Done with that, she began to run through her notes on the VA story, only to find that she still couldn’t concentrate. Her gaze fell on Ali Al Zahrani’s FBI file. She set her VA notes aside, reached for the file, and looked through the list of articles she’d written over the past few months to see whether any of them might have provoked Ali. But none of them had touched on any topic remotely related to the Middle East or terrorism. There were, however, a lot of articles about her both in the Denver Independent and in other papers as the media focused on Al-Nassar’s upcoming trial.

Could that be it? Could that coverage have persuaded him somehow to think of her as an enemy, a threat that needed to be eradicated? Could there be some connection between Al-Nassar and Ali or his family of which the FBI wasn’t aware?

If Laura had read this report without having met Ali’s family and without having spent so much time in the Middle East, she might have bought that story without a second thought. Page after page painted a damning picture—a young man who’d gone from model teenager to terrorist in a matter of months, turning his back on society to carry out one fatal act of violence. But nothing in the report explained how Ali might have become radicalized or who might have influenced him. Could he have spent his afternoons radicalizing himself in his own bedroom?

Laura’s reporter instincts, instincts she’d learned to trust, told her that something was off here.

His afternoons.

Her heart gave a hard kick.

She grabbed her notes from her interview with Ali’s uncle together with a fistful of pages from Ali’s browser history and began to compare.

According to FBI’s interview notes and her own, Ali went from class to his uncle’s grocery store, where he worked every afternoon until the store closed. He got out of class at roughly two in the afternoon and then reported to work by three, usually getting home at about nine thirty at night. And yet all of the suspect Internet searches he’d made using his desktop computer and home IP address—every single one of them—had taken place between one and four in the afternoon.

That made no sense.

Laura double– and triple-checked the documents, page by page, and confirmed it. The condemning Internet searches had all been made from Ali’s home during the hours he was supposed to have been at school or working at his uncle’s grocery store.

That could only mean one of two things. Either his uncle was lying about Ali’s whereabouts in the afternoon—or someone else had been using Ali’s computer.

Had FBI investigators noticed this?

Surely, they had. Then again . . .

Just to be cautious, she read through the browser history for a fourth time, noticing things she hadn’t before. His afternoon searches were strictly related to bomb making and terrorism. There wasn’t a single search for naked women, no clicks on news articles, no visits to chat rooms, no detours to iTunes. Also, he’d never done any Internet searches about her. In fact, there was nothing in his browsing history that involved her at all, not even articles about Al-Nassar’s trial. To make matters stranger, he’d visited some of the sites—many of them, in fact—for only a matter of minutes before clicking on the next link and the next.

“Ms. Nilsson?”

Laura gasped, startled. She looked up to see Childers standing in her office doorway, smartphone in hand.

“Sorry to startle you, but I just got word that Mr. Corbray has been shot.”

* * *

IT WAS LATE afternoon by the time Javier was discharged from the hospital and free to head back to Laura’s place. He’d been questioned first by Darcangelo and then by two homicide detectives while waiting for the doctor to appear and stitch the graze. He’d been about to stitch the damned thing himself when the doctor had finally walked in and gotten the job done, leaving nine stitches in all.

Now, all he wanted to do was get back to Laura.

She’d put his phone number to use and called him the moment she’d heard he’d been shot, panic in her voice. He’d reassured her he was fine, but he knew she wouldn’t believe that until she saw him.

He walked with Hunter, Darcangelo, and two officers to the hospital’s parking garage. The two men had offered to accompany him back to Laura’s flat even though it wasn’t really their job.

“Why don’t you ride with that loser?” Darcangelo pointed to Hunter with a jerk of his head. “He’s got tinted windows that might give you more privacy if we run into media on the way.”

Hunter grinned. “He’s just jealous.”

Javier recognized close male friendship when he saw it. He climbed into Hunter’s SUV and put on his seat belt. “How long you and Darcangelo been married?”

Hunter grinned. “We met about six years ago. I’d broken out of prison, and Darcangelo was the one who found me.”

“Prison?” Javier listened while Hunter told him how he’d been convicted of a murder he didn’t commit. He’d broken out of prison to save Megan and Emily, and Darcangelo had put the pieces together, first bringing him in and then helping him prove his innocence.

“If it had been anyone else, I’d probably still be in the joint—or dead.”

Javier understood that bond. That was what he had with Nate. Except that he’d been awfully hard on Nate when he’d been up at the Cimarron, keeping him at a distance, keeping things from him.

Maybe you should set that right, cabrón.

Maybe he should.

* * *

LAURA WAS ABOUT to go out of her mind by the time Javier finally got home. She met him at the door, took in the sight of him. He smiled when he saw her, but she could tell he was troubled. Was he in pain? “Thank God you’re okay!”

She wanted to wrap her arms around him but stopped herself. He was carrying two grocery bags, and she wasn’t sure where he’d been hit. She didn’t want to hurt him.

He set the bags down and drew her into his arms. “I told you not to worry, bella.”

She hadn’t been able to help it. She’d felt nauseated since she’d gotten the news, afraid in her heart that Javier had become a target because of her. His photo had run in the papers and been on all the news broadcasts, after all. Maybe the same people who wanted to get rid of her had now decided to go after him, too.

“Where were you wounded?”

Javier stepped back and slid out of his jacket to reveal a bloodstained T-shirt, the left side torn a few inches above his waist. He lifted the shirt and pressed his hand against a dressing that was held in place by medical tape. “Nine stitches. No big deal.”

“No big deal?” Fear for him flashed into anger. “You could have been killed!”

Childers stepped forward. “Glad to see you’re in one piece.”

“Thanks, man.” Javier shook Childers’s hand. “Sorry to keep you so late.”

“No problem. It was good to see you again, Ms. Nilsson.” Childers gave Marc and Julian a nod and left.

It was then Laura remembered her manners. “I’m so sorry. Please make yourselves at home. Can I take your coats, get you something to drink?”

Marc and Julian shook their heads.

“Don’t worry about us,” Marc said. “We’ll be heading out in a minute.”

She looked at the three men. “So will one of you please fill me in? The TV news isn’t saying much. A shooting in LoDo. One man dead. Another wounded.”

Javier slipped out of his coat and sat on the sofa, drawing Laura with him, Marc and Julian sitting across from them. She listened as Javier told her what had happened, feeling sick to think that he would be dead right now if the man who’d fired at him had simply been a better shot.

“He was laughing?” Chills shivered down her spine

Javier nodded. “It was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen. He had this look on his face like he was having fun. And when I shot him, he looked . . . surprised.”

“Was he psychotic?”

“We hope to have some answers soon.” Julian got to his feet. “Old Man Irving sent homicide to execute a search warrant at his residence this evening. In the meantime, the firearm he used has been sent to the lab.”

Marc stood. “It looked to me like someone had painted the tip to make the weapon look like a toy. It could be the shooter wanted to fool you, Corbray. That way he’d get off the first shot.”

“If his aim had been better, it would have worked.” Javier touched a hand against his wounded side.

“How did they know where to find you?” Laura didn’t understand that part. The grocery store wasn’t usually part of Javier’s routine.

“My guess is he knew I went for a run every morning and planned to catch me on my way back. When I took a detour to the store, he followed me.”

“That’s as good an explanation as any.” Julian stood. “We’ll let you know what the search warrant turns up.”

Then Marc and Julian left, leaving Laura and Javier alone.

Laura checked to make sure the door was locked and turned to find Javier standing behind her. “The media are going to pick this up. My paper will pick it up first. Someone on the news crew will remember your name, and they’ll connect you to me. Then the national papers will grab it and the TV news stations. I’m so sorry.”

He nodded, a muscle clenching in his jaw. “It’s not your fault.”

“Your commander can’t penalize you for defending yourself, can he?”

“Probably not.”

“You’d be dead if you hadn’t fired back.”

But Javier’s thoughts seemed to be elsewhere.

He reached for her. “I killed a man today, bella. I’ve killed men in combat, but this was different. I had no choice. I know that. He tried to kill me. But why?”