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

Gray shuffled the papers and then found what he was looking for. He tapped it, directing Kelly's attention toward it. "Next of kin. Every service member has it in the event of their untimely death. A family member to whom their benefits would go and a point of contact if they were killed in action.”

“I thought his parents were killed.”

“It seems as though he had a sibling."

Kelly looked down at the name. "Marcy Vance, three years younger. Why was there no mention of her in that article about the fire?"

"Seems as though she was taken from the family on reports of abuse and put into the foster care system. But it looks like—and this is my guess, of course—that Vance making her his next of kin means he had reconnected with her, maybe after coming out of juvenile detention.”

“I didn't think you could serve in the military after committing a crime, especially murder."

Gray shrugged. "His juvenile record was redacted, number one. And number two, maybe it was deemed some level of self-defense and expunged. Either way, whatever the loophole, he was able to get through and into the service and apparently was good at what he did."

"And what was that exactly?" Kelly asked.

"He spent ten years in the Army, with the last five being in Special Forces. Two tours of combat, one in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. So, we're dealing with a combat vet with Special Forces experience. No wonder he's been a ghost. His whole life has been preparing him for this."

Kelly looked down at the address on the information sheet forwarded from Gray's contact. "His sister lives in Sudbury?"

"I guess we know where we’re going.”

27

It was dark as they pulled down Lakewood Drive in Sudbury, darker still because Kelly had shut off the Caprice’s headlights a few houses back. They crept along, slowing at the intersection with Basswood. Marcy Vance lived two houses up on the left on Lakewood. Kelly could fit ten triple decker homes in the space separating them from the target location.

He turned left onto Basswood and stopped out of view from the intersection.

Kelly had never been to Sudbury, but he understood why Christopher Vance would choose this as a place to hole up. It was rural and isolated. They'd done a Google Maps search and looked at it from the overhead satellite imagery before departing. Kelly had tried to get a ground-eye view, but apparently the mapping system hadn't gone down that road, or any of the others in this neighborhood.

The overhead showed it was surrounded by a dense forest. And it was no lie. Marcy Vance’s home backed up to the Assabet River Wildlife Preserve. The house itself wasn't very big in comparison to its neighbors. The records online showed it to be two thousand square feet, but with the surrounding acreage, it would fetch a hefty price on the market.

It would also keep Marcy secluded from her neighbors and make it the perfect hiding spot for their killer while he healed from the gunshot wound, or wounds, gifted to him by Kristen Barnes.

"I know Halstead said to stay put and wait till they can come up with an attack plan, but I think it's in our best interest to see if we can get a visual before we blow up this spot and make it obvious that we're onto him. If he wasn't running before, the minute he knows that we know who he is, he'll be gone forever."

"Fair enough," Kelly said, not wanting to disobey his boss again, but knowing if they rolled in with SWAT and turned out to be wrong, then this would probably be their last chance at ever finding him. Kelly sided with Gray. He didn’t want to ruin their best chance of catching the killer who’d eluded the FBI for fifteen years. The same killer who murdered Rourke, Kelly's partner, and had haunted him for almost nine years.

They exited the Caprice and made their way into the woods. When they looked at the topography, they saw a two-mile stretch of protected forestland that stretched toward Marcy Vance’s property line.

The ground was still frozen solid. The high trees had shaded most of the winter’s snow, leaving about five or six inches of iced-over, hard-packed snow. The benefit of it was that it brightened their walk, negating the need for them to use flashlights as they navigated the dense network of trees.

Kelly saw a light in the distance as they got closer to the property line, or what they assumed was the property line. It was a lot easier when looking at the overhead map versus tracking their way in through the icy, snowy woodland area.

Kelly paused and picked up his binoculars. "That's our house. It’s got to be."

They were within visual range, at least through binoculars. Kelly spent the next several moments going from window to window. He was hoping to see their target pass by, but no such luck.

"Want to try moving a little closer?" Gray said. "I mean, it'd be great if we can get close and cover it from opposite corners of the house. We'd have a great vantage point for when tactical arrives. If he tries to evade, then we can cover pretty much the perimeter of the house visually with both of us."

"Okay, sounds fair enough. We'll break off when we get a little closer, and I'll work my way around to the other side unless you’d rather?" Kelly offered.

“Either’s fine by me.”

Kelly knew Gray was right about covering the perimeter. During his years on SWAT, he knew that a perimeter team, if you were short-handed, could be handled by posting two operators on opposite corners. Their visual periphery would effectively cover two sides of the house each, therefore making it possible for two men to hold all four. It wasn't ideal, but it was good enough for an overwatch while they waited for the tactical team to deploy.

SWAT wasn’t here. Kelly knew the lag time from activation