Say Goodbye (Romantic Suspense #25) by Karen Rose

            “Gideon escaped,” Raeburn said quietly. “He escaped, but Belmont did not. That might have made Belmont very angry indeed.”

            “But why didn’t Belmont shoot Reynolds when he saw him in Dunsmuir a month ago?” one of the other agents asked.

            Tom wanted to snarl, Read the damn brief! “Belmont was in the process of shooting Mercy Callahan when Amos Terrill threw himself over Mercy to protect her. Belmont’s bullet hit Amos instead. Then Agent Reynolds’s girlfriend shot Belmont. He was on the run after that. Who knows who else he would have shot that day had he not been stopped?”

            “Everyone, I would assume,” Molina said dryly.

            Agent Collins, the SWAT survivor, grimaced. “Daisy Dawson took him out,” he said with no small amount of self-disgust. “He almost took out a whole team and a civilian shot him.”

            “A civilian who is every bit as good a sharpshooter as I’ve ever met,” Molina said. “But Belmont is as good as she is. Which is how he got the drop on us.”

            “It was fast,” Collins remembered. “We were searching for Ephraim Burton and then all of a sudden, we were dropping like flies. He didn’t need time to set up his next shot.”

            “Agent Reynolds said Belmont’s left arm was in a sling,” Raeburn noted. “He might not be as fast now.”

            Molina looked concerned. “But he’s still accurate, because Agent Reynolds was standing across the street from him when he fired.”

            “A hundred feet away,” Raeburn confirmed. “At least.”

            “We have to assume he’s still as good a shot as he was before,” Molina said. “He hit Agent Reynolds in his heart. If Gideon hadn’t been wearing the vest, he wouldn’t be here anymore.”

            Tom felt a shiver prickle his skin. “But Belmont’s not as fast as he was before. Especially with a rifle. He used a tripod on the roof of that office building on Wednesday morning. If he uses the rifle, he’s going to need that tripod as a crutch. That limits his range, his speed, and his choice of places from where he can shoot. Not a huge amount, but some.”

            “Some might be enough when it comes down to it,” Raeburn said. “Belmont will return to Sunnyside Oaks sooner or later, because Pastor is still there. Correct?”

            “I assume he’ll return to Sunnyside Oaks, sir,” Tom answered. “But Belmont has been hard to predict. Pastor is still there, though. There have been no changes to the patient roster.”

            “So worst case,” Raeburn went on, “we wait him out while providing protection to Agent Reynolds and Mercy Callahan. How close are you to getting a virus into Sunnyside’s network?”

            “I have access to the HR manager’s computer.” Tom had had that as soon as Portia Sinclair had clicked on the résumés they’d uploaded. “We have ears on their phone calls now that we have the wiretap warrant. I got e-mail addresses for the network administrator and the accountant from HR’s computer and sent them messages with embedded viruses. I’m hesitant to send any additional e-mails. They could compare notes and realize that someone’s trying to break in. Now I have to wait until one of them clicks on the link. It’s called a man-in-the-middle attack. I’ll gain access to their server, but they’ll believe that their network has shut itself off, so they’ll call a network specialist to get them back up and running.”

            “Traceable to us?” one of the other agents asked.

            Tom wanted to scoff. “No,” was all he said.

            “Good,” Raeburn said. “We know that Sunnyside Oaks is hiring a nursing assistant. We’ve had several of our candidates apply. If one is hired, we’ll use the IT network specialist role to provide backup inside. If none of our applicants are hired, the IT person will be our insider.”

            “What will the IT person do, exactly?” one of the agents asked.

            “Damage the network physically, for one,” Raeburn said. “And they can provide cover to our nursing assistant, helping to get her out if they’re discovered.”

            “The IT person can also install cameras on the inside,” Tom added. “I might be able to get control of some of the cameras connected through the facility’s Wi-Fi, but hardwired cameras that we control would give us even broader visual access.”