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would have made too much noise. We would have heard them.’
    ‘When I went through the woods, I didn’t see a body back there. There was no one back there.’
    ‘Maybe the guy with the bloody shirt found a place to hide. I don’t think the others were there when you were. The guy with the night vision? He was carrying what I’m sure is a compact HK MP6. It definitely was a sub-machine gun. And I know I saw a scope. If he had been back there when you were, he could’ve taken you down with a single shot to the head. He planned to come out of hiding, find the phone and leave. Nobody would’ve heard a thing.’
    ‘You’re saying all of this was for a goddamn phone?’
    ‘It’s gone, isn’t it?’
    Pine didn’t answer. His eyes were red and puffy, his face pale.
    ‘A phone is a key piece of evidence,’ Darby said. ‘You’ve got logs of incoming and outgoing calls, maybe even an address book full of contacts. Who knows what we would’ve found? Night-vision man certainly thought it was important enough for me not to get my hands on it. He came out of his hiding spot to treat me to a stun grenade. Then he covered the woods with HC smoke canisters and gunfire to keep everyone back.’
    Pine looked at the evidence bag gripped in her hand. ‘What did you find?’
    ‘A blister pack for nicotine gum. The guy with the night vision is apparently concerned about his long-term health. You should be too. You’re looking a little unsteady on your feet.’
    ‘I haven’t run like that since… well, it’s been a long time.’
    ‘Let me help you to the ambulance.’
    ‘I can manage.’ Pine opened the gate to a carnival of blinking red, white and blue lights.
    ‘Artie, have the Feds come to see you?’
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About any ongoing case in Belham, surveillance, anything along those lines.’
    ‘No.’ Pine’s mouth parted and his brow crinkled with thought. ‘Wait, are you suggesting the Feds are involved with what happened here tonight?’
    ‘I’m saying it’s a possibility. The guys I saw hauling the body away? They wore suits. The guy with the night vision had a tactical vest with stun and smoke grenades, and he was carrying the kind of machine gun used by Hostage Rescue. He’s not a weekend warrior. He knew exactly what he was doing.’
    ‘That’s one hell of an assumption.’
    ‘Maybe. But he could easily have taken me down while I was back there – he had several opportunities before I reached the phone. And I think he deliberately shot at the tree above my head. He didn’t want to kill me, just wanted to pin me down until he got to the phone. You see the muddy footprints on the deck?’
    Pine nodded, dabbing his eyes with the handkerchief. ‘I talked to the patrol guys. They didn’t leave ’em.’
    ‘They’re also on the living-room carpet in front of the sliding glass door. I think someone ran across the backyard, tracked mud up the steps and then shot their way inside the house. I found two holes in the opposite wall. Who would want to shoot their way inside a house?’
    ‘The person who killed and tortured that woman.’
    ‘One person can’t subdue two people and then ransack an entire house, especially one this size. We’re talking two people at the very least – and they sure as hell wouldn’t have shot their way in. They had to find a way to get inside quietly, without being detected. They needed time to subdue the mother and son, and they needed time to search the house. Shooting your way inside isn’t quiet or subtle. It’s more in line with a rescue attempt, don’t you think?’
    Pine thought it over, rubbing his tongue along his bottom teeth.
    ‘All I’m saying is that I wouldn’t put it past the Feds,’ Darby said. ‘We should look at every possible angle.’
    ‘I’ll dig around.’
    So will I , Darby thought.

8
    Darby used one of the clean towels she kept in the back of the crime scene vehicle to wipe the mud from her face, arms and hands. The muggy night