“Roark, stay out of the line of fire,” Jackson commanded as he hurried across the street. “And don’t shoot to kill. We need to keep them alive.”
“I hear that,” Roark reported back. He cautioned the decoy and the agents stationed with her to do the same.
Jackson silently commended Roark for his quick thinking. They couldn’t afford a shoot-out. But it looked like it was gearing up to become just that.
The two Martino men were backing away, their guns still trained on where Randall Parker lay groaning near the shrubbery by the front window.
Jackson let them keep walking until he was within earshot. “Halt, FBI,” he called, his badge out, running now with Micah right behind him. Both of them had their weapons raised and ready.
One of the thugs turned and fired, hitting a tree near Jackson’s head. “Micah?” he called, praying his brother hadn’t been hit.
“I’m here,” Micah shouted, veering off to try and block the way to the Martino vehicle. “I don’t think they’re gonna cooperate.”
He was right. The Martino men weren’t going down without a fight. They both started firing and running, taking cover behind trash cans and trees as they hurried to where their haphazardly parked car was waiting with doors wide open.
Roark came running from up the street, his weapon drawn. “Stop! FBI!”
Those were not the words the Martino men wanted to hear a second time. They kept shooting, forcing Jackson and Micah to duck behind a stone statue at the entrance to the park. Bullets hit the solid rock of the statue, pinging off and ricocheting back into the air.
Jackson hazarded a glance to where Roark had taken cover behind a huge oak tree. “This isn’t going very good,” he said to Micah, his breath winded.
Micah did a quick reload. “Not like we’d planned, no.”
Parker let out another moan and lifted up, firing his own weapon. One of Martino’s men ducked, cursing as the bullet pierced his lower leg. Blood started pouring out, but he held his weapon steady as he found cover.
And now, all over the neighborhood, lights were coming on and people were peeking out their doors while dogs locked inside fences barked frantically.
“Stay inside. FBI!” Roark called. As doors slammed shut, he was rewarded with another round of fire from one of Martino’s men.
Parker got up, crouched and bleeding, as he tried to get to the car. But another round of fire caused him to drop back down behind the shrubbery.
One of the men made it into the car and cranked it, pulling away as the other one fired his weapon over and over, hoping to hit one of his marks before he hopped into the passenger side and slammed the door. Roark fired back and hit the windshield but that didn’t stop the car. It was peeling rubber, the smell acrid and burning in the morning air.
Jackson stepped out, aimed at one of the tires and instead, knocked out a headlight.
And just as the first rays of sun slipped over the horizon, Martino’s men were gone in a cloud of smoke and gunfire.
“I got a partial on the plate,” Roark said, still trying to catch his breath.
“Good.” Jackson looked around Eloise’s apartment. The decoy agent was safe and the two junior agents covering her were busy gathering slugs for the ballistic report. Roark was fielding questions from the stunned locals, holding his own with a hostile police force and trying to block any comments to the media.
Parker had been grilled by Captain Lewis as to why he was once again snooping around Eloise Smith’s apartment and was now sitting in the ambulance, getting checked over by the paramedics. He’d be on his way to the hospital soon to have a slug removed from his left shoulder. And although Randall Parker had cursed and fussed at Jackson’s rapid-fire questions after the Martino men had gotten away, Lewis had promised Jackson another crack at the detective after his surgery.
Parker had a few questions of his own, however. “You haven’t told me everything, McGraw. I have a right to know why the FBI is after Ellie Smith. You’d better level with me!”
“I told you to back off,” Jackson reminded the man. “You’re interfering with a federal investigation, Parker. And you almost got yourself killed this morning.”
“I need to find my wife’s killer, man.”
Jackson had ignored the man’s rants for now. He’d talk to Parker and “level” with him, no doubt about that.
Jackson held his hands on his hips, moving in a circle as he assessed the scene. Local cops mingled and merged with FBI agents, while the media was champing at the bit to find out what had happened on such a perfect summer morning in such a serene neighborhood.
“How in the world did we make a mess of this?” he asked anyone who might be listening.
Roark stepped forward. “Uh, sir, we did everything right by the book. Parker, there, got in the way.”
“Yes, Parker did get in the way,” Jackson agreed. But ultimately, the responsibility of a botched mission fell on Jackson’s shoulders. “But we lost our suspects, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Roark replied, pushing a hand through his slick brown hair. “My bad.”
“Your bad and mine,” Jackson replied. “I should have known anybody working for Martino wouldn’t just surrender, all meek and mild. They’d rather get shot than make Vincent Martino mad by giving up the goods.”
“But…you couldn’t just kill them in their tracks without provocation,” Micah pointed out, his gaze trained on Jackson. “Jackson, we did all we could. And now, I have men in place to take Mac Sellers in for questioning, and you IDed one of the men as being a top capo. That’s a big break for this case.”
“It is,” Jackson said, his mind whirling. He’d already alerted Marcus and Thea, but he was itching to get back to the safe house and Eloise. “But we didn’t get to question the Martino men about that, did we? I’m sure Ernest Valenti would have a lot to say if we could get to him.”
Micah ignored that question and instead focused on what he obviously saw was bothering Jackson. “I can question Sellers. He’s my man. Let me have him, Jackson.”
Jackson nodded. “Okay. Make him talk, Micah. We need evidence and we need to find out all he knows and all he’s given to Martino. If he’s somehow found out about the safe house—”
“He wouldn’t have access to that information,” Micah said. Then he shrugged. “Of course, I can’t guarantee that.”
“That’s why I need you to stay on the man,” Jackson retorted. “Nothing about this case has been guaranteed and nothing ever goes as planned. I need answers, Micah.”
“I’m on my way,” Micah said, turning to leave, his head down. Of course, he was probably feeling just as responsible as Jackson right now.
Jackson called him back. “Hey.” Micah turned, clearly expecting a few more harsh remarks. “Thanks,” Jackson said, lifting one hand in a wave.
Micah didn’t reply but he gave his brother a quick, determined glance. Then he turned and headed out to do his job.
Eloise had burned the cookies.
And now, her hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t even scrape the residue off the cookie tray.
A shoot-out at her apartment.
She kept hearing those words in her mind. There had been a shoot-out with the Mafia right at her front door, putting her neighbors in danger, putting all the agents in danger. And Randall Parker had been caught in the middle of it. She felt as if a perfect storm was centered over her head and she was about to be tossed and turned until she’d drowned in her own fear and self-loathing.
I should have kept running, she thought over and over, her hands scraping against the crisp stuck-on cookie dough as she tried to dislodge it with an old scouring pad. But in her mind, she was working frantically to break away at all the ugliness that seemed to cling to her. She prayed while she scraped, but she was beginning to believe she wasn’t worthy of asking for God’s grace. “Ms. Smith?”
Eloise turned, the scouring pad in one hand, her knuckles cut and bleeding from its frayed wires, to stare at Marcus. “What?”
“Special Agent McGraw is on the line for you, ma’am.”
Her body crumbled against the counter, her hand shaking as she dropped the pad and reached out for the cell phone. “Thank you.” Trying to find her next breath, she stared at the slick phone.
“Ma’am, he’s waiting,” Marcus said, stepping back to give her some privacy.
“Hello,” Eloise said, her throat as raw and scratchy as the pad she’d been using. “Ellie?”
Just hearing his voice brought tears of relief to her eyes. “I’m here.”
“Are you all right?”
She wanted to laugh. He’d just been through a firestorm and he was asking her if she was okay?
“I’m fine. How about you?”
The touch of sarcasm wasn’t lost on Jackson. “I’ve had better days.”
“When…when will you be back here?”
“Soon, I hope. We’re clearing things up. Our cover is pretty much blown now, but at least the locals are co operating. Grudgingly.” He went on to explain that’d he’d filled in the police chief and had a briefing with some of the higher-up officers, bringing them up to speed without divulging the essentials of this complicated case. They were on the lookout for the Martino gang but Eloise knew Jackson couldn’t rely on that. Parker was very popular within the department and he was gunning for her.
“What about Parker?” she asked, her free hand gripping a sunflower-embossed dish towel.
“He’s at the hospital, in stable condition.”
“Why was he there this morning, Jackson?”
“We think he’s been watching your place and he thought our decoy was you.”
“So he had a standoff with the Mafia?”
“Something like that. I’ll be there soon and we’ll talk more. I just wanted to make sure you’re safe.”
“I’m fine,” she said, relaxing a bit. “Thea and Marcus are making sure of that.”
“Good. See you soon.”
She stood staring down at the phone for a long time then turned to hand it back to Marcus. “Thank you.”
“It’s going to be okay,” Marcus said.
While Eloise appreciated the reassurance, she knew no one could promise that. So she finished scouring the cookie sheet and rinsed and dried it, then went to the upstairs bathroom to put some lotion on her rough, raw hands. After coming out of the bathroom, she grabbed her Bible and her knitting bag and headed for what was becoming her favorite spot, the big chair centered by one of the dormer windows on the landing. From this vantage point, she’d be able to see Jackson and Roark driving up the mountain road.
And then she’d know for sure he truly was safe.
“We need to go to the hospital to question Parker,” Jackson told Roark an hour later. “Then we can get back to the safe house. We’ll take the long way so no one follows us.”
Roark nodded and put the SUV in Reverse. “We’dda nailed them if Parker hadn’t shown up.”
Jackson didn’t respond. Parker would have figured out by now that there was much more going on here than just the FBI tailing Ellie Smith. Thinking back over this morning, he held two fingers to his nose. This should have gone down without a hitch. Martino’s men would have either gained entry to the apartment or would have tried to break in. Either way, once they’d made it inside, Jackson and his agents would have stepped in and taken over—in a quiet, secure fashion, inside the apartment. The two capos would have been surrounded at close range. And things would have ended quietly. Maybe.
But not like this. Not in a public shoot-out that only brought unwanted attention to all of them.
“I blew it,” he said to Roark. “I’ve lost my ability to second-guess Martino. I let Parker get to me, too. I should have alerted him to stay out of the way.”
Roark didn’t answer, which meant he couldn’t say what was on his mind.
“Talk to me,” Jackson said. “Tell me what you’re thinking, Roark.”
Roark glanced over at him then looked back at the road. “It’s easy to lose focus when you’re preoccupied, sir. At least, that’s what you’ve always taught us.”
“Meaning?”
Roark seemed to be weighing his answer. “Meaning, we realize how involved you are in this case. It’s personal. I mean, you have a vested interest in seeing this thing through till the end.”
“But…what you’re really trying to say is that my vested interest is more on Ellie Smith—Eloise Hill—than the real issues here, such as warning Parker before we tried to corner the Mob.”
“You do seem to have a soft spot for her, yes.”
Jackson neither denied nor confirmed that statement. It was the truth. “What could I have done differently in all of this?”
Roark took a deep breath. “With all due respect, sir, you should have stayed away from Parker. Your visit got his antennae up.”
“You all tried to warn me on that.”
“But we also understand why you felt it necessary to scare him off. You were trying to protect someone you care about.”
“But I shouldn’t have mixed FBI business with a local crime case, right?”
“You didn’t do the mixing, sir. It was already stewing when you arrived on the scene.”
“So, what’s your final analysis?”
“This,” Roark said, slanting him a long look as they pulled into the hospital parking lot. “What happened this morning was unpredictable. We could stand down and let the mob teach Parker a lesson, or we could move in and try to save a man who might or might not have killed his wife. Either way, we were in a bad position. And that’s not really your fault.”
Jackson wasn’t buying that. “I messed up,” he said again. Then he put a hand on the dash. “And I can’t afford to do that again.”
Because next time, Eloise might be the one to get shot. Or worse, to finally be killed.
And he could never live with that. It would mean the end of his career. Because if that happened, he’d turn in his badge and leave the FBI for good.
Roark didn’t have an answer for his declaration so they made their way into the hospital in silence. But when they got to the front desk, flashing their badges to the two receptionists, Jackson soon realized that his worst fears might be about to come to life.
“Detective Parker is gone, sir,” an official-looking administrator who’d been summoned to talk to them explained after some haggling about privacy laws.
“What do you mean, gone?”
“He left the hospital on his own.”
Jackson turned to Roark then looked back at the administrator. “In other words, you’re telling me Detective Randall Parker is out there somewhere on the loose?”
The man nodded. “Yes, sir. He went through surgery but…when he woke up in the recovery room, he managed to get up and leave without anyone seeing him. I’m afraid he’s disappeared. No one can find him.”
Jackson looked at Roark and then they both bolted toward the door. No need for words to communicate what they both were thinking.
Both Detective Randall Parker and the Mafia were now on the alert to find Ellie Smith.
And Jackson was in a race against time to get to her before either of them did.