Foxtrot
B ecca had put off the inevitable long enough.
The crime scene cleanup crew had removed all traces of the violence that took place in her sister’s house.
It now waited for her to clean it out of all the important documents, the family pictures, and the priceless keepsakes of their lives, before she donated the home to the crisis center.
She purchased ten large totes to start with.
Though she knew she’d need many more.
She would start by just boxing the important things up.
She knew she wouldn’t be able to go through the items yet.
Not only would that be time-consuming, but it would also be very taxing, emotionally, and she knew she was not up for it yet.
Becca also knew that she’d have to go back to work full time soon.
That was another inevitable she’d been putting off.
The thing was, she wasn’t emotionally ready for that either.
She’d put in a few hours a day from home, answering emails from clients and communicating with the partners regarding issues she was handling from home.
So far, the law firm she worked for wasn’t demanding she return to the office.
The partners had been very supportive of her need to take time off both after her sister’s family was discovered dead and to settle her sister and brother-in-law’s affairs.
They seemed fine with the part-time, at-home approach she brought to the job.
The partners had also been supportive when her parents had died the year before.
But she didn’t want to take advantage of their kindness.
She drove to her sister’s home, arriving just after noon.
She’d arranged with the dealership that they would meet her there to pick up her car as she’d received a recall notice and the anticipated time to correct the issue was over five hours.
They were supposed to drop a loaner off to her, but when they arrived, somehow, the promised car was not delivered.
“No problem,” Becca told them as she handed her car keys over.
“I’ll be busy here all day and into the evening. Just give me a call and drop it back off when you’ve completed the work.” This would force her into putting in a full day packing things up at her sister’s house.
She’d already unloaded the two stacks of five large bins and lids, placing them in the house.
She’d eaten lunch before coming over, after putting in a few hours of working on a client’s will at home.
And if she remained at the house past dinnertime, she knew there was ample food and beverages in her sister’s house.
That would be her next task before turning the house over to the crisis center.
Once she’d cleared out the important personal and family items, she’d have to go through the refrigerator and throw away the expired food.
She’d leave the rest.
She started in the family room, boxing up pictures and other personal items. That didn’t take long.
She moved to the kitchen.
Even though the mess on the floor and cabinets had been cleaned up, she knew the space between the cabinets and the island was where Nicole was killed.
She struggled to keep the images of her sister running for her life from her thoughts.
She pulled the items from the junk drawer, glancing to be sure there was nothing important in the contents.
She piled them into the box.
Then she moved all the papers from the counter’s edge to the far side of the island to go through them.
This was the spot Nicole would drop the daily mail until she could go through it later.
Becca knew the most recent bills were probably here, bills she’d pay to settle their estate.
On the top of the pile was a bill from the girls’ pediatrician.
Becca recalled that Nicole had taken Riley to the doctor because of the headaches she was having.
She smiled, recalling how ridiculous Nicole had felt to discover Riley just needed glasses.
She hadn’t even thought that a possibility.
Becca chastised herself for allowing her thoughts to wander.
This wasn’t the time or place for her to relive the memories.
It was a simple sort she needed to do.
Bills to be paid in one pile, mail to investigate in another, and junk mail or irrelevant mail in a third pile to be recycled or trashed.
She plowed through the pile of mail and other papers on the counter and slipped the bills that needed to be paid into her purse.
It only took her three hours to clear the entire first floor of personal items, and she only used one of the bins.
She carried the remainder of the bins upstairs.
She knew that was where the majority of the things that she’d want to remove from the home were located.
The office was the first room she started in.
It didn’t take long, as most of the contents had been removed by the police.
She’d finally got back everything the police had removed from the house, including all the papers from the office.
The last of it was dropped off by Detective Davis at her house earlier that day, as she was leaving to come here.
She’d placed the box in the trunk of her car as she’d already locked her place up.
Besides, she planned to pass most of it to Jackson and Tessman from Shepherd Security to review first. They’d promised her they would go through it in a matter of days and have it returned to her promptly.
She spent less than an hour in the office and then moved onto the master bedroom where she spent three hours.
She’d filled two bins, which she left in the hallway.
She’d hire someone to come move all the bins when she was done, as she was packing them full, and they were heavy.
It was more difficult to not take trips down memory lane with each keepsake she touched, as this was the one room with Nicole’s cherished mementos from childhood through present day.
Becca found several thick photo albums in a box on the floor of the master closet.
There were pictures from their childhood, including the few family vacations they’d taken.
She sat on the bed and looked through the albums. They contained a lot of pictures she did not have copies of.
She believed Nicole had gotten these photo albums from her parent’s house after their deaths.
Becca vaguely recalled seeing them when they went through her parents’ things.
The room was getting dark as it was nearly sunset.
She checked her phone for a missed call from the dealership, assuming the work on her car had to have been completed by now.
There were no missed calls.
She could always take an Uber home if needed.
Her house keys were not on the keyring she’d given the dealership with the car’s fob.
She knew she should get back to work, but she couldn’t tear herself away from the photo albums or the happy memories that were contained within.
She turned the bedside light on, got comfortable, and continued to look through the pages.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she’d looked through all four photo albums, and it was completely dark outside by the time she put the last photo album on the bed beside her.
She glanced around the room and decided to call it a night.
She should be able to finish if she put in a full day tomorrow.
Several of her girlfriends offered to help go through her sister’s things.
She’d take them up on that to do one more check to go through every drawer to ensure she missed nothing.
And she’d have someone else go through Riley and Zoe’s rooms. She couldn’t do it.
She hadn’t gone into either one even though the crime scene cleanup company assured her all traces of their deaths in those rooms had been taken care of.
She got up and went to the closet to turn the light off.
She picked up her purse and stepped into the hallway.
She’d leave the bedside light on to give her some light as she went down the otherwise dark staircase as she remembered the light over the stairs was burned out.
She’d turned no lights on downstairs.
As she reached the top of the staircase, she saw a beam of light, which she assumed was from a flashlight, sweep across the bottom few stairs.
It danced along the wall for a few moments before it withdrew.
She froze where she was.
Someone was in the house!
Then she heard voices, male voices.
“Looks like that law-yer has been packing things up,” one of the male voices said.
“The police didn’t find it. I doubt she did,” a second, deeper voice said.
“And if she did, she wouldn’t know what it was,” the first voice said.
She tiptoed back into the bedroom and went into the large walk-in closet, quietly closing the door.
She leaned against the door and let out a shaky breath.
Her heart raced, and she felt light-headed.
She took a deep breath and pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans with her right hand, which shook.
She brought up the text message string with Carter Tessman from Shepherd Security and tapped out a message.
Help in my sister’s house master bedroom hiding in closet 2 men in the house
Tessman had just driven his car out of the parking garage attached to the Shepherd Security building when the text hit his phone.
He was heading to his condo, a rarity that he stayed there.
On my way, also calling police.
Do they know you’re there?
He, of course, called Ops for them to notify the police and any other agency personnel in the vicinity to help back him up.
And Ops would notify the local LEOs that armed federal agents were on site as well.
I don’t think so
Stay hidden
Oh, she intended to.
She tapped out what she’d heard the men say, just so someone would have the info in case something happened to her.
Tessman thought about what she heard the intruders say as he drove, way above the posted speed limit.
Ops had also reached Jackson.
He was on his way, ETA fifteen minutes.
Bravo Team members Flores and Robinson were also en route.
Their ETA was twenty-five minutes.
Tessman would reach the house way before anyone else.
He wouldn’t wait for Jackson to enter.
He had to decide how he’d play it.
Would he ring the bell and knock, hoping to send the intruders fleeing out the back door?
Or should he enter quietly and try to catch them?
Hiding in the closet, Becca watched the minutes tick by on the face of her iWatch.
She took purposeful deep breaths to calm her racing heart.
Her adrenaline was spiking high, she was sure.
She prayed Carter Tessman, or the police, would get there before the men exhausted their search on the first floor and came upstairs.
The intruder, at the top of the stairs, stepped cautiously towards the room with the light on.
He also noticed the two doors that led into the kids’ bedrooms further down the hall were closed, which they hadn’t been when he was last in the house.
In the closet, Becca stayed perfectly still, willing her heartbeat to settle down.
She strained, trying to hear any sound.
For the first ten minutes, she heard nothing.
But then she heard the sound of the closet doorknob turning.
She also felt the door press against her back.
She flattened her back more firmly against the door and braced herself, her feet pushed hard into the carpet.
The door hit her back harder as the person on the other side tried to open it.
She dug her feet in more firmly and pressed harder with her back.
Would the intruder think the door was jammed by something?
Did he have any idea she was in the house?
And in the closet?
“What the hell?” the man muttered.
She heard him clearly.
He pushed harder, now throwing his body against the door.
She thought about what was in the closet to defend herself with.
She doubted she could keep the door closed.
His last body slam against the door moved her nearly a foot.
There was a large golf umbrella in the corner behind the door, within reach, she remembered.
Her hand reached out and grabbed it.
On the shelf a foot or two down from where she was, were several pairs of Nicole’s shoes with narrow heels, what many would call stilettoes.
There was one pair in particular she believed could do some real damage if she could get it in her hand and hit this man just right with it.
The door hit her harder as the man threw all his weight against it.
An arm poked in, the hand grabbing the wire shelf unit on the other side of the door.
His foot also invaded the room, both she saw by the light from the bedroom now penetrating into the closet.
It reflected from the large, full-length mirror leaning against the far corner of the closet.
The door pressed in on her as the man pushed the door farther open and stepped into the closet.
Becca met his gaze in their reflections in the mirror.
She also saw the pistol he held in his hand that didn’t grip the wire shelf.
She swung the umbrella with all her strength, striking him in the neck.
Then she hit the lever, opening it wide and she dove for the shoe box with the heels she wanted.
He deflected the umbrella, wrestling with it for a costly moment to get it out of his way.
While he did this, she grabbed the silver sequenced stilettos, one in each hand.
She dropped to her bottom and as he rushed towards her, she lifted her right leg and kicked him in the groin with every ounce of strength she had.
He collapsed in on himself, shrieking in pain.
She was grunting in a strangled scream, the only sound she could currently force out.
That was when she sprang up and hit him in the temple with one of the shoes.
It didn’t go in as far as she anticipated, and the heel broke from the bottom of the shoe when it made contact with his head.
She knew that the weakest part of the skull was the pterion, which was where the frontal, parietal, temporal, and sphenoid bones met.
It was located on the side of the skull, just behind the temple.
She’d hit too far forward.
His head was turned, so that she didn’t have a clear shot at that weak place.
So, instead, she followed up with a second blow to the head as close as she could get with the now heelless shoe, and her other hand swung the second stiletto at his neck.
He deflected her blows, both of them, and pushed her back, farther into the closet.
She landed on the floor beside the large mirror and let out a scream.
She noticed he bled from the head and the neck.
He lumbered towards her like an unsteady drunk man.
She tried to stand, but he grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pushed her more violently against the wall.
She hit it hard. A second startled scream came out of her.
Beside her on the ground were hand weights.
She picked each of them up and lobbed them at the man’s face.
He backed up as he tried to deflect each of them.
Once they were expended, and he was several feet back, she turned her attention to the large, heavy mirror.
She pulled on it as he recovered from the blows of the weights and took a step towards her.
She held onto the mirror and let herself drop, using her body weight to pull it from the wall and set it careening towards her assailant.
He ducked, but it hit him in the head beside the head wound she’d caused with the stiletto.
He went down, the mirror crashing on top of him.
That’s when she heard the gunshots.
***
Tessman arrived at the DeSoto house, noticing no lights were on, on the first floor.
He saw the glow of a light coming through the master bedroom windows on the second floor.
He turned the door knob and gave the door the smallest amount of pressure.
The seal on the door broke.
The front door wasn’t locked.
He drew his weapon and turned his comms to transmit.
He’d inserted the earpiece as he drove.
“At the DeSoto residence, Control. The front door is unlocked,” he broadcast in a whisper.
“I’m still three minutes out,” Jackson transmitted.
“Can you wait for me?”
Tessman heard a very faint scream coming from inside.
“Negative. I hear screams from inside. Entering.”
“Remain on transmit. And Moe, keep your head on the swivel,” Yvette said, not expecting a reply.
She knew he’d already have crossed the threshold.
Then, per protocol, she notified Shepherd that Tessman was about to engage an unknown number of Tangos solo and that the local LEOs were en route.
Tessman opened the front door just enough to step onto the entry tile.
As seen from outside, the first floor was dark.
As he did, his eyes swept the interior of the living room, which he could see well enough due to the outside streetlights casting some light into the room.
He was not able to see the staircase behind the door, but the door itself gave him some protection.
He peered around the edge of the front door to catch a glimpse of legs on the staircase near the top.
He dropped to one knee and pivoted near the edge of the door; his weapon trained on the legs.
A single shot hit the front door, about a foot higher than his head.
The sound of the gunshot was deafening in the otherwise quiet house.
He returned fire, striking the figure on his thigh.
The man crumpled onto the stair and raised his weapon to fire again.
Tessman squeezed off another round.
It hit him in the chest. He fell to the side and slid down the stairs, crashing into the pie shaped landing near the foot of the staircase.
Tessman rushed around the door and made sure the man was disarmed, taking his Glock from his hand, which still clutched it.
He shoved the man’s weapon into his own holster.
Then he checked the man’s chest. It bled, and the man was either unconscious or dead.
He didn’t check to see which.
He glanced back towards the kitchen, thinking he had heard something.
He saw nothing all the way through to the closed sliding glass door.
Becca said she was upstairs in the master closet.
He hoped she was still there.
“One Tango down on the stairs up,” he whispered, broadcasting the status to Yvette, Jackson, and whoever else may be on comms.
Then Tessman mounted the steps, not knowing how many Tangos there might be in the house.
She’d heard two men, so he had at least one more man to find.
But there could be more.
He crept up the stairs.
He could see the light spilling out from the bedroom as he neared the top of the stairs.
He soundlessly stepped into the bedroom, noting that all the other doors on the second floor were closed.
He’d still check the master bedroom and closet first. The closet door was open about a foot.
He didn’t like the placement of the rooms. The master bathroom door, which was open, was adjacent to the door to the closet.
He couldn’t search them both at the same time.
And they were set up that if someone was within either of the spaces, they could get the drop on him as he checked out the other.
He listened intently, but heard nothing.
Becca had grabbed the pistol belonging to her assailant from the closet floor.
She sat with her back against the back of the closet, the weapon clasped in both of her hands in the correct position to fire, her index finger resting on the outside of the trigger guard as she was taught.
The man lay motionless beneath the downed mirror.
She knew that with all the noise, someone would eventually come through the door.
There was another man in the house that she knew of, and she’d already heard several gunshots.
Was Carter Tessman or the police already there too?
And who fired at who?
She prayed it wouldn’t be the other intruder who would find her in the closet.
And for a split second, she envisioned Carter Tessman getting shot as he entered the house.
She shook that thought from her mind.
No, he hadn’t been shot.
Tessman passed by the door to the closet and quickly checked out the master bathroom space while keeping an eye behind him.
No one was going to sneak up on him.
The bathroom was empty.
“On scene, entering the house through the front now,” Jackson’s voice came through comms.
Tessman positioned himself outside of the closet, so the door blocked his detection from within.
He was able to see into the front corner of the closet through the cracked open door.
Nothing in that corner looked amiss.
Then, all at once, he lifted his right leg and kicked the door open.
It exploded in and wedged open against the bottom half of a man’s torso, which lay on the floor beneath a large frame with a solid wood backing.
Behind it, along the back wall of the closet, was Becca, pointing a pistol at him.
“Easy, lower the weapon,” he said.
He turned to view the bedroom.
“Jax, I’ve got Becca and a second downed Tango, master bedroom.”
Becca saw the earbud in his ear and knew he was talking to someone other than her.
She assumed Jax was Jackson.
“Roger that,” Jackson whispered.
“First floor is clear, besides the wounded Tango on the stairs. Back slider is open.”
“It was shut when I got here,” Tessman said.
“This second level needs to be checked, as well as the basement.”
“And garage,” Jackson added.
“If you can clear the second floor, we’ll let Louisa and Kegger handle the rest when they arrive.”
“ETA five minutes,” Tommy ‘Louisa’ Flores’s voice came through comms.
Tessman looked back into the closet.
Becca had stood and was maneuvering around the downed man and what he now identified as the mirror on top of him.
“You any good with a gun?”
“Good enough,” she said, holding the weapon lower but with both hands in the proper position, prepared to raise it and fire if needed.
“Cover me while I check him out.” He pointed to the man under the mirror in the closet.
“Jackson is in the house. Don’t shoot him.”
She stepped all the way out of the closet and pressed her back against the nearby wall, her eyes fixed on the open bedroom door and the hallway outside of it.
She still felt light-headed and her chest felt constricted.
Tessman stepped into the closet and found one of the Tango’s hands.
He pulled it out from under the mirror and checked for a pulse on his wrist. Nothing.
He lifted the mirror and leaned it against the wall.
It was heavy. The man was still.
He checked for a pulse at his neck, finding blood, but no pulse.
He turned his head and saw a large wound at his temple and just behind it, which was the source of most of the blood.
Then he quickly patted the guy down, looking for a wallet or some ID.
Nothing.
“He’s dead,” he told Becca as he emerged from the closet.
She didn’t tear her gaze or her aim from the bedroom door.
She merely nodded, not sure how she felt about that.
The only emotion she could identify was relief that she wasn’t the one dead in the closet.
He didn’t know how to read her silence.
He came in close to her.
“It was self-defense.”
“I know it was,” she said.
“Now what?”
“Stay a few steps behind me. We need to clear the rest of this floor. Cover me while I check each room.”
She stepped into the hallway behind him.
At the top of the stairs, she glanced down and saw Jackson.
He was pulling a man who lay crumpled near the bottom of the steps off of them and into the entry.
She wondered if he was alive or dead.
She assumed he’d been shot by Tessman or Jackson.
She watched Tessman methodically check each room, moving slowly, deliberately, soundlessly, and checking under every bed, in every closet, in every corner.
Watching him as he did this, she no longer saw him as the young guy she’d originally thought of him as, regardless of his actual age.
He moved with confidence, training, and precision with what she would guess was lethal accuracy.
He was a Marine, just as he’d said.
“Second floor, clear,” Tessman transmitted to Jackson and Yvette.
She followed him down the stairs.
The entry light was on now.
A large splatter of blood was on the wall halfway down.
And then at the landing, there were several smudges of blood.
The carpet in both spots had large bloodstains as well.
She was sure there was blood in the closet.
She stifled a nervous laugh.
It looked like she’d be calling that crime scene clean-up company back and paying to replace the carpet.
Tessman gazed at her with confusion and concern when he heard her small chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“That wasn’t really a laugh. It was an I don’t fucking believe I have to call the crime scene cleanup company back to this house.”
Tessman nodded.
He understood. It had been a nervous emotional release.
“Careful, don’t step in the blood. We don’t want to track any through the house.”
She nodded and carefully stepped around it as she descended the stairs.
“Control, going off transmit now,” Tessman broadcast. He then switched his comms to listen only.
“Roger that, Moe,” she acknowledged.
“Arrived on scene,” Flores transmitted.
“Coming in the front.”
Tessman took Becca by the upper arm and pulled her towards the kitchen.
They stepped past Jackson and the bleeding man.
“Step away from the door. Two of our team members are entering.” Then he noticed she still held the Tango’s gun.
“Let me have that.” He took the weapon from her.
Jackson had moved the body far enough in so that its position didn’t interfere with the front door opening.
He kneeled over the unconscious man, with his back to the wall the stairs were on.
He had pressure on the chest wound with one hand, his weapon still in the other as the entire house hadn’t been searched.
“Becca, can you get us a few kitchen towels?” Tessman prompted.
“Sure,” she said, and then hurried into the kitchen.
Flores and Robinson came through the front door, weapons held at the ready.
“Status?” Flores asked.
“Dead Tango in the master bedroom closet. This one has a GSW to the thigh and the chest. He’ll live,” Tessman said.
“Second floor and this floor clear. Stairs to the basement are around this corner, as is the door to the garage. They need to be checked out.”
“The back door was open when I got here. Check out the back after you clear the house. The first time we checked this place out, we found cigarette butts and flattened grass out back just within the tree line.”
Becca had just re-entered the room and heard what Jackson had just said.
She dropped the stack of towels on the floor beside Jackson and the wounded man.
“You think someone could have been watching the house from back there? The person or persons who actually killed them, don’t you?”
“It’s possible,” Tessman said.
“Becca Elliot, our team members Flores and Robinson.”
Becca nodded a greeting and forced a small smile at the two older men.
“Ma’am,” Flores greeted with a nod.
And then the two men stepped around them, splitting up.
Flores went down the stairs to the basement and Robinson made his way through the small laundry room and went out into the garage.
A few minutes later, they both returned and reported the basement and garage clear.
Then they exited the house through the back door to check out the back yard.
“Team,” Yvette’s voice came through comms, “be advised the local LEOs are arriving on site. I’ve advised them you’re onsite and have control of the scene.”
“Roger that, Control,” Jackson broadcast.
Two uniformed officers came through the door, weapons drawn.
Tessman held up his FBI badge.
“Tessman and Jackson, federal agents,” he said.
Becca stared at Tessman, her eyes bouncing between the badge he held and his face.
Assured the scene was secure, the police radioed the ambulance, which waited for the all-clear down the street.
Once the paramedics entered, Jackson stepped back and let them get to work on the wounded man.
“He’s under arrest,” Jackson advised the paramedics and the local LEOs.
“As soon as he’s conscious, we need to question him. And there’s a DOA in the master bedroom closet.”
One of the two police officers jogged up the stairs.
“The crime scene techs have been called, and a detective is en route as well,” the other cop said.
“One of us will accompany the perp. You all need to remain here to give your statements to the detective.”
Tessman bent down and without getting in the paramedics’ way, he searched the wounded man for an ID.
He found none. He took out his phone and snapped a few pictures of the man which he then sent to Yvette in Ops at HQ.
He’d have to get a couple pics of the face of the vic in the closet once his body had been turned over.
They’d be passed to the Digital Team in an attempt to get an ID on the men.
Then he noticed how awkwardly Becca stood, her eyes riveted on the wounded man and the paramedics.
“Let’s wait in the kitchen,” he said to her.
She defiantly shook her head and then crossed the living room, taking a seat on the couch.
From where she sat, she watched the paramedics.
Jackson and Tessman stepped over and stood beside her.
The cop that had gone up to check on the dead man in the closet came back down the stairs, being careful to stay out of the blood splatter on the stairs.
Within a few minutes, the paramedics transferred the man onto their stretcher and then wheeled him out of the house.
Becca let out a breath she’d been holding.
She then stared at the badges both the men from Shepherd Security displayed on their belts.
FBI and DEA. She was more than confused.
Tessman noticed that her eyes were riveted on their badges.
Either that or she was checking out their packages, though he doubted the latter was the case.
He made eye contact with her and saw the questions she would ask soon.
He wondered how she’d ask.
Would she be outraged?
Demanding? Baffled? Certainly, she’d feel lied to.
She’d been through a lot of shit since her sister’s family was murdered.
He didn’t want to add to her angst.
Robinson and Flores re-entered the house through the back.
They flashed their badges at the lone uniform cop who stood in the entry.
Detective Davis arrived at the house a few moments later.
He quietly conferred with the uniformed police officer for a moment at the entry.
He crossed the room and then greeted the five of them, shaking Jackson and Tessman’s hands and addressing them by name and then trading introductions with Flores and Robinson while shaking their hands as well.
Then he turned his attention to her.
“Becca, are you okay?” The concern in his voice was genuine.
She didn’t even know how to answer that question.
She was now. “They were searching for something specific. I heard them talking. And they knew that I’d been here packing, referred to me as that lawyer. So, they knew who I am.” That was what bothered her the most.
Davis’s eyes flickered to Jackson and Tessman.
“Can you keep her protected until we figure this out?”
“We can,” Jackson volunteered.
“I thought so,” Davis replied.
“Stay here. I’ll get your statements in a minute. First, I need to take a look at the vic in the closet upstairs. Who killed him?”
“I did,” Becca said in a strong voice.
“The mirror did,” Tessman said.
“He put himself in the path of the mirror when he assaulted you.”
“Okay, the vic can wait,” Davis groaned.
“Becca, step into the kitchen with me. I’ll take your statement there.” He turned his attention to the four men from Shepherd Security.
“Stay here. I’ll get to your statements after hers.”
Tessman grinned at Jackson as Davis retreated, following Becca Elliot into the kitchen.
“He admits she needs protection. Do you know if Shepherd got the crime scene report in yet? Might be a good time to confront him with everything that’s in it that doesn’t add up.”
Jackson shook his head.
“Yes, it would have been a good time for that if we’d gotten the report, which we haven’t.”
“Damn,” Tessman remarked.
Becca took a seat at the kitchen table.
“Tell me all of it,” Detective Davis prompted as he sat across from her.
“I worked here packing things up all day,” she began.
She proceeded to tell him all of what happened up until the police officers arrived.
“They could have just been looking to burglarize a vacant place,” Davis said.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she demanded.
“They were looking for something specific. Said the police hadn’t found it and even if I did, I wouldn’t know what it was. This was not random, and Nick did not kill his family. This is all connected, the murders, these intruders in the house. They didn’t know I was here, or they probably wouldn’t have come in. They would have waited until I left.”
“I’ll agree with you on the last part. As far as the rest, we’ll see.”
Becca looked away, disgusted.
“Have you seen the full crime scene report yet?”
Davis looked embarrassed.
“It hit my desk a few days ago. I’m sorry, I’ve been busy, too busy to look at a report on a closed case.”
Becca raised her chin a little further into the air.
“Look at it and then give me a call.”
Detective Davis eyed her suspiciously.
What did she know? “I will. You can step out into the living room. Can you please send one of the Shepherd Security men in?”
Tessman came in first. He placed both the guns from the two Tangos on the table.
“This one is from the dead Tango in the closet. You’ll find both Becca’s and my prints on it. And this one is from the guy I shot on the stairs.” Then he pulled his own weapon from the back of the waistband of his jeans where he’d shoved it, right beside his holster that had the first Tango’s gun in it.
“This is my weapon that I used to shoot the Tango on the stairs. First round went into his thigh as he was standing on the stairs when he fired at me. The second round went into his chest. Then he took the seat across from Detective Davis.
Davis stared at the three weapons lined up on the table. “You’ve been busy.
”
“Hey, I didn’t start this. The guy on the stairs shot at me first. And the guy in the closet assaulted Becca.”
“Why didn’t you wait for backup when you arrived?” Davis asked.
“Your DOA was assaulting Becca in the closet when I arrived. I heard her screaming when I got to the front door.”
Davis took Tessman’s badge and wrote down the information before handing it back to him.
“So, the shooter on the stairs, was he heading up or down when you arrived?”
“I assumed up as Becca was screaming and pushing the mirror onto your vic in the closet when I arrived. But I can’t say for sure. I opened the door and two seconds later his first shot hit the door. I returned fire, hit him in the thigh and he collapsed into a sitting position. He raised his gun at me again and I got the shot off faster than he did, hitting him in the chest.”
“I’m sure it was a good shoot,” Davis said.
“Damn right it was,” Tessman said.
“If you have any questions regarding it, contact Shepherd.” Tessman knew he had immunity, and Shepherd would handle any issues.
Davis shook his head.
He knew this group was connected to Washington D.C.
He knew they were a special multi-agency task force; however, he thought they had an NGO arm of the agency, and he was surprised badge carrying agents had been working Rebecca Elliot’s case.
It made him wonder why they’d taken it.
“Okay, send Jackson in next,” Davis said.
“And after I’ve interviewed each of you, you’re free to go. You’ll see Becca Elliot home and make sure she’s protected?”
“We can stash her in a safe location for a few days. You’ve already had your shot at the items in this house to see what they could have been looking for. Do you mind if we comb through the contents?” Tessman asked.
He and Jackson had already discussed both before Davis arrived.
“That’s fine,” Davis said.
“You’ll keep me in the loop if you find anything?”
“Yes. And will you re-review all you have in on the murders of the DeSoto family?”
Davis nodded.
“Yeah, I’ll try to go over it with fresh eyes. Becca Elliot is convinced that once I see the final lab reports I’ll change my mind on it.” He stared at Tessman for a long moment, seeing confidence in Tessman’s return stare.
“And something tells me you think so too. Makes me wonder if you both have already seen it.”
“Our office hasn’t received it from Shepherd’s request yet,” Tessman said.
His lips pulled into a half-smile, half-smirk.
“Yeah,” Davis said, even more convinced that somehow, they’d already seen it.