down to a specific time period helps. The way I see it, either something happened with your parents, they found out something and told the Broomes. Or the Broomes found out something and told your parents.”
“What about the Winds?”
“That’s sort of the wild card. They weren’t at the dinner, but they must be involved somehow too, otherwise why would they have ended up dead?”
“Do you think it has something to do with their time in the military?”
“My gut tells me that it should. But all the facts don’t point to that. Namely, my involvement in all this. If I’m right and I’m the reason why this whole thing has been orchestrated, why involve your parents, the Broomes, and the Winds? I didn’t know any of them.”
“So you really think all of this is tied to you somehow?”
Robie could sense the question left unspoken.
Was I the reason her parents were killed?
“Yes, I think it does. Too many coincidences otherwise.”
Julie pondered this. “So either the Winds, my parents, or the Broomes found something out. Because they were in the military together the guys might have told each other about it. The bad guys found out and they had to kill them.”
“That makes sense.”
“Yeah, I guess it does,” Julie said, looking away from Robie.
He let a few tense moments pass by before he spoke. “Julie, I don’t know what’s going on. If this is really all about me and your parents and the others were caught up in it, I’m sorry.”
“I’m not blaming you for what happened to my parents, Will,” she said, though her voice held no conviction.
Robie stood and paced. “Well, maybe you should,” he said over his shoulder.
“Blaming you isn’t going to bring them back. And what I want hasn’t changed. I want to get whoever did this. All of them.”
Robie sat back down and looked at her. “I think there was no more than a twenty-four-hour window when whatever got your parents killed was communicated among Wind, Broome, and your dad. If we can trace a call, or a movement, or any type of communication among that group, we might be able to get a better handle on all this.”
“Can you do that?”
“We can at least give it a hell of a shot. The problem is, so far nothing in their background suggests they were involved in anything that could have been the catalyst for all this.”
“Well, they weren’t the only ones in the squad, right? A squad consists of nine or ten soldiers, with a staff sergeant in command.”
“How do you know that?”
“American history class. We’re studying World War II. So my dad, Wind, and Broome are three guys. That means you have six or seven more to track down.”
Robie shook his head, wondering how he’d missed something that obvious. Then he looked down at Julie’s chest.
The laser dot was centered right over her heart.
CHAPTER
75
ROBIE MADE NO visible reaction to the laser dot. He knew it was from a sniper rifle. He didn’t look to the window, where he knew the blinds must be partially open. The rifle and the shooter were out there somewhere, probably within a thousand yards of a house that had just become as unsafe as it was possible to be.
He inwardly chastised himself for not earlier noting the open blinds.
He put his hands under the table separating him and her. He smiled.
“What’s so funny?” she asked quizzically.
“You ever play a game called Whac-A-Mole?”
“Uh, are you feeling okay, Will?”
He felt along the underside of the table. Solid wood, not cheap composite. That was good. About an inch thick. That might be good enough. It would have to be good enough. He would have to perform two movements, one with each hand. He drew a breath and his smile deepened, because if Julie made any sudden movements it would be over.
“I was just thinking about something that happened to me a long time ago—”
He flipped up the table with one hand so it was shielding Julie from the sniper, and drew his Glock with his other hand.
Julie screamed as Robie fired, killing the overhead light. The rifle shot shattered the window and drove into the wood and passed through it, but the barrier had served to throw off the line of fire. It struck the wall to the left of Julie.
“Get down,” snapped Robie. Julie immediately went to her belly. Robie heard footsteps rushing down the hall.
Robie moved behind the table.
He turned to Julie, who lay flat on the floor with her hands over her