That was one promise he had made to himself long ago—this job they did, it could destroy. Haunt the men and women who chose to do it. Knight would not let that happen to her. He just wouldn’t. He’d long ago accepted that.
They spent the next several hours wading through everything again. And finding nothing to redirect. They signed off on physical evidence collected—fifteen boxes they’d loaded into the rear of Ian’s SUV—and returned to their borrowed room. FBI work wasn’t glamorous and exciting like on crime dramas. There was a lot more paperwork than the lay person realized.
"It's going to take a while for PAVAD to reprocess the evidence we send back. And Dani said she's searching VICAP for other cases, plus state databases she can access, and going through some of her other magic web skills."
"Not my first rodeo." He was silent for a long moment as she settled into the seat and fastened her seatbelt. "I don't think it was this guy’s, either."
"No. That is something I'm sure of. It was too efficient. Even cleanly done, considering.”
"It was. He knew exactly how to take out the father and the son—to get what he wanted the in the most efficient manner possible. By the time he finished with Derek Gibson and moved on to the boy, it was too late for all of them."
"Aimee and Terra could have made it to the back door, depending on where they were in the house. It wasn't a big house. Aimee had been making dinner." The remnants had been found on the stove. Untouched. Scorched. "Aimee was right by the back door. She could have run. Except..."
"Shock. Fear. Terror and trauma from seeing what had just happened to her husband, her son."
She shook her head. “No. More than that. Her daughter was still in the house somewhere. Most likely down the hall in her bedroom. Aimee wasn't going to go anywhere and leave her daughter with the killer."
"No. She wouldn't." By all accounts Aimee and Derek had been good parents. Loving and protective. Aimee Gibson wouldn’t have run, abandoning her daughter.
"But how did our shooter know Derek would answer the door and not someone else?"
"Educated guess. I'd say they may have even left the door unlocked. The Gibsons had two indoor cats at the time—no dog. Even though one was later found in the garage. No warning system. How many of the houses in this town do you think have their doors locked consistently?"
"Probably not many. This town is over twice the size of Masterson. But...that is still a very small population."
"Even if the door wasn't unlocked. If he knocked or rang the bell, odds were good the father would answer the door." Knight would have. If he had had a wife and kids. It would be instinctive—the urge to protect. Not just practicality. He would have put his body between his family and any threat. Hell, he did it with her all the time when they were in the field together, and he doubted she'd ever noticed it. A man protected those who mattered. "He may have even seen them in the window. May have waited until Aimee was distracted in the kitchen and just rang the doorbell.”
"And what? He just waited until the door opened and then just shot Derek? That seems too risky. The houses are close together here. Someone should have heard. Why didn’t they?"
“Elderly neighbor to the left was deaf. Eighty-eight years old. She passed away two years after the murder. Other neighbor was at work—night shift. People across the street weren’t home…Everyone had a reason…And if he used a suppressor—no one would have heard.”
“Another indication this was premeditated. He came prepared. With his murder kit. And we're certain he shot Derek immediately after entering?"
"Yes. I bet that was exactly what he did. Walked right in and fired." Just like had happened to Knight years ago. When he'd opened the door to a man he'd considered a friend and the bastard had shot him in the damned head. Knight would never be that careless again. Trust no one, period. It had served him well ever since. "Because...it wasn't a stranger, Sunny. They opened the door and let him in because they thought he was a friend. They knew him. They had to. Maybe he engineered that, deliberately befriending one of them. But I'd stake my badge on them already knowing him, at least in some way."
"We need to figure out to what depth that knowledge was. It might narrow our focus. Then we need to focus on Aimee's contacts in her Blackberry. That might be our best chance at digging him out. We don’t have Derek’s contacts—no social media, and he only called a handful of numbers on his phone—wife, three kids, ex-wife, and work, that was his life.”
And Derek had died protecting them.
Chapter 12
The bulletin board behind the desk was nearly empty now, the cork showing through in wide patches. Hell, Pierce hadn't seen that cork in years. It was practically dry-rotted; he’d probably leave some cash with a note for the next user to do an upgrade. He doubted the ISP would cough up money for a new one.
It felt like a part of him was saying good-bye to his entire way of life here. So many hours of his life had been spent in this office, trying to make things better for those he could. At least that was the way it had started for him. Now…
Now, it was just him and his fellow law enforcement doing what they could to control the damage so many broken people inflicted on others.
Same shit, different days. Different years, even.
The ISP would go on without him just fine.
Tonight, he was going home to his little boy.
Pierce had spent all damned day in the national forest forty-five minutes east in Martin County, dealing with some backwoods moron who thought because his girlfriend mouthed off about a game on YouTube, she deserved what she got. No matter what. She’d pissed him off, and that was all that mattered. The girlfriend, not even twenty-five years old yet, and their two kids—both under five—were just lucky the six bullets that asshole had fired hadn't hit any of them.
It had come damned close.
He had hit Pierce. And that counted. The asshole would face time for that.
