Into the Night(67)

“I’m not some ex-SEAL like you are,” Jonah snarled. “I haven’t spent my life running into battle.” Or killing. “I lost my whole family on the worst night of my life. And I wondered why. Why did it happen? Why did everything go so horribly wrong? Why did I lose them and why—why the fucking hell—was I left standing? I asked myself that every day. I asked myself that every single time I went to see a shrink. Because when I was a kid, being bumped from foster home to foster home because everyone thought I must be tainted, they made me see a shrink. Made me talk about that night over and over until it was burning in my head.”

Tucker just watched him.

“I don’t judge you because of what your brother did. How the fuck dare you stand there and judge me?”

But Tucker shook his head. “Not judging you. Never said you were guilty of anything. But I did say you’re acting as if nothing happened. And that’s not good. I need to know that my agents are sound—that their pasts won’t wreck them on a case.”

“I’m not wrecked,” he gritted out. “I’m doing my job, and you need to stop pushing me.” Was the guy just testing him? Jonah thought Tucker was, and he was going to pass this test, just like he’d passed all of the others thrown into his path over the years. “I deserve to be here.”

Tucker moved to stand right in front of him. “You were closer to the perp than Macey. I saw the crime scene. You should have shot first. You hesitated. You can’t do that again. Not when another agent’s life is on the line.”

Jonah swallowed. “You have to get past this grudge you have against me.”

“You’ve spent the last five years behind a computer. You haven’t gotten enough fieldwork experience. I might sound like a grade-A bastard, but it’s because I’m putting the team first. You have to be able to count on the man or woman at your side. Hesitations cost lives. Simple fact.”

Jonah’s spine was so stiff and straight that it hurt. “I can contribute to this team. Macey knows that—Macey trusts me.”

“I get that Macey went to bat for you, but I also know why. You were helping her track Haddox, weren’t you?”

He had to tread carefully. “I was helping her look for patterns. Patterns are the key, you see. You might not even know that a killer was hunting, not until you looked at the patterns in an area.”

Tucker blinked and then his whole expression seemed to lock down. “That’s how you find where serials are hunting.”

“Yes!” Maybe the guy did get it. “You don’t even need all the boots on the ground.” That was old-school thinking. “We can analyze from missing persons’ reports. NamUS. We can look at the times of the year when the disappearances occur. I’ve even made a program that can predict victim-type based on previous disappearances and—”

“Have you used this program of yours on any serials out there now?” Tucker’s voice was too flat. His face was blank, and no emotion showed in his eyes.

And he was talking about me not responding the right way.

“Just practice runs, nothing substantial, not yet.” But he planned to take his program to Samantha Dark as soon as this case was tied up. Now that he was on the team, Jonah knew it was time to take things to the next level—

“Because I can’t help but notice, we have a perp here who has been hunting serials. He took out Daniel Haddox. He took out Patrick Remus. He found Curtis Zale. He used profiling tricks and he predicted where they would be. Sounds a whole fucking lot like the program you’re discussing.” His head tilted. “We already thought the guy had a background in law enforcement.”

“Wait! Wait!” Jonah laughed and the sound was raw to his own ears. “You aren’t serious.” Anger began to stir in him when Tucker just stared back at him. “You think I’m involved in this? That I’m a killer?” He’d gone from not having the right reaction after a shooting to being a killer? Was that jerk for real?

“I think I’m not exactly sure when you arrived in Gatlinburg. We came separately, and all I know is that you got to the cabin that had been booked for us sometime before dawn.”

“I was in the area,” he snapped. “I drove over myself because I’d just finished some vacation time. I was in Asheville—”

“That’s damn close. So close that you could have gone to Daniel Haddox’s home on a quick trip from Asheville. So close that you could have come here and taken Patrick Remus. So close—”

Jonah surged toward him, standing toe to toe. “This is bullshit. I’m a fucking FBI agent! I’m on your team, and you’re going to throw this crap at me?” He shook his head in disgust. “I wanted to prove myself to you. Wanted to show you that I could do the job, and now you’re suspecting me...because what? Because I have a shitty past and you think I might fit your profile? I was in Asheville because that’s where my family’s home is—not my real family, because as you pointed out, they’re all dead. But the last foster family I wound up with? I stayed with them...my foster mother is still in Asheville and I try to visit her every now and then.”

“So that would make you very familiar with this area.”

Yes, he was familiar with it. So what? “I created my program because I wanted to stop predators. I wanted to hunt the killers, not be one of them.” He shouldered around the other agent. “Now, I’m going back to the police station with the cops out there. I’ll be finding material on the computers that connects us to the real killer.” In the doorway, he stopped, and his hands flew up to grab the door frame.