Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
He braked the bike. “Agnes.”
She snuggled against him. All softness. Sweetness.
She’d killed a man hours before. Technically, his hand had been on the gun, too. So…we killed a man hours before. A bastard who’d broken into their motel room and tried to kill her.
“Agnes, you’re falling asleep while you’re riding a motorcycle.” Something that should not have been possible. He twisted toward her. Caught her shoulders and gave her a light shake.
She gasped.
He’d felt her slump against him moments before and been absolutely terrified. His hand had flown back as he held her in place long enough to stop the motorcycle.
It’s been twenty-four hours since she appeared at The Bottomless Pit for the big, dramatic scene. No wonder she’s collapsing on me.
But her body had stiffened now. She was awake again. Good. “We’ll get you some coffee,” he promised because he remembered how much the woman loved coffee. “But we can’t stop yet. We’ve got at least an hour to go.”
The helmet strap remained tight beneath her chin. “Where are we?” Slightly sleep slurred.
“Texas.” A long, lonely stretch of straight road in East Texas. They’d be stopping soon, though, because he was as dead tired as she was. “Stay awake for me a little longer, understand?”
“I’m good.”
“Are you?”
“You shoot one man who is trying to kill you…and suddenly the MC leader is questioning your life choices.”
No, dammit, that hadn’t been what he meant when he’d asked if she was good. “Agnes…”
“I’ll stay awake. Promise. And it’s not like I fell asleep. I was…just resting my eyes.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m good,” she repeated, stubbornness entering her voice.
He turned back to the front. Gripped the handlebars. A moment later, they were hurtling through the night.
Gray didn’t always go into the field. Okay, fine, the truth was that his bosses didn’t want him in the field. They kept promoting his ass through the ranks, and at this rate, all they wanted him to do was sit in the office, make profiles, and be a pompous dick who ordered other agents around.
He did have the pompous dick part down to an art, but…
Every now and then, he definitely liked walking back into the field.
Night had fallen. He’d hopped on a quick flight, then rented a car to get to his current destination. A crime scene at a no-tell motel. The local sheriff had been stunned that the Feds had any interest in the random motel shooting in the middle of nowhere, Mississippi.
But Gray knew it wasn’t random. And he had to clean up after people some days. Such was life. And death.
He paused a moment outside room four at the Grove Motel. Gray surveyed the scene, then he cut through the crime scene tape on the broken door.
“I think someone died in there.” A quiet voice to his left.
He turned. Saw the kid. Maybe seven or eight years old.
Hell. He had a soft spot for kids. Especially kids with big, scared eyes. Kids who were huddled in rundown motels.
Because I was one of those kids a long time ago.
“Nah, no one died in there,” he assured the kid. Not like he wanted to give her nightmares.
Her breath expelled in a relieved rush.
Someone died in the exact spot I’m standing in. Right here. Not in the room. He could see the blood drops. Automatically, though, he directed his flashlight away from those blood drops. Not like he wanted the kid getting terrified.
“Naomi!” A woman’s sharp cry.
Ah, that would be the mother.
She rushed out of a room about five doors down. She saw her kid talking to a strange man and immediately freaked the hell out.
Good for her.
“Naomi!” The mom broke into a run. She grabbed Naomi by the shoulders and yanked her back. “What have I told you about never talking to strangers?”
“He has a gun, Mom,” Naomi said.
“Oh, God.” Naomi’s mom shoved her daughter behind her back.
“I’m an FBI agent, ma’am.” Gray flashed his ID. Even illuminated it with his flashlight. All while still making sure that he did not shine that light on the bloodstains beneath him. He was a master multitasker that way.
Despite seeing the badge, the mom still scuttled back with her daughter.
“Your daughter is safe with me,” Gray assured her. His head angled to the side. “Your mom is right, Naomi. Don’t talk to strangers. Especially not at night. In front of strange motel rooms.”
The mom bolted with the kid.
Her door slammed seconds later. Gray was fairly certain furniture would be pulled in front of that door for extra security. Good choice.
“You just scared that woman to death.”
His head turned to the left. To the heavy shadows that waited.
Malik Jones walked out.
“I gave her and the kid some pro tips. I think they’ll both appreciate me later.”
Malik grunted.
The guy was just not particularly chatty.
Gray crossed the threshold of room four.
Malik lingered near the doorway. “That’s a lot of blood,” he noted.
Yes, it was. “He was shot in the heart. Bled out fast.”
“Guess the Night Striker doesn’t play.”
Uh, right. The Night Striker. Gray had received a text from Cass. One saying that Cass had taken out the attacker who’d…
He fired first. Three times. No choice.
Then…
I left a dead body for you. Cass had given the location of Findaway, Mississippi, and Cass had known that he had to do cleanup.
Except…
He turned on the lights inside the motel room. “Come inside and shut the door,” Gray ordered him. Not like he wanted Naomi to come in and get an up-close look at his investigation.
The door closed softly.
Gray whistled. When he’d spoken with the local sheriff earlier that day, Gray had ordered the guy to leave room four exactly as is.
Sure, the body could be bagged and tagged, but Gray had wanted his own eyes on the scene.
He even had his hand-picked evidence team at the ready.
They were currently waiting in a van outside.
He ambled toward the bed.
One shot in the pillowcase.
Two shots in the mattress. Technically, the shots had gone through the sheets. He picked them up with a gloved hand. Yep, those two bullets had gone through the sheets and into the mattress.
But…
There was another pillow on the floor. A pillow and a worn, gray blanket. The blanket was stretched out, as if…as if someone had been sleeping on top of it. On the floor?
“Guess the perp thought he was going to catch them unaware.”
Ah, that was a whole sentence from Malik. Impressive. “It would seem so.” What bothered him, though, was the fact that the perp had found Cass and Agnes so quickly.
Did someone sell you out, Cass? Cass had been playing a dangerous game for years. And Gray had warned him, time and again, that he needed to get out.
But Cass had told him it was too late. The only way out was in a body bag.
Well, someone had been taken from that motel in a body bag. Only it hadn’t been Cass.
He let the sheet drop. Gray studied the scene once more.
The pillow on the floor didn’t fall there. It’s positioned deliberately. So is the blanket.
His stare shifted toward the main door.
The wood was broken. The lock shattered. The perp had kicked it in, going for the element of surprise. He’d kicked open the door and immediately aimed for the bed.
Cass had been on the floor, Gray was sure of it. No way would Cass have let Agnes hunker down on the floor while he took the bed.
But…
She hadn’t been hit.
She did the firing.
A good FBI agent would have kept her gun close.
He glanced at the nightstand. She’d probably had it positioned right there.
So, the door had flown open, but Agnes…she hadn’t been asleep.
She’d leapt off the bed. Maybe even tried to protect Cass because that was what an FBI agent would do.
Only the prick in the doorway would not have run after he fired his three rounds.
He would have realized he’d missed his target.
He would have been preparing to fire again…
Agnes shot him.
Gray was pretty damn sure that when an ME examined the dead body, they’d find a bullet—maybe two—lodged in him that matched up to the weapon assigned to Agnes.
Gray nodded. Of course, Cass could always say that he’d used her weapon to fire but…
You lied to me, Cass. Agnes is the one who took the shot.
He turned around, studied the room yet again. He always liked to make sure he’d considered every possible element in a crime scene.
The silence stretched and stretched.
“What’s the plan?” Malik finally asked.
He was still working on his plan. But he did think he understood what had gone down in that room.
“A gun was recovered near the fallen man. The friendly sheriff told me that three shots had been fired from that weapon.” Three shots that had not found their mark.
“Clearly, this is a case of self-defense.” His gaze slid to Malik.
“You see anything here that makes you doubt that assessment?”
Malik’s jaw hardened.
Gray sighed. “Spit it out, Agent Jones.”
“I see plenty that makes me think Agnes is a sitting duck. No one is gonna buy that BS scene at The Bottomless Pit.”
Ah, he disagreed. Some would buy it. Some wouldn’t. Some wouldn’t give a shit either way. They would just want her dead. Her and Cass.
Malik took a surging step toward him. “Agnes is alone. She’s defenseless. She has no backup. This case is too risky.”
Four sentences. Nice. But Malik was wrong. “She has backup.”
“Who? The Night Striker?”
“He will protect her.” Gray was certain of that fact.
“Will he? Or will he abandon her in an instant to protect himself?”
Clearly, Malik was not a Cass super fan. He got it. “We don’t need to be worried about Cass at the moment.”
“Uh, yes, yes, I believe we do.”
That was because Malik did not fully understand the situation. Or Agnes. “Shit is gonna hit the fan.” Because he couldn’t really hide a dead body. He could…quiet things, but only for a time. Especially when the ballistics report came back and linked the shooting to her gun.