Chapter 38
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TRISTAN
“The president of the United States has been shot.” The reporter’s voice wobbles as his eyes deadpan at the camera. His red-rimmed eyes steal the breath from my lungs as his words permeate the edges of my brain like fire creeping up paper.
Grover Fox is dead.
“Daphne.” Her name releases from my throat like a choke. Time crawls as I dig into the pocket of my jeans, almost ripping the seams in haste.
No calls. No texts. I try calling her, but it rings. And rings. And goes to voicemail.
I text her to call me, but after two minutes of silence, I can’t handle the unknown closing in on me like a nightmare.
I skim through news articles, but this story is so new that it’s a loop of the same video broadcast on repeat—Grover standing at the podium before his head is pixelated with bits of red across his forehead.
He stumbles behind the podium before swarms of Secret Service in black suits surround President Fox and the First Lady.
But where the fuck is Daphne? All of those cameras, and not a single person caught an angle with her?
A sob racks through my chest and restarts my heart from a picture posted on Instagram with Daphne and her mom being swamped by security before being escorted quickly behind a curtain.
She’s alright. At least, from what I can see, she’s alive.
I should have gone. Fuck, I should have been there for her. Some psycho’s been after her, and I trusted her safety to the useless Secret Service. I could have lost her.
While I spent the day trying to locate Ghost, he was planning a murder.
Was Grover his target all along? Or is Daphne still in danger?
Another Instagram image pops up, and Daphne’s standing beside her mother, a few feet away from the President.
She was close. Close enough that, if the assassin had worse aim, he could have hit her.
Or he could have targeted her and…
My gut lurches, and I barely make it to the bathroom in time before the contents of my stomach paint the inside of my toilet bowl. Sweat chills my forehead and the back of my neck. I slump beside the toilet like some hungover drunk.
I skim my phone again like an addict, desperate for that next fix of news that might give me a clue that Daphne’s safe.
In the latest photos of Daphne moments before the shooting, her eyes are hollow as they stare at her father, yet her smile is plastered on like she’s been trained to do since childhood.
How is she? Is she still alive? Was she hurt? How is she holding up?
I call again, but nothing. Fuck, why isn’t she answering? I can’t sit here and wait. If I do nothing, I’m going to lose my goddamn mind.
Forcing myself off the tile floor, I rinse my mouth with mouthwash, spit into the toilet bowl, and flush everything away.
Hurrying to my computer, the latest article claims the shooter came from one of the hotels across the outdoor stadium. Directly across from the stadium, in clear view of where the President was standing, is a Starcross hotel with balconies.
The fucker would have been there. If I were going to assassinate the President, that’s where I would have done it. It’s the perfect spot.
Plunging into the icy depths of the dark web, I lurk through posts and comments about pipedreams to kill the President.
People whine and complain about how terrible Fox is.
They fantasize about how they’d kill him in grotesque detail.
Stupid plans about mailing anthrax to the White House or creating a disguise to poison his drink.
But none of them give me a clue until I see one comment posted this morning, from the one name I never wanted to read again.
Ghost_M110
Not a grassy knoll, but a high rise? Poetic takedown for a man who thinks he’s the one on top of the world. Confirmed kill
Posted two hours before the shooting.
My stomach threatens to empty itself all over again as I read Ghost’s new post. He did it. Ghost killed President Fox. The fucker who shot through Daphne’s bedroom window. The one who stalked her from her therapist’s office.
I don’t care if he did what I couldn’t. Fuck it, I don’t care if Grover’s death is what stops the damn Bradshaw Bill.
Ghost shot someone inches from my woman. He put a bullet hole in her window. I’m going to find him. And when we meet, one of us isn’t going to make it out alive.
Not only does his username reference an Army sniper rifle, but the dumbass used the words “confirmed kill.” The guy’s military, or ex-military. I’ve got a gut feeling about this.
My phone rings, and my heart leaps into my throat, but it’s Tessa.
“Hello?” I answer, tap the speaker, and continue my search.
“Tris.” Her usually bubbly voice is weak. “Did you see—”
“Yes,” I cut her off. “I’m looking for the fucker who did this.”
“Do you have any leads?” She’s hesitant, and I know that’s not what she wants to ask me.
“I haven’t heard from her,” I tell her. “As soon as I do, I’ll let you know.”
Relief whooshes through the phone. “Thank you.”
“As for leads,” I say, “I know the guy was or is military. Probably a sniper with that accuracy. He’s been posting online. He called it a ‘confirmed kill.’”
“Any idea if he’s still in?” Tessa asks. “I can help you search.”
“I saw his face,” I tell her. “He was wearing this weird hoodie when I saw him. Black, and it made up the American flag, but with guns instead of stripes and bullets instead of stars.”
“That sounds like something you could get off ,” Tessa says with disappointment,
“Maybe, but that’s all I have to go on.”
“Let me look. In the meantime, can you get into the National Archives?”
A sarcastic laugh bursts from me as I hit enter and manage to get past the Archive’s firewall. “Nice timing. I just got in.”
“You’re getting better at that,” she says casually. I can hear a smile creeping into her voice.
“I learned from the best.” And I did—Tessa’s one hell of a hacker.
“Start looking,” she says, “and I’ll see what I can dig up on the hoodie.”
“Thanks, Tessa.”
Two hours later, Tessa calls me. This time, my body’s less jumpy when I pick up.
“So, I found two companies that make a design like what you described,” she says. “I couldn’t get past the firewall for one of them right away, so I tried the other. I found seventeen orders. I cross-referenced the names and addresses. I found two people who might match your profile.”
“Tell me,” I say. It’s like I need her to tell me everything all at once. I have absolutely no patience for even a breath at this point.
“One is Joseph Gless, but he’s in Oregon.
I checked his socials, and he posted on Instagram earlier that he was at a donut shop outside of Portland.
The other, I think, is your guy. Zachary Newey,” she says.
“It makes perfect sense. He lives in Baltimore. His grandfather is Admiral Frederick Newey. He’s living in Mount Vernon. I’ve got an address.”
As she’s talking, I search the Archives. And there’s Daphne’s stalker, smiling up at me, his head covered in a floppy red beret. Lean but tall with dark hair, younger and scrawnier than the man who followed Daphne out of the restaurant, but unmistakably the same person.
“Tessa,” I say slowly. “Can you come over and watch Hawkeye?”
“I’ll be right over.” God, I love my sister. No questions asked.
My skin’s gone blistering hot, yet my bones freeze like ice. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as those brown eyes gaze back at me with a cheeriness he doesn’t deserve to have.
He doesn’t deserve to live.
He could have killed…
No. Damnit, I’m not going to let my mind go there again. I need to think about my next steps.
Because tonight, Zachary Newey is going to die.
I comb the internet for anything on Zach and his family.
Admiral Frederick Newey is in his seventies and refuses to retire, according to Reddit posts about him and some news articles suggesting he step aside so that fresh blood can take over the fleet.
But nope, the man is a headstrong geriatric who still thinks he’s needed—though he appears to need the Navy far more than it needs him.
His wife passed a decade ago, and his two sons have married and have their own careers in the Navy. His oldest grandson, Zach, enlisted in the Army… as a fucking sniper.
Zach’s social media shows a smiling, happy-go-lucky guy who fishes and drinks beer and comes across as the most average all-American boy next door. Judging by the pictures alone, no one would suspect this guy of cold-blooded murder.
Wiping my search history cleaner than a factory reset, I prepare for the long night ahead of me.
Moving a loose floorboard in the master bedroom, I retrieve my unregistered gun and box of bullets from the gun safe.
I can beg for Tuck’s forgiveness once Zach isn’t breathing. I’m not prepared like I usually am, and I don’t know what situation I’m walking into tonight. I need to be armed—though hopefully it’ll be a last resort.
I cram everything into my backpack, along with a couple pairs of latex gloves, a roll of duct tape, and scissors.
I don’t know what I’ll need. Hell, I don’t even know what I’m planning to do.
All I know is that I can’t rest while this fucker is roaming the face of the Earth.
What if he doesn’t stop here? What if he has other plans?
What if his intended target all along has been Daphne?
He hasn’t targeted the First Lady or the President. No, he’s been hunting Daphne.
And sometimes it takes a killer to catch a hunter.
As I sling my backpack over my shoulder and bound down the stairs, Hawkeye gleams up at me with pleading brown and blue puppy dog eyes. It’s like he knows something’s terribly wrong but has no clue what. I bend down and let him kiss all over my face. These might be the last puppy kisses I ever get.
I feed Hawkeye a heaping scoop of food on my way out, and text Tessa that I left the door unlocked for her.
She calls, but I don’t answer. It rings repeatedly, and every time I look, I hope to see Daphne’s name.
But it never comes. Not even a text message.
It occurs to me for the first time tonight that Zach might have made it into the rally during the chaos. Videos show the rally erupting into complete pandemonium after the shots erupted and the realization sank in that the President was dead.
What if he snuck in? What if Daphne still isn’t safe?