"FBI!"
With a loud shout, Jack kicked open the flimsy door, sending it crashing against the wall. The thin glass panel shattered instantly, spraying shards across the floor.
Silence.
As the glass crunched under their boots, Jack raised his voice again, attempting to intimidate the suspect into surrendering.
"Javier Pérez! We know you're in here. Come out and surrender!"
Suddenly, frantic footsteps echoed from the bedroom, followed by the sharp sound of a window breaking.
Jack exchanged a glance with JJ, lowering his gun slightly as they moved swiftly toward the backyard. "Aubrey, Hannah—heads up! He's coming your way."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, a burst of gunfire erupted from the rear of the house. By the time Jack and JJ rushed outside, they were met with the sight of a lifeless body sprawled beside a trash bin, its head blown open.
Aubrey stood nearby, his face tense as he kicked a Glock away from the corpse's outstretched hand. Hannah, still in a defensive stance, holstered her weapon.
"Nice shooting," Jack muttered, half exasperated. Aubrey was barely an above-average marksman on the range—often performing worse than Jubal—but when it truly counted, his shots were freakishly precise, always landing in critical spots.
The issue? They had planned to take Javier alive.
Now, with him dead, they had no way to confirm whether Luis Treviño had orchestrated the hit from prison. And worse—if Javier had any leads on the missing lawyer, Scott Thomas, those were gone too.
Still, Jack couldn't blame him. Expecting teammates to risk their lives for a capture was unrealistic. When faced with an armed suspect, survival took precedence over gathering evidence.
Jack crouched beside the body as Aubrey pulled up the dead man's sleeve, revealing a familiar tattoo on his hand—the same snake coiling around a "7" that the diner waitress had sketched on a napkin.
"Millie wasn't exaggerating," Aubrey muttered. "Her sketching skills are pretty damn accurate."
"Guys, over here!"
Jubal waved from a small, rundown tool shed beside the house. "We found the missing lawyer."
Inside, Clive was already crouching beside another corpse. Unlike Javier, this one wasn't fresh. The man was dressed in an expensive, custom-tailored suit, complete with a high-end silk tie. His exposed skin had already developed post-mortem lividity.
"It's him," Jubal confirmed, holding up his phone with a picture of Scott Thomas, the now-deceased lawyer. In the photo, Thomas wore a grin eerily similar to Jack's signature fake business smile—his teeth perfectly aligned in a practiced, confident expression.
"Quiet and efficient," Clive noted, gesturing to the deep bruising around the lawyer's neck. "Whoever did this knew what they were doing."
"I'll call Little Rock," JJ said, stepping aside to make the call.
"Should we notify the DA's office?" Jubal asked, hesitating slightly. "Tell Skip Hardy we found the guy who killed his assistants?"
Jack's expression turned unreadable. "The three prosecutors were shot with an Uzi chambered for .22LR. Javier here had a Glock 17 on him when he fled. And Alice found no direct orders from Luis Treviño in the prison calls."
JJ nodded. "And Scott Thomas was strangled to death. That fits the standard gang execution style a lot more than a drive-by shooting."
Aubrey, still looking unsure, pushed back. "Maybe the motives were different. The prosecutors were killed out of revenge, while the lawyer was silenced."
"Revenge is a motive for silence," Clive countered dryly.
Aubrey blinked, then shrugged. "Fair point."
"Let's hold off on telling Hardy until we have more answers," Jubal decided. "ERT will take all night processing the scene anyway. No need to jump the gun with incomplete information."
Shortly after, the local sheriff's department arrived—a big-bellied, gruff-looking older man flanked by a few deputies.
Despite his warm smile, the sheriff's tone was laced with territorial irritation. It was clear he wasn't happy about the FBI swooping in and handling business in his jurisdiction.
Jubal, ever the diplomat, played along with his own version of a fake smile. "Of course, Sheriff. Next time, we'll be sure to consult you first."
Which, of course, meant nothing.
The reality was that rural sheriff's departments were often riddled with problems. American road horror films weren't entirely fiction—many were inspired by real-life corruption in small-town law enforcement.
Many sheriffs were either born into wealthy, influential families or served as enforcers for local power players. They weren't necessarily all bad, but they weren't exactly reliable allies either.
FBI protocol dictated that unless a local department was essential to an investigation, agents weren't required to give them advance notice—especially if doing so risked tipping off suspects.
Once the Little Rock team arrived to secure the scene, Jack and the others drove back to Forrest City to regroup at their makeshift base.
Meanwhile…
Jack sat in his motel room, typing away on his laptop.
"My name is Chuck Bartowski, and my life is a mess. I work as a computer repair tech at Buy More. I once attended Stanford Engineering, but in my senior year, I was expelled after being framed by my best friend, Bryce, for cheating on an exam.
"I have a beautiful older sister, a promising surgeon, who has spent years trying to rescue my failed existence, only for me to disappoint her time and time again.
"Then, one day, everything changed. It turned out Bryce was actually a CIA agent. I accidentally opened an email from him, and my brain was suddenly transformed into a human database of top-secret government intelligence.
"Now, I have a smoking hot CIA handler named Sarah Walker and a grumpy, trigger-happy NSA agent named John Casey protecting me, while my life spirals into a bizarre world of espionage, deception, and the most unexpected thing of all—love at first sight."
Jack hit the Enter key, saved the document, and leaned back. The sun was beginning to rise outside.
Having significantly lower sleep requirements than most people meant he could do a lot with his free time—but it also made life feel busier.
Just as he was about to shut his laptop, a sudden knock on the door made him jump slightly.
Snapping the screen closed, he got up and swung the door open.
Jubal stood there, his expression tense and unsettled.
"Skip Hardy is dead."
(End of Chapter)
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