Crush

grows on you.”

That seemed to fluster poor young Marcus even more, and he turned away and fumbled with his penlight to examine Vail’s pupils.

Dixon walked over with Matt Aaron, who was toting his toolkit.

“What is it about you, Vail?” Aaron asked. “Things are generally pretty quiet around here. You come to town and I can’t seem to have a night with my wife.”

“If you ask my boss, I’m a serial killer magnet.”

Aaron threw his head back. “A what?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” She twisted away from the medic, who was examining the welt on her temple. “DB’s out there in the vineyard, to the left of that upended Chrysler. It’s Scott Fuller.”

“Detective Scott Fuller?”

“Is there another Scott Fuller in town?”

“I don’t think this is very funny, Agent Vail. Scott was a colleague of ours.”

“He’s also a fucking arsonist. He tried to kill me. Twice. So forgive me if I don’t share your warm fuzzies.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed. He studied her a moment, seemed to compose himself, then said, “So what happened here? What should I be looking for out there?”

“He attacked me. Clocked me good,” she said, then turned so her swollen temple was visible. “I recovered my handgun, which he’d knocked from my hand. I was questioning him when I felt a prick in my neck and that’s the last I remember. When I woke up, Fuller was dead. I’m sorry if I fucked up your crime scene. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I came to, and I was dizzy so I couldn’t stand up. I crawled around trying to find my Glock. But obviously there was someone else out there, so I’d look for a third set of footprints.”

“Obviously?”

“Whoever drugged me, he came up from behind.”

Aaron gave her a look of disgust, then turned and trudged off toward his vehicle. “Don’t go anywhere,” he called into the night air. “I’ll be back to do a GSR.”

“Don’t let him bother you,” Dixon said. “I know you and Scott didn’t hit it off, but he was part of the community. A lot of people saw him as a child prodigy. Some of that had to do with Stan Owens.”

Tires crunched dirt behind them, followed by another swirling light bar and bright headlights.

“Speaking of which,” Dixon said, “here he is.” She turned to Vail, who winced as Marcus applied an icepack to her head. “Be prepared.”

“For what?” Vail asked.

“Owens seems like a nice guy, but he can be a real bastard when he’s pissed. And hearing his stepson’s been murdered ain’t gonna make him happy.”

Owens spent a moment conferring with Brix, who had been helping unload klieg lights and tripods from Aaron’s vehicle. With the icepack pressed to her head, Vail watched Owens’s body language. His shoulders slumped, he brought his hands to his head, grabbed his hair, then walked forward toward the Chrysler. Brix put his arm out to stop him, said something, then Owens swung away, out of his friend’s grasp. Red and tear-swollen eyes reflected in the swirling emergency lights. Then Owens turned toward Vail and they locked gazes. Vail had a feeling this was not going to go well.

As if sensing her thoughts, Robby said, “Oh, shit, here it comes.”

Vail turned to Dixon. “I assume you’re familiar with the saying, ‘It’s about to hit the fan’?”

Owens was approaching with a slow, deliberate gait, his eyes focused on Vail, who looked down at the ground. She felt bad for Owens and didn’t want to be seen as confrontational.

“What the fuck did you do to my son?” Owens said, as he advanced on them.

Vail held up her free hand, and cocked her head to the side, as if to say, “It wasn’t my fault.” But Owens suddenly lunged at her and would’ve landed a hard right had Robby not stepped in front and knocked him backwards to the ground.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Sheriff,” Robby said, looking down at him. “But you need to get your shit together. Agent Vail had nothing to do with your son’s death. He attacked her. And if you can’t deal with this rationally and objectively, haul your ass out of here and let your people do their jobs.”

Vail placed a hand on Robby’s shoulder. Owens got to his feet. He was average height, about five-ten, and that made him nine inches shorter than Robby. He wouldn’t move against Vail again. Instead, he ground his molars. The incessant flickering of the red and blue lights lent an uneasy tension to the already edgy scene.

Brix was now at Owens’s side. He put an arm around the sheriff’s back and turned him, then led him away. Brix glanced over his shoulder at Vail. She couldn’t read his expression. Apologetic? Disgust? It was too dark to make it out. Could’ve been either.

The paramedic knelt on a knee and started to pack up his case. Dixon held out a hand. “Hold it a second. I need you to draw a blood sample.”

“A blood sam—I don’t usually do that.”

“I know. But I need it done. Now.”

Marcus looked at the firm expressions worn by the people surrounding him, then knelt back down and opened his kit. He pulled out a plastic-encased syringe and tore it open. “What is it you want?”

Dixon looked out toward Aaron, who appeared to be moving with purpose off in the distance, then said, “I’ll let you know in a second.” She pulled her cell phone and called him. Vail watched as Aaron, now bathed in the bright lights trained on Fuller’s body and the immediate vicinity, moved to answer his phone. He said something to Dixon, then shoved his phone back in his pocket.

Dixon hung up, turned to Marcus, and gave him specific instructions. To Vail, she said, “I’m hoping whatever you were drugged with will still be in your system. If we wait too long, it’ll clear—”

“Yeah, got it,” Vail said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, just trying to keep my head about me, do the right things. Aaron said he’d be over in a bit to get the GSR.”

Marcus reached out, took Vail’s left forearm, and wedged it in his armpit, then, with gloved hands, tied a rubber strip around Vail’s bicep as he prepared to do the blood draw. “When we’re done here, I’ll give you a sterile container. Go into the back of the rig, pee into it, then seal it. It’s not ideal, but we’re improvising here.”

Robby stretched his neck back, rolled his shoulders. “So this UNSUB is getting bolder. He must’ve been shadowing you and followed you and Fuller here. Then he drugged you and killed Fuller.”

“Until and unless we learn more, that seems like a reasonable conclusion,” Dixon said. “But why would he leave Karen alive? And why kill Scott?”

Good questions. Vail unrolled her shirt sleeve and rose from the bumper. “Could simply be that he wanted to show us he can operate with impunity. Ultimate power. Kill a cop, he’s got total control. As to why he chose to kill Fuller and not me, it might simply have been who had their back to him when he struck.”

“The luck of the draw,” Dixon said. “So to speak.”

“Unless . . .” Vail shoved her hands into the back pockets of her pants and began to pace. “Unless that’s not it at all.”

“How do you mean?” Robby asked.

“We’re missing something very important here.” She pointed at Dixon. “Give me your phone.” Dixon handed it over and Vail hit Send. Aaron answered. “It’s Vail. How was Fuller killed?”

There was a moment’s silence. Vail looked at the phone’s display to see if the line was still active, then glanced off in Aaron’s direction to see what he was doing. She didn’t see him. Was he still pissed at her? Or was he examining Fuller’s body?

“Aaron, you there?”

“Right here.”

Vail turned, threw a hand up to her chest. “Jesus Christ, man, don’t sneak up on me like that. My nerves are a little raw.”

“I’ll have to remember that.” Aaron motioned to her and she handed the phone back to Dixon, then extended her arm. Aaron placed a number of adhesive gun-shot residue disks across the back of her hands, sleeves, chest, and torso. He drew a grid in his notebook and made notations as to where each of the round tabs had been