"Fine," she said with distraction. "I know this man, Nathan."
"What?" he asked, wondering how often he could keep feeling complete and utter surprise. But as he moved around her to look at the shooter, an icy chill washed over him, an old memory tugging at the back of his mind.
The ski mask had been removed—and while blood from a forehead wound covered the man's face and had made its way through dirty-blond hair and a scruffy beard, the hazel eyes shocked open in death were very familiar. He knew this man, too, but he hadn't seen him since he'd left the old neighborhood. "Calvin—"
"Baker," she finished, meeting his gaze. "He used to run with Johnny. He was two years younger, and Johnny was his idol. He was always asking him if he could do jobs for him."
"This guy is tied to Johnny," he muttered.
"Or was tied to him," she said quickly.
He frowned. "Your go-to move—always defend Johnny, always look for another explanation."
Her gaze turned angry. "I'm not doing that. I'm just stating a fact. Neither one of us knows what Calvin Baker has been doing the last ten or eleven years."
She had a point, so he would let it go—for now. "The police said there was another shooter."
"Yes. He took the kill shot. I just wanted to disable this guy, so we could talk to him. I should have moved faster. I should have stopped Mark before he ever got here."
He could see the guilt rolling through her eyes, and he shared some of those feelings. But the situation had been tense, and dynamic, and completely unpredictable. "If you'd stopped Mark before he got here, we wouldn't have found Baker. He might be dead, but he's still a good lead. There could be a trail to who he was working with. That could take us one step closer to finding Hayley."
"I just hope Mark survives."
"Me, too," he said heavily. "Why do you think the second shooter took out Baker? Why not aim for you? You were completely in the open. Or he could have hit Mark or myself."
"He wanted to stop Baker from talking, and he probably didn't have time to take us all out. If he was up in one of the silos, he could have seen the police cars coming down the road."
"What's going to happen next?"
"Every inch of the grounds will be searched for evidence."
"You don't seem to be a part of that."
"I was told to stay out of it. Tracy said I've helped enough," she said grimly.
"How much trouble are you in?"
"Probably a lot. But I don't really care about that. What I want to do is keep working the case." She paused, looking around. "Let's get out of here."
"Can we just leave?" he asked, surprised by her suggestion. "The police officer I spoke to told me to stay close."
"Well, you're with me, and at the moment, I'm still a federal agent. I want to go to the hospital and get an update on Mark's condition. I'm betting Lindsay is already headed down there, and I still want to show her the photos I was texted earlier."
"If she confirms those photos are of Hayley, and you now know that Calvin Baker, a former associate of Johnny's, was involved in a ransom demand, are you going to consider the fact that Johnny is the one who is tormenting you?"
"I'm already considering that, Nathan. I'm not an idiot," she snapped.
"I know you're not, but it just doesn't seem like the Johnny blinders have come off yet."
"They've been off for a long time. Let's get out of here while we have the chance."
Bree only had to flash her badge once at a police officer cordoning off the scene before they were out of the silos and crossing the road. The truck was still where they'd parked it, and he held out his hand for the keys.
Bree gave them to him without comment and he slid behind the wheel. It felt good to be back in control of something. "So far, so good," he said. "No one stopped us."
She gave him a weak smile. "Not yet."
"For what it's worth, I think you handled yourself really well back there. It was Mark who kept getting in the way. He kept moving around, blocking your shot. And if you'd waited for backup, Mark would definitely be dead. He would not have made it out of there alive."
"I just wonder if I shouldn't have pulled him out of there before Baker arrived."
"There wasn't time, Bree. And if there hadn't been a second shooter, the gunman would be alive, and we'd have a link to find Hayley."
"But there was another person there, an associate of Baker's. And ruthless enough to take out his partner to stop him from talking," she said grimly.
"Yes," he agreed, worrying again about how the unfolding of events might affect Hayley.
"I don't understand the ransom call, either," she muttered. "It doesn't fit the pattern."
"I think you're going to have to throw out the patterns and the rule book on this case."
"I agree," she said, glancing over at him. "I'm not so sure the rest of the agency will consider that a good option, though."
"Won't your fellow agents understand and appreciate the complexity of the situation you just faced?"
"They should, but I'm not part of this office. It would be different if I were in New York. I have friends there who would support me. But the Chicago team has been annoyed with my presence since day one. They don't like that the kidnapper is obsessed with me. They don't like that I'm the one getting clues. They're not happy about my interview with Kyle or my relationship with you. And they definitely are not excited about what went down here. The more days that pass without us finding Hayley, the more pressure everyone is under. And now the missing girl's father is in the hospital, fighting for his life." She paused. "Maybe I did botch this."
"You didn't choose to be the kidnapper's target. You had no idea that I was connected to the Jansens or the only witness." He paused, thinking about that. "You know, if Johnny is behind this, it's pretty ironic that I am tied to Grace. He wanted me out of your life from the first time he realized we were friends. And now we're connected again."
"That is ironic. He didn't like me having any other friends but him. As a teenager, I thought his possessiveness was sweet." She let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know. Maybe it is Johnny. If I had to pick someone who could really hate me, the only person I can think of is him."
He was glad she'd finally admitted that.
"At any rate, I will deal with the fallout of my actions, when I don't have a choice. Until I'm suspended, I'm going to do my job the best way I can. What else do you remember about Calvin Baker?"
"He got in a lot of fights. He was dealing drugs. Nothing more specific. He wasn't anyone I hung out with." He glanced over at her. "What do you remember? You probably saw him more than I did."
"He was always looking to score points with Johnny, offering to work at the gym or do whatever he needed done. Johnny would get annoyed that Cal would continually text him. And I would get annoyed that Johnny was always on his phone. But that wasn't just because of Cal. In the beginning of our relationship, Johnny was just running the gym for his dad, or at least that's what I thought. Obviously, I discovered later that he was engaged in a lot of other criminal activities and that he wasn't ever planning to get out of the family business."