Sharpshooter (Shadow Agents 3)

Tina was waiting there with Mercer. Mercer had his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against a filing cabinet.

“Dr. Jamison has found some interesting results for us,” Mercer murmured. Gunner noticed that the man’s assessing stare drifted to him, then returned to Tina.

“It’s the blood work.” Tina pushed a report toward him and Sydney. “I found muerte in the man’s system.”

Muerte. “The same drug my brother was on?” His gaze snapped to Mercer. “I thought you said the drug hadn’t made it to the U.S.”

“That’s what the DEA told me. Looks like they could be wrong about that.”

Sydney whistled as she studied the reports. “These are some extremely high levels. We’re lucky he didn’t shoot up the whole block.”

“The whole block wasn’t his target,” Mercer said quietly. “You were.”

Sydney’s fingers tightened around the report. “Do we know who he is?”

Tina nodded. “I got a hit on his fingerprints. Ken Bridges. He’s ex-army, dishonorably discharged for conduct unbecoming.” She cleared her throat. “He, um, almost beat a man to death while he was on a recon mission. The man was a civilian, completely unrelated to the mission.”

“What had Ken been doing since the army?” Gunner asked.

“Looks like whatever he could get paid to do.”

A gun for hire. Figured.

“The DEA’s getting pulled in on this one,” Mercer said. “They’re going to investigate Ken, break apart his life and follow the trail they find back to the muerte.”

The muerte trail already led to Slade. So he had to ask, “Are you questioning my brother?”

“Any intel that Slade can provide to us about the men who held him and addicted him will be used by the DEA.”

Gunner gave a hard shake of his head. “That’s not what I’m asking.” He’d been blunt with Sydney and with Logan. He’d be no less with Mercer. “Are you going to interrogate him? To see if he’s linked to this guy?”

Mercer’s head tilted as he studied Gunner. “Your brother has been either under guard or in a rehab facility for the majority of his time in the U.S. How is he supposed to have hooked up with a hired gun?”

“This guy’s ex-army, right? Maybe he hooked up with him in rehab. Maybe there was someone there who gave him Bridges’s number. If Bridges was addicted, then he’d probably know guys in that same rehab unit.” It made sense. Mercer had to see that.

“If there’s a link between them,” Sydney said, “we can find it.”

He had no doubt.

Tina was staring at them all with wide eyes.

“You think your brother is doing this? You really think he could be the one targeting Sydney?” Mercer asked as he uncrossed his arms.

“I don’t want to suspect him.”

“Why not?” Mercer asked softly. “He sure suspects you.”

That was the last thing Gunner had expected to hear. He snapped to attention. “Sir?”

But Mercer was pointing toward the door. “Let’s finish the rest of this conversation upstairs, Gunner. Dr. Jamison, good work. Sydney—”

“I want to be a part of that upstairs conversation,” she said, voice tensing with a demand.

The ghost of a smile curved Mercer’s thin lips. In his mid-fifties, Mercer still had the tough edge of a man half his age. “Since it’s your life, I rather suspected you’d request just that.”

Then Mercer walked toward the door.

Gunner glanced at Sydney, wondering what the hell she had to be thinking about this turn of events. His brother thought he was the killer?