She needed to do this as a professional. Michael deserved her best.
“A gunshot wound to the head,” she said quietly. “He was killed at close range. From the size of the entry wound, I’d say it was a Glock.”
“Are you in danger?” Aaron asked with his concern for her safety intensifying his voice. Their friendship was just as important to him as it was to her. She struggled to stay focused. “No, he’s been dead for a while. Whomever did this is long gone.”
“I’m on my way. I’ll call in Gavin and Alex. We’ll be there soon.”
She ended the call without answering and stared at the man that she’d shared so many good moments with.
“I’m sorry, Michael. So sorry I wasn’t there for you,” she whispered and meant it as she scrubbed tears from her face and got to her feet.
Michael’s house had now become a crime scene and she had to tread carefully. She’d unknowingly contaminated the door handle by entering the house. It stood to reason that the killer would have touched it at some point. The door had been unlocked.
Using her shirt as protection, she grabbed his phone and checked the outgoing calls. Michael hadn’t called anyone in days. Hers were the only incoming today. Had she been the last person to see him alive until the killer arrived?
She thought about his strange behavior after she’d picked him up at the hospital. Was it all due to his near-death experience? She and Michael had been forced at gunpoint into a chopper by the Fox. They both could have died when it crashed to the ground outside a small town in Pennsylvania two weeks earlier. She’d suffered a fractured wrist, a few bruised ribs and some cuts and scrapes. Her injuries hadn’t been nearly as severe as Michael’s. For a while they weren’t sure Michael would make it.
After he was cleared, the doctor had wanted Michael to go straight home and rest, but Michael had insisted on visiting Sam Lansford in prison first.
It had been unthinkable that someone the team all knew and trusted had turned out to be the Fox. When their chopper had crashed, Sam and several of his men had been captured. The team had immediately transported their prisoners to the Scorpion headquarters outside of Painted Rock, Colorado, for interrogation. The weapons Sam had smuggled into the country were still unaccounted for and they needed to find them as soon as possible.
Still, Liz didn’t understand why Michael had insisted on seeing Sam. Once the two had faced off, there had been no words exchanged between them.
She glanced around the living room, seeing things through different eyes than when she’d first entered. There was no sign of a break-in. Had Michael known his killer?
One of the cushions on the sofa caught her attention. It was visibly out of place as if something were tucked under it. Liz carefully eased it up and found a large manila envelope stuffed there haphazardly. Her name had been hastily scribbled across the front of it in Michael’s handwriting. But it was the next line written there that was the most alarming.
For Your Eyes Only!
Dread wrapped itself snugly around her shoulders. What was Michael trying to tell her that only she could witness? Before she had the chance to open the envelope, headlights flashed across the front of the house.
Liz shoved the envelope in her purse and hurried to the window. She parted the curtains, expecting it to be Aaron. Michael’s place was at the end of a sparsely populated cul-de-sac. A car had pulled into the drive and flipped its lights on bright.
She shielded her eyes and managed to get a better look at the vehicle. It looked like the same car that had Michael spooked earlier when she’d driven him home after that strange visit with Sam.
Once they’d turned onto his street, Liz had caught a glimpse of a car behind them. She didn’t think anything of it until she saw how Michael had reacted. She’d asked if he knew the person, but he’d denied it.
Liz rushed from the house with her weapon drawn as the car quickly reversed and headed down the street picking up speed along the way. The license plate had been removed.
While the shock of realizing it was the same car as before and that someone had gone to great lengths to hide their identity froze her in place, two additional sets of headlights came down the usually quiet street. Liz squinted through the blinding lights and was able to identify Aaron’s SUV. Aaron pulled up beside her. “Did something else happen?” he asked as if reading her thoughts.
She quickly nodded. “I’m pretty sure the car that just passed you was here earlier today when I brought Michael home.”
Aaron got out of the SUV and hurried to the truck behind him. “See if you can catch up with the car we just passed. They might be involved.”
The driver of the truck, Alex Booth, nodded, put the truck in Reverse and made a quick U-turn before flooring the gas.
Aaron came back to her. Liz knew he could see that she was still shaking in reaction to finding Michael and to seeing the suspicious car. “Are you okay?” he asked in that serious Southern drawl of his that was always so charming. Now it was laced with worry.
It was so like Aaron to be concerned about her, especially after she and Michael had barely escaped death. He’d always been there for her whenever she needed to talk. Strong. Caring. A true man of valor. She’d often wondered why someone as handsome and as captivating as Aaron was still single.
He ran a careless hand through his chestnut hair before those intense midnight-blue eyes focused on her and just for a second, she lost her train of thought.
“I’m okay,” she managed.
Aaron had been tasked with heading up the critical investigation into how someone as close to the Scorpions as Sam Lansford could turn out to be the Fox. As a former CIA agent himself, Sam had quit the Agency to go into business for himself as a hostage retrieval agent. On several occasions, Sam had provided the team with useful information that had led to the capture of some very dangerous people. They’d all thought they knew him. They’d been wrong.
The team had been trying to bring down the Fox and his weapons-smuggling activities for more than seven years. No one expected the terrorist to be someone they all knew.
Yet even with the pressure for answers so great and the guns Sam smuggled out of Afghanistan still missing, Aaron had found time to check on her when Liz’s injuries had her sidelined. That was just his way.
He glanced up at the house, his expression solemn. “Take me through what happened. Why are you here so late anyway?” he asked curiously before stepping up on the porch. Was there something accusatory in his tone or was the outcome of the day playing tricks on her?
“I was worried about Michael. I’d been trying to reach him most of the afternoon.” She followed him up the steps to the porch. “Since the accident, he wasn’t himself. I knew something was troubling him, but he didn’t say what.”
Aaron nodded. “I noticed it as well. What did you find when you arrived?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary at first, until I tried the door. It was unlocked. I went inside, searched the place and...” She snatched a much-needed breath. “Found him in the kitchen.”
Aaron took her hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry,” he murmured with sincerity.
