Page 47 of One Final Target

“I saw him leave,” Estella said. “I distinctly remember him climbing into an Uber.”

“He didn’t have a car? He has a license.”

“He never had a car. He took an Uber or rode the bus. Sometimes he borrowed a car from his friend, I think.”

“What kind of car?”

Estella waved a hand. “I don’t know cars. It was blue.”

“It was a Jeep Cherokee, old style, big tires, raised up for off road. In real good shape,” Levi called out.

There was silence for a moment as everyone looked toward Levi.

“What?” he asked. “I like cars.”

“Thanks, Levi,” Mike said. “Do you know what friend?”

Levi shook his head.

“How long ago did he leave?” Smiley asked.

“Last Thursday or Friday.”

Sam considered this. “The body was thawing and decaying for a couple of days at most,” he said. “The neighbor would have noticed sooner and called police about the odor if Jodie hadn’t shown up.”

He wasn’t sure he wanted to comment about the device. Collins obviously wanted to kill someone. Was his target whoever did find the body? A dead body in the freezer in his house shed a whole new light on Collins. Sam hadn’t seen anything in his background suggesting he could pull off what he apparently had pulled off.

“What about the IED under the house?”

Sam swallowed and looked up, realizing someone was talking to him. Mike King held his gaze.

“What about it?”

“Was it like the one in the mountains?”

Sam took a sip of water before answering. “It was different in a lot of ways. Simpler because he had C-4 as his explosive source. In the mountains he used natural gas as his explosive. It took alot more time to set up the IED in the mountains, from what I’ve read. The trigger was different. With this one, Jodie stepped on an activation switch connected to a detonator. Overall, at least to me, it looked hastily set up.”

“A time delay?”

“Yeah, I don’t think it would have gone off if Jodie had lifted her foot. I think she simply triggered the timer.”

Jodie looked surprised, but she said nothing.

“Why?” Estella asked.

Sam shrugged and scratched the stubble on his chin. “I think I’ll wait to make any more assumptions until the LBPD bomb squad has studied the device. But there was an awful lot of C-4 under Collins’s house.”

Mike turned to Estella. “What about it, Estella? Did this kid ever give you any indication he was a homicidal maniac?”

“I barely said two words to the boy. Gus just thought he was a sad misfit.”

Misfit for sure,Sam thought. He turned toward Jodie and caught her watching him. He smiled and she looked away.

He couldn’t deny that he felt a connection with Jodie, a connection he hoped she shared. Sam remembered how tightly she’d hugged him after he’d defused the IED. Even though their relationship started unconventionally, with bombs and the threat of death, he prayed they would have a future with a lot more promise.

CHAPTER26

JODIE ABSENTMINDEDLY PETTED MACNUTwhile she listened to the conversations going on around her. She didn’t like the idea of Ian on the task force, but she was glad Mike had spoken up and gotten rid of him. After everything she’d been through today, the last thing she wanted to do was talk to Ian. His showing up like he had really bothered her. She’d been very clear they were over.

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