Elly didn’t sleep well. First because of Joe’s withdrawal after the most incredible kiss of her entire life, and then because she’d woken up with another nightmare about the shooting. She had a feeling the nightmares weren’t going to end anytime soon. Possibly once they had the shooter in custody, but even then, she knew soldiers and cops could be haunted by PTSD for months to years after a terrible event.
Thankfully, she’d felt slightly better by morning. And in the cold light of day, she’d decided to move on from her infatuation with Joe. Her older siblings had all found love when they’d least expected it. Joe had always treated her kindly but like a younger sister. Someone to look out for.
Not as a woman he wanted to be in a relationship with.
Time for her to let him go. Forcing the issue wouldn’t work. She needed to put her faith in God to find the man who was right for her. One who was as attracted to her as she was to him. One that wanted to be with her, rather than being ordered to stay close by her older brother.
It would take time for her to recover from the horror of the Christmas parade tragedy. It hurt her heart to know so many innocent people had died. Especially the beautiful figure skater, Gabrielle. On the bright side, blood no longer made her feel like passing out. Maybe there was still a bit of nausea, but nothing compared to what she’d experienced in the past. It felt good to know her career as an EMT might work out after all. Thankfully, she’d never mentioned her doubts to her older sibs.
She might even check into becoming a paramedic. Something to think about in January.
She quickly showered and dressed. She spent a few extra minutes blow-drying her hair to make herself feel better. Not to show Joe what he was missing.
Okay, maybe a little to show Joe what he was missing.
Enough. She shook off the gloom and opened the bedroom door. Joe and Brady were already seated at the small table, both with cups of coffee nearby. They were speaking in whispers so as not to wake her.
“Good morning.” She injected cheerfulness into her tone.
“Hey, El,” Brady said. “How did you sleep?”
“Great.” It wasn’t true, but there was no point in dwelling on the nightmares.
“Would you like coffee?” Joe jumped up from the table. “I just made a fresh pot.”
“Sure.” Keeping her expression casual, she walked over. “What are you working on?”
“More digging into the victim’s backgrounds.” Brady scrubbed his hands over his face. Her brother looked tired, and she knew he’d rather be home with his wife, Grace, and son, Caleb.
“Here you go.” Joe brought her coffee with cream and sugar, the way she liked it.
“Thanks.” She accepted the cup and took a sip. These were the small things that made it difficult to ignore her attraction to him. “I’d like to help.”
“With what?” Joe looked confused.
“This.” She waved at the computer. “The sooner we find this guy, the faster our lives can get back to normal.”
Joe and Brady exchanged a look. She knew what they were thinking.
“I may not be a cop, but I’m not stupid. And I’m the one who saw this guy up close.”
“Neither of us thinks you’re stupid,” Brady protested. “And we’re grateful to have you as our key witness. But there is only one computer. Better to let us do the digging to come up with possible suspects for you to identify.”
“I caught a glimpse of him too,” Joe said. “I can narrow our search down to those who are the most likely candidates to be our guy.”
She suppressed a sigh. “Fine. But what am I supposed to do while you guys hover around the computer?”
“Ah, Steele picked up some groceries for us. There’s plenty of breakfast food if you’re hungry,” Joe suggested.
“Okay. That works. Do I need to make something for him too?”
“No, Steele needs to stay put.” Brady met her gaze. “He can cook his own meals, sis.”
She nodded in understanding. To be honest, she didn’t mind cooking meals for the guys. She’d been pitching in to help Devon and Rhy after they brought Colleen home. She opened the fridge and reviewed her options.
She knew what Brady would want, so she turned to Joe. “What would you like?”
“Whatever is easiest for you,” Joe said.
“Having you tell me what you’d like is what is easiest for me.” She couldn’t hide her exasperation.
“Okay, eggs over easy with bacon and toast?” He made it sound like a question.
“Got it.” She pulled items out of the fridge and went to work. The television was on in the living room, but the sound was muted. She imagined the guys had watched it on silent mode while she slept in.
Or tried to.
From what she could tell, the news anchor was regurgitating the same information over and over again, the way they often did to fill airtime. Then a list of victims flashed on the screen.
She audibly gasped. “Wait! There are twelve victims now?”
Joe glanced over. “Last I heard there were eleven.”
“Twelve.” She scanned the names. Kyle’s name was on there, along with others that she didn’t recognize. But then she winced when she saw a woman named Lisa Beaumont. She remembered the way Dan had cradled his wife in his arms while she asked why this was happening.
And of course, Henry Watkins the male figure skater was also on the list. That wasn’t as surprising, he’d been the second victim, shot right after Gabrielle.
But Lisa? It seemed inconceivable to learn the young woman had died.
She closed her eyes for a moment, bracing her hands on the counter for support, trying to erase the images from her mind. Her name could have been on the list. Even worse, Joe’s name could have been there instead of Kyle’s.
God was watching over her. And over Joe too. She needed to try to stay focused on the positive side of things rather than wallowing in the negative. Yet that was also easier said than done.
When she felt a warm hand on her shoulder, she glanced up, expecting to see Brady.
But it was Joe standing there, eyeing her with concern. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, gesturing at the screen. “A woman named Lisa died. The last time I saw her, she was being cradled in her husband’s arms. I thought she would be okay. I—wasn’t expecting so see her name on the list of victims.”
“I’m sorry.” Joe’s voice was low and husky.
He needed to stop being so nice to her, or she’d never figure out how to get over him. She drew in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “It’s okay. The shooter is responsible for this. I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t move his hand, his gaze holding hers. “We’re going to find him.”
“I know.” She turned her attention back to the task of making breakfast. Maybe watching the news hadn’t been such a good idea.
Joe’s hand lingered for a moment before he pulled away. “You need any help?”
“No. I can do it.” Her appetite was gone. The nausea was back, but it wasn’t because of seeing blood. No, this time it was simply the loss of innocent lives that made her sick to her stomach.
She began making bacon. Then paused and glanced back at the guys. “Maybe you should dig deeper into Henry’s background from a personal perspective, not just as a skater. It could be that the shooter had intended him to die all along, and maybe he was even the real target.”
A flash of admiration brightened Joe’s blue eyes. “You could be onto something. We thought Gabrielle was the first target, but the two of them were so close together, it could be that Henry was really taken out first.”
Her cheeks warmed, and she silently bemoaned her red hair and fair skin. A simple compliment from Joe shouldn’t cause her to blush like this.
When the bacon was almost finished, she made the eggs and toast. It didn’t take that long for her to finish the meal. When she carried the plate of bacon to the table, Joe grinned.
“Yum.” He rose to help her bring their plates to the table. “This all looks great, Elly.”
“Thanks.” His kind words warmed her heart.
When Brady opened his mouth, she quickly spoke up. “I’d like to say grace, Brady, if you don’t mind.”
He looked surprised. Usually the older siblings took on the role of praying before their meals. “Sure.”
Joe took her hand, causing her to momentarily lose her train of thought. Then she pulled herself together. “Lord Jesus, we thank You for this food we are about to eat. We ask that You comfort the victim’s families, especially Dan who recently lost his wife, Lisa during their time of grief. And we ask You to continue guiding us to the truth so that we may find this guy before he hurts anyone else. Amen.”
“Amen,” Joe echoed.
“Amen. That was great, sis,” Brady said.
When Joe released her hand, it took all her willpower not to hold on tight. He was a pillar of strength, but she couldn’t keep leaning on him for support. She needed to stand on her own two feet.
Elly picked up her fork and forced herself to eat. Considering the events over the past thirty-six hours, it would be smart to eat while they had the chance. If something happened here at the safe house, they may need to leave at a moment’s notice.
Brady’s cell phone rang, breaking the silence. He glanced at the screen, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and stood to answer it. He moved away from their table to other side of the room. “I hope you’re calling with good news, Marc.”
She wished she could hear the other side of the conversation. Joe was silent beside her, focused on eating. She worked hard to keep from watching him.
“You have good instincts,” Joe said.
His comment seemed to come out of the blue. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “From the very beginning of this nightmare, you’ve acted on your instincts. Running out to save victims, shouting at me to duck as the shooter took aim, and even now as we investigate the case in more detail.” He paused, then added, “I’m impressed.”
She tried not to gape. She impressed him? He was the tactical expert, the guy on the team that Rhy leaned on the most. She was about as far from a cop as anyone could get.
“I, um, thanks.” She took another bite of her eggs. “I appreciate you saying that.”
“I’m not just saying it,” Joe protested. “It’s true.”
She wondered if he was saying these things to make up for breaking off their kiss so abruptly. If so, it wasn’t necessary. She could understand that liking someone as a friend was different from falling in love.
But before she could say anything more, Brady’s voice intruded on her thoughts.
“That’s great, Marc. Send it to my personal email. We’ll start going through the list ASAP.”
“What list?” Elly looked up at her brother as he returned to his seat.
“The list of terminated Milwaukee cops.” Brady’s expression reflected satisfaction. “We had to push hard to get that information, considering we don’t have any proof this guy is actually a cop.”
“Glad to hear it,” Joe said. “That gives us another angle to work.”
“You think he’s a disgruntled cop?” Elly had a hard time imagining the man she’d bumped into as a police officer. Then again, she was using her brothers Rhy and Tarin as role models.
And this guy was the antithesis of her brothers.
She finished her meal and sipped coffee while Joe and Brady continued eating. When they were done, she stood and stacked their dirty dishes together.
Joe jumped to his feet. “We should wash them since you cooked.”
“No, you have work to do.” She smiled at his willingness to chip in. “Trust me, this will help keep me busy for a while. I’m going a little stir-crazy here.”
Joe searched her gaze for a moment, then dropped back into his seat. After she’d washed and dried the dishes, she moved back to the kitchen table.
“Are you sure there isn’t something I can do?” She hated feeling helpless.
“Give us some time to pull some of these photos together.” Joe gestured to the computer. “When we have a few viable suspects, you can review them with us.”
“Okay.” Patience is a virtue, she reminded herself. She dropped back onto the sofa and rested her head back on the cushion, staring at the ceiling.
She ended up closing her eyes and reviewing the tasks she still needed to do for the Callahan and Finnegan Christmas family reunion. She’d originally planned on renting a hall, but Rhy talked her into having the gathering at the homestead. He agreed to bring in a large canvas tent for the backyard, along with four propane patio heaters.
She hoped the families would mix and mingle, especially the spouses. Many of the cousins had met and worked together over the past year, even before she and Maddy had uncovered the DNA connection.
“Elly?” Joe’s voice broke into her thoughts.
“Yes?” She opened her eyes, flushing when she realized she may have dozed a bit. “Do you have a list of possible suspects?”
“We do.” Joe’s smile made her toes tingle. “We culled the list to focus on white males in a certain age group, which helped narrow it down to eight men who fit the criteria. We’re interested in your thoughts.”
“Okay.” She rose and stretched, then quickly crossed the room. Joe pulled out a chair, and she dropped down beside him. On the computer screen, she saw eight solemn faces staring back at her.
She almost immediately shook her head. The guy she’d bumped into wasn’t one of these eight.
“Hold on, Elly,” Joe cautioned. “Take your time.”
This was police work, she reminded herself. She needed to be absolutely sure that the man she’d seen moments before the Christmas parade began wasn’t there.
Taking one at a time, she tried to place the cop on the screen with the man with the cold, dead eyes wearing a long coat. Her gaze lingered on one face that had some similarities. But she didn’t think he was the man she’d seen.
“I’m sorry,” she said on a sigh. “This man here”—she tapped on the one photograph—“is close. But I don’t think he’s our guy.”
“His name is Peter Colton, and he was terminated for use of excessive force,” Brady said. “He was also described as a loner by those who knew him. He fits the general description you gave, Elly. And he’s not that far off from your sketch either.”
A wave of doubt hit hard. Was this the same man? Had she made a mistake with the sketch? Not getting it quite right?
Lord help her, she didn’t know.
Joe could tell Elly was struggling to match Peter Colton with the gunman in her mind. This cop was the only one who’d come close to fitting the profile.
But he wasn’t an exact match to her sketch. He had only gotten a glimpse, he had trouble believing they were one and the same either. Sure, the guy’s background was interesting. But that alone wasn’t enough to accuse the guy of committing multiple murders as a domestic terrorist.
“He’s similar in some ways,” Elly said. “But I can’t mesh this man with the one I saw. The description I gave Bethany as we worked on the sketch is imprinted in my mind. The minute Bethany finished the drawing, I knew she’d nailed it.”
“You were under a lot of stress, El,” Brady said gently.
“I know, but I also locked eyes with the gunman.” She lifted her chin, meeting her brother’s gaze. “I’m giving you my opinion, Brady. You can take it or leave it.”
Joe was proud of her for standing her ground. “We’re not here to talk you into anything, Elly. We sincerely wanted your opinion.”
“Joe’s right,” Brady agreed. “You’re the witness.”
She took another long moment to stare at the screen, then slowly shook her head. “I’m going to say no, this is not the man I saw. But can you still dig into his background a bit? Make sure I’m not making a mistake?”
“We will,” Joe assured her. “We still have enough to issue a BOLO for Colton as a person of interest.” He pulled up the complaint that had been filed about Colton’s actions on the job, then instantly pulled out his phone to call Assistant Chief Michaels.
“Do you have him?” Michaels asked.
Joe swallowed a sigh. Trust the assistant chief to think it’s that easy. “We have a possible suspect, former cop terminated over an excessive use of force complaint. Looks like he put some guy in the hospital with a broken jaw and cracked ribs after an arrest. Oh, and his body cam wasn’t working either.”
“I remember that case,” Michaels said. “He was an arrogant jerk, insisting he’d done nothing wrong.”
“Yeah, well, difficult to prove when you put a guy in the hospital like that without video to support his side of the story,” Joe drawled. “I’d like to ask one of the team members to head to his place, see if they can catch him at home.”
“Go for it,” Michaels agreed. “Keep me in the loop.”
“Will do.” He lowered the phone enough to place a call to Raelyn. Once he’d given her the information, she readily agreed. “I’ll take Brock with me,” she assured Joe. “We’ll search high and low until we find this guy. Oh, and you should know Bartholomew Shaw’s financials came back clean. We don’t think he hired our shooter.”
“Thanks, Rae.” He lowered his phone, glad to have one name scratched from the list. Yet it bothered him to send others to do the legwork, and he found himself wondering if this was how Rhy felt when he was forced to take a leadership role in running their team.
“He put a man in the hospital?” Elly frowned. “That’s awful.”
“Yeah.” He grimaced. “I’m wondering if this guy has a grudge against the public in general.”
“Don’t forget, we’ve only checked the Milwaukee Police Department for recent terminations,” Brady added. “I have my boss putting in the same request at some of the local precincts too. Even the Brookland PD.”
Elly’s brown eyes widened. “I hadn’t considered that possibility.”
“At this point, everyone’s a suspect until cleared,” Joe said. He knew that most innocent people would be horrified by how cops approached a case like this. But they had twelve dead with another eight more that were wounded by this guy. As far as Joe was concerned, they didn’t have a choice but to keep the suspect field wide open.
“Marc is calling again,” Brady said, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Hey, Marc. Did you get more terminated cops for us to look at?”
Joe continued working on digging into Peter Colton’s background while listening to Brady’s side of the conversation with Marc Callahan. He paused long enough to send Steele a text message about their possible suspect.
Steele texted back with an okay sign.
“Understood. I’m on my way.” Brady lowered the phone, glancing at Joe with regret. “Our boss is calling a meeting about the child abduction case. I need to go. You still have Steele watching things from across the street, right?”
“Yep.” Joe nodded. “What’s going on?”
“Sounds like Ian has a lead on the missing kid.” Brady shrugged into his coat. “Once we get that boy reunited with his parents, we can start working on creating a three-dimensional facial recognition on our perp.”
“Go.” Joe didn’t hesitate. He felt certain that getting the sketch through the program was their best chance of finding the guy. “We’ll be okay with Steele as backup.”
Brady nodded. “Good.” He wrapped his arm around Elly’s shoulders in a brotherly hug. “Stay safe.”
“You too.” After Brady left, Elly joined him at the table. “What can I do?”
He cleared his throat, trying not to be distracted by her large brown eyes. Then he turned to face her. “Maybe we should go through the shooting event one more time.”
A hint of distress darkened her eyes. “If you think it will help.”
He hesitated. Would it really help? Or make Elly feel worse?
“I’ll do it.” Elly spoke with confidence. “Where do you want me to start?”
“At the beginning.” He forced himself to treat her like any other witness. He’d learned that interviewing witnesses several times often revealed new tidbits of information. Not because the witness didn’t want to cooperate, but more so because once the immediate horror was past, new details emerged.
“I was looking up at the blue Christmas lights.” Elly gazed off into the distance as if putting herself back there. “They were so beautiful. I remember turning to head back to the ambulance rig, and that’s when I bumped into him.”
He listened carefully as she recounted the brief meeting, including the way the hairs on the back of her neck lifted in alarm.
“It was dark,” she admitted. “So I couldn’t make out his eye color, but I have a clear image of his face imprinted on my mind.” She turned to face him. “I was listening to ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ singing along, when I heard the gunshots and the skaters falling to the ice. From there, everything was chaos.”
“I know. For me too.” He hadn’t been looking at the skaters or paying much attention to the marching band belting out Frosty. His gaze had been on tracking the people gathered across the street from where he was positioned.
With Kyle on the opposite side of the street doing the same thing. Yet it seemed as if the shooter had gotten several shots off before Kyle had reacted.
And that was odd, considering the shooter had likely been standing in the back of the pickup truck.
He was trying to imagine what might have drawn Kyle’s attention from the shooter when his phone buzzed.
Not a text this time, but a call from Steele.
“Hey, what’s up?” Joe asked.
“A black SUV has driven down the street twice in fifteen minutes.” Steele’s tone was terse. “You need to get Elly out of there.”
“Got it.” He slammed the computer shut and shoved his phone into his pocket. “Elly, grab your coat. We need to go.”
“Go where?” To her credit, she didn’t protest, grabbing her coat from the back of the kitchen chair and shrugging it on.
“Away from here.” He reached for his own coat but didn’t bother putting it on. They needed to get out of there ASAP.
The way this guy kept finding them was really starting to piss him off.