Twisted (31 page)

Allison’s phone beeped. She checked the screen.

“I’ve got a call coming in from Ric. Let me let you go.” She hung up on him and clicked over. “What’s up?”

“We nailed it.” Ric’s voice was tinged with excitement.

“What, the van?”

“We got dried blood in the crevices of the door track. It’s right here, staring at us. We gotta get this to the lab.”

Jonah sent her a questioning look.

“Blood in the van,” she explained as her heart sped up. “Wolfe’s going to want it,” she told Ric.

“He’s gonna have to duke it out with Sheriff Denton. He’s already got this thing loaded on a flatbed and headed for the Delphi Center. You find Moss yet?”

“Still working on it.”

“He’s our man, Doyle. Sheriff’s getting the arrest warrant right now. Whatever you do, don’t lose sight of him.”

“I won’t.” She clicked off and turned to Jonah. “Sheriff’s involved. Van’s on its way to Delphi.”

“Now we just need to bag up our perp.”

“Easier said than done.”

Allison stared through the windshield, growing antsier by the second. Blood in the van. They had their crime scene. They had their UNSUB. Suddenly their whole case was coming together after days and days of maddening dead ends.

Allison drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Tension gathered in her neck and shoulders as the minutes crawled by. She scanned the workers waiting in line for tacos, noting the height and build of each one. She had binoculars in her toolbox, but she didn’t want to draw attention to their setup by climbing out to get them.

“Third guy from the end,” Jonah said. “What do you think?”

Allison considered him. “Not tall enough.”

“Why not? Wolfe said maybe Jordan Wheatley exaggerated his size because she was afraid.”

Allison shook her head. “Not that much. Jordan’s tall herself. He’s barely five-five.”

Her phone chimed and she snatched it out of the cup holder.

“We think we spotted the house,” Mark said, and the “we” grated on Allison’s nerves. “There’s a Tall Tex Tile truck out front. Place is swarming with workers, most of them on scaffolding doing exterior paint. The tile guys are probably inside, working on bathrooms or kitchens.”

“And what’s the plan?”

“Our agents are posing as building inspectors. They’re going to go in on some pretext about permits and have a look around. They’ve seen the suspect sketch as well as Damien’s driver’s license picture from California.”

“He was a teenager then.”

“It’s still something.”

“Where’s this house?”

“There’s a street that loops around the whole neighborhood, spits out at the entrance street. This house is five lots in, facing north.”

Allison squinted through the windshield and counted rooftops. “Two-story? Big oak tree in back?”

“I don’t know. I’m not looking at it. Just a sec, I’m getting something from the team.” Mark’s voice faded and she heard static in the background. He was on the radio with someone, and Allison would like to be listening in on the frequency, but her pickup didn’t have a police radio.

“Okay, we got a guy in the front yard, cutting tile. He’s wearing eye shields, so they’re not sure, but it could be him.”

“Description.” Allison looked at Jonah.

“White male, six-one, one-fifty, black T-shirt, blue jeans, red bandana hanging out of his pocket.”

Allison watched the back of the house. There was no fence yet, but her view of the first floor was mostly obscured by scrub brush. A man in a gray hoodie stepped through the trees and headed across the field. He had his hands in his pockets and walked with his head down, shoulders hunched forward. He cast a glance behind him, and Allison looked at Jonah.

“We’ve got another possibility,” she told Mark. “White male, about six feet, one-seventy, gray hooded sweatshirt. Proceeding away from the house toward the entrance of the subdivision.”

“He’s on foot?”

“Yes.”

More static as Mark conferred with his team.

“The guy cutting tile still looks good,” he said over the phone. “Our agent’s trying to get a name right now.”

The man in the hoodie neared a blue Porta-Potty at the end of the street. He walked past it.

“Let’s see if he’s hungry,” Jonah muttered.

Allison watched, her heart rate climbing with every step the man took away from the neighborhood. He did nothing obvious—no more backward glances or furtive looks around. But still, there was something in his posture, something very purposeful about the way he was walking away from that house. The man neared the taco line. He passed it.

Allison started the engine. The guy continued down the street, which was nothing but an empty cul-de-sac. Beyond the last lot was a utility easement and then a long row of fences marking another neighborhood.

“Pull out,” Jonah said, and Allison was already shifting into gear.

“Wolfe, this guy’s heading away from the neighborhood, no transportation in sight. He’s walking down a dead-end road.”

No reply. More static and voices as Mark talked with the undercover team.

Allison eased away from the curb. She rolled forward slowly, thinking about directions and access roads and natural barriers in and around the subdivision.

“The guilty runneth when no one pursueth,” Jonah mumbled.

“What?”

He glanced at her. “Something my dad used to say.”

Jonah’s father had been a cop. Allison figured he had a kernel of wisdom or two. She focused again on the suspect. Maybe he was simply going home. Going to relieve himself. Going for a walk. He flicked a glance over his shoulder.

And broke into a run.

Tires squealed as Allison gunned the gas.

“Wolfe! We’ve got a runner!”

“Get me up on him!” Jonah shouted.

She sped past the line of startled laborers and raced toward the cul-de-sac, but the man reached the trees before she even ran out of asphalt. Allison lurched over the curb and bumped across the field.

“Let me out! You go around!” Jonah flung open his door. The instant she slowed the truck, he leaped out and bolted for the woods, where the suspect had vanished into the brush.

For a split second, she thought of racing after them. Instead, she jammed the gearshift into Park, reached over and yanked the door shut, then threw the truck in reverse and shot backward across the field. She bounced over the curb again and made a squealing J-turn before thrusting it into Drive. A crowd of gawking workers filled the street now, and she blasted her horn. She roared out of the neighborhood and skidded onto the highway.

“Allison?” Mark’s voice sounded far away. Her phone was on the floor. She stooped down to grab it, struggling
to keep from swerving as she took her eyes off the road to grope for the phone.

“Allison?”

“He fled to the next neighborhood! That’s
west
of where you are.”

“I’m on my way.”

She repeated the physical description as she swerved around a cyclist. Damn, this was a residential area.
Not
good news. “Wolfe, you got that?”

“Got it.”

“Call in your cavalry. I don’t have a radio.”

She stuffed the phone in her pocket and pulled a sharp right into the neighborhood. Good God, what time was it? Had school let out yet? They didn’t need kids around.

She muttered a plea to Jonah, who, despite his size, was quick on his feet. Maybe he had him cuffed and Mirandized already. Wishful thinking.

Allison glanced around, desperately trying to get her bearings, and took the first right onto a through street.

A man darted across the road.

She stomped on the gas. He raced up a driveway, followed by Jonah.

Allison slammed on the brakes and swerved, barely missing him.

Jonah didn’t even look. He kept running, then scaled a six-foot fence like it was nothing.

She hit the gas again and careened around the corner. A woman walking her dog leaped back onto the nearest lawn as Allison raced by.

There he was! He dashed across the street, spotted her, then changed directions, sprinted up the nearest sidewalk, and disappeared into a house.

God, don’t let him grab a hostage.
Allison swung into the driveway and jammed the truck into Park. She yanked out her gun and jumped out as a chorus of barks went up from the yard.

“Back here!” Jonah called.

Allison raced up the driveway just as a gray hood disappeared behind the back fence. She saw Jonah in hot pursuit, leaping onto the fence and heaving himself over it.

Allison glanced around frantically. Two doors down she spotted a utility easement that seemed to cut through the neighborhood. She ran for it and sprinted north across the open grass, hopefully gaining on Jonah and the suspect. She ran as fast as she could—arms pumping, Glock gripped tightly in her hand. Her heart pounded. Her thighs burned. She was even with them now—she could tell by the barks of alarm going up from all the local dogs. But then the houses ended and she reached the woods. She skirted behind the last row of homes. Up ahead, a commotion.

“Freeze!” Jonah shouted from a nearby yard.

It had a chain-link fence. Allison hopped it like a hurdle, using her left hand for support because her right was clutched around her gun.

Noise on the driveway now.

“Jonah!”

“He’s next door! He doubled back!”

Allison raced for the gate. She tried to open it, but it stuck, and instead she clambered over the chain-link. More barking. A woman’s yelp.

A flash of movement in her peripheral vision. He barreled into her, smashing her against a brick wall. She grabbed his sweatshirt. He twisted out of it and she fell
back on her butt. She scrambled to her feet and rushed after him into a side yard. He ran past a line of garbage cans, heaving them at her as he went. Allison hurdled them—one, two, three. Her heart was about to explode as she darted around the garage and caught a blur of white as he leaped over another fence.

“Jonah! He’s going for the woods!”

She stuffed her gun in her pants and jumped onto the wooden barrier, then hauled herself over. She landed on her side with an
oomf.
Ignoring the pain, she stumbled to her feet and ran for the line of trees.

A scream in the opposite direction caught her attention, and she drew up short. She spied an open gate and raced through it to find herself on yet another driveway.

Movement in the corner of her eye. She swung toward it just as a giant clay flower pot came hurtling at her. She caught it in the gut and fell backward. The pot shattered and she landed on her butt on the concrete, covered in soil. Her gun was buried somewhere, and she scratched desperately at the heap of dirt.

A terrified yelp from the driveway. Allison grabbed the nearest weapon—a long wooden pole leaning against the garage. She jumped up and raced around the corner, where a woman was flattened against the brick wall of the house, shrieking like a banshee as the man snatched the keys from her hand. He jerked open the door to her car.

Allison swung the garden hoe around like a hockey stick and swept his feet out from under him. He landed on his stomach and she jabbed him in the spine with the hoe. Would he think it was a gun?

“Freeze! You’re under arrest!”

Allison dropped to her knees on his back and grabbed
the cuffs from her belt as a blue Taurus swung into the driveway and screeched to a halt. Mark jumped from the car, gun pointed.

“Don’t move!” His hands were perfectly steady as he raced up the driveway. Allison tossed the hoe away and managed to get the perp’s wrists cuffed.

Jonah burst around the corner of the house. He looked at Mark, then Allison.

“Ma’am, are you okay?” Allison glanced over her shoulder at the woman, who was now making some sort of keening animal noises. She turned her wide-eyed gaze to Allison and bobbed her head.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Allison sucked in a breath and let it out with a shaky sigh.

“You all right?” Mark cut a glance at her as he kept his weapon trained on the suspect.

She nodded sharply and started patting him down.

A sheriff’s car skidded to a stop behind Mark’s. Another cruiser pulled in. Deputy Brooks hopped out and rushed up the driveway.

“Sheriff’s on his way. He wants to be the one to bring him in.”

Allison glanced at Brooks. “Denton can kiss my ass.”

Jonah helped her haul the prisoner to his feet. The man’s T-shirt was ripped. Blood dripped onto it from a scrape on the side of his chin.

He turned and scowled at Allison, and she was staring into a pair of cobalt blue eyes she would have recognized anywhere.

“It’s our smoking gun,” Ric said from the end of the conference table.

“And we’ve nailed down the time line?” Mark asked.

Damien Moss had demanded a lawyer within minutes of his arrival at the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, which meant they were going to need a smoking gun because the chances of wringing a confession out of the man had just dropped dramatically.

Mark turned to the video monitor, where he’d been watching footage of Moss’s non-interview with the sheriff. He’d gazed straight at the camera with those defiant blue eyes and asked for an attorney.