“Sera?”
“I’m sorry. Really, Gavin, I am. I just...” She disengaged from his arms and ran back to her purse, grabbing the notebook she’d stuffed in the side. “It’s just that I think I put something together.”
Sera had contributed throughout the evening, just like she had a few days before back at the precinct, so it was no surprise she was set on something. Her lack of police procedural knowledge was offset by one of the keenest minds he’d ever seen, and she caught on quickly when there was a topic she wasn’t fully versed on. She also wasn’t afraid to ask questions, no matter how small or specific.
In fact, Gavin had to admit it was that focus on the specifics that had led to a few key discussion points, namely how the shooter had gotten so close to the funeral and why Mack’s wife, Valencia, was targeted.
“What are you thinking?”
“It’s what your mom said. Before. About fear not needing a reason. Just a target.”
“You think someone’s trying to incite fear.”
“Yes, but for a very specific reason. Darius. Valencia. They were specifically chosen targets.”
“Targeted why?” Gavin watched as the connections lit up inside of her, the past few weeks seeming to coalesce in a flash.
“It’s the guns, Gavin. Up at Hell Gate.” She paced back toward him, rattling the hints off as she saw them. “That’s the start. Of all of this.”
“Which is why they should be coming after cops. Instead, Darius and Valencia are collateral damage?”
The words practically burned his lips, the raw anger something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Not since his father...
But it was Sera who had the calm logic to see past it all. “Darius is married to one of the divers who worked the guns. Valencia is married to one of the forensics team members who handled them. It’s fear by association.”
Gavin felt the way the room seemed to electrify, her idea taking root and bringing him to a sitting position. He winced at the movement, but there was no way he could lie down for this.
“Here.” She was by his side in an instant, fiddling with the electric riser function. “This will be easier.”
With his bed set into a sitting position, Gavin pieced it together along with her, poking and prodding, adding and subtracting along the way.
“Okay, but let’s pressure test this. I get the connection you’re making, but Darius was murdered the day the team brought up the rest of the guns. That’s awfully fast between Jayden working the dump site and his husband being shot.”
Sera stilled, turning it over. “You’ve all said it, but in different ways. The guns were a sophisticated operation, not some random find. The dump location. The missing serial numbers. Someone planning like that would have to have an exit strategy.”
“Okay, then next point. Why Darius specifically? Why Valencia? There are other divers. Other forensics team members.” He knew he was playing devil’s advocate, but they needed to ask the questions.
If the Hell Gate guns were the root of all this, then they’d been looking in the wrong place, just trying to find a shooter. It was a necessity, but if the gunman was nothing more than a tool, catching him stopped the violence, but it didn’t stop the underlying problem.
And like a hydra, it would only regrow a head somewhere else.
“Jayden brought the guns up. Mack was on the team processing the evidence.” Sera’s mouth fell as that last piece clicked. “Spouses. Partners for life. Maybe there was some selection process, but it has to be tied to the NYPD members who worked the site.”
“You go after the cop, you get a lot of cops riled. Go after their loved ones, get them scared,” Arlo said, stepping into the room. “Kerrigan’s been saying that all along. And sorry if I’m interrupting, but I couldn’t miss overhearing it all outside the door.”
“It’s a horrible strategy,” Gavin considered. “But it’s effective.”
“It’s also a perfect way to hide.” Arlo took a seat in one of the small folding chairs the nurse had brought in for him and the others earlier. “And it gives even more credence to the angle I’ve been running down on a well-run, organized offering to those who can pay for it to dispose of their guns, essentially making their crimes go away.”
“Your informant,” Gavin remembered. “Kerrigan mentioned her.”
“Jade’s rock-solid with the intel, and I think she’s onto something. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find a single line to tug on that one. Whispers and rumors aren’t evidence, no matter how telling they really are.”
Sera had remained quiet in Arlo’s overview, but finally spoke, adding one more dimension to the problem. “The chain of evidence. Remove the gun, and it’s awfully hard for someone like me to prosecute you.”
Arlo nodded. “Damn hard.”
It made sense. And more than that, it gave support to why someone would create a fear campaign to protect their interests.
Fear doesn’t need a reason. It just needs a target.
“The loved ones are the target,” Gavin said, seeing it all in his mind’s eye. Remembering those tense moments out in front of the bar and that feeling of being watched. Because they had been. But they weren’t the end game. “We thought it was us, but we were the diversion. It was Darius all along.”
Even as the reality of it all hit him, Gavin felt that anger and fury riling him up, just like Arlo said.
And as fast as it came on, it quickly shifted in a new direction.
Because if the loved ones of cops were now the target, he’d just put a bull’s-eye on Sera.
And he was wholly, desperately, irrevocably in love with the mother of his child.
Wyatt and Kerrigan rejoined them, fresh bottles of water in hand for her and Gavin, coffees for the rest of them as they swept through the door of Gavin’s room.
And they brought good news. The best news, Sera thought, as Kerrigan recounted all she’d learned in the past half hour.
“Valencia came through surgery. She’s got a long recovery ahead of her, but the doctors have every confidence she’s going to be fine. She’ll spend the night in intensive care, but they’re already talking about possibly moving her tomorrow.”
