“Yet not,” Gavin said, his voice grim.
He’d been solemn since she walked in, allowing her the space to share her impressions and thoughts. But now... Now she heard the anger and the grief, mixed together in a powder keg of emotion.
“Not how?” Arlo pressed.
“I heard those gunshots. I protected Sera myself, also convinced we were the target. But Darius was the intended victim. Three bullets, precisely delivered, with deadly intention.”
“Forensics aren’t back yet,” Kerrigan argued. “I know I already went there, but it’s still a leap, Gavin.”
Despite the sound arguments from his colleagues, Sera saw clearly that Gavin wasn’t buying any of it.
“Come on, Kerr. We both saw it. Forensics can have the time to do their work, but you know as well as I do. That was a sharpshooter with perfect aim. And Darius paid the price.”
Chapter 11
Gavin could see Kerrigan wanted to argue, if for no other reason than they were all fixed on the idea that last night was meant to be a cop shooting.
And it felt that way.
He kept circling around that point, over and over in his mind. But Darius was the obvious victim, too. Those gunshots were too precise, not shots that went wild, missing their intended target.
Forensics report be damned.
What was going on?
“Deliberate. That’s what you mean.” Sera’s blue eyes were hazed with that same layer of guilt he’d seen last night, but beneath it he was pleased to see the determination shining through.
“It’s exactly what he means,” Arlo added, stepping in. “If that’s the case, and I’ll take a cop’s gut instinct as a lead to tug any day, then what it also means is that there’s some larger orchestration behind this.”
“But no one thought we’d be there.” Sera turned to Kerrigan. “I’m not wrong about that, am I? When it came up on the police boat, it had seemed like a last-minute decision.”
“It was,” Kerrigan agreed. “But that bar’s known as a cop hangout. And even without preplanning, it wouldn’t be that hard to follow a group of us if someone was determined enough to do so.”
It fit, Gavin had to admit. The bar wasn’t far from the precinct. Their police boats came in and out of the dock area every day. If someone wanted to do harm, he and his fellow cops weren’t too difficult to find.
So now the real question was why.
“Son of a bitch.” Gavin exhaled on a hard sigh. “The guns.”
Wyatt and Kerrigan caught up just behind him, their expressions grim as everyone started talking at once.
“Someone’s covering it up,” Kerrigan said.
“Was Darius a diversion, like the kayakers last fall?” Wyatt asked.
“What sort of diversion?” Sera interrupted them, and Gavin felt a distinct shot of pride at how easily she fit in and how quickly she was able to go toe-to-toe with the entire room.
“I went through it on a case last year.” Wyatt quickly filled her in on the investigation involving the father and grandfather of his new wife, Marlowe, and the dead kayakers who were set up by a local crime group to divert the cops’ attention from what they were really doing with the drug trade. “The initial approach was to keep us so busy chasing our tails that we wouldn’t put as much focus on the real crime.”
“Which didn’t last long.” Arlo grinned at his friend before he shifted the conversation. “But something about this feels different.”
“Different how?”
“Yours was a diversion, Wyatt. A very deliberate one that used Anderson’s reputation at the 86th and his history with his son to keep things quiet. But this has the marks of a vendetta.”
Gavin turned it over in his mind, and he had to admit, it checked a lot of boxes. That feeling that he and Sera were the targets, inducing his fear for her safety. And the fact that Darius was shot with evidence that pointed to him being a very deliberate target.
“So now we have a new problem,” Gavin said, a level of certainty he’d rarely felt on a case slamming into him with all the force of an Atlantic hurricane. “Who’s in a position to know what Harbor was doing up at Hell Gate?”
Kerrigan shook her head. “A lot of people know a lot of things, Gav. Why would this be different?”
“Yes, but how would anyone know this fast? The discovery hasn’t been publicized. The local reporters haven’t even caught wind, and Captain Reed’s gotten agreement from the chief to hold on any press for another few days.”
“So whoever’s doing this figured out their hidey-hole is compromised?” Kerrigan might press him, challenging him as she always did, but he also saw her gaze light up in agreement as she processed his point.
“Exactly.”
They still didn’t have a lot to go on, but it was a direction. And the sooner they figured out if it was the right one, the sooner they could get justice for Darius. It mattered, Gavin realized. For Darius and Jayden. For that bone-deep, aching fear that had rushed him the moment he believed Sera was in danger.
And for their unborn child she carried.
The protection of that life mattered to him in ways so profound he hadn’t even realized it until this moment. But now that he knew—now that he felt it clear through each and every cell of his body—he also knew what needed to be done.
They had a killer to catch. And he’d be damned if he was giving the bastard an opportunity to touch anyone else.
Four days.
Four long, lonely days, Sera thought as she finished the last layer of noodles on the lasagna she was prepping for dinner.
