Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

86. Real Target

Cat pulls up at the address that they found on the release form. She and Gabe drove the hour and thirty minutes out to almost the middle of nowhere. If there were three buildings, it was a lot. Most of the surrounding area was snowed over field.

"Looks abandoned," Gabe says, closing the passenger side door as they get out.

"Looks like another one of my mother's lies," Cat squints her eyes against the white glare of the snow. "Let's go." They walk up to the house, past some tables outside and one or two of the larger sheds.
"So no one lives here?" Cat asks.

"Seems that way," Gabe looks around them. "There's no water or power bills. It's owned by an anonymous trust." He sighs as she steps up to the front door. "Might be a Muirfield safe house."

Cat looks into through the dirty windows, boarded up from inside.
"Looks like the set of a slasher film."

Gabe starts pulling and pushing on the door. "They could still be out here," he says. "Stay close." He pulls again and the outer screendoor opens.

"Maybe we should let someone know we're here before we start breaking and entering," Cat digs for her phone.

"You're not gonna get any bars here," Gabe looks at her. "There's no cell tower for miles."

Cat swallows and eyes him. Oh God. No way to contact anyone. This wasn't a bad idea at all...
Gabe pushes the front door open and it creaks ominously. He peeks inside.
He looks back at Cat, who was starting to really feel creeped out and wondering if she really could trust Gabe. He was the one who found out everything about this abandoned house in the middle of an empty field after all.

"This is our only lead," Gabe says, noticing her hesitation. "You wanna find out what happened to your mom or not?"

Cat hoped that she wasn't making a mistake. She sighs and then nods to him, taking out her gun as they enter the house slowly.

*****

Tess bursts through Joe's office door and he turns to look at her.
"Okay, check your email," she says urgently, pointing at his computer.

"So what? Now you're my superior?" Joe lifts a brow, turning all the way to face her, smiling. "Is this so I'll go to the 15th?"

Tess groans. "Alright I'm not flirting with you right now. IT just decoded the sniper's flashdrive and sent it to you."

"Flashdrive?" Joe walks to his desk on the other side of the room.

"Yeah see? This is why you shouldn't be transferring me to another precinct," she rolls her eyes.

"And I said, that's your choice," he reminds her, sitting down.

"Okay, witness found the sniper's phone," she continues.

"Hm, you got prints?" Joe asks while logging into his work email.

"No, it was totally destroyed. A car must have run over it. But IT tracked the serial number to the store where he bought it, which was right next to a highway motel where we found - "

"Sniper's target profile," Joe says, reading the mail he was sent. Tess blinks at the screen. It was the first time she was seeing this. IT didn't show her anything, hence her coming to Joe. "The Mayor wasn't the target."

*

Vincent frowns deeply, his large fingers having a hard time gripping the pieces of the broken candle delicately. He was busy supergluing it back together out of guilt, hoping to fix his relationship, maybe, once it was done, but it wasn't going so well.
His phone rings and he grabs it, pressing it between his ear and shoulder, holding the candle together.
"Hello?"