Like the others filling the seats around her, the intimidating man was a genuine American hero. To Ellie, however, Van’s dark eyes and perpetually stone-cold expression made him look more like a villain.
“Hey,” Van’s deep murmur was barely audible as he made his way to a chair near one of the table’s ends.
Ellie greeted him with a nod and small wave.
“Now that everyone’s here…” Lucky flipped open his laptop and typed something into his computer. He then picked up the remote and powering up the small flatscreen mounted on the wall to Ellie’s left.
She watched and waited, her mind racing to figure out what she was about to see. Seconds later, the screen became filled with several images. Stills from yesterday’s press conference.
Or, more specifically, yesterday’s shooting.
Her chest immediately grew tight, and Ellie slid her hands from the table to her lap to conceal the slight tremor she knew was coming on.
“I was up all night last night going over the security footage from every courthouse camera facing the area where the press conference was held,” Lucky explained, his focus on the flatscreen and, thankfully, not her. “I watched each one, start to finish, then I went back and took them all frame by frame.” He pressed the remote again, and all but one of the images vanished. “This was seconds before the first shot rang out,” he explained.
Ellie studied the image closely. In it, she could see herself standing between her former mentor and Mayor Oswald as Special Agent Strauss addressed the crowd of reporters and citizens.
“Am I…missing something?”
Because she wasn’t seeing anything that looked out of the ordinary.
“Just watch.” Lucky pressed another button and the still turned into a full-blown video.
Though she’d tried to prepare for it, Ellie’s entire body jolted when the sound of a gunshot filled the T.V.’s speakers.
Don’t let them see it, El. Do not show these guys your fear.
Schooling her expression—and keeping her trembling hands out of the others’ line of sight—Ellie remained unmoving as Lucky stopped the video and started it again, from the beginning. This time, however, he took it frame-by-frame, just as he’d said he’d done while she’d been lost in sleep.
Had he really spent the entire night going over the security footage?
No wonder he was uncharacteristically quiet this morning. The man has to be utterly exhausted.
Feeling silly for spending so much of her own time contemplating the man’s odd mood, Ellie returned her hands to the table and forced them to remain still. For the next several minutes, and the others watched silently as Lucky explained in great detail what he’d learned from studying the recordings.
Pulling the original stills back up onto the screen, he was surprisingly meticulous in his descriptions of the events as they’d taken place. Lucky pointed out positions and angles. He talked about the wind’s directions and speed as they had been the day before.
Ellie’s years in the courtroom had trained her well in the art of listening. Countless hours of her life had already been spent listening to expert witnesses recite detail after mundane detail.
That same training came in handy now, as she sat there, soaking in every single word the sexy man was saying. Of course, it didn’t hurt thatthisexpert came in a very nice, very good-looking package.
That package turned and faced the table once again. When Lucky spoke, it was clear he was addressing the entire room. But those damn eyes of his remained solely locked with hers.
And if she wasn’t mistaken, the tiny slivers of fear and anger she’d seen hidden there when he’d first walked into the room were no longer tiny. In fact, they were as clear to see as the bulging muscle in his strong, square jaw.
“I also accessed the security footage from the other buildings nearby,” he went on. “But between the cameras’ positioning and the crowd that had gathered, there wasn’t anything useful on any of those.”
“So we still don’t know what the shooter looks like,” she concluded.
“Unfortunately, no. But we will,” he vowed. Lucky’s gaze bore into hers a full two seconds longer before he blinked and returned his focus to the others. “Thanks to the courthouse footage, we do now have a pretty good idea of who the shooter was aiming at.”
Ellie’s lungs threatened to revolt, and her heat felt as if it were lodging in the base of her throat. Because yeah…she had a pretty good idea of the shooter’s target, too.
“It was me,” she announced woodenly. Her gaze moved from the stills on the screen to the man standing in their way. “I was the target.”
The proof in that conclusion was right there. In the videos. In Lucky’s expert assessment of the bullets’ trajectories.
“That first bullet missed you by centimeters.” Archer’s solemn stare met hers. “If you hadn’t tripped when you did—”