The Penitent One (Boston Crime Thriller Book 3), Brian Shea [best non fiction books of all time .TXT] 📗

bragged to the Herald that nobody could get to him in his penthouse, not even the cops. It looked like that theory had just been proven false.

Barnes paused for a moment, tensing and relaxing her muscles. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She could feel the thump of her heartbeat.

She willed herself forward, staying low until she reached the crumpled heap of the bodyguard. She ran her hands along his body.

Mainelli came up from behind, wheezing and grabbing his side. "Personal trainer. I should’ve been the one who got the trainer." He shook his head, hands on his knees, department-issue Glock pressed between his meaty hand and thigh. He looked at Barnes. “I don’t think you need to check him for a pulse.”

Barnes found what she was looking for. She held up the fob access card. “We’re gonna need this to get in.”

“Are you ready for this?” Barnes stood, extending the retractable lanyard attaching the access card to the dead bodyguard’s hip. It was just long enough to reach the panel without having to move the body.

Looking nervous, Mainelli glanced down at the dead man at their feet. Sweat emptied from his pores, activated by his momentary exertion up the stairs. “Do I want to rush in and get killed protecting a mob boss? Not particularly. But there ain’t no way I’m letting you go in alone.”

"Thanks," Barnes muttered, not realizing Mainelli was even considering that as an option.

She held up the fob to the access panel. The red light changed to green and she heard a mechanical pop just as a hail of gunfire rang out from within.

25

Kelly pumped the soap from the dispenser, vigorously rubbing his hands together to create a thick, foamy lather under the warm water. It was the third time he'd washed his face, but he couldn't seem to get the acrid smell of the burnt house out of his nostrils. At least it wasn't the smell of death, but this wasn't much better. The smell of latex overwhelmed the soap’s fragrance, the long hours of wearing the form-fitting gloves melding their clinical scent into his skin.

He dried himself with paper towels and left the bathroom. Gray was in The Depot going through the crime scene photos given to them by Charles. The assorted images were spread unevenly across the table. Gray was systematically and meticulously going through the crime scene again, the second time since they'd returned from the house.

Kelly walked into the room, feeling slightly refreshed from his sink shower. "Any luck?"

Gray barely looked up from the photo he was staring at. "Not anything since the last time you asked."

Between nearly dying in a fire earlier in the day, and then spending the next several hours working the scene and processing what was left in the way of usable evidence, both men were physically and mentally taxed. The emotional wear and tear left them depleted. And seeing his best friend hauled off on a stretcher added an invisible weight to Kelly's shoulders.

He focused his energy on the here and now, deciding the best thing he could do for Bobby would be to find the person responsible. Kelly stepped away from the conference room and went over to his desk. He picked up the phone and dialed the extension for Raymond Charles, who picked up on the third ring.

"Did you hear back from the lab?" Kelly asked.

Charles exhaled. It was more of a wheeze, the rasp of his throat attributed to his lifetime of smoking.

"I called in every favor I had over at the state lab. The fastest turnaround they can do on those DNA swabs that we took from the shackles—and I'm talking the absolute fastest, meaning everything else in the state lab gets dropped and everybody works hand in hand—was a couple days at best. They said sixty hours is the fastest they could turn it around, and that’s under the most optimal of conditions. More likely even with the rush, it'll be three days to a week before we get any definitive answer on whether we even attained any DNA from our potential doer."

Kelly sighed. When Gray had seen the shackles, Kelly first thought they were used as some type of torture device. And in all respects, they were. But not for random victims. No, those shackles, Gray theorized after a brief call with the Behavior Analysis Unit down in Quantico, were most likely used for self-inflicted abuse. The conjecture being that The Penitent One had masochistic tendencies, probably stemming from his childhood. A reliving of past trauma. The shackles and kneeler were for his own private penance.

Charles had swabbed several of the deep grooves in the metal, hoping that even if the TPO attempted to remove his DNA, there might be enough trace left for them to get a hit. Kelly still held out hope that was a possibility but was disheartened by the fact that even with pressure and favors called in, it would still take nearly a week to get the results. They didn't have a week, especially now that their killer knew they were coming for him. The window of time before The Penitent One dropped off the radar altogether was closing, and Kelly could feel it.

It had been Gray's fear all along. He had said during the initial workup done by BAU that if this guy felt the pressure, he would drop off the grid, and any chance of finding him again would be nearly zero. Kelly couldn't let that happen. Looking back into the conference room, he could see from the lines of frustration squiggled across Gray’s brow that his federal counterpart felt the exact same way.

"All right, Ray. Well, thanks for trying. And let me know if you find anything else."

Kelly walked back into The Depot. "Bad news," he said.

"Great, can't wait to hear it." Gray set down the photograph he was looking at.

“Charles said there's a rush put on the DNA swabs he took, but the likelihood of getting a response anytime soon