The boy nodded minutely. His eyes took on a haunted, depthless look. The father knew that the boy had gone down the rabbit hole.

"You're ready." An echo from the outside world. Green light.

He squeezed the trigger. The barrel recoiled up and to the right.

The report was tiny but still shocking and lonely in the mountains. Out of place somehow.

The wolf jumped several feet in the air, and then was gone, as though it had never been there. Except for the red snow.

Father and son took off in pursuit, their breath ragged in the frigid morning air.

They came upon the place where the wolf had been. The blood patch.

"I'm sorry. I missed."

"You didn't."

The man pointed up ahead, and the boy saw that there were now two parallel blood trails. Close together, but distinct. He'd hit it after all. The wolf was twice wounded.

Father and son kept after the animal.

The man was amazed that the wolf could still move. That much blood, he thought. He had already respected the wolf. Had felt anger toward it. Now he felt another, less common emotion.

They pursued.

CHAPTER 7.

The ridge overlooking Captain Bryant's Vista Canyon neighborhood was clotted with dense pockets of red-barked manzanita, sharp-bladed tall gra.s.s, and live oaks-providing ample cover for his killer. Jacob knew it was the kind of terrain firefighters hated. The tall gra.s.s could get as high as three feet, and it only stayed green for about three weeks. Then it was golden brown. Just ready for a spark. Manzanita burned longer and hotter than other shrubbery, stubbornly refusing to succ.u.mb to the water. And yet it provided perfect cover for anyone who could crawl under and into the heart of it. Once there, the manzanita itself provided a canopy of concealment.

On the ridge, two deputies strung crime scene tape around trees in an area Jacob and Kathryn had scouted out, marking it as the secondary crime scene. Technicians from Science Division were en route, as were homicide detectives. The news vans wouldn't be far behind.

Jacob and Lieutenant Cowell hunkered to the ground to peer down the hillside toward Bryant's house. Kathryn stood behind them.

"The shooter could have ended it in one shot," Jacob said. "But he shot the cartridge in Bryant's hand first. That was purposeful. The shot in the ground was to warn me back. All the rest of it was just torture by bullet."

Cowell asked, "Why?"

The two men looked at each other. Jacob shrugged.

Kathryn said, "Maybe he was showing off?"

Cowell grunted. Noncommittal. He thought more about it, then said, "For Jacob?"

The two men exchanged another look. She was right on the money.

"Our counter-snipers are anonymous. n.o.body knows who they are. It's unlikely the shooter would know Denton was anything but another officer checking on the captain. And why would the shooter want to show off?"

"To make me think he's better than I am," Jacob said. He already believed Kathryn was right. It had been a show.

Jacob lay on his stomach, facing down the hill, over the ridge. Below, he could see detectives, a CSI van, gloved men in suits, and police tape at the primary crime scene.

"Based on the trajectory, I'd say he shot from up here somewhere."

Jacob slid over a few feet.

"If it were me, I'd shoot from right here."

Jacob held his arms out in front of him as if holding his own weapon. He looked to his right.

"Here we go."

Jacob got up, took a pen from his pocket and inserted it into the end of a sh.e.l.l casing on the ground. Once he had it, he rotated the pen in his hand, examining the casing from different angles.

"Looks to be the same ammo we use, L.T., Federal Match casing, and probably a Sierra Boat Tail bullet. When we recover one of the bullets on the scene, I'll know for sure."

"Why Sierras?"

"Because that's what all the cool kids shoot."

Off in the distance, they could hear the low, almost tribal sound of rotor blades beating the air. News choppers.

"Just the one casing? He fired, what, six rounds?"

"Six, yes sir." Jacob looked around. "I only see the one. I'm sure Science will bring metal detectors. But I doubt they'll find any more. The single casing was probably left on purpose. The shooter is far too disciplined to be messy."

Kathryn pulled an evidence bag from her pocket, and Jacob dropped the casing inside. Cowell reached for the bag and said, "We should keep this to ourselves. Just for a bit."

"Why?" Kathryn asked.

"It's one of our own."

"Hold on. That's a h.e.l.l of a jump. All I said was it's the same ammo. Any hunter can buy it."

"It's one of us."

"How, L.T.?"

"The marksmanship, the ballistics, the target, the note."

"Note?"

"Earlier today. Said Bryant should never have given the green light. That he should have known what would happen. The term 'green light' was specifically used."

"You have someone in mind?" Jacob asked, but of course he knew the answer. He'd been thinking the same thing, long before it occurred to Cowell. Maybe ever since the second bullet went in the ground at his feet, warning him off.

"I do."

"You're wrong."

"Why is it his name came to your mind, too?"

"Not Lee Staley. No."

"It got pretty ugly at the end. It might be you next."

"That's not going to happen."

"The man has a grudge. And you took his job."

"Oz didn't do this."

Kathryn's radio crackled to life in the background. She spoke into her shoulder mic and had to raise her voice to be heard above the helicopters now overhead. She turned to Jacob.

"SWAT activation."

The homicide detectives would be handling this case from here on out, so even though he wanted to, Jacob had no real reason to stay. He realized this was going to be one h.e.l.l of a long day.

CHAPTER 8.

Wallace Biggsby was a good man. All of his life, he had been a good man. He prayed to G.o.d. He was true to his wife. He was an attentive, involved father to his children. He worked hard at his job. He was a manager at McDonald's. Not a shift manager, but a restaurant manager. And he had every expectation that within three years he would be promoted to district manager, with fourteen restaurants under him. This was not the kind of career path people went on Facebook and posted about so all their high school friends could see. But Wallace Biggsby didn't care. Wallace Biggsby did not have a Facebook account.

But soon, the Internet would be buzzing about Wallace. Social pages would be updated with breathless posts of I was in grade school with that guy, he used to pick his nose and wipe boogers on his Toughskins. Wallace would be summed up in 140 characters or less: Dude, that guy is my boss. Total d.i.c.k. Always knew he would snap. In fact, in just a few hours, Wallace Biggsby would be trending on Twitter.

She said she was going to leave him. That she was taking the kids and going. She wanted more from life. That they weren't right for each other. They'd grown apart.

She didn't come right out and say it, but he knew the grease smell bothered her, too. No matter how often he bathed, Wallace always smelled vaguely of deep fryer oil and the reconst.i.tuted onions used on the hamburgers and Big Macs. They used to joke about it. It was cute. But she never kidded him about it anymore. He knew that she had grown to hate the way he smelled. It was a symbol to her. It was everything that was wrong in their lives.

She said he didn't love her anymore. He was distant.

Distant? Well of course he was distant. He was working his f.u.c.king-forgive me, Lord-a.s.s off to support her and the children. He was away working himself to death dealing with acne-faced teenagers who had zero respect for anything in this world. So yes, he was distant.

He was not going to let her take his children and leave him. He was not going to let another man step into his life and be a husband to his wife and a father to his children. A man who in all likelihood would not smell of grease and onions. A man with ambitions. Wallace could not abide that.

Working fast food didn't mean you weren't ambitious. A lot of famous people have worked at McDonald's. It's true. Jeff Bezos. Jay Leno. Sharon Stone. James Franco had worked the drive-thru, and Star Jones had gone from fry cook to cashier. It didn't have to be a dead-end job. Wallace knew he would likely never get his own talk show or found a Web-based multinational company. But he could be a district manager. He knew he had that in him.

Ellen said he'd changed. That he was a different person now. Well, didn't she think she'd changed, too?

He had images of pushing Ellen's head into a vat of boiling oil. See if she still wanted to leave him then. And that violent thought had made him feel good. He was a good man having bad thoughts. He thought of the gun hidden in his closet in a box marked TAX DOc.u.mENTS. He retrieved the gun. The gun made him feel powerful. In control.

He walked down the hall of his red brick ranch-style house, holding the gun at his side. It was a .38. He'd bought it for protection.

He opened the door to Christopher's bedroom. It was empty. Stripped of everything. Carly's bedroom was the same. Barren. And his and Ellen's room. Empty. She'd robbed him. He had nothing. They were gone. Ellen had taken the children and left him.

He wanted to die. Was ready to die. f.u.c.k it. f.u.c.k it all. f.u.c.k the grease, f.u.c.k the teenagers, f.u.c.k the district manager position, f.u.c.k Ellen, f.u.c.k living. And f.u.c.k G.o.d. That's right. f.u.c.k every last motherf.u.c.king motherf.u.c.ker in the motherf.u.c.king world. f.u.c.k it. Just f.u.c.k it.

He was going to shoot himself. A bullet right through his brain. That's what he told the 911 dispatcher. He just needed a little help.

He was a good man.

#wallacebiggsby was trending.

They were in position. Belly down on a hilltop amongst a patch of p.r.i.c.kly yellow star thistle. The sun beat down on them, baking them in their brown and tan desert BDUs. They watched the modest brick ranch house below. It looked just like the other houses in the neighborhood, except there were several patrol cars parked in front of it.

"Okay. We've got this guy contained with the perimeter team. He's armed, but has no hostages. Our job here is to provide high cover while the negotiators try to talk him out of the house."

"Well, at least it gets us out of training in this heat."

"Training isn't a ch.o.r.e. It's what keeps you alive. This will probably be over in about fifteen minutes."

Jacob's mind was consumed with the shooting death of Captain Bryant. And he couldn't help but believe that the showmanship aspect of it had been intended for him alone. The sniper could have taken Bryant out with a single shot-done in one-while he waited for the school bus with his children. Or likely a thousand other times before that moment. Jacob knew. A sniper did not just climb a hill and pop off a shot thirty minutes later. That's not the way it worked. A sniper located his target or the place that target was likely to appear. Then the sniper staked out a position above his target, in this case the crest overlooking Bryant's house in Vista Canyon. He would probably a.s.sume a position on his belly, setting the bipod on his weapon. The bipod was collapsible so it folded flat against the gun while in transit, and was then flipped out to hold the barrel up while the back end, the stock, was on the ground, or nestled into the sniper's shoulder. Without the bipod extended, the barrel was always lower than the target, and thus below the point of aim a little.

Once in this position you could see a sniper settle and melt into his weapon. They became one. Breathing changed, everything.

But there was work that went into making a shot before the rifle was even taken out of its case or sheath. In larger jurisdictions with heavy gang, drug, prost.i.tution, fugitive hunts, etc., law enforcement sharpshooters were always absorbing information. Up until the point they jumped down the rabbit hole, they were diagramming houses and buildings, sketching the geography and physical layout of the property. How many ways in and out were there? What does the target person drive? Which vehicles never move? What's his routine? What was the collateral risk? Who comes and goes? The variables were endless. Human behavior, the way your target held his body, the way he walked, swung his arms, the rhythm of his gait. There were facial recognition points, in case someone grew a beard or shaved one off, cut their hair, or had extensions put in, or simply put on big sungla.s.ses and a floppy hat.

Collateral concerns. Were there kids in the house? Is the target guy actually there or did he just leave? Is it safer to stop him on the road or wait until he comes back to the house? It all evolves and changes as the sniper hunts and stalks. It was better with an observer, a spotter. The observer just keeps eyes on everything. But it felt unlikely Bryant's shooter had a partner. And of course the sniper has to be invisible, too. Ghillie suits were good for that. For invisibility.

a.s.signed to guard a witness, Jacob had once built a hollow metal air-conditioning unit on the roof of a building across the street from the store of the man he'd been charged with protecting. He sat in the metal box for three days and kept eyes on a high traffic area where the stakes were much higher for civilian interaction. He never pulled the trigger, and no one ever knew he had even been there.

"How do you know this'll be over in fifteen minutes?"

"He's the one who called 911."

Kathryn cupped her hand over her ear.

"Copy. Suspect to exit by the front door. Team Two ready and in position."

Jacob looked at Kathryn and raised an eyebrow. Then returned to the rifle scope and lost himself.

Kathryn said, "So? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day."

Her tone changed to all-business. "Front door opening. He's coming out."

The front door swung wide. The man had one hand behind his back.