“After all, it’s not every day I get the pleasure of a visit fromthe FBI.”
Riley felt a surge of adrenaline as she realized what washappening.
Sure enough, she heard a clatter of footsteps from somewherefarther inside the house, and then the sound of a door opening.
Before anybody else had time to react, Ann Marie was in motion,dashing past Cribbins and back through the house, after the unseen occupant whowas apparently leaving. Riley started after her, but Cribbins blocked her way.
The towering, obese man presented a vast and formidable obstacle,and at the moment the sheriff didn’t seem inclined to take him on. But thesounds from behind him told her that Ann Marie had just followed someone out aback door.
Cribbins said to her, “Hey, little lady, don’t be rude when I’mtrying to show some hospitality. Where are you and that girl rushing off to?Why don’t you and my pal the sheriff sit down and make yourself comfortable andlet me fetch y’all some cold brewskis?”
Riley knew she had no time to play this game. A physicalconfrontation would just slow her down. She lurched sharply to one side and thenpushed past the slower, hulking man and hurried on through the house.
Cribbins and Wightman can just deal with each other, shethought.
As she passed through an archway into a dirty kitchen, she couldhear the two men arguing back in the living room. And now she could see theback door standing open.
She rushed to the door and looked outside. A chilly breeze wasblowing a few pieces of litter about an overgrown backyard, but nothing else insight was moving. Beyond the uncut grass was a narrow alley.
From where she stood, Riley could see no sign at all of Ann Marieor the man she was pursuing.
Where did they go?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
As Riley stood listening in the doorway, she heard Ann Marie’svoice call out. The sound was coming from somewhere beyond the yard—off to theleft, she thought.
Ann Marie yelled again, “Halt! FBI!”
It was obvious that the guy they had come to interview was on therun. And Riley’s young partner was in pursuit.
Riley dashed out of the house and across the little back yard.When she reached the alley, she could see Ann Marie running hard away from her.It was easy to guess that Brad Cribbins must be somewhere ahead of the rookie,but Riley couldn’t see him. She thought for a moment of calling out to herpartner, but she didn’t want to stop the chase. They’d surely lose theirsuspect if he got out of Ann Marie’s sight.
Riley broke into a run herself. As she charged frantically downthe alley, she didn’t know whether to hope Ann Marie could catch up with theyoung man, or to hope that she couldn’t. After yesterday’s debacle with thehunter, Riley didn’t know how Ann Marie might fare in a one-on-one confrontationwith a possibly violent criminal.
The way this guy had slipped out of the house when he heard theFBI was there meant that he was likely to be the killer they were looking for.
Riley sped up her pace. She wanted to catch up with that youngman before Ann Marie did. But she wasn’t actually gaining on the rookie, andthere didn’t seem to be much chance of getting ahead of her.
Suddenly Ann Marie veered sharply to the left and dashed betweentwo small sheds, apparently still on the young man’s tail. Riley followed afterher and found herself in another cluttered back yard. Now she was closer to AnnMarie, who seemed to have tripped over a toy truck in the next yard over.Although the rookie was stumbling, she didn’t fall.
A couple of back yards beyond them, Brad Cribbins had paused tolook back. It was the first glimpse Riley had gotten of him, and what she sawwasn’t encouraging. He was a big man like his father, but very lean andmuscular. Riley didn’t look forward to tangling with him. And she doubted thatAnn Marie was up to the task at all.
When he spotted Riley, he gave a laugh, then turned and ranagain. Ann Marie was already charging after him, and Riley followed. Soon theywere wending wildly through neighboring back yards, trailing Brad among beat-upshacks, garages, old cars, garbage cans, and random junk.
He knows this neighborhood well, Riley realized.
He was also extremely agile, leaping and dodging to evade variousobstructions. But Riley could see that Ann Marie was showing remarkable agilityherself and actually closing some of the distance between them.
If only I can keep up, she thought.
At forty-one she knew she must be marginally slower than the twoyoung people up ahead of her. But she also knew she had exceptional endurance,and figured she could outlast either of them if the chase continued for verylong. The demands of her work and the required obstacle-course scores atQuantico had kept her in remarkably good shape.
Even so, Riley’s spirits sank as she saw Brad Cribbins hurdle afive-foot-high wooden fence. He obviously kept up some kind of fitness routinehimself.
We’re going to lose him, she thought.
But Ann Marie put a hand on the top board and leaped over thefence right after him, almost as deftly as he had. On the other side she landedwell and pounded away after the suspect.
Without slowing down, Riley followed. She grabbed the top boardswith both hands and vaulted, clearing the fence but landing in a painful squaton a concrete surface on the far side. She could feel her muscles strain as sherose to her feet.
Now Ann Marie had turned out of a back yard and was runningbetween two houses toward the front yards. Riley regained her stride andfollowed in time to see the rookie darting toward the street.
Again, Brad was nowhere in sight. He must have already crossedthe street and disappeared. There seemed to be two likely places where he mighthave gone between houses on the other side.
Heedless of an approaching car, Ann Marie dashed into the street.The car screeched to a stop just short of hitting her, and the driver honkedhis horn indignantly. Ann Marie froze in front of the vehicle for a startledmoment, then continued on after the suspect.
Her knees still aching a bit from
