Stafford pulled his white nondescript delivery van to the curb. He chose a spot in a loading zone, grateful for the cover of the HMZ Delivery Service logo on the van and the commercial plates. That would tell the parking police to leave him alone for a bit. And the other police. All of them. The entire gang of bastards whose uniforms gave them permission to open-carry weapons on their hips.
A pang of remorse stabbed his gut over the “bastards” thought. Stafford had worn a uniform once, too, proud to serve his country and defend its freedom. He’d loved the men he’d served with. Men and women, he corrected himself, although, in all honesty, he found very few of the women worthy of his love.
Damned few. One, to be precise. And where had that gotten him?
Oh, how he’d loved her, at first. His Venus, his goddess, the missing piece to the puzzle of his life. She inspired him to develop his talent as a marksman, to aspire to become a professional sharpshooter for the Army. In return, he did everything for her. Ate, slept, breathed in service to her. Took her to dinner—nice places, within reason on an Army paycheck. Brought her flowers. Gave her everything he had.
And she gave him…everything. The only woman who ever did.
He loved waking up with her, feeling her silky dark hair on his shoulder, her arm draped over his side, her firm breasts pressed against his back. The cuddling, that quiet time, pleased him almost as much as the sex.
Then, bam! She left him without a word of explanation. Only later, through mutual acquaintances, did he learn of her treachery, denying him the gift of fatherhood, murdering their baby, without so much as a goodbye. Not even a note. Then she wouldn’t take his calls, blocked him out of her life completely.
Through those same sources, he learned she felt he had deceived her. The nerve! She “blamed” him for the pregnancy, as if such a beautiful thing merited blame.
True, he’d failed to take the extreme measures necessary to prevent pregnancy. When the condom came off with him still inside her, he kept going. Couldn’t stop in that moment, not with his moment of bliss imminent. So what? If she hadn’t wanted to get pregnant, his Army buddies reassured him, she’d have gone with an IUD. Anything less was a trap.
A siren jolted him back to the present. He hadn’t driven far from the scene. Or, rather, he’d driven a while, then, without intending to, he’d come back. Something inside compelled him to see the scene once again—to see the chickens running around with their heads cut off, as his grandma used to say. The scene filled him with satisfaction, seeing them so clueless, so unaware, so afraid.
Afraid of him. The thought made him smile. The joy it brought made the perhaps foolish act of returning worth the risk.
He also enjoyed buzzing the cop with his too-close drive-by. He recognized her as the one who’d escorted the big-boobed woman into Planned Parenthood the day before. An apologist for the FemiNazi movement, clearly. He’d enjoy defeating her, maybe even taking her down as part of all this. Removing the FemiNazi shield from the baby-killing movement. That ought to get him recognition within the Nation!
He heaved a deep sigh, shuddering out the breath with jangled nerves. If he hoped to advance in the organization, he must succeed in this mission. Which means he could not get caught. Which meant planning and executing with more precision, more care, more forethought. No more close calls. Smarter choices. Lower the risk. Learn from these mistakes.
His first mistake: carelessness, leading to almost getting caught. Which necessitated hitting the maintenance man who’d found him. He felt bad about that. Not an enemy, just a guy just doing his job, in the wrong place at the wrong time. An innocent victim. No more of that.
Mistake two: location. He’d already determined that Safe Haven was the preferred target. Best angle, lighting, and getaway options. That would be his focus moving forward for the first event. Planned Parenthood might work as a backup, or even as a follow-up. If needed.
Third: time of day. Late morning or early afternoon, to maximize the opportunity—foot traffic in and out of the clinic. Reduce the risk of sun glare affecting his aim and minimize the risk of getting snarled in traffic.
Four: logistics. He needed a more secure, more certain escape route, and a better disguise to remain undetected. He also needed a way of stashing the weapon afterwards…with the risk of knowing he may have to forfeit it altogether.
Which meant, fifth: backup armaments for future events.
And six: a plan of action for the unlikely outcome of getting caught.
All of those demanded immediate attention. And they would get it.
Driving through the clog of traffic downtown toward WAVE Squad headquarters, Val and Grimes divided up the work of researching extremist groups with motives for attacking abortion clinics.
“I’ll take the lefties,” Grimes said, lurching to a stop at a red light. “You look into the right-wingers. Ten bucks says I find a connection first.”
“You’re on,” Val said, surprised at Grimes’s certainty. In her limited experience, right-wing groups were more likely to take up arms. Leftists, in her experience, tended toward vandalism and property destruction.
Before they’d gone more than a mile, Beth called, sounding on the verge of tears. “My lab results show I’m ten weeks pregnant,” she said, her voice cracking. “Which means…”
“It’s not Josh’s.” Val kept her voice low to minimize the chance of Grimes eavesdropping.
“Definitely not.” Beth’s voice grew stronger. “At the time, I was dating this guy named Rob, and I thought we were being careful…anyway. It doesn’t matter.”
Beth often referred to Rob as “the boy toy.” Val couldn’t imagine being in a relationship like that—so casual, so utilitarian.
“It also means I can’t use the abortion pill,” Beth said. “Instead I gotta go in for a suction thing…it sounds awful.” Her voice cracked, and she sniffled a few times, then continued in a weaker voice. “There’s all kinds of prep, and I’ll have to fast the night before…this is all too much. Can we get together to talk?”
“How about this evening?” Val side-eyed Grimes, who no longer even tried to hide his attempts to eavesdrop.
“Perfect,” Beth said. “Here’s the thing. I need to book an appointment right away. But the earliest I can get in there is Monday. Can you come with?”
“Absolutely. I’ll be there every minute.”
“No, you will not,” Beth said in a mock-sharp tone, then laughed. “I don’t need you watching them stick whatever into my cooch. Or see…any of it. I just need you there beforehand to settle my nerves. And after, I guess, to drive me home.”
Val suspected she’d have a larger role than that, but kept it to herself. “Consider me booked. I’ll get the day off.”
“Don’t you think you ought to ask the boss first?” Grimes said after Val hung up. “If this case explodes, you might be working round-the-clock.”
“Clayton PD can function without me for a day.” An edge crept into Val’s tone.
“Just saying. Petroni’s not the ask-forgiveness-later type of boss.”
Val bit back a sarcastic retort about how much Petroni let Grimes get away with. It wasn’t his fault their boss was such a stickler for rules.
In any event, she knew what her top priority would be once they returned to headquarters. She needed to get Monday off.
Val’s plan met harsh reality when Sergeant Petroni greeted them in the large open area of the WAVE Squad office, affectionately known as the “bullpen.”
“Listen to this,” Petroni said, punching a button on her laptop centered on the blacktop meeting table. Val and Grimes joined Petroni, Price, O’Reilly, and Shelby Clearwater around the table, which occupied the entire far side of the room from Val’s desk.
A deep, gruff voice, metallic and distorted, scratched its way out of the laptop’s speaker.
This is your final warning. Close your murder clinics today, or we will show you our wrath. No more babies die! Let the murdering mothers and abortionists die in their place!
A shiver ran down Val’s arms, raising goosebumps on her skin. “Is he serious?”
“We have to take him seriously,” Petroni said. “We have no choice.”
“How does killing a pregnant woman save the life of an unborn baby?” Val said. “Fetuses aren’t viable at the stage where abortion is legal.”
“You’re asking for logic from these numb-nuts?” Grimes said, plopping into a chair.
“All three clinics again?” Price asked.
Petroni nodded. “The tech guys are analyzing the tapes and comparing them to the first threat. They’re leaning toward it being the same guy, but it’s hard to tell with the voice scrambling he did.”
“Assuming it’s a he,” Price said. “That software could make Adele sound like one of Santa’s elves, and vice versa.”
“Wait a minute,” Val said. “Can we play back the end of that first message from the other day?”
Petroni pushed a few buttons, and the speaker sounded again.
…patients at your facility should expect to face the same level of painful, violent maiming and death that you perpetrate on innocent lives in the womb.
There will not be a second warning.
“If it’s the same guy, he forgot he wouldn’t be threatening again.” Grimes grinned. “Nice catch, Dawes.”
“Any luck tracing it?” Shannon asked.
Shelby frowned. “They’re using some sophisticated spoofing tech, bouncing their calls off different carriers and masking the source. We also think they’re using an international provider, which limits our search.”
“These guys know what they’re doing,” Val said.
“So it’s probably not just a lone wolf, but some sort of organization,” Price said.
“Or someone hacking into a high-end system,” Shelby said. “The provider may not even know their system is being used.”
“That only makes this harder.” Grimes shook his shoulders all around. “All this high-tech crap gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
“Let’s not get too sidetracked by the technology stuff,” Petroni said. “Shelby, I need you and the IT folks to run that down for us ASAP.”
“On it.” Shelby gathered her laptop and headed out the door.
“Now,” Petroni said, “we need to identify who had the means, motive, and opportunity to carry out this threat. Let’s get ahead of this before any triggers get pulled and more bodies fall. Where are you all on your research? O’Reilly, what anti-abortion groups on your list jump out at you?”
“The most militant is the so-called Army of God,” Shannon said, “an extremist group that justifies violence against abortion clinics with Bible scripture. To our knowledge, though, they aren’t active in Clayton.”
“No local chapters?” Grimes said. “No headquarters we can raid?”
“Like most of these groups, Army of God has no real hierarchy, no ‘chapters’ or ‘presidents’ or such,” Shannon said. “There’s a website with outlandish stuff on it—pictures of dead babies and blog posts proclaiming some hideous people ‘heroes.’ All the activists are independent actors, all anonymous. Very hard to track down.”
“Were they the ones protesting this morning at the Women’s Health Center?” Val asked.
Shannon shook her head. “That was the ‘Unity for Life’ political action committee. They, along with the Family First Coalition, Life Choice, and a handful of others, preach non-violence, and to date, their track records support their claims. I haven’t made my way down the full list. There are over fifty, maybe twice that, according to my Google search. So far, those who go through the trouble of registering with the state and the IRS keep their noses clean and their methods peaceful.”
“Great,” Grimes said, his voice loaded with sarcasm. “So it’s not Army of God and it’s not the usual actors. Who else we got?”
Grimes’s irritable tone silenced the room for a moment. Val and Shannon exchanged glances. Even for Grimes, this seemed over-the-top grumpy. Val wondered why, but this wasn’t the moment to ask.
After a long pause, Shannon shrugged and cleared her throat. “There’s a similar, better-organized group of violent extremists called IncelNation.” She checked her notes. “They’ve taken up the anti-abortion cause in recent years, but only rhetorically—no action on that front, yet. More so than other groups, they’ve been active on gun rights as well as the usual so-called men’s rights issues. Some of their rhetoric has been picked up in local chat rooms and in graffiti sprayed on public buildings.”
“Okay. Promising. Any others?”
O’Reilly shrugged. “On the other side of that gender line, there’s a women-led group called Jane’s Revenge, with a record of some violence. Mostly vandalism, arson, and threatening language,” she said. “They’ve organized a few public events, all peaceful.”
“Threats?” Grimes said. “There’s a common element there. Maybe they’re ready to take the next step?”
“Could be,” O’Reilly said. “After that, it’s a bunch of small groups, other than the Catholic Church, and they don’t sanction activity like this.”
“That’s a big one, though,” Petroni said. “Lots of Catholics in Clayton.”
“Forty percent,” Price said, reading from his phone. “Fundamentalist Christians are another fifteen percent.”
“Still,” O’Reilly said, “unless we’re going after the churches, none of the groups on my list has the resources to engineer these disguised-voice threats. Unless someone’s funding it out of their own wealthy pockets.”
“Didn’t Dawes say that stuff is pretty much public domain these days?” Grimes said.
“Robocalls, yes. Not electronic voice disguise and phone-carrier hopping,” Val said. “At least, not that I’m aware of.”
“Speaking of Dawes,” Petroni said. “You were going to pull together a list of names of anyone arrested for clinic-related crimes—threats, vandalism, anything. What did you find?”
“Not much yet.” Val’s face reddened. “I hope to get on that today.”
“Get on it yesterday,” Petroni said. “Time’s a luxury we ain’t got right now. Price? Who’s pulled permits for protests? Who was there this morning?”
“I emailed you that list Tuesday,” Price said. “I’ll update you shortly. This morning’s group was the American Family Association. The most active groups are Forty Days for Life, a religious group, and March for Life. A lot of organizations skip the whole permit thing and put on wildcat marches or ‘pop-ups,’ as they call them. If police come, they jet out without a fight.”
“Any cross-overs to your list?” Petroni asked O’Reilly.
Shannon drew a deep breath. “We haven’t cross-walked our notes yet.”
“Do it,” Petroni said, her tone sharp. “For God’s sakes, you’re partners. Communicate with one another! That goes for everybody. Well, what are you waiting for? Get to work!” She slammed her laptop shut, shoved it under her arm, and stomped off to her office, closing the door behind her with a bang.
“I guess this isn’t the best time to request Monday off,” Val said in a weak voice.
Shannon O’Reilly laughed. “You ask for time off now, before you give her the one deliverable she asked for two days ago, and you’re liable to get an unwanted vacation. She’s in a mood!”
Val sunk into her chair. O’Reilly was right. But she couldn’t put it off for long. Beth was depending on her, and she could not let her down.
Petroni’s cross mood convinced Val that asking for Monday off should wait a bit, so she got right on her research task. First she queried the police files for any arrests or complaints relating to abortion clinics. That led to far too many dead ends. For a few months, anti-abortion groups engaged in a campaign to overwhelm the department by filing complaints of “mayhem and violence” at the clinics. They also claimed every patient entering or exiting the building, whether or not they’d had a procedure, had committed murder. Several dozen cases concerned graffiti on the buildings, the majority of which were not even abortion-related—just random “street art” and tagging. A few clinic employees reported harassment and having their cars vandalized, but none resulted in identification of the perp, much less an arrest.
The only incident of note came when she broadened the search to include any violent crimes within a ten-block radius of each of the three clinics. On four separate occasions—twice near Planned Parenthood, once each near the other two clinics—fights broke out among men associated with various anti-abortion groups. Again, no arrests. Interestingly, in two incidents, both combatants were members of competing anti-abortion groups. Witnesses to three of the fights said some combatants appeared to employ martial arts in the dust-up.
That resonated. Val wondered which of the many martial arts forms they used and where they trained. Tank’s aggressive style and his side-gig fight competitions also sprang to mind.
About an hour into her search, Bobby Grimes, sitting at his desk facing her, swore and slammed down his phone, then buried his face in his hands. His shoulders shook, and Val realized, with no small amount of shock, that he was weeping. Tough-as-nails Senior Detective Robert Grimes, crying.
“What’s wrong, Bobby?” Val asked.
Grimes rubbed his face and opened his bloodshot eyes, blinking away more tears. “Never mind,” he said. He jumped up and rushed into the empty conference room, closing the door behind him.
Val collapsed back into her chair, her body as heavy as a lead balloon. Grimes had never expressed any emotion before in her presence other than laughter, sarcasm, or annoyance. She didn’t even know he had a setting for “sad,” much less crying. Something big had to have happened. Something personal.
Would he want to share the news that upset him? Or would he revert to his Angry Bobby setting?
Val pondered it for a moment. Did it matter how he reacted? Grimes was her partner. Partners had each other’s backs, regardless of the blowback.
She crept to the conference room door and tapped on it, first glancing around to make sure no one else had taken notice. “Grimes? You okay?”
“Go away,” he responded, moaning.
The hell with that. Val slipped through the door and shut it behind her. She sat across from him at the table. “What’s the matter, Bobby?”
Grimes waved her off. “Personal shit. None of your concern.”
Val pushed down an irritable retort and instead replied with an even tone. “You’re my partner,” she said. “Anything that upsets you that much makes me concerned.”
He blinked at her, wiped a few tears away, and sniffled. “It’s…” He heaved a deep breath. “God, I don’t even know if I can talk about it.”
Val grew more concerned and lowered her voice. “Is somebody sick?” She recalled his wife’s name. “Is it Audrey? Is she okay?”
Grimes shook his head, quiet for another few seconds. Then in a broken voice, he said, “It’s my son, Bobby Junior. He…” His voice caught and he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. He blew out a hard breath and wiped his nose with a tissue that he then tossed in the general direction of the wastebasket. “He’s been having headaches. Audrey took him in this morning to the onco—” Grimes broke down again, his forehead resting on his palm. “He’s…got a tumor. In his brain. In his God. Damned. Brain!” He covered his face again, his fingers clawing at his skin.
“I’m so sorry.” Val rounded the table and sidled up next to him, her hand hovering in the air over his shoulder. She willed herself to rest a hand on his arm, the act taking far more effort than it should. “Can I get you anything? A glass of water, or—”
“Got a cure for cancer? That’s what I need.” Grimes sniffled, blew his nose, and cracked a wan smile, which faded into a tortured grimace seconds later. He spoke again, his voice a notch above a whisper. “He’s ten years old, Dawes. Ten! This shit isn’t supposed to happen. Not to fucking kids. Not mine, not anyone’s.” He sucked in a loud breath and shuddered it back out, mouth hanging open.
“Go to him,” Val said. “He and Audrey need you.” That felt a little disingenuous—she’d never met Grimes’s wife. But what wife wouldn’t need her husband at a time like this?
“Yeah. I know. I just…need a moment.” He patted Val’s hand and gave it a weak squeeze. “Thanks, Dawes. You’re all right, you know that?”
Val pulled her hand away, not knowing what to do next. She wished she had better skills in this area, wished she knew what to do for someone who’d just received such horrible news. What to say, at least.
After a long minute, Grimes shook his body all around, as if shaking off an icy breeze, and he stood. “Okay, I’ll let Petroni know, then I’m outta here for the day. Try not to let the city dissolve into chaos while I’m gone.” He opened the door, shot Val another half-hearted smile, then trudged across the bullpen to Petroni’s office and knocked. Moments later, he disappeared inside.
Back at her desk, Val eased into her chair, shaken by Bobby’s news. The prospect of losing a child to cancer had to rank among the worst moments any parent could face. She couldn’t imagine.
It explained Grimes’s grumpiness over the past few days, though. She’d marked it down as another one of his moods. But now it all made sense: the pressure, the fear, the unfairness of it all. It’d make anyone grumpy.
Grimes emerged a few minutes later, far more composed, an expression of determination on his face. He grabbed his keys and jacket from his desk, saluted Val, and hustled out the door.
Petroni appeared in her office doorway and waved Val inside. “Did Grimes tell you what’s up?” she asked once Val took a seat.
Val nodded. “How scary. I hope they caught it in time to remove the tumor and all.”
Petroni nodded back. “I gave him a few days off, whatever he needs to take care of his family. Of course, that means you’ll need to step up more. I won’t reassign his cases—yet—so I’m hoping you can carry the load while he’s out.”
Val swallowed. That complicated things. But waiting only risked more complications and making this harder. “Uh, sure. However…” She met Petroni’s gaze, which hardened. She glanced away and forged onward. “I need to take Monday off. My friend I told you about is getting her procedure then and I promised I’d go with her.”
Petroni grimaced and stared out the window, tapping her pen on the desk. “This isn’t great timing.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not in control of that.” Val took another moment to gather her resolve. This damned job sometimes. “But I committed to helping her.”
Petroni glared at her, then made a sour face. “All right. The full day, or…?”
“Not sure. I’ll ask. I mean, I’ll work the weekend too, and as soon as she’s home and resting I’ll be back, and—”
“Whatever. Take the time you need, Dawes.” Petroni smiled. “I wouldn’t be much of a boss if I let one employee take needed personal time and not another, would I?”
Val smiled back and stood. “I’d better get back to work, then. Thank you, Sergeant.”
Val returned to her desk, passing Grimes’s workstation on the way. His screensaver caught her eye.
It was a picture of his three children, with his ten-year-old son in front, smiling. In Val’s mind, Junior’s expression was one of awe and love for the man who stared at that photo every day.
Suddenly she could get nothing done.