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As he spoke, a uniformed man began working his way toward them, pistol drawn, staying low. The other officers fanned out in separate directions.
“We’re about to have company.” He indicated the man to Bri. “Was Holmes a decent shot?”
“He claimed he was. He liked to hunt, and I know he went to the range on a regular basis. Why?”
“If he was aiming for you, he missed by a mile.”
“So maybe whoever was shooting wasn’t aiming for me. Maybe it was a random incident.”
While that was possible, it didn’t feel right. The timing was too coincidental.
Yet it was hard to argue with Bri’s reasoning about Holmes. Why would he travel cross-country just to make her life miserable?
If he had, though, why switch to shooting—clearly a deliberate attack—when the previous incidents, even if they’d been intentional, could have been dismissed as accidents?
There was no mistaking a shooting for an accident.
Meaning if Holmes was behind this, he’d decided that camouflaging his pranks as an unfortunate but innocent run of bad luck was no longer important and was willing to put himself at risk.
Why?
What had changed?
No answers came to him as the officer rounded the car and joined them.
At the man’s request, Marc repeated the information he’d provided to the 911 operator. “Also, since the bullet entered the back of the trunk, I’m assuming the shot came from that direction.” He pointed east.
“Okay. Stay put. If there hasn’t been any activity in the past ten minutes, I’m thinking the shooter is gone. We’ll verify that before we give the all-clear.”
The man moved off as several more patrol cars piled into the lot.
Wincing, Bri shifted her position and settled onto the asphalt, knees bent, legs drawn up, back against the car, Sig still in hand.
Marc remained crouched beside her, one knee resting on the pavement. “Is there anyone else you could contact who might know where Holmes is?”
The grooves remained embedded in her brow. “No. He didn’t hang around with the other smokejumpers during off-duty hours. I know he had a network of acquaintances around the country, but he never mentioned their names.”
“Are you planning to identify him in your statement?”
She sighed. “It doesn’t seem fair to sic law enforcement on him when I’m not certain he’s involved. Much as I dislike him, linking him to today’s shooting—or my other issues—would be pure conjecture.”
You had to admire a woman who didn’t want to complicate someone’s life, even if that someone had apparently complicated hers.
“Let’s see what the police find.”
But forty-five minutes later, after it was determined the shooter had fled and no one interviewed in the parking lot had seen the person, the responding officers didn’t have a single clue that would help them identify the perpetrator. While they’d do a cursory search for the first bullet, finding it would be difficult even if it had survived intact.
They were, however, very interested in extracting the bullet that had pierced Bri’s trunk.
In the end, Bri kept Holmes’s name to herself. Marc didn’t push her. It was a leap to think someone would pursue a woman after a gap of almost three years or escalate from puncturing tires to shooting.
Nevertheless, as he collected her wayward cart while she talked with the officers about timing on the release of her car, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right about Holmes.
So why not see if she’d tell him more about what had happened with Holmes? It was possible that after dodgingbullets together, she’d feel more comfortable confiding in him.
Even if she shut down, though, letting this die would be a mistake. Every instinct in his body told him that finding the whereabouts of the man who’d caused Bri grief during her life as a smokejumper should be a top priority.
As the officer moved on in response to a summons from one of his colleagues, Marc trundled the shopping cart her direction. “What’s the word?”
