Cease Fire. Janie Crouch

happening to the rest of the team on their phones.

      “I want to apologize to you,” Freihof said, looking impossibly genuine. “I’ve been toying with you, and the people who I’ve been working with haven’t always been successful in the tasks they’ve been given.”

      “Is there any way to trace this?” Roman asked quietly to the side.

      “Not from here,” Derek responded. “But if he’s broadcasting this to everyone in Omega, then somebody’s tracing it.”

      “I realize,” Freihof continued, “that my colleagues’ failures to kill the people we targeted may cause you not to take me so seriously. And again, that’s my fault. Never trust someone else to do a job you really should do yourself.”

      Freihof, showman that he was, slowly removed the hood from his victim’s head.

      Grace Parker.

      Roman looked into the eyes of the older woman he’d spent so much time talking to these last few months. The one who’d gotten him through not only the explosion that had almost killed him, but sorting through the feelings he had for Keira Spencer.

      “Damn it, where are they?” Lillian said.

      “I think that’s Grace’s home office. I met with her there a couple of times when I had required visits,” Roman said.

      Derek was already calling it in.

      But Freihof was too smart to waste time now that he’d let his location be known.

      “I’ll make this lesson quick,” Freihof said, nodding sincerely. “You call yourself the good guys, but that’s not always the case, is it? It’s time for you to pay for your sins.”

      The entire team rushed toward the screen as if they could do something when they saw Freihof take out a knife and stand behind Grace Parker.

      “It’s time for you to know the pain I’ve known.”

      Everyone watched helplessly as, with his words, Freihof slashed the knife across Grace’s throat. She died in front of them, none of them able to do a single thing about it.

       Chapter Six

      An odd mixture of devastated silence and barely concealed rage permeated the air of the Omega conference room two days later. The mood inside the building reflected the weather outside.

      A deadly storm was brewing.

      Another one of their own was dead. This time murdered in cold blood right in front of their eyes.

      Steve had called an all-hands meeting, knowing the team needed firm leadership now more than ever. Brandon Han stood at the front of the room with him. They both looked like everyone else in the room did: as if they hadn’t had a moment’s sleep since Grace’s death and wanted to break something with their bare hands.

      Preferably Damien Freihof’s face.

      Lillian sat next to Roman in the corner near the back. Tension fairly hummed through her small body.

      “I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to sit through a meeting,” she whispered to Roman.

      “I know. And Steve knows. Don’t worry.”

      The room was pretty evenly divided between investigative agents and SWAT, with a few crime lab scientists and computer experts thrown in. You could tell who the SWAT team members were even if they weren’t all similarly dressed in black cargo pants and formfitting dry-weave shirts.

      They were the ones—like Lillian—with a furious energy flowing through their bodies. They didn’t want to sit around having a meeting about how to catch Freihof, they wanted to be out there doing it.

      But they couldn’t do that, because once again, they had no idea where Freihof was located.

      “Grace Parker was one of our own,” Steve Drackett began. “A vital member of the Critical Response Unit and a personal friend to many of us. She’ll never be replaced.”

      Steve waited in silence for a moment.

      “Freihof has brought a war to us. To our own doorstep. We’re going to damn well make sure he regrets that.”

      Everyone in the room nodded. A few cheered. Everyone sat up a little straighter.

      “I’ve called you here today because I want to make sure everyone is up to speed on the case,” Steve continued. “Everyone is at risk, so we all need to have as much information about Freihof as possible. Brandon.”

      Lips tight, Brandon hit some buttons on the keyboard of the computer he stood by and brought up a timeline on the big screen.

      “Our history with Freihof goes back a long way. We thought it started five years ago when my wife, Andrea—before she was associated with Omega—was able to let Steve know about Freihof’s intent to blow up himself, and a couple dozen people, in a bank in Arizona.”

      Steve nodded. “Grace was there that day also.”

      Brandon paused for a moment, nodding, before continuing. “Freihof was stopped and sent to prison, but escaped last year. Andrea and I were both nearly killed when he reappeared in Arizona after his escape.” Brandon pointed to another spot on the timeline. “He showed back up here in Colorado two months ago, after not being seen for ten months.”

      A picture of Summer Worrall and her daughter, Chloe, came up on the screen. Roman saw Ashton Fitzgerald tense. The other man didn’t like to think about what had almost happened to his fiancée, and the child he considered to be his own daughter.

      “Two months ago, Freihof targeted Summer Worrall, because of her connection to us.” Brandon looked over at Roman. “We almost lost Roman in the explosion Freihof set, and Tyrone Marcus died.”

      Roman didn’t need a reminder.

      “A week after that, Freihof went after our friends in Texas, Caroline Gill and Zane Wales. Fortunately, the people he convinced to target them were not able to fulfill their mission—part of what Freihof was talking about when he killed Grace.

      “We had not seen or heard anything from Freihof for two months. Although we certainly had hoped he was gone for good, we knew that wouldn’t be the case.” Brandon looked around the room at everyone. “But things have changed now. Freihof has upped the ante.”

      Again, there were multiple muttered agreements.

      “Freihof has decided to get his own hands dirty rather than just use other people to do his killing, the way he has in the past,” Brandon said. “Up until now, part of his MO has been convincing others to do his dirty work for him. We’re not exactly sure why, probably part of some sort of elaborate mind game.

      “But what we do know is that he did not get the results he wanted, trying to convince others to do the killing. Their success rate was less than optimal.”

      “He succeeded in killing Tyrone,” Roman reminded everyone.

      Brandon nodded. “Yes, but Tyrone’s death was not the actual plan. He wasn’t the target.”

      “Although that doesn’t make Tyrone any less dead and it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to make sure Freihof pays for that,” Steve assured everyone.

      “Freihof has now decided that he wants to do at least some of the killing himself. Grace Parker was his first target. We don’t know anything except that she will not be the last,” Brandon continued. “This is the note that we found at the scene of Grace’s murder.”

      A new picture came up on the screen. A note very clearly written in bold stroked letters.

       When you lose someone you love it hurts.

      “What the hell does that mean?” Lillian asked. “If he thinks