Page 33 of Marked For Revenge

Harley jumped right on that. “What militia and when was this?”

Marnie sighed in a way that let him know she’d been hoping they would just drop the subject with the info she’d already provided to them. “About two years ago, and I’m not sure if the group had a name or not. If they did, Paul never mentioned it to me. The only reason I’m telling you about him is because I don’t want you to use that relationship to claim I have criminal ties to someone who could murder women or shoot at cops.”

Maybe, but another reason could be that Marnie figured her association with this militia member would come up in a deep background check and she was hoping to make it seem unimportant. Unfortunately, some militia groups had members with expertise in explosives, so her connection was more important than she realized.

Harley looked at Theo and tipped his head to the door, silently asking if he should step out and go ahead to try to find out more about Paul Harmon. Theo gave him a nod.

“Excuse me a second,” Harley said, and he went next door into the observation room so he could use the laptop there.

Harley could see and hear Theo and Ava continue the interview with Marnie, and Ava was pressing the woman to find out if she’d ever had any contact with the other two victims.

He continued to listen, but Harley started the search for Paul Harmon. There were several men with that name living in central Texas, but it didn’t take Harley long to zoom in on the one who was a known member of the Brotherhood militia, a paramilitary group who dabbled in all sorts of illegal things, including gun running.

Harley couldn’t immediately see that Paul Harmon had had any kind of explosives training, but that wasn’t usually something that popped up in a background search, unless the guy had been arrested for explosive-related crimes. He hadn’t been, which meant he needed to do some more digging. Not just into Paul but also the militia itself to make sure one of their members hadn’t assisted the killer with making that bomb.

Figuring he’d gotten all he could from the cursory background check, Harley stood to go back into the interview room, but before he could leave, his phone dinged with a text from Lieutenant O’Malley at Austin PD.

The techs went through all the collected feed from the security cameras, and you need to see this particular still frame. This camera was one block from the building where the shots originated and was recorded six-and-a-half minutes from the time the last shot was fired.

Harley tapped on the image to enlarge it, figuring it would be a clearer image of Aaron. It wasn’t. But Harley had no trouble whatsoever recognizing the person who’d been captured in the photo.

Hell.

It was Duran.

Chapter Ten

Duran.

Ava’s mind was whirling with everything Harley, Theo and she had learned this morning. Marnie’s admission that she knew one of the victims. That Aaron had as well. And that Marnie had a connection to someone who could have made that explosive device. But the bit of info that was flashing in her head like a neon sign was that Duran had been within a block of the shooting.

While Harley and she sat in the interview room they’d converted to a makeshift office, eating the lunch that’d been sent over from the diner, she again studied the image that Austin PD had managed to get for them. It was Duran all right. Not wearing his usual suit, either, but rather dressed in dark jeans and a T-shirt.

In the shot, Duran was looking over his shoulder, in the direction from where the shots had been fired. It was hard to tell from the grainy photo, but the man’s face was tense, and he wasn’t walking but rather running. That speed was the reason he had quickly moved out of surveillance range and another camera hadn’t been able to pick him up.

What Duran hadn’t had with him was a rifle, but it was possible he’d used his handgun. That would have explained the missed shots since the roof of the building had been at least fifty yards away. An expert marksman could have possibly made the shots, but Ava couldn’t find any proof that Duran would qualify as an expert.

Still, the image had been enough for Austin PD to get a warrant to have the gun taken into custody and checked to see if it’d been recently fired. If it had been, and if Duran didn’t have a credible reason for being in that specific area at that time, then he could be arrested.

“And what fun would that be for Austin PD,” Ava muttered, causing Harley to glance up from his laptop and look at her. Like her, he was using the lunch break to continue to dig into the various threads of the investigation.

“You’re talking about Duran?” he asked, obviously noticing that she was still studying the photo from the security cam.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Lieutenant O’Malley will have probably already sent someone to Duran’s to retrieve the gun and question him. I suspect, first chance he gets, he’ll be calling me to vent about being harassed.”

“Then he can claim more harassment when Theo questions him,” Harley concluded.

Duran would, certainly, but that wouldn’t stop Theo from questioning the man once Austin PD was done with him. If Duran was tied to the shooting, that was Austin’s jurisdiction, but anything to do with the murders would need to go through Theo.

“You should try to eat before your father shows,” Harley reminded her.

True, because while Duran was in Austin being questioned, her father and Aaron would be coming to Silver Creek. Not at the same time. Sometimes, a heated verbal altercation could lead to a person saying incriminating things, but in her father and Aaron’s case, the encounter could get very ugly and cause both men to lawyer up. For this phase of questioning, Theo wanted cooperation to be able to get the info to help them with those threads.

Ava took a bite of her chef’s salad and checked the time. Her father was due to arrive in a half hour, but if he was angry enough, he might already be on his way. Aaron wasn’t scheduled for another two hours, which would end up making this a tiring day. Then again, it’d already been tiring what with Marnie’s interview and learning about Duran being spotted on the security cam.

“I got something,” Harley announced, moving his burger aside so he could turn his laptop in her direction.

She immediately saw Paul Harmon’s name along with the known members of the militia. Not a huge group, but there were at least a dozen of them.

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