Page 42 of Crossfire Creek Siege

“There,” she said. “North approach. Got him.”

The new angle showed him emerging from the trees, crossing to a dirt turnoff. A dark pickup was parked just out of view from the main road, half-hidden behind scrub. Rhett climbed in, started the engine, and he drove off, the truck disappearing into the hills.

For a few long seconds, no one spoke. The only sound came from the low hum of the monitors and the faint tapping of Isla’s keyboard as she froze the last frame of Rhett’s truck disappearing into the trees.

Rena’s pulse was still thudding from what they’d seen. “So… either Rhett’s lying,” she said quietly, “or he’s warning us that someone else is pulling the strings.”

“Or both,” Noah muttered, still staring at the screen. His voice was tight, clipped. “He’s smart enough to play the victim if he thinks it’ll throw us off.”

Before Noah could add anything else, one of the other techs hurried over from the side console, holding a tablet. “Sir, you need to see this.”

Rena’s gaze followed as the tech handed it to Noah. He scanned the screen, his jaw tightening.

“Lab just finished running the DNA samples from the bleached training facility,” Noah explained. “And they got a hit. Rhett Danner,” he said. “It’s a match.”

Chapter Twelve

While he waited, and waited for Rhett to come in for his interview, Gage leaned back in the hard wooden chair, the edge of it biting into his shoulder where the stitches still pulled.

The sheriff’s office felt smaller than usual, one of those cramped, old buildings that smelled faintly of coffee, dust, and gun oil. Afternoon light spilled in through half-closed blinds, cutting the room into stripes of gold and shadow.

Next to him, Rena sat perched on the edge of another chair, phone in hand, scrolling through updates from Crossfire’s tech team. Her focus was sharp, but he could tell from the way her leg bounced that the waiting was eating at her too.

Sheriff Chase sat behind her desk, short blond hair mussed from running her hand through it a dozen times. She was on the phone again, half-listening, half-commanding whoever was on the other end. Every few seconds, she jotted something down on a yellow pad already filled with notes.

The tension in the room was thick, heavy as the Texas heat pressing through the windows.

Of course, a different kind of heat would crank up when the sheriff had Rhett and then Brady in the interview room. Which should be happening soon. Rhett would be up first, and Sheriff Chase would be asking him the big questions of how and why his DNA had been found in that hangar.

Gage was very much interested in the answers.

Of course, that didn’t mean Rhett was going to give them the truth, but he was at least going to have to come up with a plausible explanation.

Rena’s phone dinged at the same time Gage’s did, and he saw the file that Isla had forwarded. A digital copy of Corrine Astor’s so-called “profile” on Brady Halden.

According to Corrine’s neat, clinical summary, Brady was “a tactical survivor type, disillusioned, morally injured, clinging to a warped sense of brotherhood.” There were references to betrayal, to “the team’s disavowal that scarred him,” and to his “latent need to prove justice through retribution.”

Gage snorted under his breath. “She makes him sound like some avenging saint with PTSD.”

He glanced up to see that Rena was reading the same report on her phone, her expression tight. Sheriff Chase was still on her call so Gage leaned closer to Rena and kept his voice to a whisper.

“What do you think? Corrine’s just trying to deflect guilt?” he asked Rena.

“Could be,” Rena admitted. “But Corrine’s not completely wrong about him. Brady showing up at that hangar, right before the explosion? I have a hard time believing that was a coincidence.”

Gage nodded. “And he’s got motive. The disavowed op, the grudge against Noah… the man lost everything because of Crossfire. If he wanted payback, that party would’ve been the perfect setup.”

“Even if Corrine’s spinning it for her own gain,” Rena added, “Brady still fits.”

Gage blew out a hard breath, his eyes dropping back to the profile. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Fits too damn well.”

He closed the file, feeling that familiar coil of tension tightening in his gut. Whether Corrine was deflecting or not, Brady had blood in his eyes, and Gage couldn’t shake the feeling that the next move was already in play.

Gage lifted his gaze the second Sheriff Chase ended the call. “Lab didn’t find either Corrine’s or Brady’s DNA in that hangar,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Cleaning solution could’ve nuked whatever trace was left.”

Yeah. A crime scene scrubbed like a damn operating room, and nothing tying either of the two most smug suspects to it. But Rhett’s had been there all right. Maybe an indication he was guilty. Or maybe someone just wanted them to believe that.

“Corrine’s now claiming Crossfire Ops is trying to kill her,” the sheriff went on. “She’s trying to pull in the FBI and the Texas Rangers to demand they shut Noah and Crossfire Ops down.”