Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            Innes suddenly looked exhausted. “I told you to come to me with concerns, Mr. Belmont.”

            DJ blinked at her. “I thought you meant if my father needed extra pillows.”

            Innes rolled her eyes. “Get her body,” she said to the security guy. “You may return to your father’s room,” she said to DJ. “I’ll send our tech guy to retrieve the bugs. We’ll destroy them.”

            DJ shrugged, unconcerned. “I’ll sit with my father until you assign him another nurse.” He turned away, but not before he saw Innes shaking her head. It was her mess now.





SIXTEEN



SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA

            THURSDAY, MAY 25, 7:30 P.M.





Raeburn was staring down at the body when Tom and Croft arrived at the crime scene, located behind a grocery store. The victim lay on her back about a foot from the dumpster, two gunshot wounds in her head.

            One of the head shots had taken a chunk of her skull with it.

            “Which one is she?” Tom asked quietly. All they’d been told was that their mole was dead.

            Raeburn was visibly disturbed. Likely not at the gruesome scene but at the reason this woman had been targeted. “Penny Gaynor.”

            Tom closed his eyes, visualizing the pages of the employee database scrolling in his mind. Penny Gaynor, age fifty-three. Mother of four. She’d been a nurse at the rehab facility for nearly ten years and was one of their most trusted employees.

            “The one whose son is sitting in prison awaiting trial?”

            “Yes,” Raeburn said. “She was only supposed to plant a few bugs and wear a wire.”

            She wasn’t supposed to die hung in the air like a dark cloud.

            That DJ was involved in the killing was to be assumed. Which meant he knew that the FBI knew where he was. Shit. Tom hoped this wouldn’t lead to Raeburn sending in a team to arrest Pastor and DJ, if he was hiding in Sunnyside. They still had no idea where to find Eden.

            “She catered to killers and mob bosses,” Croft said rationally. “She looked the other way when killers crossed her path. She’s not completely innocent, boss.”

            Raeburn drew in a breath and let it out. “I know, Agent Croft.” His words were crisp, intended to intimidate, but the slight tremble in his voice ruined the effect.

            Tom’s respect for the man ratcheted way up. “Who found her?”

            Raeburn pointed to a white panel van parked a short distance away. “The agents who were in the surveillance van radioed as soon as they knew she was in trouble. They followed her car when it exited the parking lot, but lost her when her car ran a red light. They found her not even two minutes later, but she was already dead.”

            “Does the store have security cameras?” Tom asked.

            Raeburn nodded. “It was Belmont. He was wearing a surgical mask, but based on hair, eyes, and build? It was him. He found the wire and yanked it out. Destroyed and dropped it on Sunnyside’s parking lot.”

            Croft frowned. “So he’s onto us?”

            “No.” Raeburn pointed to the pendant that hung around the nurse’s throat, covered in blood and brain matter.

            Tom’s momentary elation at their not having been made withered as his gut roiled. He recognized the pendant as one of the Bureau’s comm devices. It was similar to the one he’d given Liza to wear the day she’d accompanied Mercy to the nursing home where Ephraim Burton’s mother lived. He had to force himself to see the nurse’s features and not transpose Liza’s over them.

            “DJ didn’t know it was a transmitter,” Tom said, grateful that his voice was even.

            “No. We heard them talking in the car. He asked her how much ‘Kowalski’ was paying her. Luckily when she denied knowing him, she called me ‘Mr. Raeburn,’ not ‘Agent.’ He doesn’t appear to know that we’re the ones behind the bugs. That’ll hopefully give us a little more time to line something else up.”

            Something else, Tom noted. Not someone else.

            “We know Pastor’s still in there,” Croft said. “Maybe we just wait for him to be brought out and follow them back to Eden.”