind me.”

“They could if they wanted. But I think Pops is more interested in finishing his reports so he can leave on time today.”

“Pops?”