40

Alden Brink was nowhere to be found. Somehow he’d slipped out of the building without being seen. Fern claimed she didn’t know anything about his plans or where he’d gone. After Quintero debriefed the team, Davie called Lunds to warn him Brink was on the run. Then she and Vaughn drove back to headquarters.

Davie spent the next few hours searching for evidence to strengthen the case against Brink—information about the BMW, credit card charges he may have made near the murder scenes, telephone calls, emails.

It had been a frustrating day and she didn’t want to rehash the failed effort to arrest Brink with Quintero or anyone else. She’d been cooped up for hours at desks or in cars. Exercise is what she needed. She told her partner she was going home for a swim.

“I’m too wound up to go home,” he said. “You want to grab something to eat? We could walk over to Luigi’s.”

“I thought you had a date.”

“I cancelled. Again. I have a feeling that relationship is over.”

The restaurant was several blocks away but walking was exactly what she needed, so she locked her desk and logged out. She and Vaughn had eaten at Luigi’s before. The restaurant’s wood-paneled bar was a favorite spot for people who worked downtown, theater patrons, and a few actual Italians. Vaughn’s mother had given the Bolognese sauce her personal seal of approval. They snagged a small table near the kitchen and ordered a split of Chianti.

When the wine arrived, Vaughn raised his glass in a toast. “To next time.”

Davie ignored him. She was in no mood to joke about failing to arrest a murder suspect. “We should call Dag Lunds again. He offered to help. Maybe he can lure Brink out.”

Vaughn rolled the wine around in the glass and then lowered his nose to sniff the bouquet. “Brink knows we’re onto him. Why would he fall for that?”

“What if he does? It’s worth a try.”

Vaughn set down the glass without tasting the wine. “We can’t use a civilian as bait.”

“Why not? We’ve done it before. Besides, Lunds is no normal civilian. He’s a former US Army Ranger. Maybe he can offer to help Brink get out of the country. He might be willing to part with some cash for a deal like that.”

He glanced at the menu and then motioned for the waiter. “Or he might use it as another opportunity to kill Lunds.”

“We’ll never let him get that close.”

Vaughn ordered a tray of mini pizzas, his favorite. Ten minutes later the food arrived, but he seemed to have lost interest in eating. Even his wineglass sat on the table untouched. “You think Brink has already left the country?”

Davie thought about his question. People disappeared within the United States all the time. Gangster Whitey Bulger lived in plain sight in Santa Monica for years. Brink might do the same. If he planned to leave the country, his options were limited. He could drive across the border to Mexico or Canada, but that posed a high risk of being apprehended. Border agents would be watching. He might go to Hong Kong, where his uncle could help him disappear. Latham had created a new identity for himself. He would likely help his nephew do the same. If that was Brink’s plan, the only way he could get there was by boat or air. A boat would take forever and would likely be intercepted by the US Coast Guard. So, he had to fly, but not on a commercial airline, that would be risky. It would have to be on a private plane.

Davie thought back to her conversation with Detective Giordano. “The key to Brink’s behavior is hidden in his lies. Let’s go over what we know.“

“What good does that do? He lied about everything.”

For the next few minutes they laid out all the evidence against Brink, including what they’d found during the search of the Topanga house. During a pause in the conversation, Vaughn plucked a pizza round from the tray.

As he raised it toward his mouth, he grimaced. “What kind of cheese is this? It smells like old man Latham’s boxer shorts.”

Davie winced. She thought about that day in Seattle, the smell, and the dingy Peregrine Aviation T-shirt Latham’s father had been wearing. Then her stomach cramped as she realized what they’d missed. She fumbled for her cell and typed a name on the search line.

Vaughn leaned over the table to look at her phone. “What are you doing?”

“Checking a hunch.”

Peregrine Aviation was a flight school in the San Fernando Valley. Midway through reading the text, a photo of the company’s logo caught her eye. It was an angular winged insignia. It could have been a vintage hood ornament, as she had once thought, but it wasn’t. It looked exactly like the logo on the pen clip Brink had been holding at his office the day she interviewed him.

Davie dialed the number. After waiting several agonizing moments, the company confirmed that Alden Brink was a licensed pilot who had rented an airplane from the company for at least one business trip.

The elder Mr. Latham suffered from dementia. In his muddled brain he’d thought his son had given him the T-shirt. Angela had been nervous as she tried to quiet her father because she knew it wasn’t her brother who’d bought that shirt. It was her son, Alden Brink.

She pressed Dag Lunds’s number into her phone as she bolted from the chair. “We need to move,” she said to Vaughn. “Brink can fly out of here himself. I’ve alerted Peregrine to contact me if he shows up. We need to find out if TidePool used any other charter services. Call Quintero and let him know we’re on our way back to headquarters. We need to contact all the private airports in the area.”

Vaughn looked perplexed. Davie threw some bills on the table and ran toward the street. “I’ll explain on the way.”

She and Vaughn were breathing hard from exertion and stress by the time they reached the squad room and found Quintero, Striker, and two other RHD detectives.

“Jason just got off the phone with TidePool’s CEO,” she said. “A member of his board flew into town yesterday to sort out the mess Brink created. He arrived on a Gulfstream G650 corporate jet that’s parked in a hangar at a private airport in the San Fernando Valley. An hour ago the owner of the facility saw Brink on the property. He wasn’t the pilot, so he got suspicious and called the CEO to make sure he was authorized to be there. Brink is a pilot. I think he’s going to steal the plane and fly it out of here.”

“Any idea where he’d go?” Quintero said.

“The Gulfstream has a range of seven thousand nautical miles. TidePool works with clients all over the world. Brink could have developed contacts in a lot of places, people who would be willing to help him.”

“Let’s roll,” Quintero said.

Davie ran to the garage, along with her partner and two other RHD detectives. Striker motioned her into the backseat of the black-and-white he was driving. Vaughn scrambled into the front. She hadn’t even closed the car door when Striker pulled out of the garage and sped toward the freeway, again requesting Code 3.

With sirens blasting and lights flashing, Striker pushed the car to its limits as they sped toward the Valley. Davie’s heart raced. Adrenalin made the siren sound too loud, the menthol gel in Vaughn’s pocket smell too pungent, and the leather on the seats feel too cold. Striker’s hands gripped the wheel, but she still couldn’t read the tattoo on his inner arm.

The drive seemed to take forever, but she knew they were close to the destination when Striker turned off the siren but didn’t douse the lights or slow down. A few minutes later, he pulled onto a side road with a view of several helicopters parked on a slab near the runway. He braked, sending Davie slamming against the door. She felt nothing. That’s when she realized the adrenaline had blocked the pain from her old injuries.

There were at least a dozen patrol cars already at the scene. Quintero and Lieutenant Repetto leaned against an unmarked city ride. Striker stopped next to them and all three piled out of the car.

“Brink drove up about fifteen minutes ago,” Quintero told them. “He opened the hangar door so we assume he’s planning to fly the plane. He’s not going to get far. We’ve blocked his access to the runway. SWAT is on the way.”

Davie scanned the area. It was dark outside but in the distance she saw what looked like a terminal or administration building and the control tower. A series of overhead lamps illuminated four rows of long buildings. Each had five enormous sliding doors, twenty hangars in all. The interior lights in the TidePool hangar weren’t turned on, but ambient light spilled through the open door revealing a large jet. Barely visible in the shadows was a dark-colored BMW.

Davie turned to Quintero. “Did you see the car?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We ran the plates. It’s registered to a rental agency in Vegas.”

A million questions cycled through Davie’s mind. Where had he stored the car during the past ten days? Were there more weapons inside the trunk? Why did it have a Washington license plate? There was no time for answers now. She would find out eventually.

Striker put on his raid jacket and strapped his shoulder holster over it. “Does Brink know we’re out here?”

Quintero trained his binoculars on the hangar. “We haven’t tried to initiate dialogue, but I’m guessing he knows. We’re pretty hard to miss.”

Davie saw movement in the cockpit of the plane and then heard the sound of an engine roaring to life.

“They waited too long,” Vaughn said. “We should have arrested him when he got out of the car.”

Quintero grabbed a bullhorn and flipped a switch. “This is the Los Angeles Police Department. You’re surrounded. Step out of the airplane and put your hands behind your head.”

The jet crept forward until it cleared the hangar and turned toward the runway. A line of patrol cars with their spotlights blazing blocked the jet’s path. Brink had two choices—give up or shoot it out. Either way, he wouldn’t get away this time.

Quintero repeated the orders twice more. The plane stopped but the angle left most of the hangar in shadows. Davie focused on the cockpit but she could no longer see any movement through the window.

“Get out of the plane! Put your hands behind your head.” Quintero’s voice had become shrill.

Something seemed wrong. Brink was a killer who’d been willing to sacrifice Fern in order to escape. He was desperate and likely capable of much worse. He had to know the jet wasn’t going anywhere. That’s when she realized his only hope of escape was in the car. A moment later, the BMW streaked out of the hangar, headlights off, and raced for the runway. Davie bolted for the black-and-white. Striker got to the driver’s seat first.

Striker rammed the accelerator to the floor before Davie landed on the seat. He pulled out his seatbelt and Davie clipped it into the slot so he could keep his hands on the wheel. Then she fastened her own. The patrol car barreled forward until it was within a foot of Brink’s BMW. Behind her, the flashing lights of a dozen patrol cards reflected in the windshield. Striker stomped on the gas pedal, propelling the patrol into the BMW’s bumper.

The collision threw her forward. Striker braked. Before her brain registered pain from the seatbelt cutting into her chest, her forward movement stopped and then reversed, sending her head banging against the headrest. Brink fought for control of the car, swerving wildly. Davie heard tires screech and metal grind against metal as the BMW came to an abrupt stop. Through plumes of smoke she saw the front of Brink’s car caved in and the tangled remains of one of the helicopters that she’d seen parked at the edge of the runway.

Even before Striker put the car in park, Davie threw off her belt and tumbled out of the passenger door with her weapon drawn. She ran toward the wreck. Striker’s shoes pounded the pavement behind her. When she got to the BMW, Brink was stunned but conscious. A trickle of blood rolled down his face from a cut near his eye and gray powder from the airbag explosion covered his clothes. He struggled as they pulled him out of the car and shoved him to the ground. Striker planted a knee in his back and pulled a Glock from Brink’s waistband.

Davie grabbed the handcuffs from a pocket in the back of her gun belt, knelt on the ground, and slipped the restraints around Brink’s wrists.

“Get off me!” he shouted. “You have no right! I know people. You’ll pay for this.”

“You tried to make me pay by the river,” she said. “You failed.”

Brink struggled to free his hands. His tone had grown raw and hysterical. “You have no authority over me. None! You’re the cancer that corrupts this country. This fight is just beginning.”

“You’re right about that,” she said. “Alden Brink, you’re under arrest for the murder of Zeke Woodrow. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court … ”

It felt good to say those words. Davie thought of all the people Brink had destroyed, not only the men he’d killed but also the families whose lives would never be the same.

Striker extended his hand toward her after she’d rattled off the Miranda warning. “You okay?”

She nodded and let him pull her to her feet.

Later that evening, Striker and Quintero flew to Seattle to have another chat with Angela Latham, this time in a SPD interview room. Davie and Vaughn stayed in L.A. and interrogated Alden Brink throughout the night. He blew off the Miranda warning to rage against the Army for scapegoating his uncle and ruining his whole family.

He told her Zeke had given him a copy of the letter he wrote to the Army, not knowing his relationship to John Latham. Once Brink saw that Zeke planned to expose his uncle, he had to act. First, he persuaded Zeke to hold off sending the letter. Instead, they would return to Hong Kong together and present the case to the local authorities with Guardian’s help, in hopes of saving the business relationship. Davie could only assume Zeke agreed out of loyalty to TidePool. With Zeke silenced, at least for the moment, Brink lured Juno to Nevada with a fake job assignment and staged his suicide. After Zeke was dead, he went after Harlan Cormack. Brink told her his greatest regret was failing to kill Dag Lunds. He swore to remedy that as soon as he was released. Davie assured him that wasn’t going to be any time soon.

Brink had assumed the original letter to the Army was on Zeke’s computer. He had to destroy it. When he didn’t find a laptop in Zeke’s travel bag at the airport or in the Topanga house, he found it at the Santa Barbara cottage. It was clear to Davie that Brink confessed not because he felt remorse, but because he felt justified.

It was mid-morning the following day when Davie finally arrived home. Hootch was waiting for her by the front door. While he ate his breakfast, she told him Zeke’s killer was in custody. She thought she saw him smile.