“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 yourguy. 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 comesacross 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.
