Divine Justice (Camel Club 4)

CHAPTER 4

AS SOON AS ANNABELLE stepped on the front porch she saw it. Alex Ford did too. They’d just gotten back from dinner at Nathan’s in Georgetown. It had become a favorite haunt of theirs.

She pulled the knife free, unfolded the letter and then glanced around, as though she expected the person who’d delivered it to still be nearby.

She and Alex sat in front of the empty fireplace while she read it. She finished and passed it across to him, waiting in silence while he read it through.

“He says for you to pack up and move. That people would be coming to ask questions. You can stay at my place, if you want.”

“I guess we knew it was him, didn’t we?” she added.

Alex looked at the letter. “‘I’ve had many regrets in my life,’” he said, reading from it. “‘And I’ve lived with them all. But Milton’s death was my fault alone. I did what I had to do. To punish those who needed to be. But I will never be able to punish myself enough. At least John Carr is finally dead. And good riddance.’” He looked up. “Sounds like a man who did what he believed needed to be done.”

“He asked us to tell Reuben and Caleb.”

“I’ll do it.”

“They deserved it, you know. From all that Finn told us that happened that night.”

“Nothing gives someone the right to murder someone, Annabelle,” he said firmly. “That’s vigilantism. That’s wrong.”

“Under any circumstances?”

“One exception destroys that rule for good.”

“So you say.”

“Burn the letter, Annabelle,” Alex said suddenly.

“What?”

“Burn it now, before I change my mind.”

“Why?”

“It’s not a confession but it’s still evidence. And I can’t believe I’m saying this. Burn it. Now!”

She grabbed a match, lit the paper and tossed it into the fireplace. They watched the letter curl and blacken.

“Oliver saved my life, more than once,” he said. “He was the most decent, reliable person I’ve ever met.”

“I wish he’d stayed to talk to us.”

“I’m glad he didn’t.”

“Why?” Annabelle said brusquely.

“Because I might have had to arrest him.”

“You’re kidding. You just said he was the most decent person you’d ever met.”

“I’m a lawman, Annabelle. I swore an oath, friend or not.”

“But you knew he killed people before. And you didn’t seem to have a problem with it then.”

“Right, but he did that on orders from the U.S. government.”

“So that makes it okay in your eyes? Because some politician said it was?”

“Oliver was a soldier. He was trained to follow orders.”

“But even he felt guilt for that. Because some of the people he was ‘ordered’ to kill were innocent. You saw how that crushed him.”

“I respect his morals. But that wasn’t his call.”

Annabelle rose and looked down at him.

“So he kills two people who did deserve it, but because he didn’t have ‘government authorization’ you’re suddenly prepared to arrest him?”

“It’s not that simple, Annabelle.”

She flicked her long hair out of her face. “Sure it is,” she snapped.

“Look—”

She walked over to the door and opened it. “Let’s call it a night before we say something we’ll regret. Or at least I do. Besides, I have to pack.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I’ll let you know,” she said in a tone that left much doubt whether she meant it.

Alex started to say something but instead rose and walked out, his features clouded and his lips set in an uncompromising line.

Annabelle slammed the door behind him. She sat down cross-legged in front of the fireplace and studied the blackened bits of Stone’s final message to them. Tears trickled down her cheeks as in her mind she went through the letter’s contents again.

She glanced toward the door. Alex and she had become very close over the last several months. When they had heard of Gray’s and Simpson’s murders they both had instantly suspected the truth. Yet they hadn’t said anything about their feelings, afraid perhaps that if they did acknowledge that they believed Stone had killed the two men it would make that suspicion an intractable truth. Now their two very different interpretations of the man’s perceived actions had just driven a wall right between them.

Annabelle packed her few belongings, locked up the cottage for what she was sure would be the last time, climbed in her car and drove to a nearby hotel. She got undressed and climbed into bed. She would be moving on now. There was nothing to keep her here any longer. With Oliver gone, her father dead and Alex revealed to be something other than what she thought, she was alone once more.

It seemed to be her natural state.

Good luck, Oliver Stone.

Annabelle was very sure of one thing. He would need all the luck he could get.

Maybe they all would.

CHAPTER 5

JOE KNOX WOULD HAVE preferred to have been back at his town house drinking a beer or maybe even a couple digits’ width of Glenlivet while sitting in front of a toasty fire and finishing reading his novel. Yet here he was. The chair was uncomfortable, the room cold and ill-lighted, the waiting unpleasant. He eyed the opposite wall but his thoughts were far from this place.

His tour through Roger Simpson’s murder scene hadn’t taken all that long. Like his former boss at CIA, Simpson had still been sitting in death, only with him instead of a car seat it was a ladder-back chair in the kitchen that was now all mottled with the dead man’s blood. The shot had come from the unfinished chunk of construction across the street. The hour of execution—for Knox was certain that’s what this was all about—had been an early one. And eyewitnesses had been in damn short supply.

The only item of interest, really, had been the newspaper. Simpson had been shot right through that morning’s edition of the venerable Washington Post, taking the round smack in the chest. As had been the case with Gray, most snipers aimed for the brain as the gold standard of all possible killing shots. Sure, you pack the right ordnance and a torso hit would also likely be fatal, but the head shot was like a faithful dog in a professional killer’s world because it just never let you down.

So Gray in the head; Simpson in the chest. Why?

And why through the newspaper?

That had really bothered Knox. Not that having to penetrate the few pages would’ve screwed the shot, but the shooter would’ve had to more or less guess where his round would impact. And what if Simpson had had a thick book on his chest, or a

cigarette lighter in his breast pocket that the paper had concealed? That could’ve fouled the shot. Most snipers Knox had known didn’t like to guess about anything other than who they’d kill next.

Yet when he’d examined the paper he understood quite clearly why the chest shot had been used. A snapshot of someone had been taped to the inside of the newspaper. The shot had taken the person’s head in the photo right off. As Knox looked more closely, the remaining part of the picture showed the torso to be that of a woman. There were no marks or writing on what was left of the photo to help him figure out who it was. He’d talked to the paper carrier to see if he’d seen anything suspicious, but he hadn’t. And Simpson’s building didn’t have a doorman. Yet the killer had put that photo in the paper, Knox was certain of it.

And that meant only one thing. This hit had been personal. And the killer had wanted Simpson to know exactly why he was going to die and also who was doing the deed. Just like the flag and grave marker with Gray. His grudging admiration for the assassin increased even more. Gauging the shot accurately enough to take out that picture required remarkable skill, planning and simply a level of confidence that not even