No One Left to Tell (3 page)

Numb, she could only stare, her hands clenched into bloody, impotent fists. And as her heart started to beat again, she realized one fist clutched something hard. And small. A flash drive. Elena had hidden it in her bra. Had pressed it into her hand.

Cops. Chasing me
.

Maria had been convinced the police had set up her son. It had sounded far-fetched at best. Now her daughter-in-law was dead, saying police had done it.

Whatever Paige held in her hand had gotten Elena killed.

Tuesday, April 5, 6.04
A.M
.

Silas lowered his rifle. His hands were steady, but his heart pounded in his throat.
Goddammit
. He hadn’t wanted to kill her.

The woman with the long black hair backed away from the wrecked van, her footsteps far less steady than they’d been minutes before. He’d thought the woman a goner when she stood in the minivan’s path, and then she’d leapt like some kind of fucking ninja, dragging her monster dog with her.

Who the hell was she? Had Elena said anything to her? He hoped not. He’d hate to have to kill the woman too. He almost had.

Luckily she’d turned around when the medics arrived or he would have been forced to shoot her too, just to get her out of his line of fire. He wouldn’t have liked that. He hated to kill unnecessarily. Unfortunately, Elena had signed her own death warrant.

He closed the lid on his rifle case, picked up the spent casing, dropped it in his pocket. People were screaming, just now realizing what he’d done. That Elena was dead. The paramedics were ducking behind their rig, per their procedure.

And . . . there was the cruiser, screeching to a stop. Two uniforms sprang from the vehicle, weapons in hand. Those in the crowd who hadn’t fled were pointing vaguely, but close enough to his general direction.

Move your ass, boy
. It wouldn’t take the cops long to drop a surveillance net over this whole area. Crouching low, he made his way to the edge of the rooftop, dropped to the fire escape and took the steps two at a time.

He’d had only seconds to choose a spot from which to stop Elena. Luckily the small business park he’d chosen had offered a good view and access to an escape route.

He eased into traffic. Then on his cell, he dialed a number from memory. ‘It’s done.’

‘She’s dead?’

‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘No thanks to that idiot Sandoval. He couldn’t wait for me to finish it. He shot up her van before I could run her off the highway. I would have shot her more discreetly.’

There was a moment of very displeased silence. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should ask him. Maybe you should ask him why he let her get that close to him to begin with.’
Then I wouldn’t have had to kill her
.

‘Maybe I won’t bother to ask.’

Silas shrugged, knowing what would transpire. Denny Sandoval deserved it. Keeping records for Elena to find. Idiot. ‘Make it look like a suicide.’ He kept it a suggestion, knowing a command would not be tolerated. ‘What she found out would have buried him anyway.’

There was another beat of silence. ‘What did she find out?’

‘That he’d been paid off to lie in court, that Muñoz’s alibi was real, after all.’

‘It would have been her word against his.’

‘Unless she took proof with her. He was scared shitless enough to call me for help.’

‘And obviously enough to follow her and fire at her vehicle.’

‘He was sloppy. He went for the windows, not for the tires.’

‘Why?’

‘Probably because he wasn’t a good enough shot to hit the tires while he was driving.’ Probably because the moron was drunk. Again. ‘She made it another five hundred feet, then turned into an apartment complex and hit a lamppost. I was just within range. If he’d shot her up a minute earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to hit her.’

‘But she
is
dead.’

‘Yes.’ He’d fired on enough people to know a kill shot when he saw one.

‘Then thank you. You’ll be compensated the usual way.’

Which meant a great deal of money deposited to his off-shore account with speed and efficiency. It had taken time to grow accustomed to such polite discussion of such a dirty deed. After all this time, it still made him cringe inside. ‘Thank you.’

‘One more question. Who else is implicated in whatever it was he kept?’

‘I don’t know.
I
didn’t pay him off. That would have been you. Did you go as yourself or did you play dress up?’ He wished the words back as soon as they exited his mouth.
Keep the sarcasm leashed or you’ll be a ‘suicide’ yourself
.

Another beat of silence. ‘I was disguised.’

‘Then you have no worries,’ he said, his voice mild.

‘Again, thank you. I’ll be in touch.’

Yeah, you do that
. He wasn’t sorry for the idiot Denny who’d signed his own death warrant by keeping incriminating evidence. And for what? Blackmail would have been suicide and insurance would have been unnecessary, had he kept his big mouth shut.

He did feel sorry for Elena Muñoz. She should have forgotten about her husband, gone on with her life. She’d still be alive.
And I’d have one less mark on my soul
.

Tuesday, April 5, 6.20
A.M
.

Three and two and one
. With a grunt, Grayson Smith pushed the weight bar back to the rack.
Two-ninety-five used to be a hell of a lot easier
. Then again, he used to be a lot younger. He was officially on the downslide to forty. Which bothered him a lot more than he’d expected it would.

He relaxed his shoulders onto the bench, gave his spotter a nod. Without missing a beat, Ben resumed the story he’d been telling before Grayson had started the set.

‘So the punk sets off running and tosses the fucking gun down the goddamned storm sewer.’ Ben made a disgusted face. ‘It’s gonna take me forever to get the smell out of my shoes. Asshole.’

‘Did you find it?’ Grayson asked.

‘Hell, yeah. Guy’s a three-timer. You’ll be able to put him away.’

Which Grayson had heard from detectives more times than he could count. Unfortunately, ‘putting them away’ wasn’t always as easy as it appeared. Still, he had one of the better conviction rates in the state’s attorney’s office. Knowing he’d put assholes like the one Ben had just cuffed behind bars let him sleep at night. Most of the time.

‘It’ll be my pleasure.’ Grayson gripped the bar and prepared for his final set. He’d pressed three reps when phones started ringing all over the gym and all chatter ceased.

In a gym full of cops, this was a damn bad thing.

Grayson racked the bar and sat up, his eyes on the men and women around him. It looked like the officers called were out of the eastern precinct. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben murmured. He waited until the guy closest to them had put away his cell phone. ‘Well? What’s gone down, Profacci?’

Profacci started for the showers. ‘Sniper. Woman in a minivan hit. Sergeant’s just called all hands to search for the gunman. Hell of a way to start the day.’

For a moment Grayson said nothing. His mind was racing back ten years to when a sniper had terrorized the DC Metro area. The closest victim to Baltimore had been a few counties over, but the entire area had lived in fear for three weeks. By the time the snipers were caught, ten people had died and three others were critically wounded.

He looked at Ben. ‘I hope this isn’t what we’re all thinking it is,’ he said, then turned to the woman at the front desk. ‘Sandi, can you switch the channel to the news?’

Sandi complied and the sixty-three-inch plasma screen mounted on the wall above them switched from replays of last night’s hockey game to the local station, where a reporter stood in front of a large sign that said
Brae Brooke Village Apartments
.

Seeing who the reporter was, Grayson had to swallow his annoyance. Phin Radcliffe shoved a mike in his face every time he left the courtroom. A lot of reporters shoved a mike in his face, but Radcliffe always took it a step further. And stopped at nothing to get a story.

‘. . . killed by a sniper’s bullet,’ Radcliffe was saying. ‘The police have not yet given the all-clear, and residents are being told to stay indoors. We know that the victim is dead. We don’t know the status of the shooter at this time, but we do have this exclusive footage of the events as they unfolded. Be warned. The following images are graphic and may upset some viewers.’

The image switched to a woman in the path of an oncoming minivan and Grayson found himself staring in disbelief. The woman went into a crouch and sprang, flying at least eight feet before she landed on her knees, dragging a big Rottweiler on a leash.

Milliseconds later, the minivan crashed into a pole. There was no sound on the video, but the dog was clearly barking like a lunatic.
And who could blame him?

‘Did you see that?’ Ben demanded. ‘Fucking gazelle.’

Grayson had seen it and he still wasn’t sure he believed it. The camera ignored the minivan, zooming in on the woman’s face, and Grayson slowly released the breath he’d been holding. Her eyes were black as night, large and stark against the paleness of her face. Her hair was black as well, pulled into a ponytail that hung halfway down her back.

Grayson couldn’t tear his gaze from her face, and neither could whoever was doing the filming. Curiously, the lens stayed focused on the woman and not the wrecked van.

Instead of running away, the woman got up and ran toward the van, followed by the Rottweiler. The camera moved, focusing through the van’s front passenger window where a female victim lay trapped in the driver’s seat. The camera’s angle remained constant, pointing down.

‘The camera’s on one of the apartment balconies,’ Grayson said, his chest going tight with dread. A woman in a minivan was dead, Profacci had said. But not
her
, Grayson hoped, and felt instantly guilty. But he couldn’t change the outcome, and one of them was dead. Nor could he stop himself from thinking,
Just not her. Don’t let it be her
.

‘And the cameraman’s got a thing for the gazelle,’ Sandi added.

‘Can you blame him?’ Ben asked. ‘She’s . . .’

The picture skipped, a clumsy edit. In the next frame the dark-eyed woman was frantically putting pressure against the victim’s wounds. From the angle of the lens, the victim’s face could not be seen.
A blessing for the family
, Grayson thought.

He knew what was coming, but found himself unable to turn away. One of the women would be dead in moments. The dark-eyed woman worked feverishly, her lips moving as she talked to the victim.

In the background the enormous dog could be seen planting himself between the minivan and the growing crowd. Nobody dared approach, although several in the crowd held out phones. More pictures. More video.
Vipers
, Grayson thought viciously.

But you’re watching. What does that say about
you?

An ambulance pulled up, EMTs spilling out. The woman turned to look over her shoulder at her dog and then . . . Grayson flinched as a portion of the screen became intentionally blurred, hiding the minivan, the victim and the dark-eyed woman.

The camera wobbled wildly, then stabilized, the angle now changed. ‘Whoever is filming this just dropped to his stomach,’ Ben murmured.

‘Still filming,’ Sandi said incredulously. ‘Tough guy. Or totally stupid.’

The dark-eyed woman stumbled out of the blurred area, away from the minivan, her face frozen in shock. Grayson’s shoulders abruptly relaxed.
Not her
. For a moment the woman stared, horrified, as shouts rang out around her. A uniformed police officer ran toward her, drawing his weapon when the dog lunged, teeth bared.

Bystanders were screaming and running and still the woman stood there, staring, motionless in a sea of chaos. Abruptly she blinked, looked at the cop whose gun was pointed at her dog. She grabbed the leash, bent at the waist and ran to the passenger side of the van for cover where she dropped to sit, the dog at her side. She draped her arm around the dog and closed her eyes, and again the camera zoomed in on her face.

Grayson couldn’t tell if the moisture on her face was rain or tears. Probably both. But there was no more time to stare as the screen changed, splitting to show both Radcliffe and the morning anchor who was still flinching, her reaction sincere.

‘Amazing footage,’ the anchor said soberly. ‘That poor woman. Do we have any more information, Phin? How is the Good Samaritan who stopped to help?’

‘She appears unhurt,’ Radcliffe said. ‘The police haven’t given the all-clear yet and to our knowledge, no further shots have been fired. When we’re able, we’ll move closer to interview the witnesses and the Good Samaritan who risked her own life.’

‘And we’ll have that for you live,’ the anchor said to the viewers. ‘While we wait, we have another video to show you, one uploaded to YouTube just minutes ago by one of the bystanders in which the events unfold from a different angle. Again, this clip is graphic and might upset some viewers.’

This video was significantly grainier, taken by a cell phone. The holder of the phone focused in on the snarling Rottweiler, grumbling that the dog was keeping him from getting a better view. The picture shifted to the victim. Once again the station had blurred her face and torso, but the abundance of blood was more than apparent as the Good Sam with the dark eyes struggled to stop the bleeding.

‘Sonofabitch,’ Ben said, shocked. ‘Look at the minivan. It’s shot full of holes. She was shot before she crashed. Somebody wanted that woman dead.’

But Grayson barely heard him.
No
. His brain tried to reject what his eyes were seeing as his heart began to beat hard and fast.
It can’t be
. But it was. The victim had grabbed the black-eyed woman’s arm, her hand just visible below the blurred portion of the video. Even covered in blood, the ring on the victim’s middle finger was discernible. Unique. It was a cross, flared at the four ends, a large stone in its center.