Maybe she should wander, not far, just a block or two, peek into bars and anywhere Neil Browne might have fled for cover. But he was probably off of Bourbon Street already.
Or was he?
What better place could one find to join in with a crowd and blend into a group?
A large, popular bar with nightly live music was a stone’s throw away.
Katie headed in that direction.
Neil Browne had disappeared into thin air before Dan had reached the street.
That wasn’t possible, so he had ducked in somewhere.
He headed down the street where one bar, despite the killer’s copycat Axeman letter, was playing rock music. An AC/DC number was blaring out the doors with such energy they seemed to shiver.
People were filing in. Some to dance, some for the advertised cheap drinks.
He entered. The place was crowded. Tables were spilling over, the floor in front of the cover band was filled to the brim with gyrating singles and couples, and it was about three deep at the bar.
He searched through the crowd, glad of his height. He could see over most people. He reminded himself that according to Katie, the man was about five-eleven or six feet. He looked for the white jacket but instantly knew the first thing the man would have done would have been to toss the waiter’s garb he’d been wearing.
Process of elimination. He glanced over singles, couples and groups and then moved toward the bar.
The Aerosmith number segued into a tune from Metallica.
Making his way to the bar wasn’t easy. He eased through to the far end and there, head ducked low, was Neil Browne. He edged his eyes up carefully and saw Dan, now trying to make his way down the bar.
The man leaped up and headed for the kitchen.
It was then that Dan saw Katie. She had come in. She apparently knew people in the bar; they were calling out to her, and she was waving and smiling but moving.
Toward the kitchen. Katie must have also caught sight of Browne. He couldn’t see exactly where the man had gone.
“Excuse me, excuse me...excuse me,” he said, trying to press through the crowd.
“Hey, buddy, wait your turn!” one man shouted at him.
He was desperate. “FBI!” he shouted with authority. Well, he was working for the FBI.
And it looked like Katie and a killer were heading for the same place. He had to get to her.
Why hadn’t she stayed in the restaurant?
Because, he knew, whoever else might be involved in this whole thing, she was after the man who had killed her parents.
Dan burst through the swinging kitchen doors at last to see that the ostensible Dr. Neil Browne carried a gun for use when he wasn’t wielding an axe.
He had the cooks and bussers and several of the servers lined up on one side of a large, stainless-steel workstation, almost on top of some massive ovens and cooktops. Browne was across from them, his gun leveled at the shaking, crying crowd.
One person wasn’t shaking: it was Katie. She stood out in the dress she was wearing, and because she simply was a beautiful young woman. She also stood out because she was staring at the man with the gun with so much disdain.
“You, get over here!” Neil Browne called to her.
He’d been wearing prosthetics, and they were peeling off him now. The kitchen was hot; he’d been hot running. He looked a bit like a zombie, decaying in the steam that rose from pots on the cooktops.
Dan took aim at the man, but Browne had known he was there. He cocked his gun, still aimed at Katie.
“I’m going to get that girl, G-man,” he told Dan. “You lower your weapon, or she dies first and then as many as I can take down.”
“But you’ll be dead,” Dan said.
The man’s gun didn’t waver but remained directly aimed at Katie as he turned to look at Dan. “I don’t really care. I am a creature of the six. I will go on. She will die along with all the rest of these people.”
“I’m not a G-man. Lower your weapon.”
He could fire...and kill the bastard, here and now, easily.
But the man’s gun was cocked...
One of the waitresses let out a loud sob. Her knees seemed to give, and she collapsed to the floor. Katie moved to comfort her.
“Get back!” Browne ordered, his gun on the crowd as he moved around the island to reach Katie.
“Let her go. It’s your only chance to run. I see a back door. Let her go, and you can run and disappear again,” Dan yelled, trying to keep his own gun leveled at the man.
Browne hurried to Katie, wrenching her from the sobbing girl.
Again, he turned to Dan.
“Two seconds. This isn’t the way he wanted it, but it’s the way that it will have to be. Two seconds... Lower your weapon or—”
Dan saw Katie make a sudden, swift move.
Too fast for Browne.
The sobbing waitress had collapsed in front of one of the massive stovetops, and Katie grabbed hold of one of the boiling pots of liquid cooking there.
She slammed it into Browne’s face.
His gun went off, but the bullet flew up into the ceiling as the man shrieked in agony. Dan rushed over as Browne tried to absorb the pain and take aim again.
Dan was ready to shoot to kill, but he veered his aim just a hair, catching the man exactly as he had wanted, shooting his gun hand.
Browne’s gun fell to the floor. As Dan progressed around the island to wrench the screaming man from Katie, he heard shouts of “FBI!” and “NOPD!”
The kitchen staff was running out.
Officers and agents were filing in. He reached Katie and Browne, slamming Browne hard in the chest and sending him flying, still wailing and blubbering and screaming with pain.
He pulled Katie into his arms. They were both shaking badly.
“Brave, brilliant girl,” he said, pulling her against him. He knew Axel and Ryder were both there. They had
