Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(16)

They called it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It might go away some day. It might not. It surely wouldn’t with Kelsey Stewart possibly out there in the water, and all because Shelby had insisted on all food groups instead of simply toast for her client.

She turned her back on yet another of her failures, rubbing her biceps to ward off the cold that never went away. Agent Cartwright stood with his back to her, preoccupied with the tow truck driver. Agent Lennox had joined him, but everywhere Shelby turned, she saw Kelsey’s sad face and she heard that sad question. Do you think I’m crazy?

Shelby lifted her hand to her throat at the thought of that sweet woman drowning. This tributary emptied into the Potomac six or seven short miles to the east. That’s where Kelsey would be. Downstream. Floating. Agent Cartwright had to be right. Kelsey had to be alive.

Agent Cartwright’s adamant declaration ‘Not Kelsey!’ offered her hope. Shelby marched straight back to the sheriff. “What are you waiting for? You need to get searchers on the water and divers in the river. Right now.”

Her reflection glared back at her from the shiny barrier of his dark glasses. He nodded, his face a mask. “Already on their way, ma’am. I wouldn’t get your hopes up, though. Looks pretty straightforward to me. Seen a few rollovers in my time, you know. The car door sprung when it rolled. The force of the roll ejected the driver. Since there’s no body on the road, there’s only one place it could be.” He nodded downstream. “And a woman in that river isn’t going to be found alive. Not anymore.”

The need to do something—anything!—spurred her into action.

Agents Cartwright and Lennox were combing the riverbank, Cartwright downstream, Lennox up. Shelby opted to join Cartwright. She didn’t have to like these guys to help search. She just had to get to Kelsey in time.




“You were so beautiful,” Mark told the picture of Kelsey that Alex kept on his desk. “God, how do we run this place without the two of you? How do we even begin again?”

He and Harley had come back to the office to double check incoming correspondence in the hope something turned up. While Harley scanned incoming calls and voice messages at Mother’s desk, and hopefully remembered to call home to check on his long overdue pregnant wife, Mark did the same at Alex’s office.

For three long days The TEAM searched, but there’d been no sign of Kelsey. No body. No footprints leading out of the river. Not even a hint that anyone saw or knew where she was.

Nurse Sullivan had proved unstoppable. She’d organized search grids, door-to-door efforts, and a newspaper campaign that kept Kelsey’s face in the public’s eye. She’d logged as many foot and driven miles as any agent, but nothing mattered. Kelsey seemed to have disappeared, and Mark dreaded the day when someone found her poor body along a lonely river shore. Or in a fisherman’s net.

This second blow felt deeper. More personal. Losing Alex was one thing. He’d always been a target. The man rattled more sabers and made more enemies than most, but Kelsey? She’d never hurt anyone. Defending herself against her demented ex-mother-in-law didn’t count. Ethel Durrant deserved to die. Kelsey didn’t.

At least Alex and Kelsey are together now.

That line of bullshit didn’t bring one moment of comfort. Mark lowered his face to his folded arms on the desktop. He needed a moment to think or pray, trying like hell to draw strength from his personal beliefs that taught of life after death, resurrection, and hope. Not today. He plain didn’t have the heart for this business anymore. The TEAM was running on empty and so was he.

“Show me a way,” he whispered. “God, we do thy work. I know we do, but we can’t do this alone. I can’t. Not anymore.”

The silence in the empty room echoed the hollow feeling in his chest. He ached. There seemed no light left in the world after this double hit. Tears got the best of him. He honestly didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d just hoped.


Instead of waiting for an answer that wasn’t going to come, he wiped his face and pushed back from the desk. The sheriff might be right. They weren’t going to find Kelsey.

“You what?” Harley bellowed from the outer office. “Say again.”

Mark scrambled out the door. Hope stirred in his soul at the excitement in Harley’s voice.

He stood at Mother’s desk, scribbling on a notepad with the office phone in his ear, his eyes wide with anger and his tone filled with authority for the first time in days. “Who are you? How do you—?”

He slammed the phone down. “I know where she is!”




“God, he’s an ass.” Gabe jammed his cell phone into his front jeans pocket after another hostile confrontation with Harley. “Someone called in an anonymous tip. Kelsey’s supposedly at these coordinates. He wants us to check it out. We’re closest. Come on. Let’s go get her.”

Zack didn’t have to be asked twice. While Gabe keyed in the coordinates to their vehicle’s mapping system, he accelerated to well past cruising speed. In less than ten miles, they were rolling through an upscale neighborhood that boasted manicured lawns and five-acre plots. No children. No pets. Just wealth. That kind of neighborhood.

“Over there.” Gabe indicated a white brick ranch-style home sprawled at the crest of a small hill. Sunlight reflected off the enormous picture windows at the front of the house. A low-running hedge lined a wide driveway as well as the telltale motion detector spikes of an outside security system.