In the biggest plot twist I never saw coming, fate led her to me. It only took one infinitesimal moment in time to know that she was my beginning…
…and she would be my end.
Full stop.
9TAILS NEVER FAILS
Waverly
“It’s too quiet. I don’t like it,” Duncan grumbled, waltzing into my office with Noah on his heels, shortly after the morning briefing.
“Did you really just say the Q word?” I glared at him from behind my desk. “When the shit hits the fan, it’s yours to deal with.”
I’d never admit it, but I agreed with him. Two weeks ago, Finn took me away for the weekend. Since then, nothing—and I mean nothing—had happened. No threats. No break-ins. But, also no leads. Even Mac had struck out. His guys hadn’t been able to find any signs of Cain Lewis in Shadow’s Edge at all. In my experience, it was the calm before the storm when you should pay the most attention. That’s when things got missed. And when lives were on the line, there was no room for error.
“Fine by me.”
I motioned for them both to have a seat and closed my laptop. They deserved my full attention.
“What do you have for me, Noah?”
Besides being a hell of an agent, Noah Anderson was also a profiler. We were lucky. His genius level IQ had come in handy more than once.
“I’m not sure anything I’ve come up with will surprise you much.”
“Understood.”
Crossing his ankle over the opposite knee, he gave me his eyes. “We’re looking for a male, between the ages of twenty-five and sixty, with a military or law enforcement background.”
“And with that, you just described every man I know.”
“Sorry, boss. I did warn you.”
“Ignore me, Noah. Keep going.”
“Psychologically speaking, the guy doesn’t have a conscience. He knows the difference between right and wrong, he just doesn't believe the rules apply to him, or worse, he doesn’t care. Also, he's likely left-handed.”
“How can you tell?”
“It’s all conjecture at this point, Duncan. But when I studied the photo of the vandalism on Finn’s car, the O appeared to be written in a clockwise manner. Classic signs of a left-handed writer.”
“Anything else?
He shook his head. “Keaton went through the red light camera videos from the day of the accident. No sign of the black truck matching the description. It’s like it vanished into thin air.”
We figured the truck would be a dead end. It was reported stolen by a farmer an hour before it tried to run Finn off the road. The driver could’ve easily dumped it in the woods somewhere, then walked back to town or called for a ride.
It wasn’t much, but we’d solved cases with less. Eventually,our perp would make a mistake. I just had to pray it happened before someone got hurt.
“Anything else going on?” I asked Duncan once Noah left the room.
He brought me up to speed on the insurance fraud investigation, which had turned into an absolute disaster. Lanie and Koen would have their hands full sorting out that mess for a while.
An alert from my phone interrupted our discussion. Picking up the device, I saw the notification was from the security company which had been monitoring my house since the break in. At Shayne’s insistence, I agreed for cameras and motion sensors to be installed. It seemed her paranoia might have paid off.
Clicking on the app, my blood pressure went through the roof at what, or more precisely,whowas standing in the middle of my living room.
“That motherfucker,” I growled, pushing back from my desk while simultaneously grabbing my Glock out of the side drawer.
