Page 29 of One Final Target

“Yeah, a year ago. He wasn’t selected.” Smiley looked over his notes. “Collins went through the entire process with Long Beach. He qualified on the basics, but his background was weak, nothing horrible, but his overall score meant he wouldn’t be hired. He was sent the ‘thanks, no thanks’ letter.”

“Wait, are we thinking he’s our guy because he wasn’t selected for the academy over a year ago?”

“People have been shot at for less. But I’m with you. We need more. The PD will send us the whole background package. Did you come across any red flags in his social media?”

“I think he has problems, but no criminal red flags. I can’t see him as a shooter. We’re missing something.”

Smiley looked down as his phone buzzed with a text. “Fenton is putting together a six-pack of photos to show to Logan. He’s in surgery now, so he won’t be able to look at it until tomorrow. The LBPD background packet should be in your email. Study it. I’ve got to go fill the sheriff in on how the investigation is progressing. They want a press release.”

“Got it.” Sam opened his email and found the packet.

Background investigations for police officers were long and detailed. People were interviewed, references checked, neighbors talked to. Applicants also had to fill out an in-depth background questionnaire. Sam read through Collins’s. His parents were deceased; they both died two years after Kent. He wasn’t in college at the time he applied to the PD but was already employed by the computer store.

His references were weak, vague. Sam understood why he scored so low. There wasn’t enough information to predict whether or not the kid would successfully complete academy instruction and then field training. When Sam got to the interview section of the package, though, he stopped.

Long Beach did several interviews, one of them being a civil service interview with a sworn officer and a member of the community. Jodie King was the sworn officer at Collins’s civil service interview. She’d given him exceedingly low marks.

Could this be the connection they were looking for?

CHAPTER17

AFTER TRACY AND SHANNON LEFT,Jodie lost the impetus to go running around in Norman Hayes’s neighborhood. She put her keys on their hook and sat down in front of her computer. The screen was dark and she saw a faint reflection of her face.

We see through a glass darkly.The phrase from the New Testament popped into her mind. It wasn’t talking about grief. But she felt it applied to her anyway. It made her wonder if anything in her life would ever be clear again. Jodie couldn’t see through a glass at all; she saw only darkness.

Just as Ian’s visit the other day had reminded her of how broken she felt, Tracy and Shannon’s did likewise. Church and her team had been the biggest parts of her life and her heart for years. They were both gone.

Shannon and Tracy wanted her back. Well, Mike had wanted her back at work, and she couldn’t do it. Nothing in her said she’d be any more successful returning to church full-time. Not as long as she felt so disconnected from God. She kept asking and asking for clarity. The word stuck in her thoughts. God promised a lot in his Word: to guide, to protect, to never leave or forsake a believer. Try as she might, Jodie couldn’t remember a verse that promised an answer to why.

But that is what I want to know. Why did they die? Why did I live?

God stayed silent.

Jodie held her head in her hands. Sadness and grief often covered her like a shroud, coloring everything around her in shadows.

Wanting to get out of the pit of despair she found herself sinking into, Jodie stood and began to pace. Her thoughts returned to the only issue propelling her forward these days: finding the killer. She so wanted a name to go with the photo. Shannon and Tracy had said they’d pray for her.

Pray God answers me. Pray he answers my whys. Pray there is something redeemable in the loss of four good officers.

When the doorbell rang later in the afternoon and Jodie saw Mike again, she inwardly groaned and almost didn’t answer. Lately all Uncle Mike seemed to do was lecture her. If it wasn’t about why quitting was wrong, it was about why wasn’t she back in church. Blah, blah, blah. But a closer look at her phone showed her he wasn’t alone.

Tara was with him. Mike and Tara only worked together when on the task force. He’d been rotated back to homicide when it wound down. Had it been reactivated? Hoping this was the case and they were here with an update on the investigation, she pulled the door open.

“Looks like you two mean business. What’s up?” she asked.

“It is an official visit. Can we come in?” Mike’s tone rang formal.

“Sure.” She stepped aside and they came in.

“Let’s do this at the kitchen table,” he said, using his homicide investigator voice.

“Wow, what did I do?”

Tara smiled as if trying to put her at ease. “It’s a lead. Your case might have just been blown wide-open.”

Jodie stared at her, wide-eyed, pulse racing. “Did we find Hayes? Or do you have a real suspect?”

They reached the table, where Mike sat, placed his briefcase on the table, and opened it.

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