In a tone that wasn’t quite a question, not quite a demand, she said, “Special Agent Ingram?”
I jumped. Soul kept on talking. “Take Mr. Hamilton outside. Give him your flashlight. Teach him how to do a perimeter grounds search. Then come back in here. I need your services.”
I was staring at Hamilton, his name touching down in my mind, in the place designated for it. Chadworth Sanders Hamilton, his father’s second son from his second wife, named for his mother’s grandfathers. And my third cousin, by way of Maude Nicholson, my grandmother. My distant cousin from the townie side of the family. I’d heard he had graduated from the FBI academy at the top of his class and come back home to make his mark. This embarrassing dressing-down was likely not the mark he wanted to make.
I held up a hand to identify myself and silently led the way to the kitchen. There, I found foam cups, poured coffee from the coffeemaker, and put them on a tray with napkins, a bread knife, and a spoon. I could practically feel the embarrassment and fury emanating off Hamilton as I worked, my back to him. At least the anger would keep him warm for a while. And there was no way I was going to tell him that we were related when he was so furious. Maybe later. Maybe . . . Carefully, tray balanced, I left the warmth of the house, my cousin on my heels, not offering to help with the load. I didn’t know if that made him a jerk or just oblivious, but so far, my cousin was not making a very good impression.
Outside, I flashed my light three times, handed it to Hamilton, and said, “Forty-eight hundred lumens. Battery will last another two hours before it has to be recharged. One yard squares, from the middle of the ditch to the middle of the lane. This’ll be the third pass so it should be pretty clean.”
“What’s up, Ingram?” May Ree asked, joining us at a jog. The other deputies followed, and so did three SWAT officers, until we had a small crowd.
“Coffee,” I said, unnecessarily, as they reached in for the cups. “Keys.” I placed them in May Ree’s hand. “There’s a loaf of bread in the passenger seat of my truck and a jar of jam. Bring the knife and spoon back in when y’all are done. I’ll get some fresh coffee out here as soon as I can.” May Ree dashed down the road to my car. I continued to the others, “This is Hamilton. Probie. Looks like he came out without a coat, so he’ll be cold.”
“It’s all right, kid,” a deputy said. The county cop was six-six easy, and had a chest like a whiskey barrel. “We’ve all been stupid from time to time.” Several officers laughed.
Hamilton flinched and burned hotter, probably thinking about the dressing-down he’d just received, not the coat he’d forgotten. Probably furious that he’d been called “kid” by a county cop, someone an FBI officer might look down on, in the hierarchy of law enforcement types. But he kept his mouth shut. He looked pale in all the flashlights and totally out of place, underdressed in his fancy suit.
The deputy continued, “I got an extra jacket in my unit. It’ll hang to your knees, little fella like you, but it’s clean. Hang on, I’ll get it.” He too jogged off.
I didn’t laugh at my cousin’s expression at the words little fella like you.
Hamilton accepted a cup of coffee. And the coat. And a slice of bread and jam. I waited until the cups were gone and Hamilton was wearing the borrowed coat and starting on the road. He was all but kicking the pavement like a kid. I hadn’t told him who I was, that we were distant cousins. My grandma Maude had been disowned when she married into the church. I doubted that Hamilton knew I existed.
Back inside, I figured out how to work the coffee machine and got coffee gurgling, found a gallon-sized carafe, a tablecloth, more napkins and foam cups. When the coffee was ready, I took the tray back outside, placed the tablecloth on the hood of a county car, the tray atop it, and went back inside, where I made another trip to the powder room and put on fresh lipstick. The assistant director of PsyLED wanted me for something. That made me nervous. I had learned that lipstick gave me false courage. False was better than no courage at all.
I made my way through the house until I found Rick, Soul, and a seated man in khakis and a golf shirt, in a small room on the second floor. The room was no bigger than a closet, a tiny space dedicated to the Holloways’ security system, two vacuum cleaners, brooms, push mops of various designs, and lots of cleaning supplies. I slipped in behind Rick and leaned against the wall so I could watch the security video beside his shoulder.
It was a nice system. I had studied most commercial brands and a couple dozen government kinds while in Spook School, the PsyLED training facility. This was an integrated one, with motion detection sensors that triggered the outside cameras and automatically downloaded all video to the system. Later someone had to go through all the captured images and delete the homeowners’ dogs, wildlife, and the occasional teenager sneaking into or out of the house after hours. Currently there were four images on the big screen.
“There are four cameras with views of the outside,” the khaki-clad man said, “but there’s no sign of the shooter’s approach to the house until here.” He stopped all the video and pointed to the image on top. “He or she seems to be able to bypass all the cameras until he stops, where he—for convenience we’ll say ‘he’—appears as a vague shape outside the windows of the game room.”
The shape was little more than a smear of movement, not really visible on digital, as if he somehow disrupted and blurred the images. Magic could do that. So could some types of disruptor equipment the military was working on in R&D. However, by the blurred images, it appeared as if it was a lone assassin. The image on the screen started moving again.
“Exactly eight seconds after he appeared on screen, he started shooting, and, unlike the man—or woman—wielding it, the weapon is easily visible as a fully automatic M4 carbine.” The video progressed to show the attacker shooting.
“M4?” Soul asked. “How did he get an M4?”
“Don’t know, ma’am,” Khaki Man said. “The M4 carbine is heavily used by two branches of United States armed forces as the primary infantry weapon, it’s currently available on the open market, and it’s legal in Tennessee, so it isn’t impossible to get one.”
I dredged through the day of class we spent on military weapons and remembered that the M4 was replacing the M16 rifle in most Army and Marine Corps combat units. Sooo . . . Except for the way the shots were fired, the attacker could be military. Or the weapon could be stolen. Or purchased on the commercial market. He could have gotten it most anywhere.
“All right,” Soul said.
Playing the footage again, Khaki Man said, “There were four three-second bursts, moving from the shooter’s left to his right, combined with one extended magazine change, which takes place here.” He stopped the security video with each statement, and pointed as the shooter changed out magazines. “Then he started shooting again and repeated the four three-bursts. Then he took off.”
To me, the attacker’s motions, though blurred, looked masculine.
“One thing of note. Shooting through glass is tricky. Well-trained shooters usually put a single shot through the glass first, then take out the targets. Inside,” he continued, “the female falls. Two other victims fall, here and here.” He pointed again, though the images were badly blurred, the outdoor camera picking up little inside. “People take cover. Rounds topple the candles, which ignite tablecloths. Fire leaps to the draperies, races over the furniture and up the walls, then follows the oxygen outside through the broken windows.” He showed us footage of the fire blazing out through the broken window.
“Then the shooter is tackled by a security guard, Amos Guerling. Amos said he could see the gun, but not the person. You can see here, the flash of flame when Amos was burned, deep second or maybe third degree on his upper arm and left hand, with visible and significant muscle damage. Source of the flame is unknown at this time, though ATF and the fire department are checking for accelerants on Amos’ clothing. Assassin then seems to disappear into thin air. Our security people put out the fires, inside and out, with extinguishers and began emergency medical treatment on the victims.”
“What branch?” Soul asked.
“Beg pardon, ma’am?”
“What branch did you serve in? All the men and women who work for ALT Security Services are former military.”
“I see you do your homework, ma’am.” Khaki Man spun in his chair. He was tanned brown, the color of a hickory nut in fall, with close-cropped dark hair and greenish eyes. The name tag said his name was P. Simon. “Green Beret, ma’am. Four active tours in the Middle East.”
“Where and when?”
“Classified, ma’am.”
“Of course.” But I could tell by her tone that Soul would find out in case the man was involved with the shooter on the wrong side. If this shooting was an inside job, the security team would be the first suspects.
“Can you tell me what the dogs found, ma’am?” Simon asked.
“No,” Rick said. “Sorry. Need to know.”
Soul glanced at Rick before speaking. “The Canine Unit’s findings will be released to the press shortly. I think we can divulge this now. The standard crime scene K9 dog was able to track a suspect across the back lawns, across the tip of the cove, to Lyons Bend Road, where the trail disappeared. We have officers going door to door to see if a vehicle is missing or if an unfamiliar vehicle was seen parked somewhere. The paranormal K9 dog gave scent signs only for human scent, giving no signs for nonhuman species.” The paranormal dogs were trained only to known paranormal types, so Soul wasn’t giving much away. She went on, “Despite the shooter’s disappearing act there is no indication of magic used at the scene of the crime nor at the scene of the perpetrator’s appearance and disappearance. He used a mundane military weapon and he scents human.”
Simon said, “It’s obvious by the camera distortion that he used some kind of an obfuscation spell over himself. Therefore not human. Ma’am,” he added.
Proving that whatever classified jobs he’d had in the military, he knew how some magic affected digital tech. Obfuscation spells were fairly new, having been around only three years or so.
“And that places this under our jurisdiction,” Rick murmured.
“Discussion is taking place at high levels about who will take lead on this case,” Soul said, her voice calm.
By discussion, I knew she meant arguments. Every branch of law enforcement wanted this case except the sheriff, who had too much political acumen to want anything to do with a United States senator, three rich dead VIPs, multiple wounded, and vampires.
“Ingram,” Soul said.
I jerked upright, away from the wall where I had slouched, and said, “Yes, ma’am.” It was time for whatever job Soul had for me. Her eyes flashed darkly in her olive-skinned face and she smoothed her platinum hair, twisting it in its long, curling coil.