This had all led to speculation of Chipotle’s death being a suicide-by-cop mission from a grieving father suffering from cocaine psychosis. To reinforce that belief, the subsequent autopsy revealed cocaine levels of .643 mg/L.

Striker read that number and whistled.

‘That a lot?’ Felicia asked.

‘Enough to kill Keith Richards.’

He flipped past the synopsis, then through the rest of the pages – the investigative summary, police statement pages, witness statements, and so forth. The shooting seemed pretty straightforward.

Gunman called in.

Police attended.

And Chipotle started shooting.

It was exactly what Striker had expected. And then he spotted one ordinary detail that changed everything – the name of the cop responsible for shooting Chipotle.

Striker read that name and slumped back against the couch. Slowly, horrifyingly, the information sank in. And connections started falling into place.

Chipotle had been killed, not by a standard hollow jacket round, but by a bullet from a police-issued sniper rifle. That rifle was registered to a member on the Emergency Response Team. To Striker’s one-time mentor and now closest friend.

Mike Rothschild.

Part 3:

Detonation

Friday

Ninety-Three

The room was hot, so unbelievably hot, and yet he could not stop shaking. His teeth chattered, his body trembled, he couldn’t catch his breath. He lay stretched out on a cot that Molly had unfolded, staring at the blue and red pipes that crisscrossed the low ceiling of the command room. The pipes hummed loudly, constantly, like the distant rumble of a coming freight train.

To his left, a pot of water began boiling over onto the kerosene stove. Molly removed it, poured the water into a bucket, and a puff of steam filled the air. She grabbed the antibiotic ointment and sanitized the scalpel, then turned to face him.

Her approach made him shiver. And for the briefest of moments, she looked like the tiny nurse with the paper hat.

‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘It’s just me.’

He tried to lift his head off the table, struggled. ‘The news release . . .’

‘Chad Koda and Harry Eckhart are dead.’

The bomber closed his eyes, as if in relief. He let his head fall back to the table.

‘Done,’ he whispered. ‘. . . it’s almost done.’

Molly said nothing, she just got to work.

She removed the tape and packing gauze from his shoulder, then applied another coat of lidocaine cream before using the scalpel to scrape away the remaining grime, which was still embedded in the entry wound. She rolled him onto his side and did the exact same to the exit wound. Once complete, she added a final rise of saline and covered both wounds with gauze.

‘You’re killing me,’ he said.

‘Oh hush,’ she said softly. ‘You’re lucky it was a through-and-through. The clavicle may have broken, but the bone didn’t splinter through the subclavian.’ She felt his wrist, and smiled. ‘Your pulse is still strong. But you need rest.’

He tried to catch his breath. ‘You need to put lidocaine—’

‘I just did that. Rest.’

He looked at her, confused.

‘I can do this job on my own,’ Molly said.

‘No.’

He struggled to sit forward. As he did, the room tilted on him, and he had to grab on to the wall with his good hand. Small beads of sweat trickled down his neck and back, and he felt like he was floating there in the room, kind of hovering above the cot. An apparition.

So hot . . . so goddam hot.

‘You need rest, love.’

He struggled through the haze. ‘I’m finishing this mission – with or without you.’

Molly said nothing. She just nodded and grabbed the medical tape. Firmly, almost roughly, she began tightening the tape around the shoulder joint and clavicle in order to stop it from moving.

He let out a pained sound as she did this, but that was okay. Everything was okay.

The operation was almost done.

Ninety-Four

For Striker, the night had been a long one.

After seeing Rothschild’s name on Chipotle’s homicide report, he’d made the decision to bring Mike and the kids over to stay at his place, and had gone and gotten them himself. It was the only action that had made sense. After all, if the bombers had found Rothschild’s old house, how long before they found his new one too?

Safety was everything.

Once the family was at his own house, Striker felt better. They all got back to bed at sometime after three, and the remainder of the night had been uneasy and restless.

Now, just five o’clock, Striker lay in bed, listening to the creaks and groans of the old house. With Courtney on the other side of the world, it felt like his home was half empty. And to be honest, ever since Amanda had died, the place had never felt whole again. There was always a sadness in his heart. A deep ache that would never go away.

He tried not to think about it, but it was always there.

The relationship he had with Felicia helped. It helped greatly. Striker loved her. But that didn’t change a thing. Loving another person with all your heart didn’t nullify the love you had felt – and still felt – for another.

Life could be hard.

From down the hall, Cody called out amid his dreams. Striker was sure the boy was half-asleep, but his thoughts played havoc on his mind. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he checked on the boy, Striker climbed out of bed. He snuck down the hall and peered into the guest bedroom.

The room was still and covered with different shades of black and grey. Rothschild was asleep on the left half of the bed, snoring like an old bear, and Cody and Shana were on the right, snuggled together like a pair of Pringles chips.

Safe and sound.

For now.

Striker returned to his bedroom. He slowly eased back into the bed and grabbed the comforters. Then Felicia spoke: ‘The house alarm works fine, Jacob. You don’t need to check on the kids for a tenth time.’

‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘You’re lucky we got dental.’

‘Why? You gonna knock my teeth out?’

She laughed softly. ‘No. But you’ve been grinding your teeth all night.’

Striker said nothing, but he reached up and felt his right jaw joint. He’d suffered from TMJ for years; it was probably one of the reasons he got so many headaches. The joint was sore as hell.

‘I must have kept you up all night.’

Felicia rolled over to face him and smirked. ‘I didn’t mind for part of it.’

Striker tried to smile but couldn’t. As good as Felicia was at compartmentalizing things in her mind, he was equally bad. The case was always there. Breaking through his defences with glaring brightness, like sun through cloud.

‘The Prowlers are some bad people,’ he said. ‘But do you honestly think they’d go after a cop? They usually respect our professional boundaries. And why would they care anyway? I mean really, so what if Rothschild shot Chipotle? The guy was already on the gang’s hit list. It makes no sense.’

Felicia rubbed his chest. ‘It’s just one more theory we have to work through.’

‘Yeah, well, my mind’s not working through it very well.’