Page 30 of Shane
Finally geared up enough to feel like himself again, he returned his bag to the rear seat and watched the streets go by. Many were lined with strip malls, Mom and Pop restaurants, gas stations, and convenience stores. In a few miles, those businesses faded into an older residential neighborhood, where elegant brick houses had been set back beyond large, well-kept lawns, trimmed privet hedges, and horseshoe-shaped driveways that took visitors right up to their front doors.
Branches of well-established live oaks bowed over the unmarked asphalt thoroughfares, creating shady tunnels to drive through. No sidewalks. No cars parked on the streets. Not much traffic. Basically, Bremmer lived in a quiet bedroom community, which seemed odd for a black widow who’d killed her husband and children. Unless she was already hunting her next target.
Everlee’s glance strayed from left to right as if she too was trying to figure out why a killer would choose this little piece of domestic suburbia. “Does she have family here? Relatives?”
“None that I know of.” He’d read the mission brief late last night. For some reason, Shane felt a kinship with the diabolical woman he hadn’t yet met. He had no idea why. Bremmer was either a monster or a victim, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was the same. Still a victim of his mother’s death, also a monster trained by the Corps. Neither by choice, both more through fate. Was that the only difference between Bremmer and him? Would he kill again? Absolutely. Would she? Shane wished he knew that answer.
The information in her file portrayed her as an insignificantly normal teenager until she’d turned sixteen. Tuesday Bremmer had been born Tuesday Smart. She’d been a serious straight-A student, also team captain on her high school volleyball team. But within weeks of her sixteenth birthday, her parents, Ray and Riki Smart, were killed in a one-car traffic accident. Alex had that woman named Mother check over the details of their deaths. Shortly after her parents’ joint funeral, Tuesday dropped out of school and disappeared from her hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. Didn’t surface again until she’d married millionaire Frederick Lamb in a lavish ceremony at The Hamptons and moved into his NYC penthouse. Where she had allegedly killed him.
“You’ve read her brief,” Shane assumed. “How do you think a sixteen-year-old even met a man forty-two years her senior? They couldn’t have traveled in the same circles, not some big shot from New York City and a kid from Minnesota.”
“The brief didn’t go into that much detail, but who knows how these types think? Freddie could’ve been a friend of the family or one of her dad’s business associates. Maybe that’s all their marriage was, a way for Bremmer to get out of town and get herself into the lap of luxury. I mean, what’s worse, living unknown and alone in Podunk, Minnesota, for the rest of your life or whooping it up on the arm of a good-looking millionaire? Especially one so much older.”
“I take it you’ve read the media reports included with the brief then.”
“Yeah, lots of speculation, and everyone’s got an opinion, but no real proof of anything, anywhere. No personal interviews with Bremmer, either. At least one would’ve been nice,” Everlee answered. She’d slowed the arrest-me-red SUV into the curb on the opposite side of the street from where Bremmer allegedly lived. A for-sale sign marked SOLD dominated the middle of her front yard, but the place didn’t look vacant, and the yard was too well-kept if it were. The home’s owners were listed as Val and Sharlett Coogan; their real estate agent marketed himself as Dan-the-Man Greenberg. But the lawn had recently been trimmed, and the flowerbeds were full of pink and yellow flowers.
“Damn, this place is a little too Ozzie and Harriet for a killer like Bremmer, don’t you think?” Everlee asked.
“She could be in the process of buying. She’s rich enough. Let’s sit and watch a while. Keep the car running and the a/c on. Springtime in Texas can make sitting in a parked vehicle uncomfortable. No sense sweating if we don’t have to.”
“Good call.” Everlee put the SUV in PARK but kept it idling.
Shane leaned forward to look past her at the house in question. He had to admit, it was homier than he’d expected. Maybe theAddams Familymansion would have served her better?
They sat in front of the house for three hours and did nothing but make small talk and watch the grass grow. While there was little more activity from Bremmer’s neighbors and their families as the hours dragged by, there was absolutely no sign of life inside her house. No one came or went. Not even the mailman. There were no Amazon or UPS deliveries, either.
“She could be in the wind,” Everlee murmured. “She’s smart enough, probably knew we were coming and took off.”
Everlee had grown restless, and Shane didn’t blame her. Most people couldn’t sit still for very long. But then, most people weren’t trained snipers hunting their latest high-value target. “True. Or she could be hiding in plain sight and we just haven’t spotted her yet.”
“She’s got balls if she is,” Everlee said to her side window. “But I guess a woman smart enough to kill two husbands and her kids would know how to get away with murder.”
“She hasn’t gotten away with anything yet.”
“Hmmpf,” Everlee breathed again.
Bremmer’s brick home was older, built generations earlier when porches were large, wide-open places where families gathered at the end of the day, where neighbors paused for gossip or company. Two white rocking chairs made the place look inviting and lived in, although Shane suspected they might have been added for curb appeal. Bright yellow daffodils danced along the front walk, all the way from the curb to the wooden porch steps. There were no sidewalks in this neighborhood, just plenty of green between the homes.
Both Bremmer’s steps and porch were built of wide wooden planks, and from where Shane sat, the lumber looked like stained redwood. No fancy gingerbread gables adorned the eaves. The window frames were modern aluminum, not old-fashioned wood. Just clean lines and minimal upkeep everywhere. He kept his eyes on the curtained, multi-paned picture windows at each side of the front entry. The sheer panels to the left of the door fluttered at the far right, lower corner. Probably a nearby vent creating the subtle disturbance in the air, but it gave him something to look at.
They’d landed at DFW at three pm. By six-thirty, the spring sun had set and the curtain was still moving. Not regularly. Just often enough to make Shane suspicious. There were no lights on inside, but there was only one way to make sure Bremmer wasn’t home.
“I’m going in,” he told Everlee. “I’ll take the front. You take the back. Head her off if she bolts.”
“You bet,” Everlee replied as she tried to grab her gear bag, the black one with three gray smiling skulls across the front flap, from the rear seat.
“Here, let me get that for you.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“But my arm’s longer, and you can’t reach it.”
“Well, yeah, there is that,” she finally admitted when she couldn’t extend her arm or fingers any farther. “Okay, all right. You’re right this time, Hayes, but I’m no pansy. I pull my own weight.”
“Never said you didn’t.” He couldn’t resist the smile that tweaked his lips.
“I open my own car doors, too.” She seemed determined he understood that.