Splatter covered his face. Despite his years of experience, a few seconds passed before his shock faded and his adrenaline surged. Once it did, Jones transformed into a MANIAC, ready to hunt down whoever was responsible for her death.
‘Are you hit?’ Payne screamed in the interior of the narthex.
Jones shook his head and scrambled to his feet. Just to be sure, he probed his chest and stomach with both of his hands. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s not my blood.’
Payne nodded in understanding. Although he had been inside the chapel when the first bullet struck, he had witnessed its impact and the carnage it caused. Unfortunately, that’s the only thing he saw. Everything else had been blocked by the door and the people in front of him.
‘What did you see?’ he demanded.
Jones closed his eyes and replayed the scene in
‘One shooter?’
He paused. ‘I can’t be sure.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Payne said as he slipped his hand under Jones’s jacket and stole his gun. It happened so quickly Jones barely had time to open his eyes before Payne was past him.
‘Not cool!’ Jones shouted. ‘Not cool at all!’
Payne ignored him. ‘Call 911. Make sure they know I’m pursuing the suspect.’
‘Then what?’
‘Go outside and save the janitor.’
‘I don’t even
‘Save him anyway. He might have seen something.’
Jones nodded as he pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll call you with an update.’
The main entrance to the chapel consisted of two sets of double doors. A minute earlier, they had used the pair on the right with little success. This time he would try the left. Not only was it corpse-free, but it was slightly closer to a long row of hedges that separated the stone patio outside the chapel and the beginning of the Cathedral lawn. The evergreens were waist high and
After taking a deep breath, Payne burst through the doors and leapt down the steps in one mighty bound. He skidded briefly on the slick concrete but managed to keep his balance as he scurried across the patio and dived behind the bushes. With gun in hand, he scanned the immediate area, searching for threats of any kind. The only person he spotted was the janitor. He was holding his shovel in a death grip, cowering against the side of the chapel.
‘Are you okay?’ Payne whispered across the courtyard.
‘Do I
‘Did you see the shooter?’
The janitor’s voice trembled. ‘Some whitey in a trench coat.’
‘Young? Old? Short? Tall?’
‘I don’t know! My eyes ain’t great.’
‘Where was he?’
‘Standing on the lawn. That’s the only reason I saw him. He was standing out there like a snowman.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘What’s with all the fucking questions?’
‘I don’t know! I was too busy trying to hide.’
‘Don’t worry. My buddy will be right out. He’ll take you to safety.’
The janitor mumbled something else, but Payne was no longer listening. His focus had shifted to the man with the gun. Once he found him, everything else would take care of itself.
After flipping onto his stomach, Payne pulled himself underneath the hedge by grabbing one of its lower branches. Pine needles scratched his face and their scent filled his nose, but his sole concern was surveying the lawn from the safest place possible. If he had climbed to his knees and peered over the hedge, he would have been exposed to a headshot, just like Ashley had been. But down below was a different story. Although his sightline was restricted, his exposure was minimal — unless someone crept up behind him. If that happened, he was a dead man.
With his free hand, Payne brushed away some of the snow that blocked his view. With each additional stroke, his sightline increased until he could see halfway across the lawn. Trees, benches, and lamp posts dotted the landscape, but as far as he could see, there were no people.
Jumping to his feet, Payne hurdled the hedge and dashed into the lawn. The snow was deep but his traction was good, even better than it had been on the sidewalk. He sprinted forward until he reached the area where Jones had seen the muzzle flash. The snow had been trampled down, as if someone had lingered there for several minutes. Payne dropped to his knees and stared at the surrounding tracks. One set branched to the left; another pointed straight ahead.
The question was, which were more recent?
Payne looked closer, trying to figure out which way the shooter had gone, but the falling snow and the swirling wind hindered his progress. A fine layer of fresh powder had recently coated both sets of tracks. Coupled with a lack of light, Payne couldn’t rely on his eyes to pinpoint the escape route. Instead, he used his hand, running his fingertips from one side of the footprint to the other until he made sense of things. Like a blind man reading Braille, Payne located the ridge patterns in the compressed snow and determined which way the heel — which would be deeper in
Just like that, Payne knew which way the shooter had fled.
Now his pursuit could begin in earnest.
11
In the summertime, the Cathedral lawn was like a city park, filled with coeds in bikinis and frat boys throwing Frisbees. But on this night it resembled Siberia. The arctic wind was howling, and the snow was drifting high. In some places, it was over two feet deep. But none of that mattered to Payne, who sprinted across the flat terrain with reckless abandon.
With the Cathedral on his left, he followed the shooter’s trail for nearly 200 feet. The entire way he ran parallel to Fifth Avenue, which glowed on his right and provided just enough light to see the footprints. Cars and buses occasionally passed, as did salt trucks and snowploughs. Somewhere in the distance he heard the shrieking of metal as ice was scraped from the asphalt. Other than his breath and his pounding heart, it was the only sound he heard.
Bigelow Boulevard was straight ahead at the bottom of a small hill. The road ran left to right, just beyond a row of hedges that marked the end
Payne cursed when he realized the sidewalk and the four-lane road had been recently ploughed. From this point forward, he was on his own. No more footprints to follow. Nothing but a vague description of a man in a trench coat. Even if he spotted a possible suspect, Payne couldn’t just shoot him. On a large city campus, there was no telling how many men met that description. Payne would have to approach him and confront him, face to face.
Glancing to his left, he saw nothing but parked cars all covered in a thick blanket of snow, meaning they had been there for a while. With no exhaust fumes in sight, he knew none of the cars were running. On his right, three students were sitting inside a bus shelter, huddling together for warmth. They were dressed in jeans and ski
