Cold Pursuit (Cold Justice) (Volume 2) (6 page)

The image of Sabreena, broken and twisted, flashed through her mind and hardened her resolve. Children died all the time. No one cared.

The mother in the cubicle next door asked the nurse to watch the boy for a few minutes, then Pilah heard her leave. This might be her only chance to get him without the eagle eyes of his mother watching over him.
You should never leave your babies alone.
She’d learned that the hard way.

If she pulled the curtain completely around her bed and smothered the child with a pillow it would be quiet and look like natural causes—at least in the short-term. She’d walk out of here as if nothing had happened.

They’d suspect her eventually of course…

She bit her lip. She didn’t want anyone to suspect her, but what could she do?

The nurse checked a pager and strode out of the ward in a hurry.

Sweat dampened her skin as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her feet hit the floor and a bolt of cold shot through her. A gentle wave of dizziness made her pause to find her balance. They would have no idea the boy had been smothered until the autopsy, which could take some time given today’s events. She dragged the curtain all the way around her bed. The only person who’d had a view of her was a woman who’d been sedated because she was screaming so much. Only the nurse had paid her any real attention and he must have seen a hundred patients today. Given the general confusion, she bet no one would remember exactly what she looked like or even suspect her as long as she didn’t panic. She’d have to risk it.

She needed to be brave. Her children’s survival depended on her. Her hand was on the curtain that separated her from the child when the nurse strode into her cubicle.

“I-I thought I heard the boy cry out…” Her voice crackled. Guilt radiated from her in waves that made her cheeks burn.

The man didn’t seem to notice. “That would make a lot of people very happy.”

She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

The nurse came closer and lowered his voice. “He’s mute. Has been for years. The poor little guy can’t speak.”

The heavy darkness that had fallen over her lifted and dissipated with a blast of relief that made her sway. “Poor little guy,” she echoed.

The nurse pursed his lips. “You can sign your release papers at the desk. Any lingering headaches or vision problems and you come back here or go see your GP, OK? You have someone at home?”

She nodded. “My mother.”

“Rest up.” He smiled and moved away.

She groped for her shoes beside the bed. She did not live with her mother. Her mother had died shortly after Pilah came to the US to visit her after she became ill. Adad had made her stay in the US where she was a dual citizen, and apply for visas to get their girls out of danger. But Syrian government forces bombed her home and killed her eldest child before the application came through.

She pulled on her new coat. That’s why she’d helped Sargon do such awful things today, but she wasn’t part of the rebel movement. She wasn’t a terrorist. She’d kept her part of the bargain. No way was she going to lose her two remaining children.

As she left the ward, she didn’t look at the child she would have killed to keep silent. She refused to empathize with someone else’s kin when no one gave a damn about hers. She didn’t think he knew anything of real importance, and she was grateful she hadn’t had to harm him. “All praise be to Allah,” she whispered soundlessly as she walked away, keeping her head down in case of security cameras. Her part in this was almost over.

Another thought took over. Maybe she could enter Syria through Turkey and figure out a way to get her children to safety overland. The idea of a refugee camp was daunting, but it would be better than sitting at home waiting for a letter that never came.

Determined, she walked away. The police wouldn’t find her. Her part in this was done.

***

Jed squatted down beside the terrorist Wright had shot, who had then fallen from the upper balcony. Wasn’t much left of his face but his DNA was everywhere. Wearing latex gloves so he didn’t contaminate evidence, he searched the guy’s pockets. He pulled out a cell phone and turned it on. It looked like a burner but Jed would bet the tech guys would get a ton of information off this sucker. They needed as much actionable data as possible, as quickly as possible, in case more attacks were imminent or more terrorists were sitting home in front of their TV high-fiving each other for a job well done. Disgust twisted his stomach.

He dug into another pocket.

Men, women and children were among the dead. Indiscriminate slaughter in the US’s heartland. Most of the mall’s security had been taken out at the beginning of the attack—a highly sophisticated and targeted assault. It obviously wasn’t the first time terrorists had hit mainland USA and probably wouldn’t be the last, but this struck too close to home. This wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. It was Minnesota for Christ’s sake.

He found another cell phone in the man’s pocket and frowned. It was exactly like the first. Maybe one didn’t work? He turned them on and they both fired up.

Why carry two cells
?

Had someone not turned up for the party? Was it a spare? Had he taken it from a dead colleague?

“Hey,” he shouted to the Evidence Response Team tech shadowing him. Her name was Cindy. She was petite, dark-haired, and had that intense focus and attention to detail that, he suspected, made her damn good at her job. He held up both cells. “Need to photograph and bag these ASAP.”

Cindy pulled out some bags, then fast-tracked the evidence by handing them to another cop who was delivering anything that needed expedited straight to people from the state lab where FBI and local forensics people were working in close collaboration. Deciphering communication and biometrics data would give them the fastest way of discovering who these people were and making sure the whole crew was dead or captured. He walked over to where an AK-47 lay discarded on the floor. He looked back at the dead guy, and over to another dead terrorist nearby. Both of them had assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Both had handguns strapped to their belts. Why was that rifle just lying there?

Jed didn’t know but he intended to find out. They bagged that too.

The air stank of smoke, blood, and burnt gunpowder. It stuck to the back of his throat and made him nauseous, but he had a job to finish and time was against him. He looked up and saw the hunting shop and remembered he hadn’t paid for the knife that had saved his life, and the life of Vivi Vincent and those two kids. He walked down to the store, still checking every crevice for anyone who’d been injured or was hiding. Inside the store, bullet holes riddled the back wall. A feeling of unreality hit him as he assessed the damage. He’d been within inches of death today. It had taken him by surprise and he’d let his guard down. Maybe his boss had been right about him needing a break, but the chances of him getting one now were a thousand-to-one against.

He left a hundred dollars on top of the register, and stuck a yellow sticky-note to the monitor of the register to say what the cash was for. He grabbed the plastic shopping bag that he’d left here a few hours ago. The toy was for Bobby’s son. Bobby had been his and his twin brother’s best friend growing up. They’d all joined the Army together. His brother, Liam, was now the Chief of Police in their small hometown. Jed had joined the FBI. Bobby had stepped on an IED and been blown to kingdom-come.

Emotion punched his throat. He still missed his friend every single day.

The tendons in his neck were strung so tight his jaw ached. He tried to loosen up his shoulders, but gave up. Walking around in a knot of tension was a permanent state of being these days. At least he was alive. He needed to stop whining and get on with the job.

He walked back to the toy store. The idea that gunmen would fire on a place where children gathered pissed him off. Those bastards had traumatized kids for life.

Michael Vincent’s russet hair and big, blue eyes flashed into his head. Brave kid.

He frowned. Why the hell didn’t he talk? Was it physical? Psychological? Had he been abused?

It happened.

He saw it almost every day.

His mother didn’t seem the type though. In their brief encounter her love and devotion to her son, combined with a level of courage normally associated with those serving their country didn’t jive with some asshole who abused those weaker than themselves. Her fiery temperament sure as hell matched her hair. He smiled for the first time in what felt like eternity. Maybe he would track her down after all this was over and invite her for coffee. He rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, like she’d go for coffee with a guy who’d left her son in a store with armed gunmen.

The word struck him in the solar plexus.

Gunmen.

Gun-
men
.

What about the female terrorist he’d seen?

He tried to call the head of the local FBI field office but couldn’t get through. He called his boss instead. Lincoln Frazer answered on the first ring.

“Enjoying your vacation so far?”

“Yeah, it’s been a blast. Question. Any females found among the bodies of the tangos yet?”

“No. All male. Why?”

Jed squinted up at the pockmarked roof. “Not sure.” He hung up, which would piss off his boss but he needed to think. Had he really seen a woman? The individual had been shorter than most guys, not slim but not fat either. Damn. He suddenly wasn’t one-hundred percent sure and didn’t want to start a shit-storm for nothing. He wandered into the clothing store next to the restaurant. They’d cleared the backrooms and storage areas but nothing had been assessed in terms of potential evidence yet. That was part of his job. Cindy shadowed his every move, taking photos of everything.

“This is odd…” She sounded puzzled.

“What is?”

The flash of her camera bulb dazzled him for a moment. He blinked away the glare and crouched beside her behind the sales counter. There was a bunch of wadded up material, but they weren’t new clothes, or the kind of clothes this store sold for that matter. Personal items? Something dark and sticky stained them. Blood? He pulled the items carefully, aware they could be booby-trapped. He inched out the material and thankfully there were no wires visible. Just clothes. He spread the dark sweater and black canvas pants across the counter. Pulled out a long black headscarf. His heart pounded. Cindy took more shots. He called his boss.

“What?”

“I think one of the terrorists is a woman, and I think she escaped.”

“Are you sure?”

“We just found wadded up clothing identical to what I thought I saw on a female perpetrator earlier. They were under the cash register in a women’s clothes store. Fuck!” He was furious with himself for not mentioning it earlier. He knew better than anyone to always share every detail no matter how insignificant you thought it might be. He jammed his hand in his hair. They needed to figure out who this woman was. “If only the kid in the store could tell us something.”

“Which kid?”

“A little boy named Michael Vincent. He was hiding in a toy store during the attack. I saw at least three terrorists in there with him, but his mother insists he can’t speak or communicate in any way.”

“Is his mother the hot redhead?”

Jed held his phone away from his ear and blinked. Was the guy a mind-reader now? He moved it back. “Pardon me?” he asked.

“You need to find a TV and turn on the local news right now. Actually forget local. This thing is going national and international.”

“What is?” Jed strode down to an electronic store just along the corridor. He avoided looking at all the bodies that the ME’s department was trying to get out of there. People he hadn’t been able to save.

“The press is telling his story to the world,” Frazer said.

There was a bank of TVs on the wall. On every one of them a serious, polished and beautiful Vivi Vincent was being interviewed. But it must have been recorded earlier that day, before the attack, when her stockings hadn’t been shredded and her skirt and blouse were unstained by blood and grime. Then the scene cut to a view of Michael sitting behind a screen, drawing a picture of the reporter with astounding detail and accuracy even though he couldn’t see her.

Eidetic memory.

“They’re calling the kid a prodigious savant when it comes to seeing something for a brief instant and then recreating it on paper. He has a photographic memory…so even though he can’t talk—”

“He might still be able to help us identify the bad guys.”
Oh, hell.
Jed didn’t know how the press had gotten hold of the kid’s story, but it didn’t matter
.
“If any of the terrorists did survive, that report just put a giant bull’s-eye on the kid. Find out where they are, Frazer.” Jed hung up on the man. He went back to the clothes store and searched through the trashcan by the counter. Still wearing his latex gloves, he pulled out tags and tossed them beside the register. Cindy eyed him with interest. She knew they were onto something big. “We need to find out what clothes these are for.” If his hunch was correct they’d have a description of size and shape of the woman, the clothes she was wearing, and with luck her DNA, maybe even her prints.

He called one of the local FBI field agents who he knew was working somewhere in the mall, caught him up to speed and told him to get his ass there right now.

“Gotta go,” he told the tech, ignoring her shocked protest.

Then Jed started jogging back to his SUV. Terrorists who attacked innocent shoppers a few weeks before Christmas weren’t going to baulk at eliminating one young boy. Vivi Vincent and her son were in danger. He needed to find them fast.

CHAPTER FIVE

M
ichael wouldn’t eat. Didn’t matter if she offered him candy or soda, he still wouldn’t eat.

Vivi needed a way to bring him back from whatever head-space he’d floated off to, and she had to do it now, before he was set back months, if not years, in progress.