Page 21 of Echo, the Sniper (Men of PSI #2)
“Details, please,” Luke urged when I paused.
I blew out a short breath. “Come to find out, Dane Grant was an abusive husband. We’re talking the whole shebang, from emotional and mental, physical, and since she mentioned he couldn’t get it up unless he was violent with her, I suspect sexual.
Basically the worst kind of scum packed into human skin.
When I first met her out on the sidewalk while her house was burning down, Rory apologized for talking.
I shit you not— talking . I suspect that dick made her pay whenever she dared to open up her mouth and showed she was smarter than he was.
She’s skittish and very careful in what she chooses to reveal.
I don’t know if she understands she’s now completely free to do or say whatever the fuck she wants without getting punished for it. ”
“Sonofabitch,” Mary Jane said so softly I almost missed it. “I wish I could find a way to shoot that bastard all over again. This time in the family jewels.”
“You and me both,” I agreed so heatedly I heard my voice echo.
On the other side of the lobby, Rory’s head snapped up to glance my way as if in alarm, so I offered a small wave to show her everything was cool and totally non-murder-y.
Last thing I wanted to do was trigger her again when she was just starting to find her Zen.
“Look, I can’t talk about this now. But Luke, I’m probably going to be texting you as time marches on about how I can help her to get over things and let all that shit go so she can move forward. But in the meantime—”
“Wait, Echo,” Luke said, and his voice sounded sharper. “You just said she’s a victim of domestic violence, which is basically terrorism behind closed doors.”
The very thought of it made my blood boil. “Right.”
“For years?”
“I’m assuming so. The emotional abuse started at the wedding reception—Grant calling her stupid in front of their guests, humiliating her and making her doubt herself, that kind of thing.
It took about a year for him to escalate to smashing her face against the floor to make her eat food that had been put on the table one fucking minute late.
I can tell you firsthand that she still has screaming nightmares about that, and how ashamed she is of it.
That’s nuts, because she didn’t do anything wrong. ”
“Seriously, Dad? I want to shoot that Grant guy. I know it’s impossible, but I want to shoot him myself.”
“No shooting dead people, kiddo,” Cap told Mary Jane while I could all but hear Mary Jane’s blood pressure hit the stratosphere. “It’s not healthy.”
“You never let me do anything fun.”
“Echo, imagine a fellow soldier who was a POW for three years,” Luke overrode that touching father-daughter moment.
“Tortured, starved, humiliated, dehumanized. Then the POW gets back into the world. Would you tell that brother- or sister-in-arms to just pick themselves up by their bootstraps and get over it?”
I winced, because I’d done pretty much that.
“Of course not. I did tell her to never apologize for having a nightmare. Nightmares are understandable when the prick you’re living with monitors every move you make, to the point where you can’t even open an exterior door without him breaking your fingers for it. Twice.”
“Mother fucker ,” Mary Jane growled.
“Full disclosure, though... I did ask her why she didn’t just leave him, and that kind of set us back some.” I grimaced, suddenly grateful Luke was several states away. “Got any words I can use to undo that damage?”
“Oh my God, Echo, you didn’t ,” Mary Jane groaned, and I could practically hear the eyeroll heavenward. Huh. Rory had been right. Every woman, no matter who they were, would never have asked that question.
Shit.
“Echo, let’s continue with the POW scenario,” Luke put in, much more calmly than Mary Jane. “Would you ask a POW why they didn’t just leave?”
Jesus . “Of course not.”
“Exactly. They were a prisoner. The thing is, victims of domestic abuse are prisoners too. They have no more freedom than a POW. Unfortunately, when you ask a victim of domestic abuse why they didn’t just leave, it makes that victim feel like they were somehow a willing participant in their own abuse, when they definitely were not. ”
Goddamn it . “I never meant anything like that.”
“I know that and you know that. But I’d bet my next paycheck Rory Grant took your words as an insinuation that you believe she’s somehow partially to blame for own torture.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, no longer caring about sounding professional.” Fuck . What do I do to unring that bell?”
“Going forward, approach sensitive conversations like that as if you’re talking to someone just back from a war—which is more accurate than our current society is willing to admit. If you can do that, you’re golden.”
“If your protectee is now having trust issues where you’re concerned, I’m inclined to send Mary Jane to Colorado as backup to ensure nothing happens to this protectee while in our custody,” Cap’s voice came in thoughtfully. “PSI has a reputation to uphold, after all.”
“Yes!” Mary Jane piped up. “I’m happy to volunteer my time on this, Echo. I’ve a project hanging fire, but give me forty-eight to seventy-two hours to put them to bed and I’m there.”
“No skiing side trips while you’re there,” Cap admonished his only child like she was a teenager instead of thirty. “Not until the job is done.”
“Hopefully I’ll have this case wrapped up by the time Mary Jane’s free.
” I heard the brusqueness of my tone and wondered if Luke caught it.
The last thing I needed was for anyone to know that acquiring a third wheel like Mary Jane sounded about as appealing as root canal.
“Rory confirmed that Josiah Armstrong fits the basic description of the guy who set fire to her house. Where are we in tracking this guy down?”
“Nothing at his official residence in downtown Denver,” Cap said, and I heard the faint rustle of paper against paper.
“Our tech guys hacked his Ring security cams and discovered he visited his home only once throughout the sixty days of footage stored on the cloud. Seems that Armstrong disappeared from that place of residence at or around the time his boss and possible lover, Edward Terwilliger, was convicted.”
My stomach hollowed. “So we’ve got nothing.”
“On the contrary. Our tech guys then focused on Armstrong’s car. They discovered he’s using tollways, the I-25 and the I-225, from Highlands Ranch to the airport every Monday through Friday.”
“He’s got himself a job,” I said, while the need to hunt rose like a living thing inside me. If I could find this guy, it was possible I could put an end to Rory’s problems.
“Exactly.” This came from Mary Jane, sounding as crisp and clinical as her father.
“We went through the personnel records of Denver International, and found Armstrong’s working as a bartender at Duffy’s Bar and Grill in Terminal B.
His car, an olive green 2020 Subaru Forester, parks in the employee parking lot where he takes a shuttle in with the rest of the worker bees.
We’ve got hours of footage of Armstrong getting on and off the shuttle, walking the terminal to the bar, yada, yada, yada.
Basically he’s living such an ordinary life it’s no wonder he isn’t making anyone in law enforcement look twice.
I certainly wouldn’t be looking at him if it weren’t for the fact that he’s around five-ten, with slightly sunken shoulders and wider in the hips. ”
Pear-shaped. Just like Rory said. “Send me everything—pics of his vehicle and license plate, his face, video of how he walks and moves compared to our firebug, the routes he’s driven since Edward Terwilliger was convicted. Everything.”
“We’re not sure where he’s living now,” Cap cautioned. “All we know for sure is that he gets on the toll road at Highlands Ranch at eight every morning.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll find out where Armstrong is holed up.” If I knew his car and that he’d be coming from Denver International Airport, I’d have no trouble tracking him. Just the thought made me smile, and I glanced back to where Rory sat, eager to share the news.
My pulse stuttered when I found the bench she’d been sitting on completely empty.