“I am good, all things considered. I thought I’d cracked a few ribs, but the body armor did its job, and they’re just bruised. I did hit my head, but the doctor said it’s a mild concussion.”
“It’s a wonder you escaped something far worse.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing I have a hard head.”
Evelyn leaned in, maneuvering through the wires and the tubes to wrap him in a hug. Although her words were whispered, Sera managed to catch most of them. “It’s an even better thing you had on protection.”
Sera stepped back, giving the woman a few moments to talk to her son. If it also gave her a few minutes to collect herself, well then, she’d take it. It wasn’t every day you met the future grandmother of your child, after all. Nor was it every day you got a hug that felt a lot like welcome, not a whiff of censure anywhere to be found.
She was still reeling and not quite sure what to do about it all.
“It’s okay, Mom. Really. I’m fine. I promise.”
“What exactly happened?” Evelyn’s gaze skipped to the machines, IVs and the two large bandages visible, one on his shoulder, the edges clear beneath his gown, and the other along his jaw.
“We were chasing a suspect, and someone rigged the sandwich shop he ducked into.”
“Rigged? What does that mean?” his mother asked.
“Someone blew it up. With a bomb.”
“With people inside?”
“I’m afraid so. I’ve been waiting for updates, but they just released me to have visitors and haven’t talked to anyone yet.”
She’d watched the tennis match of a conversation between Gavin and his mother and finally realized she had something to contribute. “Kerrigan, Arlo and Wyatt didn’t have any details before I came in here, either.”
“How did you get here?”
“Darius’s brother, Tariq, drove Mack and me over.”
“Valencia!” Gavin’s eyes widened. “How is she?”
“Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any news there, either. She was still in surgery, and none of us had any more details down in the waiting room.”
Sera quickly got Evelyn up to speed on what had happened to Valencia outside the church.
“Two shootings? Of family members?” Evelyn shuddered. “Just like your father.”
She murmured the words, and Sera saw the way Gavin’s expression went cold and bleak. A match for his mother’s.
“It’s been a long time since Gavin’s father died, and that horror is still something I live with every day. This feels similar. Deliberate, even.”
“But why?” Gavin asked. “Why would anyone even know who Darius and Valencia were? Or care that one was married to a member of the Harbor team and another on forensics?”
“Fear doesn’t need a reason, Gavin. It just needs a target.”
David Esposito walked into his office and closed the door. He had a slim briefcase with him, but it was big enough to hold a spare change of clothes. He’d changed into that extra suit after leaving the back of Archer’s sub shop.
The store had been a good front for him for a long time, Dex Archer more than willing to share the secrets of the neighborhood in exchange for payments and protection.
David had always delivered both. He’d made it his business early on to understand who he could use in each of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods and who had the loyalty to remain silent.
Only now Dex was dead, along with his son, another patron in the shop and the shooter who couldn’t handle a damn assignment.
An assignment, David considered as he pulled his soiled clothing out of his briefcase, that he’d planned down to the most minute detail. He’d set it all up perfectly. He’d given the shooter a target, the exact timing to take her out and the perfect place to create maximum chaos with others so he could avoid detection and get away.
And instead, the ass had screwed around, been late to the funeral, hadn’t set up well with his long-range scope and had been scattered with his overall focus on the job.
So what had he done?
Instead of ending the job and picking another time to make the hit, he’d rushed it, then proceeded to race through the streets of Sunset Bay waving a gun and shooting into the air.
Come the hell on.
David caught himself just before he rested his clothing on the top of his desk, the distinct odors of bomb materials and the dust of the building emanating from the material.
Damn it. Now he was the one who was scattered, making idiot, amateur mistakes.
He’d brought the clothing here to hide it in a legal box on his shelf. No one touched his files, and he’d leave it here, disposing of it at a later time. It always amazed him how little people paid attention to the files at work and how easy it was to use innocuous cardboard boxes people ignored every day as a parking lot for things he wanted to go unnoticed. He’d collect the soiled clothes in a few weeks and dump them, no one the wiser.
Right now, he had a bigger problem.
Because his shooter had botched the job, there was no way of knowing if the lovely wife he’d targeted was dead or not. And he needed her dead for this all to work.
Mack Phillips was leading the Hell Gate forensics work and had been lead on several other cases David’s team had prosecuted. The man was thorough and often caught things others missed.
It was why he required this distraction from the Hell Gate work. And it was why David had required the man’s wife pay the price for that dedication.
