“I’m sorry, Janey?” Michelle reacted.
“Yes, ma’am, your daughter Lauren, my apologies. She’s been Janey to me since initially coming across her full name. I’ve been an Aerosmith fan since youth. The first time I saw her send rounds downrange, ‘Janie’s Got a Gun’ started playing on cerebral repeat. It just sort of stuck since then.” He pursed his lips and gestured his leave. “If you’ll excuse me.”
As he and the others marched off, a look of marked concern dawned on Michelle, and her expression went overcast in a matter of seconds.
Alan reached for his wife’s hand again, and his grip latched on limp fingers, snatching his attention. “Babe? You look ready to pass out. What’s the matter?”
Michelle’s brows drew together. “She wasn’t at the funeral yesterday, was she?”
“Lauren?” Alan straightened and thought a moment. “No, she wasn’t. Then again, I really didn’t expect her to be.” He scratched his head. “She was back and forth Saturday while we were cleaning up and salvaging out back. I assumed she was checking in on Grace and Neo, so I let her be.”
“You let her be?” Michelle scoffed. “We are horrible parents. She spent all day Friday in her room…I didn’t even bother to check on her. Why didn’t I? How could we just leave her alone like that?”
“I don’t know the answer to that, but what else is new? Adjusting to being home remains one massive learning process for me.” Alan sighed exhaustedly. “What happened the other day turned our world upside down; everything’s been a blur ever since. One of my daughters lies comatose in an infirmary, and the other is dead to the world over losing someone she loved. I didn’t know what to say to her then, and I still don’t. I just know something inside told me to leave her be…give her space.”
“Well, that voice inside you is an idiot.” Michelle squeezed shut her eyes, placing the back of her hand to her forehead. “I haven’t gotten a wink of sleep in days, and now Lauren is missing—again. We need to get back now, Alan. We need to find her—we need to find out where she is…where she went.”
Alan squared off with his wife, rubbed her shoulders, and gently nudged her chin. “Hey, calm down. She’s okay. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll find her. We’ll start asking around for who saw her last and go from there. But you can’t operate like this, and I can’t allow you to. For now, let’s go home, get some rest, and regroup.”
Michelle looked up at him and smiled with what little energy she had to pull it off. She nodded approval of his suggestion, though she had other plans in mind.
Chapter 35
George Washington National Forest
Shenandoah County, Virginia
Monday, March 14th. Late evening
Lauren glided into position, concealing herself alongside and behind the moss-covered trunk of a walnut tree. Regrowth in leaves of three, perhaps poison ivy or oak, brushed by her face, but she paid no mind to them. She slid ahead one increment at a time to become one with the Nemesis LMR. Once aligned with the rifle’s optic, the sky opened, and the drizzle of rain became a downpour.
The moonlight’s ambient dimness shone through the clouds above, and the Harris night vision’s intensifiers made ample use of it. The buttstock kissed the dampness on Lauren’s cheek, and she adjusted the length and cheek pad height, then nestled in, controlling each breath while guiding the reticle to a spot of her choosing.
The agent had moved away from his team to urinate and was now donning a poncho. A small flashlight between his teeth to light his way through the forest, he was unworried in the moment, calm and unexpecting. He hadn’t a clue that the breaths he was now taking were set to be his last and he was seconds away from dying.
This weapon setup was new to her. Lauren had never fired the LMR before and had no way of knowing at what distance the optic had been zeroed or even if it had been. Her distance to target was nominal, well within the Creedmoor’s reach per what Jade had revealed, and the breeze barely whispered by, further repealing the need for elevation and wind correction holdovers. The point of impact of her first shot would tell her everything she needed to know. She willed away her trembles, fighting tooth and nail against the chilly trickles of rain for focus as they relentlessly assaulted her body. She inhaled through her nose and guided a breath slowly out and through her lips. Snapping off the safety, she stretched her index finger before sliding it onto the trigger.
Prior to tugging her index finger inward and ending another life, Lauren forced her eyes shut a moment, feeling an intense, underlying urge. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want,” she began shakily. “He makes me to lie in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters…He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” She drew a breath through chattering teeth. “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me.” Lauren completed the twenty-third Psalm in near-silent summary, then said, “God, if you’re there, if you can hear me…please forgive me for what I’ve done…and for what I’m about to do.”
The rifle hiccupped. A millisecond later, the discharged round struck true, and the agent’s body gave out beneath him. His eyes unbolted wide, and he fell with an o-face, rendering little to no sound. Lauren’s point of aim had placed the shot into the base of the agent’s throat through his larynx and vocal cords, hoping that doing so would result in a silent kill, and it had. The rainfall’s tumult had lent a hand, masking the sound of his tumble.
Lauren cycled the
