Tax Assassin by Claudia Hall Christian Page A

sink, and Bob cleared his throat.
    “ One thing,” Seth said.
“They had no idea how Bella knew her father was going to be in
town. And I don’t think they were faking. They were freaked out
when she called and even more disturbed when she received
permission to see him. We haven’t been able to track who approved
all of that or how it went down. Jasper and Kowalski were going to
do that when they left the hospital.”
    “ You think it was a hit on
both of them?” Nelson said.
    “ Bella didn’t just get in
the way?” Leslie asked.
    “ It was a hit,” Seth
said.

FIFTEEN
    The team fell silent while they focused on
the food in front of them.
    “ What did you find out?”
Ava asked as she came back into the room. “I mean, I’m gonna miss
Bella for the rest of my life. And my dad? I . . .
Anyway, I have a lifetime to feel bad and cry and beat my chest and
be mad at God. But I can only find her killer now, before he
disappears somewhere. So what can you tell me about her
murder?”
    “ Self-guided bullets,” Bob
said.
    “ Military,” Leslie said.
“ Very hush, hush,
and experimental.”
    “ I found a picture of a
test of them on the Internet,” Nelson said. “But when I called
Sandia National Labs, where the bullets were tested, they kind of
freaked out. I was able to find out through a military buddy of
mine that they’re missing some ammo.”
    “ From Sandia?” Seth
asked.
    Nelson nodded.
    “ We were asked to determine
how the shooter managed to hit them with such accuracy,” Bob said.
“He shot through the curtain. There’s no evidence of cameras or
other surveillance in the room. How did he do it? Everyone assumed
he had visual access to the targets. The ammunition implies that he
knew where they would be sitting but couldn’t necessarily see
them.”
    “ Which implicates Jasper or
Kowalski,” Seth said.
    “ Right,” Bob
said.
    Seth shook his head.
    “ What?” Ava asked
him.
    “ They’re way ahead of us,”
Seth said.
    “ How else would he know
where they would be sitting?” Nelson asked.
    “ I can think of three
ways,” Seth said. “Satellite imaging, heat, or radar.”
    “ Hacking a satellite isn’t
easy, but it’s definitely doable,” Nelson said.
    “ Or he gained access to the
codes when he took this assignment,” Seth said.
    “ He could have stolen the
technology from a nearby oil field – sonar, x-ray,” Ava
said.
    “ That’s right,” Fran said.
“There are lots of fields out there in the middle of nowhere
Colorado.”
    “ Does the Niobrara Shale
Field go all the way down there?” Nelson asked.
    “ No but the Raton Basin is
right there,” Fran said. “Coal methane and natural gas.”
    “ They’d have stuff like
that just lying around or in a trailer,” Bob said. “Easy
pickings.”
    “ Didn’t someone tell you he
was a high school science teacher?” Leslie asked.
    “ Maybe,” Seth
said.
    “ We haven’t found him yet,
Les,” Ava said. “He’s not on the website and turns out the phone’s
not answered after the kids are out for the summer. I left a
message, but . . .”
    “ If he’s a science teacher,
he’d know how to make lots of stuff,” Leslie said.
    “ Good thinking,” Seth said.
“He could have made something – x-ray or heat or . . .”
    “ They use these for ghost
hunting. My Google search brought up four different of DIY
instructions on how to make a thermographic camera,” Nelson said.
“These would take some amount of skill, but it would be easy for a
high school science teacher. There are even instructions for ghost
hunters to make one for their iPhones.”
    He turned the laptop so that Seth could see
the screen.
    “ Can we ask for records to
see . . .?” Bob started.
    “ No time,” Seth
said.
    “ He could have used a
computer anywhere,” Ava said.
    “ But probably at school,”
Bob said. “It’s worth a try. If Ava kills this guy, we’ll have it
as backup.”
    “ On it,” Nelson
said.
    “ All he needed were