Fatal Shot: A Jess Kimball Thriller

Book 13: The Jess Kimball Thrillers Series

by Diane Capri, Nigel Blackwell

Genres: Private Investigators; Financial Thrillers

Synopsis

His genius was not enough to keep him alive.

Road rage has gone too far. When his classic muscle car is shoved off a mountain road near Denver, the car tumbles down the mountainside and bursts into flames. The young driver dies in a fiery blaze.

Jess Kimball is assigned to cover the case for Taboo Magazine. Right from the start, Jess suspects murder. But where’s the motive?

As Jess works with Denver PD and the FBI, she confirms the killer was an expert.

And the sniper isn’t finished.

When Jess uncovers a drug and money laundering enterprise worth millions, she becomes the killer’s next target.

Now he’s stalking Jess.

He only needs one fatal shot.

The most gripping thriller yet in this high-octane series starring relentless reporter Jess Kimball from award-winning New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author Diane Capri and Nigel Blackwell.

For fans of Karin Slaughter, Lee Child, Jack Reacher, John Grisham, and James Patterson’s Women's Murder Club

“Full of thrills and tension – but smart and human too.” — Lee Child, #1 World Wide Bestselling Author of Jack Reacher Thrillers

“Expertise shines on every page.” -- Margaret Maron, Edgar, Anthony, Agatha and Macavity Award Winning MWA Past President

"Relentlessly determined to bring justice to an unjust world, Jess Kimball is like a female Jack Reacher, only nicer!" -- Martha Powers, award winning author of Conspiracy of Silence and Death Angel

Readers Love Jess Kimball:

“Smart, fast-paced, personal and, dare I say, thrilling. It's the kind of "this could happen to me" thrill that really chills me to the bone if I think about it too much. I could not put this book down until I found out if everything was going to turn out okay. Does it? Well you'll have to read it and see!”

“Highly recommend-- kept me on the edge of my seat and I had a hard time putting it down-- Great characters and storyline-- can only hope Diane Capri will make a series out of Jess and Helen-- I do want more!”

“This thought-provoking novel is populated with strong women and likeable men. Ms. Capri fully develops these characters while maintaining a tension-filled pace that will keep you turning pages well into the wee hours of the morning.”

 

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Release date: September 19, 2023

Publisher: AugustBooks

Print pages: 355

Sample

Chapter 1

Saturday

Big Peak, Colorado

Theo Kahler hated working backup. It was insulting. He was the gang’s only sniper and ranked among the top half dozen snipers in the country. Army trained. Eight years in those places they talk about on TV doing things they don’t mention on TV.

Pay was better now, of course. Much better. Which was why he put up with whatever job the boss gave him to do.

It still rankled. He could shoot the wings off a fly. He deserved to be the go-to guy, not the cleanup guy.

Yet here he was, lying in the Colorado snow, perched on the side of a mountain, waiting for one of the gang’s goons who claimed to be an expert driver to screw up.

Still, he’d put everything the army taught him to good use.

The day before, he’d scoped out the area to choose the best setup position. He’d measured the six-hundred-yard distance to the target with a laser range finder. He’d cleaned and loaded his gun and wrapped it in white fabric to blend its dark silhouette into the surrounding snow.

Wildlife was sparse, so nothing would draw undue attention.

Dressed in white snow gear and white gloves, Kahler had settled into a white sleeping bag an hour before. At regular intervals, he shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders, and flexed his fingers to keep limber in the January cold.

His phone dinged. A single code word text.

“Hello.”

Which meant the target was minutes away.

He slipped off his gloves. Two small heating pads fell out. The sort that activated in air. He tucked them in his coat so as not to waste the warmth.

Kahler’s gun was ready.

A Kalabar K10 Precision Rifle. Over four feet long, it promised accuracy and a scary destructive force. Properly adjusted, the skeleton stock was more comfortable than it looked. His Leupold sight was equally well adjusted.

“Backup my ass,” he muttered under his breath. “No way the target gets away on my watch.”

The target would exit a short tunnel in a restored ’60s Plymouth muscle car, probably at high speed because an aggressively driven Chevy Camaro would be pressuring the hell out of him.

From there, the Camaro would push the target’s vehicle to the side of the road at a sharp bend.

The guardrail would crumple at the first touch. Kahler had weakened the once strong structure by removing its bolts.

The target vehicle would drop and roll a hundred feet before coming to rest, hopefully in a flaming mass.

Kahler shuffled, settling his legs and resting his chest on the snowbank he’d built to steady his weight. He leaned forward, wrapping his arm around the stock and resting his finger on the trigger guard.

If the Camaro failed its mission, Kahler was ready with the Kalabar.

He sighted the tunnel with the scope. An SUV exited the tunnel and took the curve with ease. Another car followed without mishap.

And then he heard the roar of big engines being pushed hard reverberating through the air.

Kahler paced his breathing and curled his finger against the trigger.

He felt the pressure of the mechanism. The delicate balance of light touch and instant response thrilled him.

The engine noise grew in a rush. A yellow and black Plymouth burst from the tunnel, a red Camaro beside it. At eighty plus, the cars crossed the small distance to the corner in a flash.

Kahler didn’t blink.

 Breathing slowly, he tracked the vehicles.

The Plymouth turned. The Camaro didn’t.

The Camaro speared into the Plymouth’s front wheel, jolting both cars.

The Plymouth’s brakes squealed, but the car didn’t slow.

Instead, it slammed through the barrier, flying for the first fifty feet before landing nose first on the steep slope.

The hood crumpled and the whole car folded around the passenger compartment.

Not because of crumple zones and careful engineering designed to absorb the forces. But because in the sixties, no one cared about the dangers of a big block engine hurtling backward through the passenger compartment.

Glass flew in all directions. The doors burst open, torn off as the car rolled.

The gas tank exploded as the car cartwheeled down the rocky face.

A final impact brought the vehicle to a stop, sending a jet of flame across the snow.

The Camaro screeched to a halt and reversed fast to the point of impact.

The driver leapt out, grabbed a section of the Camaro’s bumper that had broken off, stashed it inside the car, and raced off.

The Camaro’s big engine wailed as it disappeared into the distance. The driver would dump the car on a deserted back road in Utah and burn it to an unrecognizable black shell.

Kahler kept his attention on the burning wreckage below. The high-powered scope provided a ringside seat to the slaughter as he waited to be sure the flame-engulfed target did not survive.

Over several minutes, oncoming cars drew to a halt on the road. A few curious drivers gingerly looked over the edge at the damage and turned away in horror.

Kahler rolled his shoulders. The cold was getting to him. The target hadn’t survived, for sure. He moved his weight, shifting his elbows, ready to bring himself to a kneeling position.

He knew his mistake as it happened and when it happened.

Knowing didn’t stop the consequences.

Kahler still had his finger on the trigger.

He hadn’t moved it to the guard as he’d been trained. The simple safety protocol ingrained in every soldier, especially snipers.

A small force was all it took. Three pounds for the briefest instant.

Unintentionally, he pulled the trigger.

The gun bucked, the stock thumping against his shoulder. The exhaust blast threw a plume of snow upward and a sharp crack cut the crisp air.

He shifted his gaze down the barrel, desperately searching the area around the burning car for his round.

Nothing moved, no cloud of snow, no rocks shifted from the bullet’s impact on the target.

He checked through the scope. Flames still engulfed the car, and glass and metal surrounded it. The flames reached a tree, adding to the destruction.

Kahler blew out a long breath. Destruction of the target and surrounding area. He had to hope it would be enough.

Emergency vehicle sirens sounded in the distance. Time to go.

He wrapped his gun in the bag and slung the weight over his shoulder. He had a mile-long hike to get to his SUV, parked far enough away to avoid connection with the crash.

With just one small exception, the boss had received exactly what he wanted. There’d be an investigation, of course. But no one would use the word “assassination.”

The target’s death would be classified and forgotten. A simple fact of modern life.

Road rage.

 

Chapter 2

Tuesday

Colorado Springs

Jessica Kimball walked into Bergmann-Ross High School. The familiar scent of school meals and disinfectant met her nose. Rows of lockers lined the corridors, just as they had done in her day. A hand-painted sign welcomed visitors to Science Night. She followed directions and found the exhibits in the cafeteria.

Throngs of parents wandered past exhibits that spanned three walls. It took less than a moment to spot the one that most interested her.

She’d finally found her son after years of searching and she’d tried to do everything possible to make up for the missing time. It was a balancing act.

At fifteen, Peter was used to both his adoptive parents and his own freedoms. Another adult interested in his life was good, as long as she didn’t cut too much into those freedoms.

This wasn’t one of those nights when he wanted to be independent from his biological mother.

Tonight Peter would be pleased for the extra attention, Jess knew. She just had to remember to use the name his adoptive parents had given him. Steven.

“Mom said I had to come,” said a voice. Jess turned to see Michelle, Steven’s adoptive sister.

Jess smiled. Sibling rivalry was nothing new. Michelle and Steven’s was definitely the healthy kind. “I thought you were off at college?”

“Family vacation. Dad’s paying and I’m a poor student. Besides, my tutor agreed the trip can be incorporated into my classes.”

“Want to see what he’s done?” Jess asked, smiling.

“Steven? I’ve seen it. He always has some sort of project going for this event. Every year he monopolizes the garage for a couple of weeks to make it. Which means Mom has to park in the driveway every night. Which means I’d be freezing going to school every morning when I lived at home.”

“Your mom mentioned that.”

“Did she also mention that she had to walk to school every day, uphill both ways?”

Jess laughed. “She didn’t, but I’m guessing she told you it builds character.”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “There must be some special school adults go to learn all these lectures.”

“It’s called life.”

“There you go with another one.”

Jess gave Michelle a friendly nudge. “Let’s go talk to Steven before we get any older.”

“And yet another. How do you do it?” Michelle teased with a grin.

Jess led the way through the crowd to her son’s exhibit, smiling all the way.

Two girls stood in front of Steven’s table, watching as he turned over a small contraption in his hands and pointed out things that obviously interested him more than they interested the girls.

“Mom tells me they’re the Oslo twins,” Michelle whispered.

One girl had straight blond hair that reached her back, and the other had red curls.

“Twins?” Jess asked.

Michelle shook her head. “Exchange students from Finland. Apparently, the nickname just stuck.”

“But Oslo is in Norway.”

“Yeah, but you name somewhere in Finland.”

“Helsinki.”

Michelle stared and frowned. “How do you know…? Isn’t that a syndrome?”

“That’s Stockholm. In Sweden.”

Michelle exhaled. 

“I’m so glad I’m doing art.”

The Oslo twins left, giggling as they went.

“Oh, to be fifteen,” Michelle said.

“You’re nineteen,” Steven deadpanned. “Barely.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“So what have you got?” Jess said, feeling the need to interrupt the rivalry.

Steven held up what appeared to be a circuit card covered with wires and helicopter-like propellers. “A drone.”

“Are we talking about your conversation style or that bunch of wires?” Michelle said with a look of mock seriousness.

Steven scowled.

“So you’ve built a drone,” Jess said, hoping to get the discussion back on track.

“Hasn’t that been done?” Michelle teased.

“With four blades,” Steven said. “But mine has three. Makes it lighter. And I did the software to make it stable in flight.”

He tossed the device into the air, where it flipped the right way up and hovered at head height.

“Cool,” Jess said, rightfully impressed.

“That’s it?” Michelle asked.

“Nope.” Steven held his phone out to Jess. A box appeared on the display, outlined in red. “Draw a route.”

“To where?”

“Just do a loop of the room.”

Jess looked at the crowd. “You can’t fly it around here.”

“Trust me.”

She stared a moment. He seemed confident, so she drew a path around the box. Go appeared on the display.

“Press it,” he said.

Jess tapped the button, hoping she wasn’t about to cause an accident.

The drone bleeped and set off around the room. People stared.

It tilted left and right,

weaving around obstacles. It stopped and backed up to go around a group of boys who tried to form a wall to block its progress.

One of the boys reached for it and the drone shot upward, clearing the group before descending and continuing the journey.

“Ultrasonic sensors and a bit of programming,” Steven explained when he saw Jess’s astonishment. “Actually, quite a lot of programming.”

“Amazing,” Jess said as the drone returned to settle on the table. “It’s just a circuit card.”

“Adding a shell would make it too heavy.”

“You built all this?”

He nodded.

Jess leaned closer to examine the aircraft. The parts were tiny.

“Multicore ARM processor,” Steven said, a note of pride in his voice. “A gig of flash, six sensors, and three servo motors.”

“Arm?” said Jess.

“ARM. Same sort of processor you have in your phone.”

“Right,” Jess said with confidence as if she had any clue what he was talking about.

“I usually just nod at this point,” Michelle whispered.

“She wanted to paint it,” he said.

Michelle picked up the drone. “I thought red with a white racing stripe.”

Steven took back the drone. “I’ll keep it as is, thanks.”

“Your mom tells me you’re going skiing in Utah,” Jess said.

Steven nodded. “Snow all around us and yet we’re going to Utah.”

“It’s Sundance,” Michelle said. “It has some of the—”

“Best art in the West. Or something. Yeah, yeah,” he said.

“It’s part of my art course,” Michelle said. She leaned close to Jess. “He’s just disappointed he won’t be able to see the twins while we’re gone.”

“No. No. It’s not—” Steven’s face reddened with embarrassment.

Jess held her hands up. “Okay, okay. It should be great. The art, the skiing, everything.”

One of Steven’s teachers arrived and engaged Jess in conversation. Michelle drifted away to see old friends visiting their one-time high school. The Oslo twins paid a second visit to Steven.

Too soon, Science Night was over.

Jess left Bergmann-Ross High bursting with emotions.

After years of worry, her search had found her son in a loving family, well adjusted and safe. She had an amicable agreement with his adoptive parents for visitation.

The dark dread that had for so long inhabited the corners of her mind had been replaced with unrestrained joy about her son.

 

Chapter 3

6 days later

Denver

Jess pulled to a stop in her parking spot at the Taboo Magazine offices, glad the building had underground parking. She’d traded her Charger for a white Jeep. It was a little older than the one she’d used to rescue her son, but it was roomier and still had the big V-8 engine and manual transmission. All of that had proven useful on the weekends she’d gone skiing with Peter and Michelle.

She grabbed her bag and hustled inside, taking the stairs up two floors to the ground level and the main elevators.

The doors opened when the elevator reached the tenth floor. Occasional pools of light spilled from offices and cubes into the dim hallway. Early birds getting a head start on the day.

Her assistant, Mandy Donovan, smiled and waved from across the room, holding up a mug with steam wafting from the surface.

Jess hurried over, took the mug, and smelled the aroma of fresh coffee. “You’re a treasure.”

“And you’re earlier than ever.”

Jess checked her watch. “Six forty-five and the coffee’s ready. You’re not exactly slacking.”

“I live two blocks away. Besides, we’re doing podcasts now.”

Jess frowned. “Podcasts?”

“Like recorded radio shows.”

“I know what podcasts are. I—”

Mandy leaned close. “Have you seen the audio engineer?”

Jess shook her head.

“Well.” Mandy shrugged. “He doesn’t usually get here till nine thirty, but it’s worth the wait.”

“O-kay.”

“What about you and Henry?”

Jess stiffened at the mention of Henry Morris. She didn’t discuss her personal life at work. “Henry likes coffee, too.”

Henry was a rising star in the FBI. They’d clicked when Jess was researching an article in Dallas. She had never decided whether his move to the FBI’s Denver Field Office had been fate, or he’d requested the transfer.

Either way, his move had given their relationship time to evolve, professionally and personally. There were decisions to be made and she just didn’t want to talk about it here.

Mandy shrugged. “Just wondering.”

When Jess didn’t reply Mandy took a deep breath, looked at her monitor, and got back to business. “You have a seven thirty with Carter.”

“He wants to talk about my new assignment.”

“Right.” Mandy broke eye contact and hummed.

“What?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Why?”

“You know what the Rockies play?”

Jess frowned. “Baseball.”

“It’s not that.” Mandy raised an eyebrow.

“It’s not what? Oh no. He’s got some softball—”

“What?” said Carter Pierce, the magazine’s owner and editor. Wealthy, he didn’t need to work, but he wasn’t one to sit idle. The magazine wasn’t a plaything for him. He took responsibility for the livelihoods of the entire staff. He’d steered the ship through rocky times and made it all work with both his business and integrity intact. Jess admired and appreciated him. Truth be told, they all did.

Mandy turned back to her computer, busying herself with typing as he walked over.

“Can’t a man keep anything secret around here?” Carter said.

Jess gripped her coffee mug harder. “You’ve got some softball assignment for me?” 

Carter ignored the question and stared at Mandy, who shrugged without looking up.

“Open floorplan offices,” she said. “You can’t not hear things.”

Carter looked at the coffeepot on the corner of her desk. “That fresh?”

Mandy grabbed a mug, filled it, and held it out. He took a sip.

“Not bad. Bit like the audio engineer.” He winked. “At least, so I hear.”

Mandy mumbled something while staring at her keyboard.

Carter turned to Jess. “Let’s talk in my office.”

Jess followed and took a chair while he sat behind his desk. In the corner, a new grandfather clock ticked. A soft, dignified click, entirely appropriate for Carter’s personality.

“Softball doesn’t sell magazines, Jess,” he said. “You know that, and I know that. Let’s get that idea out of the way at the start.”

“So what is it?” Jess and Carter had long ago passed the point where she took on any assignment he offered. She chose her work carefully, and he knew that.

“Road rage.”

Jess stared. “You’re kidding.”

“Do I choose topics for giggles?”

“No.”

“So why don’t you want to do it?”

“Look, Carter, nobody likes road rage. It’s wrong and some incidents end in tragedy, but what can I do to stop it with an article on the subject? Everybody already knows the facts. You want me to document known facts?”

Carter scowled. “For what I pay you, I sincerely hope not.”

“But there’s no story. Road rage events are one-offs. Some driver gets ticked and slams into another driver and speeds away. A brief police investigation followed by—sometimes, eventually, hopefully—some sort of prosecution that brings a measure of justice.”

Carter nodded reasonably, “And you don’t want to try to make a difference?”

“I…Taboo should be more than the local newspaper. The legal system might be flawed, but it metes out justice. Eventually. We need to—”

“Raise public awareness? Highlight the very real human costs of a driver’s momentary lapse of reason? Plead with the public to be more considerate of other drivers? More careful?” Carter said. “You can write that better than anyone.”

“Hard to find more than a lot of boring statistics and scolding drivers who won’t read

Taboo anyway for their abominable behavior.”

“So find the humanity, Jess. The real stories behind these incidents. You know there’s more to the story. Try to make the world a better place.”

Jess said nothing.

Carter arched his eyebrows as he sipped the coffee. “Those were your goals, once. No more?”

“Hoisted by my own petard, eh?” The grandfather clock ticked. Jess pressed her lips together. “You think we’re playing chess and your move is check, don’t you?”

He slid a thick folder across his desk. “Fifty-seven cases reported in the last month. And one death.”

“In the United States?”

“In Denver.”

“That’s a lot,” Jess said, genuinely surprised. She picked up the folder, hesitating before she opened it. “Oh, right. In Denver. I get it. You’re worried about separating me from Peter. Well, he’s skiing this week. In Utah.”

Carter shrugged. “Even so, it’s not been very long since you found him. Only a couple of months. You need some time to get used to the changes.”

“And they’ve been the best times I can remember. But we’ve talked. Me, Peter, the Tierneys. They understand what I do. Peter’s almost fully grown. He’ll be out in the world on his own soon, anyway. I’m not looking to relive all the years I’ve missed. That’s not even possible. Even if that were my preference. Which it’s not.”

Carter inched the folder closer to Jess. “Then I’m sure Peter will appreciate you helping to make his world a better place.”

Jess exhaled. Carter knew her almost as well as she knew herself. Only one sign that he was both a good editor and a good friend.

He’d maneuvered her into a corner with her own words.

And he was right.

Or maybe she was right. People didn’t read her articles in Taboo Magazine for sorrow and statistics. They read Jessica Kimball’s byline because they wanted to believe in and help to create a better world. For themselves, for their children.

That was the force that had driven her for over a decade as she searched for Peter. Having found Peter, that force hadn’t disappeared.

“Checkmate, I believe.” She picked up the folder and stood.

Carter laughed as he watched her leave his office.

 

Chapter 4

Jess moved to her desk and started to work. Carter’s folder contained names, addresses, summary reports, and in some cases links to videos of road rage incidents. Jess extracted the one incident that had resulted in death and buzzed Mandy to collect the rest.

“Can you organize the addresses in the most efficient route for interviews?” she asked, head down, already engrossed in the Rooney case.

A picture of the deceased from social media showed a clean-shaven man in his mid to late twenties with brown hair and green eyes.

Justin Rooney’s biography included a degree in computer science and IT work at a couple of obscure internet services companies before he ended up at a local bank.

Unmarried, he lived in a condo in Broomfield, on the north side of the city.

Looking him up online, Jess found pictures of a young man interested in old cars more than his friends. A couple of sites posted photos of Rooney smiling as he turned rust buckets into competition vehicles. Probably not a cheap hobby, but it didn’t look like he’d spent his money on much else.

Mandy returned with a map and pointed out several routes. “Red line for cases where there was some sort of injury and video. Blue for injuries and no video. Green for just a report of aggressive driving with no injuries.”

Jess ran her finger over the lines. “North, south, east, and west. Freeways and surface roads. Downtown and suburbs. No distinct pattern.”

“But…” Mandy placed another page on the desk, a spreadsheet with graphs. “Peak in cases around rush hour. Morning and evening. There’s a dip on the weekends, obviously.”

“You got this from the documents in Carter’s folder?”

Mandy nodded. “But no surprises, right?”

“That’s my problem. We know all this. How do I make anything more out of these events than spreadsheets and graphs?”

“Well…” Mandy shrugged on her way out the door. “You’re the ace reporter. I’m going to have to leave that to you.”

Jess pushed the spreadsheets aside and picked up the Justin Rooney report. It was the obvious case to investigate, the one most likely to have issues that might resonate with the magazine’s readers. Focusing on avoiding tragedy might save lives.

But Jess was no ambulance chaser. Never had been, never would be. A young man’s life had been cut short. Parents and siblings and friends would be struggling with loss. They’d be planning a funeral, tidying up finances, closing down credit cards, the million and one things left to do after a bereavement.

There’d likely be anger, too. A desire for justice, at least. Nothing would bring Rooney back, but whoever killed him shouldn’t get away with it.

Jess shuffled the papers into a neat stack. Justice. Where she always started. Why should this assignment be any different?

 

Chapter 5

The Justin Rooney file listed the accident location between mile markers 36 and 37 on Highway 44W. Jess knew the route to the Big Peak ski resort, an ironic name given its limited number of ski runs.

Highway 44W curved through the mountains and a couple of small tunnels along the way. Steep sections of the roadway along that route displayed great views, ...