She also knew that Rick being Evan’s biological father didn’t rule him out as a killer and kidnapper. It might even bolster a case against him. But she wasn’t buying. She knew they’d gotten it wrong.
And out there somewhere was the real killer.
Did he still have Kimmie with him? Or was it too late?
Anna looked up at the sky, wishing she had a god’s-eye view of the world, or maybe some sort of missing persons GPS device that would allow her to hone in on Kimberly and her kidnapper, wherever they might be.
Just follow the two little dots, apprehend, and arrest.
If only it were that easy.
Hearing a shout, she snapped her head around and leveled her gaze on a commotion near the center of the encampment. Two deputies were trying to fend off a burly, overweight carny swinging a baseball bat.
“You got no right!” he shouted, going for a line drive to a deputy’s forehead.
The deputy ducked, grabbed a handful of dirt, and threw it into the fat man’s face as the other deputy tackled him, taking him down. The baseball bat flew, clattering against the motor home behind them before bouncing harmlessly to the ground.
“You got no right!” the carny shouted again as one of the deputies cuffed his hands behind his back. “This is my home!”
Anna felt ashamed. Here they were, disrupting the lives of these poor working people-and for what? There was nothing to look for here. Nothing to find. And she couldn’t help feeling that some, if not all, of this was her fault.
She could hear Worthington continuing to question the suspect and knew it was only a matter of time before he reached the same conclusion she had. Royer, however, would be tougher to convince. He was a bulldog, plain and simple-and not a very smart one at that.
Like so many agents she’d met in her time with the bureau, he lived in a black-and-white world, good guys and bad guys, with nothing in between. And while he might think his motives were pure, and that the end justified the means, his stubbornness, his inability to see the many different colors in the world, his willingness to compromise basic human ethics for the “greater good,” made him-in Anna’s estimation-one of the bad guys.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much she could do about A sudden chill swept through her. An odd sense that she was being watched.
She looked out at the growing crowd of carnies, standing in their nightshirts and underwear, watching the fat man continue to struggle with the deputies, but no one seemed to be paying her the slightest attention.
Yet the feeling persisted.
Turning, she looked toward the edge of the encampment where it met the carnival grounds-a hundred yards or so away. A row of canvas arcade tents formed the border between them.
Nothing there.
She was about to turn away when she saw movement in the shadows beneath one of the canopies. A dark figure, hard to see in the early-morning light, but the shape was unmistakably a man.
Was he watching her?
She couldn’t be sure.
He stood there a moment, facing her direction, then suddenly turned and started walking away, moving deeper into the carnival grounds.
And as he stepped out of the shadows, dread flooded through Anna, a dread so deep that it took everything she had to remain standing, an image from one of her visions blossoming in her mind.
And the feeling she’d had earlier, the one she’d felt so strongly while standing in the hotel hallway-that this was all somehow connected to her visions-came back to her with undeniable force.
This wasn’t just any man. She was sure of it.
He was wearing a baseball cap.
A red baseball cap.
1 5
They were on the elevator, somewhere between the first and second floors, when Pope made his move.
The twins had gone ahead to get the car, leaving Sharkey and Arturo to escort Pope out of the building, Sharkey ragging on him the entire ride down from the fourteenth floor.
“You gotta be the biggest fuckin’ fool I ever met. How long you been hanging around this dump, you don’t know what kind of hair-trigger the boss has?”
“Long enough,” Pope said.
“Damn straight. And bringing some FBI snatch into the building? That’s just plain stupid.”
Pope didn’t disagree.
But his stupidity wasn’t the issue at the moment. What mattered right now was extricating himself from this situation as quickly as possible-a feat not easily accomplished when the two men flanking you are skilled professionals.
Not that Pope himself was any slouch. There was a time when he had regularly tortured the speed bag and popped a few curls before heading into the office every morning. Always something of a natural athlete, he’d even taken the LVMPD up on its offer for self-defense training. And while nearly two years of debauchery had undoubtedly softened him, he felt confident that he still had some skills of his own.
Of course, none of this had taught him how to handle two thugs in an elevator, especially when your gut and left kidney felt as if they’d been assaulted by a jackhammer. But in the end, it was the elevator itself that saved him.
As Sharkey blathered on, Pope stood watching the numbers light up on the panel above the door-8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3-wondering when and if he should make his move. Then the elevator made it for him by suddenly jerking to a halt, stalling just before it reached the first floor.
That jerk was enough to throw all three of them off-balance. Taking advantage of the moment, Pope brought his elbow up quick, cracking Arturo’s nose with an audible snap.
The move was so uncharacteristic and unexpected that Arturo hadn’t seen it coming. He shrieked and grabbed for the damage, blood spurting between his fingers as Pope spun toward Sharkey and brought a knee up hard into his crotch.
Sharkey grunted and doubled over, sinking to his knees on the elevator’s well-worn carpet.
While all of this was happening, the car lurched into motion again, continuing its descent, and a moment later the door slid open at the ground floor, inviting Pope to flee.
Hands grabbed at him before he was able to clear the threshold. He jerked an elbow back again, half- expecting to feel the heat of Arturo’s knife sinking into his ribs. But the hands had a fairly good grip on him now and spun him around until he was face-to-face with Sharkey, who was still struggling to breathe.
As Pope tried to pull away, Sharkey slammed him back against the door’s rubber bumper and pinned him there, wheezily sucking air.
“Don’t… even… try,” he said between breaths, then reached around and jabbed the emergency stop button.
Pope stopped struggling, resigned to the fact that he had pretty much shot his wad. So much for all that time in the gym. It was only then that he glanced down at the floor and saw Arturo lying in a heap, out cold, blood pooling around his now-broken nose.
Pope knew he’d caused some damage, but this?
“Jesus. Did I do that?”
“Hardly,” Sharkey said. “I wanted some alone time.”
Apparently past the worst of his pain now, Sharkey released Pope, who considered bolting, but didn’t figure he’d get far.
“I should shoot you just for the knee to the ’nads,” Sharkey continued, “but I’ve never killed a civilian, and I don’t intend to start now. Especially one as pathetic as you.”
Pope looked at him. Civilian?
