“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?
And I think it’s him.
But the real question was...who did Sydney trust? Which brother did she think was there to protect her, and which was there to kill her?
Chapter Nine
They didn’t go to Mercer’s office. They went into an interrogation room, and that fact put Sydney on edge.
She glanced toward the two-way mirror. Was someone watching them? What in the world was going on?
As far as she was concerned, there was no way that Gunner was a suspect, and Mercer had better stop treating him that way.
“Gunner, you understand that I have to explore every avenue in this case.” No emotion broke through Mercer’s words. “You’ve been a fine agent here, and I have nothing but respect for the work that you’ve done.”
Sydney couldn’t stand it. “So why are we in interrogation?”
Mercer glanced over at her. He and Gunner were both seated. She was pacing like mad. “Because procedure has to be followed, and I don’t want this situation coming back to bite me later,” Mercer told her quietly.
She stopped pacing.
“So let’s get through this as quickly as we can.” Mercer looked back at Gunner. “Do you know a woman named Sarah Bell?”
Sydney frowned. The name meant nothing to her.
“Sarah.” Gunner seemed to be testing the name. Then he nodded. “I knew her, a long time ago.”
The door opened then, and Mercer’s assistant, Judith, hurried into the room. She handed Mercer a file. “Thank you,” he told her, inclining his head.
As Judith left, Sydney was pretty sure the other woman flashed her a look of pity. Of pity? What was up with that?
“How long ago?” Mercer asked.
“I was eighteen. She was...I think sixteen at the time? Sarah Bell...she was killed in a fire.”
“Yes, she was.”
Mercer opened the file and pushed some grainy black-and-white photographs toward Gunner. “I pulled the arson reports on her fire. The M.O. that the arsonist used, it’s the same as the one that was used at Sydney’s place.”
Sydney grabbed the nearest chair and sat down—hard. Then she strained to see those photographs. The charred remains of the house had her swallowing a few times. Then she saw the newspaper reports that had been printed off and included in that manila file.
Family Perishes in Blaze.
“Sarah Bell and her parents all died in the fire,” Mercer said. “Unfortunately, the arsonist was never apprehended.”
Gunner leaned forward. “You think I had something to do with this?”
“Your grandfather passed away a week before that fire. His passing...when he was the only one to ever provide stability to your life...it had to leave you feeling lost.”
“I wasn’t lost.” Flat. “I had my brother to take care of. He needed me.”
“He needed you, but you wanted Sarah Bell?”
Now another picture was pushed forward. This one appeared to have been taken from a yearbook. A young girl with curly blond hair and sparkling green eyes. In the picture, she smiled, flashing dimples.
“I never dated Sarah Bell.”
“Are you sure about that?” Mercer pressed. “Because your brother said you were sweet on her back then.”
Gunner started to respond, then stopped.
The tension in the room ratcheted up. He had cared for Sarah.