Noah checked his watch. He still had time.
He pulled out his phone and called McKenzie.
It rang twice.
"Noah."
"Where are you, Mac?”
“At the station. Why?"
"Luther Ashford's fundraiser is today. The one at the Olympic Museum. Is there security?"
"I don't know. It's a campaign event. Local PD would handle it. Why?"
"Get there. Get whoever you can. I think he's going to try again today."
“What? Who?"
“The shooter."
He almost said the name. But he was a fired investigator who had just entered an apartment without a warrant. If he was wrong, McKenzie's career went down with his. He needed to be there. Needed to see it himself before he put a name on the radio that couldn't be taken back.
The line went quiet for a second.
"Noah, what are you into?"
"I'll explain when I get there. Just get people to that event. Now."
He hurried out, down the stairs, through the door, onto the sidewalk. The afternoon was bright. Noah got in the Bronco and started the engine.
High Peaks was thirty minutes away.
30
Noah heard the crowd before he saw it.
The Bronco came around the bend on Main Street and the sound hit through the open window. Applause. A blaring microphone. An amplified voice warming up a crowd. It was the sound of money learning how to sound natural.
The Olympic Museum sat on the west side of Main Street, a stone building with a columned entrance and a lawn that sloped down toward the sidewalk. The event had taken over the front lawn and part of the street. White tents. Folding chairs. A small stage with a podium and a banner that read ASHFORD FOR MAYOR in blue and gold. Campaign signs were on wire stakes. A drinks table stood to one side. A registration desk was beside it. There had to be two hundred people, probably more, spread across the grass and spilling onto the sidewalk.
Noah parked the Bronco two blocks down and walked. His chest was tight. His breathing was controlled but his pulse wasn't. He was scanning before he reached them. Rooftops. Windows. The upper floors of buildings along Main Street. The church steeple three blocks south. The courthouse. Any elevation with a sightline to the stage.
Too many options. Too many angles. A man with the right training could set up in a dozen places within range and nobody would see him until after the crack.
McKenzie was near the edge of the crowd, standing by a lamppost with his arms crossed. He was wearing his jacket over his holstered weapon, trying to look like a man attending a public event and failing.
Noah reached him.
"Talk to me," McKenzie said.
“I was in his apartment. Above the bookstore in Elizabethtown."
"You broke into a suspect's apartment."
"The door was open."
McKenzie's jaw tightened. "Noah."
