Page 90 of One Final Target

Jodie thought about Tara. Ian had dated Tara a couple of years before he met his now wife. She’d overheard a conversation he’d had with Tiny about it. He’d said they’d broken up because he felt Tara was too intense and she’d only dated him because she thought he would help her career. And according to Ian, the most important thing in the world to Tara was her career.

“She’s a climber,”he’d said,“not afraid to leave shoe prints on someone else’s back.”

I thought so as well. But my estimation changed when she was assigned to the task force. Tara really seems like a team player. What if I’m wrong?

Jodie considered this. Then something brought her to her feet, horrified. Mike had said he didn’t know the safe house address, but what if Tara did? She’d made the arrangements with the FBI. Tara would have had many opportunities to put the rifle in Ian’s car. She might even have been the shooter on Saturday. In the right clothes with her stocky stature, she could be mistaken for a small man. True, Logan had identified Collins from a photograph, but everything had happened so fast. What if he was mistaken?

What if it’s Tara?

Sam yawned, finally giving in to fatigue. “I’m beat. I’ll call it a night.”

“Not much we can do right now anyway. We’ll have to wait and see what shakes out with Hunter.”

“Yep.” Sam stood and stretched, then headed for the door. “Tell Jodie I said good night.”

“I will. Be careful,” George said. “With Collins still on the loose, you might be in danger.”

Sam stopped, remembering he’d traded in his rental car because he thought he had a tail. He’d dismissed it as paranoia. The incident seemed like ages ago. Maybe he wasn’t paranoid. “You think I’ll be a target with Hunter in custody?”

“You’re chasing a maniac—one you thwarted twice. What do you think?”

George was right, and Sam took the advice to heart. Yet, once he got in the car, fatigue hit him like a boulder. Two nights in a row without enough sleep. Bone-tired didn’t cover it.

On the way up Green Valley Lake Road, he opened his window to let the cold mountain air hit him square in the face. Jodie was safe with George. Sam would sleep easy once he got home.

Canyon Drive was a loop road bisected by Spruce Street. It was a rolling road, dropping down and then climbing and curving around. Sam’s home was at the end of the loop, where Canyon Drive rose and then looped back, intersecting Spruce before starting around back to the main road. This end of Canyon there were only two homes on Sam’s side of the street and two across the street. His only full-time neighbor lived across the street.

Sam yawned as he backed into his parking space. He didn’t have a garage, just a raised parking pad off the street like most mountain homes. He turned off the motor and climbed out of the car, stretching his stiff shoulder as he walked.

He took one step toward the front door and stopped, foggy, tired mind registering something off. His motion light hadn’t activated, and the light wasn’t very old.

Alert, adrenaline surging, Sam reached for his weapon as he heard a foot scraping on his wraparound porch in front of him. He drew his gun and took a step back as he raised it.

He heard the step behind him a second too late. Two assailants. Then Taser prongs hit him square in the back, and Sam couldn’t fight it. He was barely conscious of his grip releasing and his gun hitting the ground as a man came off his porch.

Dennis Collins?

Sam wasn’t sure because he couldn’t keep his eyes open as the jolt took over and everything went dark.

CHAPTER49

JODIE STOODas a horrible realization dawned. It wasn’t Ian. His arrest was a terrible distraction. Dennis Collins’s partner had to be Tara.

She burst out of her room. “Where’s Sam?” she asked a startled George.

“He went home.”

“How long ago?”

George looked at the clock. It was just after 1a.m. “He should be there by now.”

“Can you call him? My phone is still charging.”

George picked up his phone, but Sam didn’t answer.

“Voice mail,” he said with a shrug. “Sam was tired. He probably just went to bed.”

“I don’t think so. I know you don’t know me well, but I have a bad feeling about this. Can you take me to his house now?”

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