AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Okay, so do we call him in? Set up a sting? What?” Rachel wanted this over before someone got injured.
"We call a press conference," Gavin said, then glanced at his phone. "Hold on."
He pressed the speaker feature and Swede Swenson’s voice came through, his elation clear. “We’ve got it.”
“You broke it?” Gavin’s face lit up.
“Yep. Sending the message to you right now.”
Gavin stared at the screen then at Senator Mitchell and Rachel. “We may have a problem.”
They madeit to the house in record time, though Bear had to dodge vans and SUVs full of reporters. At the residence, they ran a gauntlet of the same until the Senator stood at the entrance to the house. He turned and addressed the reporters. “I’m not giving any statement right now, people. Go back to your offices.” He went inside and Bear firmly closed the door behind them all.
Mrs. Finch was busy drawing curtains closed and muttering under her breath. She turned to the Senator and frowned. “I was going to go to the grocery store this afternoon.”
“Call it in for delivery.”
“They don’t pick the best produce,” she complained and walked from the room. Rachel eyed the formal living room, which she’d never stepped foot into before. It was dim now with the curtains closed, but the whole house seemed to be dusky. She remembered the solarium, with its window, partially covered by the plants. “I’ll go grab our laptops.”
Gavin followed her and they ignored the few reporters who’d made it to the rear of the house until they saw Dallas and Vince manhandling them. Gavin turned away from the window and grinned when he saw Dallas almost put a woman in a headlock getting her out of the area. "I guess we could stay here," he said with a wry grin. Rachel smiled but shook her head. "If the Senator comes in here, there's sure to be a photographer who'll get a closeup. Besides, we've been naïve. A shooter could have easily picked one of us off in here." She raised her gaze from the stack of paper she'd been organizing. "That's something to think about."
“Or not,” Gavin said.
“No, really. The drug ring is pretty sophisticated, right?” When he nodded she went on. “Then they would have specs on the facilities they have shooters at. The parking lot, for instance. The shooter used the surroundings, the bushes closest to an exit, to shoot. The poison seems pretty clumsy to me, the FBI will find some link to the poison, the delivery, something. And the garden shooting?” She shrugged, “Why aim at me if the drug ring wants the Senator taken out? Why not use a high-powered weapon and get him when he’s in the kitchen? There’s a bay window. Or in here? All they’d have to do is surveil that we were working in here and wait til he shows up.” She stopped just outside the doorway of the room. “It doesn’t make sense.”
Gavin followed her to the Senator’s office and dumped everything on the table. “It does if they want to distract us.” He opened the door and yelled. “Everybody in the office, now.”
Senator Mitchell appeared first, straightening a polo shirt collar as he did. Dallas and Vince followed, brought up in the rear by Bear. “Mrs. Finch?” Gavin called and Rachel heard a faint response. “Could you join us?”
They waited until the older woman came in, wiping her hands on a towel and looking perplexed. Gavin shut the door and went through the process of checking everyone’s phones and then checking for bugs again. He located a radio and turned it on to a talk station then upped the volume.
“Paranoid much?” Bear asked calmly, his big frame hiding the guest chair.
"Every reason to be right now," Gavin said and leaned his hip on the side of the Senator's desk. "Hank Patterson's crew decrypted the message."
Everyone drew a breath then collectively sat forward, eager to hear. Gavin looked at Rachel and smiled. "And Rachel has provided the last piece of the puzzle."
“I have?” She didn’t bother to hide her surprise.
He nodded. “When you were talking about the shootings.” He shared her observations with the others. “It occurred to me she’s right on the money. These guys don’t make mistakes and there were some doozies. Starting with Rankin.”
“How so?” Senator Mitchell asked.
“Rankin had to be a plant. He’d been with you for how long?”
“Six months,” the senator growled.
“Long enough to feed your movements, your suspicions to the others. But something went wrong. What I don’t know, but he had to be eliminated. They didn’t do it quietly, have him disappear or ‘get mugged’ or OD. They had a shooter try to take him out in the daylight.”
“So, the Senator wasn’t the target?” Rachel said.
“I’m sure he was, but not to kill, maybe. I think Rankin was.” Gavin stood and walked to the radio, turning it down a little.
“The poisoning?”
“I think it was a distraction.” When Rachel covered a scoff with her hand he grinned. “Again, if someone on our team died, it was a plus, but not their main goal. Distraction has been the focus all along.”
“To keep me from amping up the investigation,” The Senator finished and Gavin nodded.
