Smokies Special Agent. Lena Diaz

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СКАЧАТЬ the unfamiliar SUV in the gravel lot by the office trailer. The vehicle’s plain exterior and dark color would typically help it blend in and avoid being noticed. Not here. Surrounded by white vehicles with green stripes down their sides and the brown National Park Service arrowhead shield on their doors, the SUV stuck out like a white-tailed deer in a herd of elk.

      The license plate was federal government issue, but not the kind used by the NPS. All Duncan knew for sure was that whatever alphabet agency was here, they hadn’t simply dropped by on their way someplace else. Nestled deep inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this satellite office was miles from the nearest town, Gatlinburg. The steep, winding access road was a challenge during the summer, nearly impossible during the winter without a four-wheel drive. Which meant their visitor was here on purpose. Something big must be going on, and Duncan aimed to find out what that was.

      He jogged up the salted concrete steps at the end of the long trailer to the only door, a solid steel monstrosity designed to keep out the occasional curious black bear. The deep scratches in the prison-gray paint proved just how solid, and necessary, that precaution was. Even the huge metal storage shed at the end of the lot was reinforced with heavy steel bars. Working in the wilderness was dangerous in more ways than one. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

      Seventies-era dark wood paneling sucked up most of the light, in spite of wide windows set high up on the longest opposing walls. Four desks were tucked end to end beneath those windows, leaving a center aisle of worn rust-colored shag carpet. His boss, Yeong Lee, faced him from behind another, larger desk at the end of the aisle. Across from him, occupying the two metal folding chairs reserved for visitors, were a large black man in a charcoal-gray suit and a petite Caucasian woman with long blond hair cascading down her back.

      As Duncan hung his jacket and gloves on hooks beside the door, he exchanged greetings with the only other people inside, Rangers Nick Grady and Oliver McAlister. Skinny freckle-faced Grady was a green-around-the-gills new recruit, while white-haired McAlister, with his gravelly smoker’s voice and stout frame, was a permanent fixture in the park. Dubbed Pup and Pops, the two were sitting together to the right of the door at McAlister’s desk. As usual, Pops was mentoring Grady about something on the computer screen.

      Duncan paused beside McAlister. “Thanks for helping me out this morning. Did the prisoner give you any trouble?”

      He shook his head. “No trouble at all and no thanks needed. If you hadn’t been here at 0-dark-thirty and taken the call for us, we’d have been the ones assigned to head up there, anyway. What’s the story on the hiker? Did he make it?”

      “He got lucky. The bullet passed through the fleshy part of his side. Lost a lot of blood and they’ve got him on IV antibiotics to stave off infection. But he’s expected to make a full recovery.” He motioned toward the couple across from Lee. “Which agency decided to pay us a visit? Any idea why they’re here?”

      McAlister exchanged a surprised look with Grady, his bushy eyebrows climbing like albino caterpillars to his hairline. “You don’t recognize the woman from this morning?”

      Duncan frowned and studied her as best he could from across the room. The long blond hair did remind him of the shooter’s hair. But since McAlister had taken her into custody, that wasn’t possible. Was it? She lifted her left hand, motioning in the air as she spoke to Lee. She also gave Duncan his first clear view of a royal blue shirtsleeve and the cream-colored jacket folded over the arm of her chair. He sucked in a sharp breath, his hands fisting at his sides. It was her. The combination of blond hair, blue shirt and off-white jacket couldn’t be a coincidence.

      If he’d been a second slower this morning, he’d either be sporting some seriously bruised ribs thanks to his Kevlar vest, or he’d have had his head blown off, depending on the aim of the woman sitting in that chair.

      “Why isn’t she locked up?” Without waiting for McAlister’s reply, he strode up the aisle to Lee’s desk and turned to face the woman once again. Except, this time, she wasn’t pointing a gun at him.

      The white sling cradling her right arm forestalled the angry words he’d been about to say. Instead, suspicion heavy in his tone, he demanded, “What happened to you?” She wouldn’t be the first suspect to fake an injury to delay being booked into jail.

      Her dark brows rose. “You did.”

      “Is that supposed to be funny? Because I find it incredibly offensive.”

      She held her left hand in front of her in a placating gesture. “I’m just stating facts. When you slammed me to the ground, you dislocated my shoulder.” She shrugged, then winced and clasped her left hand over her right shoulder as if she was in pain.

      He wasn’t buying her act. And he sure as certain wasn’t letting her version of events go unchallenged. “I think what you meant to say was that I tackled you to keep from being shot, after you’d just shot an unarmed man and then turned your pistol on me.”

      A red flush crept up her neck. “I thought the hiker had a gun. And you attacked me. I was protecting myself.”

      “The only one attacking anyone up there was you.” He tapped the lump on his temple where she’d punched him, which he knew already had a visible bruise.

      Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t respond.

      He waved toward the back right corner of the trailer. “Why isn’t she locked up in the holding cell? Or on her way to jail courtesy of Gatlinburg PD? She could have killed Kurt Vale.”

      “Could have?” Her eyes widened. “Then...he’s alive?”

      The hopeful tone of her voice sounded false to him. “The time for concern would have been before you pulled the trigger and shot an innocent man. But if you’re asking whether you managed to kill him, the answer is no. I just left him at the hospital after the doctor stitched him up.”

      “I’m glad he’s okay.”

      Ignoring her, he turned to his boss. “What’s going on here?”

      Lee addressed the man silently observing them from the other side of the desk. “FBI Supervisory Special Agent Leon Johnson, meet Special Agent Duncan McKenzie, criminal investigator with the National Park Service.”

      Johnson held his hand out without bothering to pry his generous frame out of the ridiculously small folding chair beneath him.

      Duncan leaned across the desk and shook the agent’s hand, but his attention once again turned to the woman. Four hours ago she’d shot a hiker. Now she was parked beside an FBI agent. Why? Since he regularly studied the FBI’s ten most-wanted-fugitives list, he knew she wasn’t on it. But she must have done something pretty dang bad to warrant the FBI showing up, especially this soon after the shooting. So why wasn’t she handcuffed? Or in the cell while the agent spoke to his boss?

      “I’m a little lost.” Duncan glanced back and forth between Lee and Johnson. “Since our shooting suspect is sitting beside an FBI agent, I assume there’s something else going on that involves her, besides what happened this morning. Can someone catch me up here?”

      “What’s going on,” Johnson said, “is that your shooting suspect is one of our agents. She was off duty, supposed to be on vacation, not running around shooting people.”

      Duncan stared at him in shock. The woman from this morning’s shooting was a Fed? A fellow law-enforcement officer? He hadn’t gotten to speak to her after the shooting. СКАЧАТЬ