AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Let’s just say Rusk was under careful evaluation,” Wilkins replies. “I had my best female agent assigned to him. See how he behaved. If there were any red flags.”
“There were,” she says quietly.
Even the FBI was playing me. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. “You acted surprised by what I told you.”
“I didn’t want to sway you toward suspicion or color your judgment. Plus, you helped me understand more of the power dynamics he was using to lure his targets close.”
“We need to go over a few more things and then we’ll let you be on your way,” Wilkins says. “I hear they’re going to release you today?”
“I hope so. I didn’t need to stay the night but they insisted.” I touch the bump on my head. The swelling has gone down, but it’s still painful to the touch. “No concussion, and that’s what they were worried about.”
“Great.” He pulls a chair over and sits down beside my bed. “Jill?”
Matheson sets a manila file on the bedside table and flips it open. “We’ll go over the statement you made last night and make sure there’s nothing you’d like to add, alright?”
Nodding, I reach down to stroke Sheba’s head. She looks up at me with knowing eyes that are sad and hopeful all at once.Soon, I silently promise her.He’ll come for us.
“You said you stabbed Rusk twice.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember how many shots went off at the house?”
“Two, I think. He shot the lock off the door, and then he shot again, close to my head. It was so loud it hurt my ears.”
Matheson looks up from the paper and captures my gaze. “What was he shooting at that second time?”
I don’t look away. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything. The room was pitch black. I couldn’t see his face the whole time.”
“But you had no doubt in your mind it was Nick Rusk?” Wilkins asks, drawing my attention.
Relieved, I look at him, fighting my urge to drop my gaze. He’s a powerful man. Not dominant in that sense, but in charge. He commands dozens of agents, if not more. That kind of authority makes it hard for me not succumb to my submissive nature out of simple respect for his position. “It was him. I wasn’t sure at the car, when he attacked Matheson. But when he grabbed me by the hair, I saw his mouth, the way he sneered at me. That look was Rusk’s.”
Matheson hands her boss a picture of Rusk and he shows it to me. “Like that?”
Rusk smiled at the camera with a snide, knowing look, as if he thought everyone around him were complete idiots. “Yeah. He thought he was too smart to get caught.”
Wilkins hands the picture back to Matheson and she continues. “His right arm was pretty torn up, though healing, so he’s the intruder Sheba got a hold of. We also found a knife still in Rusk’s abdomen. You shoved it in so deep that part of the hilt snagged on his rib. He also had a second puncture wound about three inches away.” She offers a sheet of paper to me. I take it reluctantly, afraid it’s a picture of his bloody dead body, but it’s only a printed man shape with red marks. “Do you have any idea how he got the other wounds?”
My two red marks on his abdomen, right side. But there are also two red dots on his throat. Two more on his back, one on either side of his spine. Kidney or lung shots. My hand starts to shake, and I lay the paper down on my lap. In and out, so fast his target doesn’t know he’d been hit.
“Did Charlie make those other wounds, Ranay?” Matheson asks.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Why do you say that?” She keeps her voice gentle, but her eyes are bright and intense, trying to snag mine every time I glance at her. She knows my weaknesses all too well. “Was he there?”
“I never saw him.” Truth.
“Where did you learn to stab an attacker, Miss Killian?” Wilkins asks.
I don’t look away from Matheson this time. She needs to think I have nothing to hide. “Charlie taught me. The night after the break-in.”
“The night after he killed Tasker,” she says. “He was afraid he’d have to leave more quickly than he intended, leaving you exposed to Rusk. He did what he could to prepare you.”
“He taught me,” I repeat, not looking away. “He told me to strike for the throat, chest and thigh.Boom, boom boom.He made me practice for hours. Those aren’t the marks on Rusk, are they?”
“No, they’re not. But you didn’t stab him that way, either.”
