Hill, Gerri - Angel Fire

“I took one to the vest, Tori took three. All from handguns. Angel was using a rifle.” She paused. “But the miracle, as you call it, was Angel’s humanity. For whatever reason, the bond you two formed while out there is strong. And he knew that if he killed Tori, that would crush you. So he spared both me and Tori.” She took a deep breath. “And that’s a little scary to think about,” she admitted. “And Cameron beat herself up pretty bad over it too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Us going to the house like we did, without backup.”

Sam nodded. “Yes, you were exposed. What do you think would have happened if the deputies hadn’t shown up? What do you think Angel would have done?”

“I honestly don’t know. I can’t see him letting us get close. Maybe he would have fired a few warning shots, enough for him to get to his car.”

“Well, none of us expected him to be there in the first place,” Sam said. “I mean, what are the chances Rowan pulled six properties off a list and we get a hit?”

Andrea smiled. “I know you and Tori don’t understand his method or even how the algorithms work, but he simply pulled the top six that had the highest probability,” she said.

“According to a computer,” Sam said with a shake of her head.

A honking of a horn startled them and they moved out of the way, only to see Eric grinning at them from behind the wheel of their rental.

“You gals need a lift?”

“Depends,” Andrea said. “You got food in there?”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Cameron used the plastic spoon to scoop out more rice, adding it to her spicy shrimp and vegetables.

“You gonna eat that last egg roll?” Tori asked, already reaching for it.

“Yeah, I am. Get back,” Cameron said as she slapped at Tori’s hand.

“Jesus, you’d think it was a slice of pizza or something,” Tori murmured, causing Andrea to laugh.

“If it had been the last slice of pizza, I would have stabbed you with my fork,” Cameron said as she took a loaded bite with rice and shrimp. She saw Andrea and Sam look at each other and smile, and she gave a subtle wink to Andrea.

The motorhome had been crowded with all of them inside so they decided to take their early dinner out to the picnic table. Reynolds and Eric had supplied them with a variety of Chinese dishes and a platter of egg rolls. Conversation had been light and meant only as filler. They hadn’t discussed the episode at the house at all. And Rowan had only given her the bare minimum on his credit card search. From what he’d told her, though, he had enough to piece together a pattern.

Reynolds wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then took a swallow of water from his bottle. Cameron met his gaze across the table and knew he’d reached his limit on downtime.

“I haven’t spoken to Murdock,” he said. “I assume you have.”

Cameron nodded. “Oh, yeah. It wasn’t pretty,” she admitted. “Apparently we should have known it was Angel at the house and should have called in every law enforcement officer in the whole goddamn state as backup and then nuked the house off the face of the earth,” she said. “With Angel still inside, of course.”

“Easy to second-guess now,” he said, surprising her. “If I had been in the lead, I would have done the same thing. It wasn’t as if you drove right up to the front door.”

She put her fork down, still eyeing the egg roll. She shoved it over in front of Tori, who quickly snatched it up. “Yeah, I know,” she said to Reynolds. “But still, I should have taken more precaution. Checking these properties out was more an exercise of killing time until Rowan could get us something a little more concrete,” she admitted. “I never really thought it was Angel inside the house.”

“I’m surprised none of the deputies took a hit,” Eric said.

“Me too,” Cameron said. “With Angel’s skills, he should have been able to take all six of them out.”

“It didn’t really last all that long,” Andrea said. “A minute, tops.” Then she raised her eyebrows almost apologetically. “Of course, being caught in the crossfire, it seemed like an hour.”

“I second that,” Tori said. “But you’re right. He fired a lot of rounds from the house in that long minute. Their cars were shot to hell, but none of them even had a scratch.”

Cameron saw Andrea and Sam exchange glances once more. She was again curious about what they talked about on their walk. But rather than ask them point-blank in front of everyone, she thought she’d save it for tonight, when she and Andrea were alone.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say Angel wasn’t shooting to kill,” she said.

Sam nodded. “I agree. It was only a distraction.” She glanced at Reynolds. “If I may interject here, that is.”

“By all means,” he said.

Sam leaned her elbows on the table, glancing at all of them before speaking. “He used the word ‘distraction’ quite a bit. Whether he originally planned to…to eliminate his whole team or not, I don’t know,” she said. “But when the two guys tried to double-cross him and take the money, he killed them. I don’t know if that’s when the other three became expendable or not. But everything else he did after that was solely for a distraction. Causing the accident that closed the road, killing that family.” She glanced over at Tori. “And even taking me. It was all just a distraction.” Sam turned to Cameron. “Why would today be any different? Maybe he saw us drive up. He knew every law enforcement agency in the state was looking for him. So a quick call to nine-one-one sends the sheriff’s department racing over.”

“And there was just enough of a distraction for him to slip away,” Cameron said. “I didn’t even come close to taking a shot at him. I was too busy dodging bullets of my own.”

“That’s all well and good, but where the hell is he now?” Reynolds asked.

Cameron turned to Rowan. “You’re up, kid. Tell them what you found.”

Rowan nodded. “Well, keep in mind it’s nothing concrete. And I’m still running two programs.” He moved his plate aside and pulled his laptop in front of him. “But I think it’s substantial.” He glanced quickly at Reynolds. “I compiled data using credit card receipts,” he said. “We know he surfaced again here in the States six months ago. I used that as my starting point. Basically, I grabbed any transaction made after that date within a hundred-mile radius of both Santa Fe and Taos.”

“That had to have been thousands of transactions,” Tori said.

Rowan shook his head. “Oh, way more than thousands,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands. I kept gas and fuel transactions separate for my first search, then combined that with the returns on food, lodging and well…basically everything else.”

“Yeah, great,” Cameron said. “Tell them what you found.”

“I found two patterns that fit. One occurred five months ago. The other, just one month ago.”

“What kind of pattern?” Reynolds asked.

“The first one, Charles McDaniel. He used a credit card to rent a car in Albuquerque. Gas receipts show he traveled back and forth between Santa Fe, Taos and Eagle Nest for nearly a month. Unfortunately, there were no hits on that credit card for lodging or meals.”

“Okay, you’re saying that’s the only person who traveled that same route during that time?”

“No. But what I was able to match was another credit card—Justin Black—used in the same vicinity at the same time. In fact, several fuel stops charged to Charles McDaniel’s card also had food charged to Justin Black’s card nearly simultaneously.”

“So your theory is that Angel had these two cards, used them at will without fear of being tracked?” Tori asked. “Wouldn’t it have been safer for him to use cash?”