Читать книгу Smokies Special Agent - Lena Diaz - Страница 14

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?”

“The only ranger in the office right now, the older guy, Oliver McAlister. We call him Pops because he’s been here longer than anyone else and treats us all like his kids.”

He smiled again, making her wonder if he was trying to put her at ease or whether he was one of those people who always seemed happy. Those kind of people got on her nerves and made her fingers itch for her gun. Not having its familiar weight on her hip made her feel naked and vulnerable, a feeling she didn’t like one bit.

“Please state your name and address for the video.”

“Remilyn Jordan.” She listed her street address. “Greenwood Village, Colorado.”

“Colorado? I thought you lived in Tennessee and worked out of the Knoxville field office.”

She shook her head. “I work in Denver. Johnson came over from the nearest field office, the one in Knoxville. But he’s not my regular boss. He’s my pseudoboss while I’m here under investigation.”

“Got it. Greenwood Village, Colorado. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it.”

“Outside of Denver, about an hour from Boulder, give or take.”

“I bet it’s beautiful there. Great mountain views of the Rockies.”

“It’s beautiful,” she conceded.

“But you decided to come here on vacation, to another mountain range.”

“Is that a question?”

He smiled again. “Before we go any further, I need to remind you about your rights.”

“We can skip that part. Pops Mirandized me on the way down the mountain.”

“I figured he had. But I still have to tell you your rights on camera. Like I said, for your protection and mine.”

Not seeing the point in arguing, she suffered through his recitation of the Miranda warning.

“Do you understand each of these rights as I’ve explained them to you?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You have to say it,” he reminded her.

“Yes.” She sighed. “Yes, I understand my rights. Yes, I’m willing to speak to you without a lawyer. Can we just talk this out and get it over with?”

The plastic water bottle crackled between her hands. She hadn’t even realized that she’d picked it up. She set it down.

“I can’t imagine you driving all the way here from Colorado. Did you fly in? Then rent a car while you’re in town?”

“Actually, no. I drove. As you’re well aware, I brought a weapon with me. Driving was easier than going through the headaches that declaring my weapon would require on a plane.”

“Especially since you’re here off duty, on vacation.”

“Exactly.”

He opened his laptop, typed for a moment. “Where are you staying?”

“A motel a few streets back from the main drag in Gatlinburg.” She told him the name.

“You’ve been in town how long?”

“A couple of days.”

“And what have you been doing every day while you’ve been here?”

She hesitated. How much should she reveal? Cooperating was her best chance at trying to avoid any charges. But would her purpose in being here help her, or hurt her?

“Do you need me to repeat the question?” he asked.

“I’ve been hiking trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, mainly the Appalachian Trail.”

“Every day?”

“Every day.”

“Why?”

She blinked. “The same reason anyone hikes, I suppose. To see nature, the beautiful scenery. To get away from the pressures of my job. The Smokies aren’t at all like the mountains back home. I wanted to see something different.”

“It’s February. The temperatures are hovering in the twenties at night, forties and fifties during the day. And that’s in town. Up here at these elevations, it gets even colder. Not to mention the ice and snow. Want to try again? Why are you hiking in freezing temps in the middle of winter?”

“I’m not the only hiker up here at this time of year. I’ve seen several.”

“There are some, yes. Not many. What I’m interested in is why you’re here at one of the worst times of year to be outside in the park.”

She stared at him, her left hand beneath the table now, her fingers curling against her palm. “I like solitude. I like to be alone. And I don’t mind the cold.”

His silence told her he wasn’t buying her answer. He waited, probably hoping she’d feel compelled to fill the silence, divulge something she didn’t want to share. But she knew interview techniques. She wasn’t saying anything unless she was answering a specific question.

“Why did you shoot Kurt Vale?”

She sucked in a breath, thrown off-kilter by the abrupt change in the conversation. But rather than rush to defend herself, which could have led to her spilling all sorts of things, she took a moment to regain her composure. When she was sure she was in control, she said, “I was standing at a gap in the trees, admiring the scenery. I’d heard someone following me earlier, so when I heard a noise behind me, I naturally whirled around and drew my gun. To defend myself.”

“What did Vale do?”

“He drew his gun, a Glock.”

“He didn’t have a gun. I saw him standing twenty feet away from you. And I saw you, holding your SIG Sauer, pointing it at an unarmed man.”

“That’s not what happened. You saw him, then me. And as soon as you realized I had my gun out, you no longer looked at him. At that point, you deemed that I was the threat, and you charged at me. You didn’t look back at Vale and see that he’d pulled out a gun and was about to shoot me. I yelled at him to freeze. He didn’t. I had no choice but to fire my weapon.”

He leaned forward, crossing his forearms on top of the table. “Here’s the thing, Remi. The only way that story holds water is if we found a gun at the scene, this Glock you say he had. But the only gun we found was your SIG Sauer, the one that I saw you aim at Kurt Vale, the one I saw you fire.”

She shook her head. “You’re wrong. If your crime scene techs didn’t find Vale’s gun, they missed it. They should go back and look harder. It has to be there.”

“After I knocked you to the ground to keep you from shooting an unarmed man a second time, I rendered first aid to the victim. He was shot in the side and was losing a lot of blood. He was in no condition to run off somewhere and hide his alleged gun, then run back and lie down, all in the span of the few seconds it took me to knock you down and then go to him. The only items he had with him were his wallet, his car keys and his cell phone. I contend that the cell phone is what you saw in his hand, not a pistol.”

“You’re wrong.”

He held his hands up. “I want to believe you. I want to be wrong. Convince me.”

She tapped her fingers against her leg. “I agree that Vale didn’t have the opportunity to go hide his gun somewhere. After I shot him, and he fell to the ground, it must have come loose. The momentum of his fall could have knocked the gun into the woods. That’s exactly what happened when you knocked me down. My pistol flew into the bushes.”

“True. It did. But only a few yards away. And I ran at you, trying to reach you before you pulled the trigger. I’m a big guy. The force of me hitting you and falling to the ground with you is more force than if Vale simply dropped where he stood after being injured. Don’t you agree?”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “Agreed.”

“And yet your gun only flew about six feet away. Wouldn’t you expect Vale’s gun, if he had one, to have gone only a few feet, given that set of parameters? Therefore easily found by either me or the crime scene tech team later?”

She didn’t answer. What could she say?

“After taking your gun, I was with Vale the rest of the time. I was there with the medical team. I escorted them down the mountain to the waiting ambulance. At no time did I ever see a gun.”

He waited. Again she said nothing.

“This might be a good time to tell the truth,” he said.

She was starting to regret apologizing for punching him.

“I am telling the truth.”

He sat back in his chair. “So the gun just, what, walked away on its own?”

“Maybe Vale threw it.”

“Sure. Okay. When he was lying on the ground bleeding out?”

“At any time when he was on the ground when you were on top of me. He could have tossed it away.”

“The crime scene techs would have found it.”

“Not if they didn’t know to look for it. You never spoke to me after the shooting. You didn’t ask me why I shot Vale. You didn’t know he had a gun, so you wouldn’t have told the techs to look for one.”

“Valid point. Rangers McAlister and Grady took you into custody before I went down the mountain with the medical team. Did you mention at any time to either of them that you thought Vale had a gun?”

Once again, he found the hole in her argument. She clenched her jaw in frustration. Of course she’d told them that Vale had a gun. She didn’t want someone to think that she’d just arbitrarily shot an unarmed man.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he continued. “I’ll be sure to verify that with the rangers. But I imagine it will be in McAlister’s report. He’s the one who would have sent the crime scene guys up there, too. And I’m sure he would have told them to perform a thorough search for a second gun. Again, I’ll happily verify that when I read their reports. Just to be extra certain, I’ll ask them, too. But we both know what they’ll say. They looked for a gun. They didn’t find one. Again, this would be a really good time to come clean, to dig yourself out of the hole you’re getting into.”

She shook her head.

“Let’s start again with why you’re here.”

“I told you. I’m hiking.”

“In the winter.”

“In the winter,” she snapped.

His brows rose. “Okay. So you like the cold. You like treacherous, slippery trails with snow and ice. Not my thing. But I can see the appeal for some people. The mountains are definitely beautiful with their snowcaps.”

He was going somewhere with this. She decided not to help him by rising to the bait. She sat back and waited.

“So you’re out hiking, enjoying the frigid weather. You heard someone else on the trail, behind you, so you—a trained FBI agent—whirled around and shot him. Do I have that right?”

“I told him to freeze. He didn’t.”

“Right. Left that part out. You heard someone behind you, whirled around, yelled for him to freeze, then you pulled the trigger.”

“After he pulled a gun out of his pocket, yes.”

“Because you thought he was walking on the same trail as you? You assumed he was following you?”

“Yes. No.” She shook her head in frustration. “It’s more complicated than that.”

He rested his forearms on the table again. “I’m all ears.”

She really, really wanted to punch him. “He wasn’t simply following me. He was stalking me through the woods, for quite some time. At least half an hour.”

His brows rose. “Stalking you?”

“Hunting me. Matching me stride for stride. When I took a step, he’d take a step, echoing me so that it was difficult to be sure if someone else was out there, following me.”

“Following you.”

“Would you quit repeating everything I say?”

He held up his hands in a placating gesture. “How long have you known Kurt Vale?”

“Known him? I’ve never met him.”

“But he’s been stalking you. I think you used the word hunting.”

“Yes. Exactly. He was hunting me. That’s how it seemed. I could hear footsteps—”

“Echoing yours.”

“You’re being condescending.”

“My apologies.”

He wasn’t sincere and they both knew it. He was tripping her up, making what had happened seem...trivial. She tried again to explain. “I was scared, okay? I believed he was after me.”

“Why would he be after you if he didn’t know you?”

“Because...” She hesitated. Would he believe her if she told him? Things weren’t going so well. If she was on a jury listening in on this conversation right now, she’d lock herself up and throw away the key. Duncan certainly didn’t believe her. That was obvious. He wasn’t likely to believe her wild theories, either, as her boss in Denver called them. Instead of telling Duncan her latest theory, her reason for being here, she tried again to stick to the facts of what had happened. What she needed to do was make him understand her fear, that she’d felt threatened. She would never shoot someone otherwise. She wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.

“You’re a man,” she said. “An intimidating one, sizewise, especially to a woman who is half your height, like me.”

He smiled. “Half might be stretching it.”

He was back to playing good cop, trying to charm and disarm her with those smiles of his. She cleared her throat. “My point is that even though I’m trained in self-defense, I know my physical limitations. I had a gun with me for protection—”

“You expected that you might end up in a confrontation and need your weapon?”

She’d not only expected it. She’d hoped for it. But telling him that would seal her fate.

“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I took my gun with me just in case. This morning, when I was walking the trail, I heard sounds—”

“Sounds?”

“Rocks pinging against other rocks, like someone’s feet had accidentally kicked them. A coat or jacket brushing against a tree.”

“The sounds any hiker might make while heading down a trail.”

“No, no, you don’t understand.”

“I want to.” He leaned forward, his dark blue eyes watching her with an intensity that was unnerving. “Make me understand, Remi. Tell me the truth.”

She could practically hear Jack Nicholson yelling, “You can’t handle the truth,” his famous line from A Few Good Men. Hysterical laughter bubbled up in her throat. She forced it down, drew several long, deep breaths.

“The sounds I heard weren’t loud or obvious. They were...stealthy. Like someone was trying to be quiet. It was difficult to pinpoint the direction. But someone was definitely following me. Not hiking, like I was. They were actually specifically following me. I’m absolutely one hundred percent certain.” This time she was the one to lean forward, her gaze clashing with his. “I tested my theory. Every once in a while I’d stop, with my foot in the air instead of taking my next step. I heard him, a thump in the distance, as if he was walking in sync with me, using my footsteps to hide the sound of his. But when I stopped suddenly, in midstride, he couldn’t. That’s when I knew for sure. Do you understand?”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The skeptical look on his face said it all.

They watched each other for a full minute before he leaned back again. “Let’s see if I have this right. You were scared.”

“Yes.”

“Someone was following you.”

“Yes.”

“You were convinced they were stalking you.”

“Yes.”

“That they intended you harm.”

“Definitely.”

“How long were they following you?”

“At least half an hour.”

“At what point did you call the police, knowing someone was following you, stalking you, someone you felt wanted to do you harm? When did you call?” He looked down at his keyboard, as if ready to record the time.

She stared at him, feeling the trap closing around her. She hadn’t even seen it coming.

He looked up, feigning surprise. “What time did you call the police during this half hour that you felt your life was in danger?”

Her left hand went reflexively to her cell phone, which McAlister had returned to her and which was now in her jeans pocket. “I didn’t call anyone.”

“You didn’t?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Cell phone service?” she blurted out. “No signal?”

“Are those questions or statements?”

She pursed her lips.

“Are you stating, on the record and on camera, that you tried to call, but couldn’t get a signal?”

Her mouth went dry. She’d made a guess about lack of cell phone service and didn’t have a clue whether or not she could have gotten a call through. But she would bet that he did. He probably knew where every cell tower was in these mountains, where you could get a signal and where you couldn’t. Technically, she hadn’t outright lied yet. She hadn’t specifically said that she’d looked at her phone and saw no bars. But if she told him she’d tried to call, she’d be crossing that line. She’d be lying to a federal officer in the course of an investigation, a crime that alone could send her to prison and destroy her career, if it wasn’t destroyed already.

“No.” Her voice came out as a dry croak. She cleared her throat, then reached for the bottle of water and took a long swallow.

He waited until she’d finished and set the bottle down. “No, you didn’t have a signal, or no, you didn’t attempt to call for help?”

Good grief. He was like a fox after a rabbit.

“I’m a law-enforcement officer,” she said. “I had a gun for protection, if I needed it. Although I was afraid, and worried that someone was after me, I felt confident in my ability to protect myself.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No. I did not.”

He smiled. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? You told the truth. Cell coverage is spotty and unreliable throughout the park. That’s why we carry radios. But there’s a cell tower not far from here that provides excellent signal strength. You would have easily gotten a call out if you’d tried.”

She pressed her left hand to her stomach. It felt like a kaleidoscope of butterflies was fluttering around inside her. Or a swarm. Or whatever a gazillion butterflies was called.

His smile faded. “Of course that brings us back to the original question of why you didn’t try to call anyone. Using your own logic, if you were thinking like a law-enforcement officer, using your training, you would know to call for backup. Standard operating procedure when you’re in danger. Why didn’t you call?”

She didn’t answer.

“You truly believed that Mr. Vale was coming after you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Then why, when you could have called for backup, did you choose to risk your life and face him all alone?”

Because I wanted to catch the bastard myself.

She pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out those very words.

Silence filled the room. He stretched his long legs out in front of him and let out a deep sigh.

“I was the first one at the office this morning,” he said. “I was the only one here when Zack Towers called to report that he’d shared one of the shelters on the Appalachian Trail last night with another hiker. When you left, you must have put your hand in your pocket to check your gun. He saw the outline of the pistol and called it in. No guns are allowed in any national park unless you’re one of the rangers or investigators working for the National Park Service. That rules you out.”

Her shoulder was beginning to throb from sitting in one position so long. She rubbed it to ease the ache. “There was a hiker with me in the shelter last night. I don’t remember him being named Zack, though. I thought his name was Sunny.”

Duncan nodded. “Sunny’s his trail name. He’s one of our regulars around here, shows up every year around this time, one of the few who likes to hike the AT during the winter. He’s a section hiker.”

“Section hiker?”

“Since you’re out here hiking the Appalachian Trail, I assumed you would have studied up on the lingo.” He let his words hang in the air between them.

Wearying of his game, she said, “I’m only doing day hikes. Normally, I stay in the motel each night and come back in the morning. I don’t know all the terminology because, obviously, I’m not one of those people who can miraculously afford to dedicate nearly a year of their lives to become a two-thousand-miler. That is what they call people who hike from Georgia to Maine in one season, right? NOBOs are the northbound hikers. SOBOs are the southbound ones?”

He nodded. “Sounds like you studied a little bit about the AT before coming here. I wonder why you’d do that? Maybe because you wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be a lot of hiker traffic around to see whatever it is that you’re actually doing here?”

“Or maybe I learned way more than I ever wanted to know about this cursed place when I was here on a stupid senior trip back in high school,” she snapped.

His look of surprise had her closing her own eyes and cursing to herself. She was getting too stirred up, too frustrated. And as a result, she’d just told him something way too close to her true purpose in being here.

The sound of him typing had her opening her eyes.

He typed a moment longer, then looked at her over the top of the screen. “What’s your natural hair color?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Your eyebrows are dark. You’re a brunette, right?”

“And this matters why?”

He turned the laptop around so she could see the screen. There, in living color, smiling and looking carefree, was her sister in the picture her father had given to the police when Becca went missing. It was the picture from the flyer they’d circulated by the hundreds in Gatlinburg after she disappeared. It was the same picture he’d put on the website he’d created to try to generate leads that would help him find his daughter. But they never did.

Becca.

Her throat tight, she whispered, “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me?”

Something flashed in his eyes. Sorrow? Regret? Empathy? Whatever it was, it didn’t bother him enough to close the laptop, or minimize the picture of her sister. Instead, his gaze searched hers.

“What I want is what I’ve wanted all along—the truth. I want you to admit that you came here because your boss, and the Behavioral Analysis Unit, refused to believe your theories about serial killers. I think that you dyed your hair blond to make yourself fit the criteria for whatever serial killer you’re currently theorizing about. And I think you very nearly killed Kurt Vale because you mistakenly thought that he was that killer.” He tapped the screen, drawing her attention to her sister’s picture again. “So, tell me, Remi. What’s the current theory? What killer are you after? If I hadn’t stopped you, would you have murdered Vale because you believe he killed your sister?”

She swore a string of obscenities at him and shoved herself up from her chair. She threw a few more insults out into the universe for good measure, then stalked out of the room.