reached over to the dresser and tossed him the area phone book. “You pick the town and hotel. My cab arrives in five minutes.” She shoved aside the mattress and pulled a thick envelope taped to the box spring free. “I’ll stay put for forty-eight hours while you figure something out. That’s all I’m promising. But you give me your word you’re the only one who knows that information.”
“Who’s the guy you’re running from?”
“I give you the name, you’re going to run it, and that curiosity is what got the last cop in my life killed.”
He would have said she was over-blowing conclusions, but watching her pack and the matter-of-fact way she’d delivered the news suggested it was merely the barest of the facts. There hadn’t been a cop killed in his city in twelve years; she’d moved here from where? He’d know before the evening was out. “The Radisson in Park Heights.”
“I’ll check in under the name Ann Walsh.” She shoved money from the envelope into her pocket, then looked at him. “I’m sorry about what happened to them. They were friends. But I have to go.”
“Order room service and don’t call people.”
“I’ve been this route a few times now.” She closed her suitcase. “I’ve got to go.”
“Why didn’t you say who it was earlier?”
The question stopped her. “I thought I had.” She sighed. “I remember the running water, your blue eyes, and being cold. It’s blurry from when I left the storeroom.”
“Okay.”
“Lock up behind me please; use the key that’s on the kitchen table and put it back under the frog.”
“I’ve got your purse in my car.”
“If I have it I would just use something that could inadvertently get me tracked down.” She walked out to catch her cab.
He watched her go and wondered just what he’d walked into today. The multiple homicide might turn out to be the easier of the two problems to solve.
Luke locked the house and restored the key to its guardian frog. From his car he placed a call to Marsh. “You can call off the search for Kelly Brown; I found her. She saw the shooter and knew him. We need an all points for Paula Grant’s ex. There’s a restraining order against him. Find the paper on it. Get the vehicle information and put it out as armed and deadly. We’ve got an arrest to make tonight.”
“10-4.”
He set down the radio, knowing the flurry of activity he’d just triggered. He headed back to the mall. If Paula’s ex was still in this city, odds were good they would have an arrest in twenty-four hours. And unless they got a confession and a guilty plea, this case was going to need Kelly’s testimony. In the next forty-eight hours he had to make sure he understood the trouble that she was in and how he could best neutralize it. He didn’t need her bolting on him again.
There were problems. Kelly Brown wasn’t her name any more than Ann Walsh was. The phone book she’d tossed him now rested on the seat beside him, and a full set of fingerprints should help him with her name if he could figure out a safe way to run the check. A list of cops killed in the Midwest was a phone call away. The employment application she’d filled out and her address book would close a few more loopholes. The lady was running scared, but running smart. Piercing the secrecy of her past without also piercing her carefully constructed anonymity would take some care. Staying under everyone’s radar screen had probably been keeping her alive.
She would be hiding out in a strange hotel room tonight, trying to sleep after walking into that storeroom to confirm her friends were dead.
And neither would he. Arrest this guy, then he was going to drive out to Park Heights. It didn’t really matter what her name was. She had landed in his life and become his responsibility. She probably wouldn’t like it much, but it wouldn’t change things. She was running from someone, and he’d never been one to avoid trouble. To listen to his sister, he went looking for it.
She carried herself well; under stress she had pushed past the shock to make decisions and move fast-that spoke of a lot of internal strength. He remembered faces easily because it went with his job, and he already knew her face was going to be lingering in his mind for a long time to come. Maybe it was her age or the fact she was on a course of action that meant trouble was around, but she’d already clicked as someone to worry about. It was why he’d long ago chosen to be a cop: to do some good when it needed to be done. He’d have to figure something out in the next couple hours.
He pulled into the mall. Paul Riker waved him over to where the press had assembled. Luke pocketed his car keys and made his way toward the department’s press spokesman. The reporters’ shouted questions arrived as the microphones on long booms did, and Luke knew his face was going live across television sets throughout the city. This trouble he would gladly avoid if possible. “Just a moment, people. Riker and I talk privately first.”
He walked through the crowd, and they parted out of habit. He’d been around this job too long; he recognized nearly every face in the crowd. A few were vultures out to exploit the story for the local and national tabloids, but most were solid reporters wanting to be first with the news. Luke walked with Riker away from the podium, saw Connor coming toward them, and he changed course, taking Riker with him to meet up with his detective.
Connor offered a folder. “We’ve got a decent photo on the shooter, and we’ve confirmed he did not return to his residence. I vote we put it out on the air now.”
“Riker?” Luke looked at the photo, memorizing the guy he was after.
“Yes, let me broadcast it. We’re set up to absorb the call volume. And for what it’s worth it may keep the press busy enough to help us suppress the witness information with a cover story-we’ve got security video now and can use it as the way we made the ID.”
Luke appreciated the suggestion, for while keeping Kelly’s name out of the paper wasn’t a concern, keeping her photo from being published was. He would prefer another hour of just officers searching for the shooter, but his name would be out on the rumor mill already as reporters talked with friends of the victims and learned Paula had a restraining order against the man. “Stress the do-not-approach warning. I don’t want another civilian crossing paths with him.”
Riker nodded and accepted the folder. He took it with him to the podium.
Luke tucked Kelly Brown back into the corner of his thoughts and turned his attention to the manhunt before him. One problem at a time. For now she was safe.
Chapter Two
LUKE KNOCKED on the hotel door for room 202, aware the time was uncomfortably late. He’d been at the office at 6 a.m. before a day in court, and the shooting and manhunt had layered adrenaline in on top of already long hours; this day needed to end sometime soon. He knocked again. He suspected the hotel-room location on the second floor next to the stairwell was no accident. “Kelly, it’s Officer Granger.”
She opened the door a few inches, her foot braced behind it. “You’re the deputy chief of police. What are you doing babysitting a witness?”
Over her shoulder he saw the television on and muted. It was a reasonable question, but he could do without the combative tone. “Making a choice.”
She looked coiled up to him, tension having tightened the lines around her face, and doubts clouded her eyes. She looked at him as if debating the value of that answer, then opened the door and stepped back. “I’m sorry; I just didn’t need the surprise of seeing you on TV with reporters shoving microphones in your direction. Anonymous you are not.”
