Gabe (In the Company of Snipers, #8)(5)

He couldn’t bear what she was going through, so he’d hired someone to stay with her. Certified Nursing Assistant Shelby Sullivan came highly recommended by Mark’s wife, Libby, so he jumped at the suggestion, not that Kelsey was physically sick.

Just heartsick. Just living through the worst hurt of all.

If only he could hire someone to help The TEAM. The strain on them was paramount to losing a father. Days later, the shock hadn’t decreased. If anything, it had only grown worse.

Harley had unraveled. Usually the coolest agent on staff, his post-traumatic stress resurfaced with a vengeance. His sunny disposition soured into pessimism and wild stories of a dead man walking. Where that wild notion came from Mark could only guess. It had to stem from the denial phase of grief. Harley and Alex always had a bond, Alex the anchor to a man adrift. Harley seemed to be floundering more than ever.

Mark studied him now. His sandy-haired friend stood staring at the window, his shoulders taut and tight with the chip he seemed to be carrying. More than once, he’d hinted at the idea of searching for Alex, as if he didn’t already know the man rested six feet under, alongside his daughter and first wife.

“Remember when he tossed his chair out this window?” Harley asked, his palms flat to the plate glass Alex had shattered in a moment of frustration years earlier. That was another tough year, the year Harley and Kelsey had gone missing at the same time.

“I do,” answered Mark quietly.

“Well, I don’t! I was lost on the streets of D.C. with some crazy woman who knifed me. Remember that?”

“I’m the one who found you,” Mark replied, searching the depths of his soul for more patience. It took next to nothing to set Harley off.

He slapped the window, his jaw clenched tight. “He didn’t give up on me! Not even when he should have!”

“Alex didn’t give up on any of us.” Mark maintained his steady voice. Now wasn’t the time to push his friend, not while he stood at a window large enough to jump through. “He’s always been there for us. All of us. Any time. Any day.”


“I didn’t know he went to church every Sunday with Kelsey,” Harley mumbled, lost in another memory, his forehead to the glass. “You’d think he would’ve told me something like that, wouldn’t you? You’d think he would’ve asked me to go with them once in a while. I’d have gone. All he had to do was ask. Never knew he went to church. Wish he would’ve told me.”

Poor Harley. He sounded more like a lost boy instead of the highly qualified ex-Army K-9 handler he was. Hell, poor everyone.

Mark swallowed hard. “It was a nice service, wasn’t it?”

“It was.” Harley scrubbed a hand over his head, his hair mussed and crazy from long days and too little sleep. “He helped me run an electrical line out to my barn last spring, but he could make me so damned mad.”

“He was a good guy.”

“Don’t you think I know that? What the hell happened? Why him?”

Mark had no answers. He was as rattled as Harley, but business had to go on. Like life. “The FBI will be here in an hour.”

Red-eyed and gaunt, Harley turned to glare at Mark. “Like we can trust them. They haven’t been straight with us from day one. They’re lying through their teeth now. I know they are. I can feel it.”

“You might be right, but let’s hear them out. We need to know who fired those kill shots. If they can help us, fine. If not, we’ll run our own investigation the minute they clear the crime scene. Mother’s already sifting through satellite images with Steven.”

Harley’s brows lifted at that news, so Mark continued. “You know how she is. She might be a busybody, but she digs in without being asked. She starts working angles some of us might not think about.”

“What else is going on? Tell me everything.”

“Well, I’m not the boss, but it I think we ought to do what we’re trained to do, don’t you? Let’s prepare ourselves to hunt the bastards who killed Alex down. We’ll find them. They’ll pay.”

Harley blew out a deep sigh. Just getting him to calm enough to talk calmly was a major accomplishment. The sooner everyone resumed a regular schedule, the quicker everything would normalize, whatever that meant. “It shouldn’t take long if his murder’s related to the list of belligerents Charlie Oakes gave Alex. There was what? Ten of them?”

Charlie Oakes. A disgruntled ex-employee who’d stooped to treason and espionage. When Alex had caught him, Charlie had revealed an alliance of ex-military snipers who held a grudge because Alex hadn’t hired them.

Alex hadn’t taken the threat seriously.

He should have.

Mark did.

A soft light lit behind Harley’s hazel eyes again. “Ten. Yeah. Have you found the list?”

“Not yet. Ember’s looking for it. Hopefully she’ll have something to tell us by the time the FBI leaves. I’m planning on holding a quick staff meeting before they get here. Anything you want me to tell The TEAM?”

“You gave Ember and Mother assignments?” The bewilderment in Harley’s eyes told Mark how unstable his friend was. Hadn’t he just explained what the two IT techies were doing?

“I didn’t have to assign them. They’re professionals. They pitch in. Remember?”