Thirty seconds later, Georgia was at the door to the men’s room. “LeJeune? It’s Davis. I need you right away.”
There must have been a lot of tension in her voice because LeJeune appeared almost immediately. She told him about the calls from the pharmacy this morning and that it might mean Brown was still in the hospital.
“I have agents on the way.” He came out of the bathroom. “You wait for Blackstone.” He headed back to the doctor’s office. Then he turned around. “There’s someone else in one of the stalls. You’ll have to make sure he’s not our guy.”
“Got it.” Georgia tapped her blazer pocket and felt for her Glock. She waited about thirty seconds. Heard a toilet flush. Footsteps from inside. A muffled sound. Then nothing. She frowned.
“Dr. Blackstone? Are you all right?”
She heard more shuffling. But muted, as if the person was wearing tennis shoes. Blackstone had been wearing loafers.
“I’m coming in.” Georgia pushed open the door.
Blackstone was on the floor. Not moving. A skinny red line circled his neck. A wire. Blackstone had been strangled. She felt a wisp of moving air and saw the quiver of another door. Shit. There was a second entrance to the men’s room. They’d missed it. Georgia ran to the door and pushed it open. She caught a glimpse of someone as he shot around the corner and vanished. He was moving fast. Wearing scrubs. Solid torso. Curly reddish hair. He seemed vaguely familiar.
Georgia barreled down the hall after Brown. He wasn’t that far ahead of her. He wouldn’t take the elevators. A stairwell was next to the elevators. She opened the door and heard the thud of footsteps receding. She was on the fourth floor. She could catch him. But that meant not telling LeJeune where she was going. She raced down the steps. The footsteps sounded closer. She was gaining on him. A clang told her he was opening a fire door. Had he exited through the door? Or was he trying to throw her off?
When she got to the door he could have gone through, she heard a slight residual echo of metallic noise. She halted for a split second. The footsteps were still below. The door was a ruse. Brown was clever—at least he could think on the run. She took off after him. She heard his breath, fast and shallow. He wasn’t in the best shape. Two points for her. At the bottom of the stairwell, he smashed through the door. She followed a few seconds later. Fortunately, she knew exactly where she was: a few doors away was the office of Letitia Wallace, the Supervisor of Hospital Operations. The woman in front of whom Georgia had embarrassed herself the other day when she was trying to suss out hospital procedure.
Which meant Brown was likely heading toward the loading docks, which were a hallway away. She remembered how to get there, and when she did, she spotted him sprinting up the sloped driveway. He was going to his car. What kind of car did he drive?
His car, a red Honda Civic four-door—why did so many strange young men drive Hondas?—wasn’t far from the loading dock. He threw himself inside, keyed the engine, and floored it toward the parking lot exit. Georgia got one glance at his license plate and saw a partial: GR48 something, but she was racing toward her own car, pulling her keys out of her blazer pocket. She had to backtrack five or six aisles to her Toyota. By the time she pulled out of her spot, she figured she’d lost ten seconds. Brown was already exiting the hospital lot. She sped around the corner praying no one was driving toward her. She stayed near the curb and hoped like hell there was a parallel exit to the one he’d gone through.
There was. An access road took her to the main road out of the complex where she saw his taillights ahead of her. A siren broke the eerie silence, and an ambulance braked hard. Brown had no intention of slowing—he had to be going seventy or eighty. Georgia kept her speed up and passed the ambulance. She hoped the patient inside wasn’t critical.
An intersection came into view. The Honda eased off its speed and made a hard right onto Larkin Avenue at the last second. Despite the red light, Georgia followed Brown to the next cross street where he careened around the corner onto a residential street directly into the path of a postal truck. The Honda was going so fast, it side-swiped the truck. The force of the collision made the Honda slide into a parked car. Georgia was barely able to control the Toyota but braked hard. She expected Brown to stop—he’d smashed into two vehicles and was at a full stop himself.
She was wrong. Brown shifted into reverse and pulled hard on the wheel. When he accelerated, the car skidded 180 degrees, and he roared back in the direction he’d come. At the corner where he turned, he made a right back onto Larkin Avenue. Georgia turned around to pursue him. She’d lost more time.
Brown bolted down the avenue. Without warning he made a sharp left, nearly smashing into oncoming traffic. He disappeared up a freeway ramp. Georgia had to wait for oncoming cars to break, then followed him up. She was on the Elgin Bypass. The morning rush was over and traffic was light. The Honda was now maybe a mile ahead of her, speeding west at eight-five or ninety.
Georgia wasn’t too worried. As long as he stayed on the freeway, she could make up some time. But Brown was no dummy. Randall Road, the next exit, marked the end of the bypass. They would be back on suburban streets soon. She floored her Toyota and figured she was half a mile behind him by the time he cut right and tore down the off-ramp.
Randall Road was a highway with two lanes in each direction. Shopping centers flanked the road near major intersections. Brown kept racing his Honda, speeding through red lights and weaving from lane to lane whenever he saw an advantage. Georgia followed, wondering what his next move would be.
It didn’t take long. Halfway past a major intersection was a shopping mall with an IMAX movie theater. Georgia hadn’t known they were still around. Brown swerved into the mall and flew around to the back doors of some stores. Most of the stores had a dumpster near their door.
By now Brown must have realized his mistake. There were no cross streets or access roads to take that would allow him to lose Georgia. He slowed. Georgia waited to see what he would do.
The Honda pulled into the back of the Gap’s employee parking lot, which was marked with diagonal lane lines. Did he know someone who worked there? Would they hide him? Was he going to ditch the car altogether and continue on foot? Georgia eased up so she was parallel to the Honda and pulled out her Glock. Brown was still in the car, engine running. She considered climbing out to make the arrest, but she had no idea if he had a gun. She was ready to end this chase.
Suddenly the Honda reversed and backed out of the space. Georgia prepared to follow him again, but instead of racing out of the Gap’s parking spots, he positioned the Honda about sixty feet away from the dumpster in the back of Baby Gap next door.
He paused and turned his face toward Georgia. For the first time she had a good look at him. She sucked in a breath. She knew Ryan Brown! He was the roly-poly guy with red hair and a beard she’d met outside the tavern in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at Jefferson Medical! The guy she thought had been coming onto her. He’d told her his name was Keith something. Now he looked straight at her and gave her a little shrug, as if saying, “Well, I tried.” He floored it and steered directly toward the dumpster. Before she could move, he smashed into it, front end first.
The Honda lurched and seemed to go airborne for a split second, then resettled. The front end was completely gone, just a twisted pile of scorched metal. Steam rose, and the pungent smell of gasoline spread across the back of the mall.
Georgia reversed as fast as she could. A second later, the Honda’s gas tank exploded. A curtain of flame enveloped the car, followed by a column of black smoke rising into the air. The fire eviscerated what was left of the Honda and its occupant.
Georgia parked a little farther away and climbed out of her car. First she called 911. Then she called LeJeune.
“Ryan Brown just killed himself.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m standing about twenty-five feet from his burned-out Honda.”