Rain (David Wolf Book 11) Read online

  RAIN

  Jeff Carson

  Cross Atlantic Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Jeff Carson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  David Wolf Series in Order

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Acknowledgments

  David Wolf Series in Order

  David Wolf Series in Order

  Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story)– Sign up for the new release newsletter at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive a complimentary copy sent to your inbox.

  Foreign Deceit (David Wolf Book 1)

  The Silversmith (David Wolf Book 2)

  Alive and Killing (David Wolf Book 3)

  Deadly Conditions (David Wolf Book 4)

  Cold Lake (David Wolf Book 5)

  Smoked Out (David Wolf Book 6)

  To the Bone (David Wolf Book 7)

  Dire (David Wolf Book 8)

  Signature (David Wolf Book 9)

  Dark Mountain (David Wolf Book 10)

  Rain (David Wolf Book 11)

  Chapter 1

  “Dang it, are they coming out of the sea? There’s another one of them. Hey! You there!”

  Special Agent Kristen Luke watched with detached interest as a Seattle field-office special agent—she’d forgotten his name already—raised a hand and marched away from the shore toward two people with buckets near the water’s edge.

  “Shit!” The agent splashed through the edge of the tidal pool and kicked off the water.

  A horn blasted somewhere out in the Puget Sound, revealing the presence of a cargo ship in the thick fog hugging the silvery water.

  Luke brought her eyes back down to a twenty-one-armed starfish at her feet. Its red appendages moved imperceptibly.

  “Luke!”

  She turned toward the crowd of suits and white-clad forensic techs milling near a tent.

  Swain stood further up the beach, waving his hand overhead.

  She stepped through the rocky, wet sand toward her partner and past the scene. Wafts of human feces and decay tickled her nose, tinging foul the salty, rain-drenched air.

  She kept her eyes on Swain as far as the high-tide mark, then concentrated on stepping over the driftwood.

  She reached him and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry, Jake.”

  Swain looked at her. His electric-blue eyes had lost their spark and threatened to spill tears down his stubbled cheeks. “Let’s go. I wanna see him.”

  Her partner had been sitting in the car for the past ten minutes, gathering his wits. Now he led the way with sure steps.

  They stopped at the crime-scene tape manned by an agent with a clipboard.

  “We’re from Snohomish,” Swain said.

  “Names?”

  “Special Agents Kristen Luke and Jake Swain.”

  The agent scribbled on the clipboard and whistled over his shoulder toward the tent. “Hunt! The Snohomish agents!”

  Inside the tent, a squat man clad in white rose from a kneeling position. His eyes were hidden behind glasses reflecting harsh lights.

  A single raindrop slapped Luke’s ear, and a breeze brought in a blast of drizzle. Months ago, she would have flinched and made a snarky comment about the persistence of the crappy weather. Now she zipped up her FBI jacket and flipped up the hood like she was scratching her nose.

  “Hey. Special Agent Keith Hunt.” Hunt put out a rubber-gloved hand and pantomimed shaking. “Geez, here comes the rain again. News this morning said forty-two days straight.”

  Swain stared the special agent down.

  “Sorry. Come on. Follow me close.”

  They ducked under the tape, Swain first, Luke second.

  Hunt slowed and turned. His eyes were brown and big, eyebrows creased in concern. “I take it you two knew Special Agent Hooper well?”

  Swain grunted while Luke nodded.

  In truth, Luke hadn’t known Hooper well, not as friends like Swain had. She’d seen the man around the office plenty, but he was the kind who seemed to shut off when she was close by. She was an extremely attractive woman—she was intelligent enough to know that—and the brains of many men closed down when she came into the room. Then there were those whose hormones went hyperactive. Both were annoying.

  A few months ago, she’d discovered that if she spoke about the Seahawks, Hooper’s eyes would light up and he’d talk her out of the coffee room, but she rarely had much to say about football so that tactic had been short-lived.

  Hunt lowered his eyes and continued, giving a wide berth to a row of plastic evidence tents. “Footprints. Just the two joggers who found the body this morning. Other than that, looks like he took quite a swim with the high tide. Sorry … he was lifted and moved with the high tide. Washed up.”

  “Got it,” Luke said, eyeing her partner.

  Swain pushed six foot four, and with the lip scar could come off intimidating, but he ignored their conversation, eyes glued to the body on the beach.

  Hunt walked another few paces and stopped just outside the tent. “Here, please.”

  For the first time, Luke allowed herself to stare at Hooper’s corpse. He was face down, displaying an exit wound at the back of his head. Luke studied the sand, saw tiny tracks leading to and from his skull, and knew crabs would have been dining when Hooper was discovered that morning.

  “First responder’s footprints here.” Hunt pointed in the sand. “Seattle PD came first. Saw the FBI badge in his pocket and gave us a call.” Hunt shrugged like the rest was history they all knew, which they did. The Seattle field office had called Snohomish minutes later, and now, after an hour of biblical Thursday-morning rush-hour traffic, here they were.

  One arm of Hooper’s FBI jacket had come loose and was wadded next to his side. His right arm was partially submerged in the sand. So was part of his face. The visible part pointed toward them, displaying a hollowed-out eye socket. Luke’s tenure in the Pacific Northwest had yielded one other dead body on the beach and she’d seen what crabs could do to a human corpse in quick fashion.

  “Crabs got to him before we could,” Hunt said, looking like he regretted saying it as he eyed Swain. “Uh … single shot to the face. Exit wound out the back of the skull. No other injuries as far as we can tell. We were just going to
turn over the body.” He looked at them, as if for permission.

  Swain closed his eyes and nodded. “Go ahead.”

  Hunt rejoined his team inside and assumed his earlier position. “One, two, three.”

  Hooper’s body was stiff and turned over like a door opening.

  Swain watched with an unflinching gaze.

  “Careful,” Hunt said, scrambling around to the other side and helping ease the body down.

  Black sand caked Hooper’s face. The exposed flesh was contorted, frozen sideways as if it were a picture taken a millisecond after being clocked by a boxing glove. Kelp hung off his fed-blue suit and tie and more sand clung to the fabric. A crab scurried away and a forensic worker slapped it under the edge of the tent.

  Luke pulled her eyes from the gruesome sight and looked toward a second tent erected a short distance down the beach.

  Swain followed her gaze.

  “You two want to go see the other guy?” Hunt asked.

  “Yes, please,” Swain said.

  “Okay, back with me.”

  They followed Hunt back out the way they’d come and ducked under the tape.

  Another agent ushered them to the asphalt path that ran along the beach.

  Swain took the lead again, his muscular legs striding fast.

  Their boss, Supervisory Special Agent Dale Earnshaw, strode toward them with equal purpose. His arms bounced outward at his sides, a side-effect of the muscles underneath his rain coat.

  “Did you see him?” Earnshaw asked. He talked to Swain, not Luke, so she deferred to her partner again.

  “Yeah.”

  Earnshaw nodded at Luke, and she felt energized by the basic acknowledgment. It had been eleven months since she’d made the long drive from Colorado, and she still felt like the newbie when it came to the Snohomish County FO.

  Earnshaw’s shaved head glistened with rain, and she realized she was the only one with a hood on. She considered pulling it down and letting the clouds spit on her face but, then again, men were stupid when it came to stuff like that.

  “What’s happening here?” Swain asked, gesturing to the tent.

  “Follow me.”

  There were fewer personnel at the second scene, though the tent was erected at the same angle to block the elements, and the same harsh light poured out onto the sand. More driftwood littered the beach here.

  The SSA said something to a CSI and ducked under the tape. The CSI nodded them through and told them to wait.

  One of the forensic techs inside the tent saw them and came out. “Hello. I’m Smith.”

  “Luke.”

  “Swain.”

  The tech nodded at Earnshaw. “Come this way, please.”

  They stepped carefully to the exterior of the tent. “Stop here, please.”

  Luke shuffled next to Earnshaw to get a look. She was the shortest and felt like a kid at a concert, so she stepped up onto a sturdy log.

  The body lay on its back, the head toward the water and tilted back so that the face was obscured.

  “Can’t see shit,” Swain said.

  “He was shot once in the chest,” Smith said. “Here. Jones!”

  The photographer walked over.

  “Can you show those photos again?”

  Jones seemed to know the drill and was already pushing buttons. Leaving the strap around his neck, he turned the viewer toward them.

  Earnshaw backed away and turned to Luke. “Go ahead.”

  He put a hand on the top of her ass and pushed her closer so that she fell off the log. A couple of inches down and he’d have scored third base. Could have been a mistake.

  Breathing through the semi-grope afterthoughts, she eyed the screen and saw an Asian face staring back at her. Or rather its eaten-out eye-sockets. The head tilted back because the sand had been eroded from underneath it.

  “Please show the tattoo,” Earnshaw said.

  The photographer scrolled through a dozen photos showing the body from all angles and stopped at a blue ink mark.

  “Chung Do,” Swain said, eyeing Luke. “You see that?”

  They all looked at her.

  She leaned closer and looked at the symbol. A dagger stabbed through a globe—representing the vicious goal of Chung Do, a gang dealing in human trafficking, guns, and drugs, in that order. The group had arrived from Hong Kong ten years earlier. And just like other Asian gangs she’d come across over the years, human life was far down on the list of sick stuff they cared about.

  “Yep,” she said. “He’s still holding his gun.”

  The photographer pushed a few buttons and showed them a closeup shot of the handgun held loosely in the dead man’s hand. The handle was inlaid with a circled star.

  “Norinco,” Luke said, recognizing the Chinese make.

  “Yes,” Smith said. “You know your firearms. Norinco CF-98. Nine mil.”

  Luke ignored the praise. They’d all recognized that model on sight. She was the only one who’d voiced the thought. The guy was attracted to her and kissing her ass. Damn, she was an egotistical bitch if she did say so herself.

  She eyed the beach. Six men with metal detectors swept the shore near Hooper’s corpse. “Have they checked down here with those detectors yet?”

  “Not yet. They just started a few minutes ago, as far as I know.”

  “Why?” Earnshaw asked.

  “I was just thinking that these two were most likely closer to one another last night. I could be wrong, of course, but we have two people shot on the same beach. And I’m just a Colorado girl, so check me if I’m wrong, but it looks like Hooper was pulled out by the tide. That direction, toward the mouth of the Puget Sound. This man didn’t move. Clearly the high tide came up to this guy’s head, and that’s why it’s tilted back like that, but no higher. His gun’s lying half on his palm, half on the sand.”

  “Yes,” Smith said with a hint of a smile.

  “Isn’t it more likely that the gun was buried here by the wave action while Hooper was brought down the beach and deposited?” she asked. “Metal heavier than water and all?”

  Smith sucked in a breath and let it out. “Well, if you’re gonna put it like that.”

  “Get them down here, damn it,” Earnshaw said.

  Smith plucked his radio off his belt and made a call.

  Twenty minutes later, three techs found Hooper’s Sig Sauer P226. One round was missing from the magazine. Five minutes after that they found one of his spent cartridges.

  They stood nearer the Chung Do gangbanger’s body now, but far back on the asphalt path and away from the action. The rain had died down to a floating mist, and two news helicopters hovered overhead, taking advantage of the break in the weather for a glimpse of the action. Forensic teams at either scene scrambled to wrap up their work before an even higher late-morning tide rolled in.

  “You’re a good agent, you know that?” Swain said, eyeing the water.

  A cargo ship slipped by, heavy with multicolored containers stacked impossibly high on its decks. Luke pondered the height of the rolling wave splitting off the vessel’s bow. “Thanks.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “Guy with a gunshot in his heart shot a guy with a gunshot in his head,” she said.

  “Meaning …”

  “Meaning it’s two kill shots at the same time.” She looked at Swain. “Right?”

  “What are you saying?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Hooper could have shot the guy in the chest. Guy drops on his back. Shoots Hooper with his dying breath.”

  “Couldn’t have been any other way.”

  “So you’re wondering why Hooper shot this gangbanger.”

  She was headed down the wrong path fast. “No. I’m saying clearly this guy pulled a gun on Hooper, and Hooper had to defend himself. I guess I’m just wondering why was he here in the first place.”

  They stood in silence for a beat.

  “Well?” she asked. “Do yo
u know?”

  “No.”

  “So what? This guy’s an informant? Hooper met him and things went south?”

  Someone yelled down the beach and they both turned.

  Earnshaw had a phone pressed to his ear and waved his free hand over his head.

  They walked down the pathway toward the SSA, watching him finish a conversation and pocket his cell.

  “What’s up?” Swain asked.

  “There’s something going on.” Earnshaw put his hands on his hips. His FBI jacket split open, revealing a beefy chest and the butt of his gun sticking out of his shoulder holster.

  “Something besides one of our own getting murdered by a Chung Do on this beach?” Swain asked.

  “Yes.”

  Chapter 2

  Luke stared out the passenger window of the Caprice Classic cruiser, watching streaks of water blow back on the glass.

  Outside the clouds hugged close to the needle-topped evergreen trees. From this part of the highway, she could see the Puget Sound lying silver under the dripping clouds. Container ships sliced the calm-looking water in a line to and from the Tacoma shipyard down south. Another butt-load of trinkets from Shenzhen.

  Swain leaned back, his head angled toward the window, and steered with his right arm. All it took was a raise of his shoulder and he could hide his mouth anytime he wanted.

  “You know, we’ve been partners for eleven months.” The words were out without her thinking.