At the same moment Olivia was delivering her orders, Ed Campbell had announced the acceptance of the Cottage Cove proposal and was striding forward to shake hands with Blake Talbot. Ed then handed over the portable microphone and invited Blake to say a few words. Blake rose and took Heidi’s hand. As the power couple turned to face the audience, it was as though a switch had been flipped. The girls recommenced their shrieks and squeals of devotion and surged forward, their camera flashes glittering like stars.
In the raucous confusion, the killer slipped from the room. A flash of black fur passed through the doorway immediately afterward. Haviland was in pursuit.
Olivia was not the least bit gentle as she shoved aside one crazed girl after another in a desperate attempt to see where her dog had gone. When she burst out of the room and into the hallway, she slammed right into Cook.
“Where is he?” she yelled.
Cook didn’t pause to talk and Olivia ran with him until they reached an intersecting corridor. “I radioed the chief. Every exit’s covered. This guy’s going nowhere.”
“I meant Haviland!” Olivia shouted. It was one thing for the poodle to confront the killer in a packed room with armed policemen nearby and quite another for Haviland to assail the man in some darkened room, or worse, outside in the blinding rain. “He could get hurt.”
Jerking open an office door, Cook stepped inside and swept the room with his flashlight. A voice crackled through his radio. “He’s not running,” Cook declared with a satisfied smirk. “Stupid bastard. We’ve got him now.”
Olivia ran to the windows overlooking the square and peered outside. She saw nothing but the shadows of tree trunks and the rain-blurred foliage.
“He won’t run because his agenda isn’t complete,” Olivia said as she pushed by Cook. “His fourth victim is back in that room.” She yanked on the knob of the next door. It was locked. “I think he wanted to make sure none of those little girls got hurt, but he’s not going to leave until he’s done what he came here to do.”
“But then he’s
Olivia grabbed the policeman’s arm. “That’s why he’s so dangerous! He doesn’t
“Olivia! We’ll help you find him!” Several running feet stopped short behind her. Laurel, Harris, and Millay had arrived.
“Leave this to the police, folks,” Cook commanded, but the writers ignored him and quickly decided to search for Haviland in pairs. Her lips quivering as she spoke, Laurel bravely volunteered to accompany Olivia.
Olivia had never wanted to hug another human being as much as she wanted to embrace Laurel at that moment. She could see the stark terror in her friend’s eyes, yet Laurel grabbed Olivia by the hand and started toward the men’s restroom as though she were a warrior preparing to walk into an enemy ambush.
After a pause, Cook charged ahead of the two women. “The chief will skin me alive if I let anything happen to you, Ms. Limoges,” he remonstrated sharply and ducked into the bathroom.
By the time they’d checked the bathrooms, the crowd was clearly moving out of the building to the location where Heidi agreed to sign autographs. Ushered down the hallway by their parents and a pair of officers, the actress’s fans milled forward, their unhindered enthusiasm roaring down the hall like the waters of a flash flood.
Cook shouted a warning into his radio and Olivia couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been hiding the device. Then, despite the fact that she rarely picked up her pace beyond a brisk walk, Olivia ran.
Laurel easily kept stride with her, and together, the two women burst out the double doors onto the portico a few yards ahead of the first group of fans. A dozen policemen were gathered around the perimeter of the porch, their shoulders taut, jaws clenched, and hands on holsters in preparation to draw their weapons.
“Did a black poodle come out here?” Olivia asked the nearest officer.
“No, ma’am,” the man replied, looking past her toward the doors.
Olivia followed his gaze as the girls began to stream out into the open air. “Then the killer’s still inside!” she shouted at him. Seeing he did not plan to respond, Olivia ran to Cook. “Haviland didn’t come out. That means —”
“We need to go back in!” Cook immediately parted the crowd, his lips pressed against the radio’s speaker.
“Stay here!” Olivia told Laurel and followed in Cook’s wake.
Elbowing through the departing crowd, Cook approached a fellow officer and spoke hurriedly to him. Olivia couldn’t hear their exchange but interrupted anyway. “He’s got to be after Blake or Heidi. We need to get them out of here!”
The second officer jerked his head toward the meeting room. “Chief said to keep them in the meeting room until these civilians had cleared the building.”
“Where is Rawlings?” Olivia demanded as the remnants of the audience walked past them.
The officer shrugged, but he looked worried. “He hasn’t responded to our calls. Must have turned off his radio for some reason.”
As they stood there, the last stragglers exited the building and the cops decided to join the ranks of those guarding the young celebrities. They never got the chance to re-enter the meeting room, however, for Heidi St. Claire strode into the hallway, brushing aside Mayor Guthrie’s protests. “I promised to sign autographs!” she declared in a haughty tone she seemed to have acquired since Olivia first listened to her speak at The Boot Top.
“Come on, Heidi. Who cares if you blow off these hick kids?” Blake’s tone was petulant. He pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead and grabbed his girlfriend by the arm. “Look, something’s happened to Max. He didn’t show tonight and he never even bothered to call. Finding out why he blew me off is more important than what you promised the peasants.” When she didn’t respond, Blake glanced nervously around the hall and then leaned over to whisper in Heidi’s ear.
She scowled and shook him off. “No way am I going out the back! I gave my word to those fans and I plan to keep it!” She pulled away from him and walked more purposely up the hall.
Suddenly, one of the closed office doors flew open as Heidi passed by. A man emerged from the doorway and raised a gun, taking aim at Blake Talbot’s chest. The primed policemen reached for their weapons but were seconds too late. Instinctively, Olivia reached out for Heidi, as though to pull her to safety.
The next few seconds passed as though everyone in that hallway were moving underwater.
Olivia saw the mouths of the lawmen part as they prepared to shout orders. She watched Blake’s eyes widen in surprise and fear. As she had not yet turned, Heidi didn’t know what was happening behind her back and had time only to experience confusion.
Cook raised his weapon and squared his shoulders. “Don’t do it, man! I’ll fire before you can get your shot off.”
Olivia caught a movement in the darkness behind Atlas Kraus. Finally, her heart began to beat again. She allowed her lungs to exhale. All would be well. For there was Chief Rawlings standing in Atlas Kraus’s shadow. Rawlings didn’t move, didn’t speak. His eyes were fixed on the killer. Poised to attack, he waited.
Staring at him in wonder, Olivia realized Rawlings must have snuck, crouched and catlike, through an adjoining office to emerge at the killer’s back.
Heidi swiveled, saw the armed man in the doorway, and screamed. Atlas glanced at her, wounded by her reaction. “Don’t worry, baby. I’m not going to let this scumbag bring you down.” He then turned to face Blake again, but in the moment he’d broken eye contact with his target, two policemen had stepped in front of the civilian, creating a human shield.
“Back off!” Atlas gestured angrily with his gun, his lips curled into an animal-like snarl. “I’ll shoot through you to get to him. I swear I will.”
Olivia watched the muscles in his right arm constrict as he made to pull the trigger.
But Atlas never got the shot off, for as the threat was leaving his mouth and the tendons in his forearm were tightening, Rawlings was raising his nightstick into the air. In a swift, powerful stroke, the police chief brought it down on the killer’s head.
The
