Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron (best ereader for pdf .TXT) 📕

under the butt of the rifle with his left fist, tucked in next to the pocket of his shoulder. He squeezed it slightly, adjusting his point of aim so the scope’s crosshairs rested at the base of the brunette’s ear. He’d take her first, at once stunning the attorney with the sudden carnage and blocking his retreat down the stairs with her body.

Childers wondered idly if her diamond earrings were real as his finger tightened against the trigger.

Van Tyler coughed, spattering blood on the concrete wall. Behind him, Ensley’s lifeless body pinned his legs to the floor. He’d tried to catch her, thought she’d tripped or something. But… he shuddered at the thought of her beautiful face. It was just… gone.

Had there been an explosion? No. Somebody had shot them. Breaking glass… Ensley’s last word… He struggled to make sense of it all – needing air, losing blood. Her death had been mercifully quick. She’d teetered there, standing, one minute chattering about how scared she was—

Tyler felt a meteoric pain in his jaw, like he’d been struck with a hammer. Then, everything went quiet. He lost all sense of time.

They were on the floor now, behind the concrete balcony wall. He knew he was wounded, bad, but didn’t want to touch his head for fear of what he’d find. His left ear was on fire. The light inside the quiet church, already dim, began to fade. He felt himself drifting above his own body. Nothing made sense. Why had they even come here? And why was his secretary with him? All that had been crucially important just seconds before was suddenly so meaningless.

His eyes drooped, his head too heavy for his neck to keep it upright.

The informant… That’s right. An informant was going to meet him on this little mound of rock… He chuckled softly, struck with a moment of sudden clarity as darkness enveloped him. A pained half smile crossed his lips and then fell away.

“Tombolo.” That was the word he’d been trying to remember…

Chapter 21

Cutter raised a wary brow as Lola’s cell phone began to play “We Know the Way” from Disney’s Moana. He didn’t particularly care for ringtones that sounded like anything other than a normal phone, but this one suited Lola Tuakana Teariki. Mim had gathered up the twins and invited the Native woman and her son to the campfire so they didn’t have to listen to the two sullen men and a very angry woman continue to curse. Cutter had them sitting cross-legged on the ground for now. The men’s hands were secured behind their backs with cuffs, the woman’s with a pair of disposable, shoelace-like restraints Cutter habitually carried in his pocket when he was armed – meaning almost always. The other two women slouched in their camp chairs, splitting their attention between the playing children and their friends. The Alaska State Troopers were on their way.

Lola answered the phone, keeping an eye on Cutter and the prisoners while she listened intently.

At length, she ended the call and stared at the screen. “Nobody’s coming,” she said.

The woman who took the video shot to her feet. “What do you mean nobody’s coming. You people should be the ones in handcuffs. That Indian bitch is the one who started it.”

Cutter ignored the woman, cocking his head, waiting for Lola to tell him as much as she could in front of the others.

“That was AST dispatch,” Lola said. “They said we can either take them to jail ourselves, or get their names and fill out a report.” She motioned Cutter a few steps away from the group and then leaned in close so she didn’t have to whisper. “There’s been an incident a couple of miles up the road. Troopers are asking for our help.”

The whispered words “Van Tyler” and “murdered” were all the explanation Cutter needed for the moment. He took photos of the prisoners’ IDs, gave them the main number to the Marshals’ Office in Anchorage, and then kicked them loose. The tallest of the two men rubbed his wrists where the cuffs had been and glared, muttering something about the “equalizer” in his truck.

“You know,” Cutter said, giving him a contemplative nod, “if I see you again today, I’d be afraid for my life – and I get twitchy when I’m afraid for my life.”

The woman in short shorts may as well have grabbed the man by the ear the way she dragged him off the beach.

Lola called Inspector Scott Keen to make sure he was up to speed on the situation, and that he was setting up a protective detail on Judge Forsberg. Any murder was a big deal, especially during a trial, but the murder of a government attorney was a tripwire event that kicked a load of protective measures into motion. More than that, it was a megaphone for the killer – letting all those involved with the trial know that no one was safe.

The Native woman and her son were nowhere to be seen when Cutter and Lola made it back to the campfire.

“She leave already?” Cutter asked.

“She got a phone call that really spun her up,” Mim said. “Just said thank you and then rushed away.” Mim nodded down the beach. “You let them go?”

Lola shrugged. “Guessing we got the same phone call she did.”

Mim hardly said a word from the time Cutter told her about the murder to when she dropped him and Lola off in the wooded parking lot at the Shrine of St. Therese.

She sat in the parking lot with her window down, looking at him like she was just seeing him for the first time.

“You’ll get a ride?”

He nodded. “Sorry about this.”

She gazed through the trees, toward the direction of the church, keeping her voice low. “So they’re asking you to hunt the killer.”

“I don’t know,” Cutter said. “This is an FBI case, but both resident agents are out of town at the moment. I’m sure they’re sending an army of them from Anchorage