“I’m sorry. I should have seen this,” Rowan said. “This would have popped to the top of my list then.”
“What?”
“On the satellite, it’s nothing more than a trail,” he said. “Apparently, it’s a crude road cut into the forest. I’ve traced it and it comes back around to Pueblo Canyon Road. No wonder he felt safe there. He had two outlets.”
“Okay, so this was his safe house. But there was no money found there. Nothing inside but water bottles and MRE rations.”
Rowan walked over to the fridge, then glanced at Andrea as if for permission.
“Help yourself.”
“A beer sounds pretty good right now,” he said.
He leaned against the counter of their small kitchen and took a long swallow, letting out a relieved breath and a shake of his shoulders. While they’d been out and about, Rowan had been glued to the computers. No doubt he was as tired as they were.
“Anything on the credit cards?” Cameron asked, not giving him much time to recover.
“Yes, I have something,” Rowan said. “It’s not quite finished, but I think I’ve got enough for a profile.”
“Great.” Cameron moved to her recliner. “Give me something before Reynolds gets here. You know he gets crazy about you hacking into databases,” she said.
“Let me get my laptop. It’ll be easier,” he said.
Andrea sat at the dinette with Sam, but her eyes were watching Cameron. She was pleased to see that she was looking a little more relaxed now. Cameron and Murdock had had a screaming match earlier, so much so that Andrea had to intervene. Yeah, as Cameron had said, if she had to do it over again, she’d have called in the “goddamn National Guard” to surround the house. But really, for them to stumble upon him like they had, no one was thinking about backup. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what Murdock wanted to hear.
There was something that was bothering her, though. They had no cover from the house. Two large rocks in front had somewhat shielded them from the bullets flying from the sheriff’s deputies, but there was nothing blocking them from the house. Angel would have had a clear shot at them. Yet never once had he taken aim at them. Every shot that came from the house was directed at the deputies. Not them. Cameron’s fears were warranted. She and Tori could have been killed. They probably should have been killed. Yet Angel never took a shot at them.
She looked at Sam and raised her eyebrows. “You want to take a walk?” she asked quietly.
“A walk?” Sam raised her own eyebrows.
Andrea smiled. “To chat.” Then she glanced over at Cameron and Tori. “Alone.”
Sam smiled too. “I see.” She nodded. “Sure.”
They stood at the same time and Andrea looked over at Cameron. “We’ll be right back. Just going to get out for a bit.”
Cameron frowned. “But Rowan’s going to give us a rundown on what he found.”
“And when Reynolds and Eric get here, he’ll have to do it again,” she said.
Cameron nodded. Then…“Is everything okay?”
“Fine. Be right back.”
Once outside, Andrea let out a heavy breath. “Sometimes I hate this line of work.”
“Me too.”
“The more I think about it, settling down in some sleepy little mountain town—where the most excitement is a drunk and rowdy Saturday night fight—is sounding better and better.”
Sam smiled. “Is that in your future?”
“I know when Cameron first mentioned it, she probably wasn’t thinking of that as an immediate option,” she said. “But after all this, I think we might have a serious discussion about it.”
She led them down the narrow road, past other RVs and campers. As had most of the days been, it was clear and pleasantly cool, another gorgeous early autumn day.
“I really hope Tori leaves the FBI,” Sam said. “I knew she didn’t have the camaraderie there that she had with Casey and John, but she led me to believe she liked it there. It was a bit of a shock to hear she was thinking of going back to Homicide.”
“Were you surprised she hadn’t said anything to you?”
Sam nodded. “We don’t keep things from each other. We talk about everything. Knowing Tori the way I do, I imagine she wanted to be sure before she mentioned it to me.”
“So her mentioning that she’s thinking about it means she’s already made up her mind?” Andrea guessed.
Sam laughed. “Yes. I’d guess that as soon as we get back to Dallas, she’ll contact Lieutenant Malone.” Sam turned to her. “But is this really what you wanted to come out to chat about?”
Andrea shook her head. “No. I guess I was musing on life after the FBI.” She took a deep breath. “Something I’ve not mentioned to Cameron, but…Tori and I…we were in Angel’s direct line of fire out there. And not once did he target us.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I mean, it was chaos out there and I know it only lasted sixty seconds or more, but the shots he fired from the house were aimed at the deputies, not at me and Tori. I remember thinking, who do we take cover from?”
“You were on the other side of the rocks,” Sam stated.
“Right. The rocks were between us and the deputies. There was nothing between us and the house. Of course, once the shooting started, there wasn’t any time to do anything other than what we did, which was to get as low as possible and cover our heads,” she said. She felt a chill as she realized just how vulnerable they’d been.
“So what are you thinking?”
Andrea turned to her. “It’s a little crazy.”
Sam met her eyes. “You think he intentionally spared you because of me?”
Andrea nodded. “He knows Cameron. He doesn’t know me or Tori.”
“Yet he knew one of you must be Tori, my partner.”
“Yes. And he didn’t want to kill her.” Andrea shrugged. “And if I told Cameron this, she would indeed say it was crazy. Angel is a killer. He doesn’t spare people.”
“He spared me,” Sam reminded her. “But it wasn’t something I had considered. I mean, I thought you were taking fire from both sides. It was a miracle you didn’t get hit.”
“I took one to the vest, Tori took three. All from handguns. Angel was using a rifle.” She paused. “But the miracle, as you call it, was Angel’s humanity. For whatever reason, the bond you two formed while out there is strong. And he knew that if he killed Tori, that would crush you. So he spared both me and Tori.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s a little scary to think about,” she admitted. “And Cameron beat herself up pretty bad over it too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Us going to the house like we did, without backup.”
Sam nodded. “Yes, you were exposed. What do you think would have happened if the deputies hadn’t shown up? What do you think Angel would have done?”
“I honestly don’t know. I can’t see him letting us get close. Maybe he would have fired a few warning shots, enough for him to get to his car.”
“Well, none of us expected him to be there in the first place,” Sam said. “I mean, what are the chances Rowan pulled six properties off a list and we get a hit?”
Andrea smiled. “I know you and Tori don’t understand his method or even how the algorithms work, but he simply pulled the top six that had the highest probability,” she said.
“According to a computer,” Sam said with a shake of her head.
A honking of a horn startled them and they moved out of the way, only to see Eric grinning at them from behind the wheel of their rental.
“You gals need a lift?”
“Depends,” Andrea said. “You got food in there?”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Cameron used the plastic spoon to scoop out more rice, adding it to her spicy shrimp and vegetables.
“You gonna eat that last egg roll?” Tori asked, already reaching for it.