“Peewee’s screeching?” At this time of day?
“Yes, it’s been going on for a while now and—”
“Sorry, ma’am. I’ve got to run.” Tripp didn’t have time to explain. If Peewee was upset, something was dead damned wrong at Ashley’s place.
Inside the stairwell, he looked up through the ceiling of zig-zagging handrails.
“How many floors up?” Jameson asked at his side.
“Four. Keep up.”
“All the way,” was the last thing Tripp heard, as he cleared the first and second floor landings. At the third, he damned near pulled his arm out of its socket when he attempted to jerk the door open. The son of a bitch was locked! How could that be? Mrs. Harrison had just come through this door and down those stairs. Suspicion climbed up Tripp’s spine. He was missing something.
“Stand back,” Jameson ordered, his weapon, a damned sweet .44 Magnum, already in his hand. Holding Tripp back with his other arm, Jameson ran his fingers over the door. As soon as he located the keyhole beneath the stainless-steel handle, he fired once.
BOOM!
Tripp didn’t have time to be amazed at the fuckin’ loud noise that weapon made or this blind man’s crazy ninja skills. He ran to Ashley’s place at the opposite end of the hall, his ears ringing and Jameson on his ass. The second Tripp hit her wide-open door, he knew he’d been had. He glared at the elevator, walked over to the damn thing and punched the down arrow on the exterior control panel.
“The son of a bitch works! It was never out of order. He was here!”
Jameson still stood at Ashley’s doorway, his pistol near his cheek, pointed up. “Let’s make sure she’s not home. I’m going in. You should, too.”
“Make it quick,” Tripp snapped, his pistol in his right hand, regret a sucker punch to his gut. He’d left Ashley alone. With a bird! He should’ve left one of his pistols. Why’d he need two?
Tripp hit the emergency stop button inside the elevator car, then made a hurried, cursory run through Ashley’s place. With every step, angst choked the shit out of him. That there’d been a struggle was apparent. The careful array of items on her antique desk was scattered. The killer must’ve picked her deadbolt; Ashley was smart and paranoid. She would’ve checked her peephole if he’d knocked. The aroma of something cooking filled the air. She must’ve been in the kitchen when he’d surprised her. Poor Peewee looked like a fluffball of powdery, spiked feathers. His blanket and a shitload of down laced the floor in a wide circle around his cage.
Tripp took a minute to calm her pet as much as he could, “Settle down, big guy. I’ll find her, I promise.”
But Peewee wasn’t buying that line any more than Tripp did, and he was nowhere near calm enough to fool himself, much less the bird. With one last nod at her upset baby, Tripp stalked to her door, needing to run. But when he saw the bloody smear on the inside of the doorjamb, he lost it. “Gawddamnit! He’s got her!”
A hard hand landed on his shoulder. “Then let’s end this motherfucker,” Jameson growled at his six. “Going down?”
“Hell, yeah.”
A second later, Tripp was inside the car, his foot tapping, his blood running hot with the need to get to Ashley before this bastard hurt her again. “He locked the fire doors, took her down in the elevator, then set the maintenance sign out to throw us off the trail.” And it worked like a fuckin’ charm! That son of a bitch! “Come on, Tenney. Move it!”
But Jameson had paused. He cocked his head like the steady, thoughtful man he was. “No. Wait. He thinks he’s smarter than us.”
“And he very well might be! Get in! Jesus, move your ass!”
“First tell me what you see.”
Tripp was half out of his mind with worry. “I see an asshole holding me up! Get in or I’m leaving without you!”
“Blood, Tripp. Is there any blood inside the car? On the inside of the door. On the walls? Anywhere? Droplets? Spatter? Spray?”
“Blood? Here?” Oh, yeah. Tripp’s brain flashed back online. He took a deep breath and stifled his panic, then scanned the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Everything. He hit the emergency close-door button, looking closer. No more mistakes. Ashley needed him to be smart. He swallowed past the hard knot in his throat and reopened the doors. “You’re right. Not a drop of blood in her.”
Jameson stood with his arms braced on each side of the elevator, his head cocked to the side. If Tripp hadn’t known better, he’d swear Jameson could see something no one else could see. “That woman downstairs, do you know where she lives?” he asked quietly.
Tripp stuck his chin toward the other end of the hall. “Mrs. Harrison, sure. Across the hall from me. My door’s the far one on your left.”
“Think,” Jameson whispered. “This guy just gave APD a shitload of evidence in that body bag. But he’s smart. He knows it’ll take months to sift through and analyze the mess he left behind. It’ll be a good year before we get DNA matches to anyone in the system, if we get results at all. If our guy’s even in IAFIS. He knows that. He’s taunting us.”
IAFIS stood for the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System that fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Right in Director Chase’s backyard.
Tripp swallowed hard. “Get to the gawddamned point.”
Jameson nodded down the hall, that monster weapon of his pointing the way. “He’s still here,” he whispered. Then in a louder voice, he declared, “Call it in, McClane! No one’s here. He got away again.”
Tripp played along. “Shit, damn, and son of a bitch! Why’s this asshole always one step ahead of us?”
“I’m beginning to think he’s smarter than the rest of us.”
“I’ll kill him if he
