Bound to Forever - Book ll

Desperate Times = Compromised

Simon's Point of View: 

I had let Kiera sleep in the next morning, her anger and adrenaline keeping her up for a majority of the night after what she concluded. Laswell and I weren't as close as she and Kiera were, but I still made decent conversation with her, though it was mostly tactical. 

"Up at six a.m. now? You're getting old, Lieutenant." I heard her tease from the living room, a mug of hot coffee steaming alongside her on the side table with a pair of reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose as she looked down at the newspaper in her lap.

"Says the one who still reads a newspaper," I scoffed. "Didn't think you'd be up this early." 

"It feels like it's eleven a.m.," She shrugged. "Care to join me for coffee?" 

"Only if it consists of what you were able to find out with the information I gave you." 

"Why else would I have invited you for coffee?" She chuckled, arching her brows at me. That's the Laswell I know. "Sit. I already got you a cup." 

"How'd you know I was even awake?" 

"This house may be huge, but I can hear everything, and it didn't take me long to realize that you're the only giant in this house with heavy steps." 

"Fair point," I sighed, taking the hot mug from her hand and sitting on the couch diagonal from the chair she was sitting in, adjusting myself comfortably. "What've you got?" 

"The J.W. on the punch list was an E.P.A investigator named Jared Wilson," 

"Was?" 

"Gunned down in his home. The F.B.I that was involved in his determined it was a random burglary gone bad." 

"You think they're wrong in that assumption?" 

"The murder weapon was a small caliber. Nine-millimeter, subsonic. Burglars don't use silencers. 70% don't carry guns at all. Also, burglars steal things, and nothing was reported missing in Wilson's house." 

"Sounds like nothing was meant to be taken. Someone wanted him dead for some reason." 

"One more odd detail: the body was beaten like a pinata post-mortem." 

"That's what they did to Kiera's mum." 

"Shit..." She sighed. "You're going to kill a whole lot of people, aren't you?" 

I smirked, "Already started." 

"Well, you should know that we weren't the only ones who thinks this case has something anomalous. There's a police officer in Las Vegas that was working the Wilson case before the F.B.I was involved, and his original report noted his suspicion." 

"So, you tracked him down?" 

"He said he's been waiting on a call for years about this. He and his partner are going to take us to meet a C.I.: low-level hitman who might know who was hired to kill Wilson."

"E.P.A Investigators aren't common targets, though. Where was Wilson poking around?" 

"Didn't take me long to make a FOIA request for his records. He was looking into toxic pollution levels in the Missouri River just north of Great Falls." 

"Source?" 

"Wish I could tell you, but the first two chapters of Wilson's report cover the extent of the pollution. The third and fourth pages are missing."

"Let me guess: those two missing pages deal with the source?" 

"Exactly, and the E.P.A can't locate it. The pollution seemed to hit the hardest southwest of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in eastern Montana."