enemy. She still mourned the loss of her husband Eric who had been taken from her far too soon. And now Michael was gone. She considered him family.
Liz waited in the living room while Aaron examined the murder scene. A few minutes later, Alex and Gavin returned from the hunt.
Alex Booth and Gavin Dalton had been with the Scorpions since its inception. They were the best of the best and she was glad they were on her side.
“No sign of the car,” Alex told Aaron when he came into the room.
“There’s no murder weapon either, but my guess is it was a Glock. The perp must have taken it with him.” Aaron nodded to Alex. “Search the place. Maybe we’ll get a lead. Call in the local police to canvass the area.” He turned back to Liz. “What’s your theory here? You knew him better than any of us.”
She glanced through to the kitchen where Michael’s body lay and tried to hold back the emotions. “I think he must have known his killer. There’s no sign of a forced entry or a struggle.” She hesitated briefly and then voiced her thoughts aloud. “Aaron, we need to talk to Sam right away. If anyone knows what happened here tonight, it’s the man who almost took Michael’s life once before.”
* * *
Aaron drove to the secure prison inside Scorpion headquarters where Sam Lansford had been held since his release from the hospital. Aaron’s thoughts were working overtime trying to make sense of their fallen comrade’s death.
As much as he wanted to believe Sam was behind Michael’s death, too many things didn’t add up for it to be so. The biggest being how would Sam have managed to order the murder in the first place?
The capture of the Fox was big. The CIA hadn’t taken any chances that Sam might escape. He’d been heavily guarded at the hospital. When he was transferred to his prison cell, a state-of-the-art security system watched his every move twenty-four hours a day. No one got in or out of the compound or the prison without a passkey that was only issued to Scorpion team members.
“What I don’t understand is how did he accomplish the hit?” Aaron asked because he couldn’t make it make sense in his head. As his second-in-command, Liz had a way of cutting through the clutter.
She turned in her seat. “I beg your pardon?” She’d clearly been lost in her own thoughts.
Aaron noticed the exhaustion around her eyes. The way she cradled her fractured wrist close to her body. Even though it had been two weeks since the crash, he could tell it still hurt like crazy. He had no doubt her bruised ribs were giving her grief as well, yet Liz wasn’t one to complain. She’d soldier through the pain, do what needed to be done to solve her partner’s murder.
He smiled gently and asked, “How are you holding up?” He nodded toward her wrist and watched as she swallowed visibly and then quickly dismissed the severity of her injuries.
“I’m fine, Aaron. Don’t worry about me. I want to help.”
He knew her dedication all too well, but that didn’t keep him from worrying about her. She was more than a colleague—she was his friend.
Liz was the kindest and most generous person he knew. It never ceased to amaze him that she hadn’t let her personal tragedy turn her bitter. She’d been devastated when her husband, and fellow CIA agent, had died while on mission five years ago, yet she’d kept going. Fighting the same causes Eric had battled.
“What were you saying earlier?” she prompted in an unsteady voice when he continued to watch her carefully, getting lost in her expressive eyes.
Aaron cleared his throat and focused ahead. “I was just wondering, if Sam did order the hit on Michael, how he made it happen. He’s been guarded since his capture. There have been no visitors.”
She considered it. “But if not Sam then who?” She shook her head. “This has to have something to do with the missing weapons.”
In his mind, there was little doubt. The team may have captured the Fox, but the guns he’d smuggled into the US from Afghanistan were still MIA.
“Maybe Sam’s organization is bigger than we thought. We have no idea how many people work for him.” They’d only just begun to dig into Sam’s background and so far, it was like peeling away the layers of an onion. There were more lies than truths.
Aaron pulled up to the security gate outside the compound and waved his passkey in front of it. Once they’d cleared the gate, he drove the short distance to the prison.
The moment they entered the section where Sam was held, Aaron knew something was dreadfully wrong. Sam’s cell door stood slightly ajar.
He drew his weapon and motioned to the open door. Liz saw and quickly followed his lead.
Aaron pointed to his right and she quietly began searching that section while he did the same.
On this end of the prison, there were only five cells in addition to Sam’s. Aaron eased to the open cell. Sam lay slumped on his cot staring sightless at the ceiling. One arm hanging at an odd angle. There was little doubt, he was dead.
Aaron stared at the lifeless body, trying to grasp the reality of what had happened. He couldn’t believe it. There was no indication that Sam had taken his own life. No real sign of a struggle and yet someone had murdered him. Aaron’s thoughts flew in a dozen different directions. With Sam gone, what did that mean for locating the missing weapons and bringing Michael’s killer to justice? Would they ever know the truth behind any of it?
While he tried to process the scene, Aaron couldn’t understand how someone had gotten into such a secure location in the first place. He recalled the implication from Sam’s second-in-command about someone from the Scorpion team being dirty. Had one of their own team members taken Sam’s life? Impossible. Aaron searched the rest of the empty cells, then stopped next to the ones holding members of Sam’s team who had been captured.
“What happened here tonight?” he demanded of the first prisoner, knowing full well none of the men captured would cooperate. They hadn’t said so much as a handful of words since being taken prisoner.
With nothing but glaring silence coming from the men, frustrated, Aaron went back to Sam’s cell. They needed to find out what happened here quickly because there was no way the two murders weren’t connected.
He looked up expectantly when Liz returned.
She shook her head, confirming what he knew in his heart. “Whoever did this is gone. Just like at Michael’s place. Did Sam’s men give you anything?”
“They’re not talking.” Aaron felt for a pulse, not expecting one. “I’d say he’s been dead several hours. Rigor has just begun to set in.”
There were no signs of an injury. Aaron rolled Sam’s sleeve up. “There’s a needle mark on his arm. He was obviously injected with something deadly,” he confirmed while still reeling from the impossible.
“Both Sam and Michael had to be killed within hours of each other,” Liz pointed out.
Aaron’s gaze locked with hers. “That’s right. There are video cameras in each of the cells. Whoever killed Sam has to be on the tape,” he told her.
They hurried to
