Dani cursed again. She had been wrong about Jake. He had actually come here and killed this man. It was hard to fathom. But why?
“How old is the stepdaughter?” she asked.
“Twelve, I think.”
“Anyone else home?”
“I don’t believe so. I haven’t had a chance to gather much information. Just got here a few minutes before you.” Mitchell again tilted his head. “What’s going on, Dani? This is the second time you’ve called the suspect by his first name.”
Dani didn’t really want to lie to Mitchell. “I know the guy,” she admitted.
“Seriously?”
“Or, I used to know him. Way back in the day. Haven’t talked to him in forever—like fifteen years.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“It’s not relevant to our investigation. Like I said, I don’t have any kind of connection to the man anymore. Just knew him a long time ago.”
Mitchell stared at her for another moment, clearly wanting more details, but she wasn’t going to give him any.
“Let’s go find out what happened,” she said, moving past him.
A uniformed police officer stepped in front of her until she flashed her FBI badge in his face. He quickly stood down and let her pass. The front door was wide open. Two more officers were inside. Dani again flashed her badge.
“Who was the first on the scene?”
“Me,” said one of the officers. A young guy in his late twenties.
“What’s your name?”
“Officer Reed.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Call came in to dispatch about fifteen minutes ago. A twelve-year-old girl met us at the front door in tears and hysterical. She’s in the kitchen right now with one of our female officers. She took us to the back bedroom. We found a man dead in the bed. Shot through the head. Blood everywhere. We quickly secured the area. Waiting on crime scene to get here. That’s it.”
“Show me.”
“The dead guy?”
“Yes.”
“You sure you want to see this? It’s messy.”
She scowled at him. “I’m a special agent for the FBI. Not a schoolteacher.”
“All right, my bad.”
Dani followed him down the hallway and into the last bedroom. Stepping into the room, she found what she guessed was Judd McGee lying flat on his back in bed, blood all down his face, pooled beneath him, and soaking into the sheets.
“Must’ve been up close,” Reed said. “Right through the forehead.”
Dani stepped in even closer, studied the victim. “Two shots,” she said.
“What?”
“Two shots to the head.”
“How can you tell?”
“Been doing this a long time, Officer Reed.”
“You can call me Nick.”
She glanced at him, and he gave her a quick grin. She rolled her eyes. Nothing like a little flirting while standing in a room with a dead body. Dani leaned over the victim. She could see now that both of his earlobes were missing. That was odd. Had they been shot off? This didn’t look like an act of rage or revenge to her. It looked like the work of a professional. Which made Dani immediately think about the hit man who’d just arrived in Austin only a few hours ago. Could Logan Gervais have come here? Could it have been Gervais who shot this man and not Jake?
“Dani?”
She turned. Mitchell was at the door. He waved her over.
“Damn,” he said, peering around her at the victim. “Poor guy.”
“Yeah, what a mess. But I don’t think it was Jake Slater.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I just spoke with the stepdaughter. She says a man was here late last night. He was punching and threatening her stepdad, the victim. He stopped when she came into the room, and then he immediately took off. I showed her a photo of Slater. She ID’d him as the same guy who was here last night.”
“She’s sure of it?”
“Definitely. I mean, the girl is really rattled, but she seemed certain.”
A new wave of police suddenly showed up at the house. Crime-scene investigators. Dani and Mitchell cleared out of the way to let them do their job. Dani was eager to find out more information on what was used to kill the victim. That would tell her a lot more about whether she believed Jake could’ve actually pulled the trigger. When they were dating, Jake didn’t even own a gun or seem to have much interest in them. He would go to the gun range with her and watch her take target practice, but he had never had any interest in participating himself. However, that was fifteen years ago. Jake could have become an expert marksman in the time in between. But a killer? She didn’t know what to think anymore—not when they knew a professional hit man was in town.