Leo Fitzgerald is a slippery sucker.
It's not easy to escape from jail, especially in a city. You're conspicuous, and even if you hide well, the likelihood of someone turning you in is high.
Unless you know how to hide, to blend in. To evade police.
I’m standing in my office, the door closed because I needed just a moment to think before calling the mayor with an update.
Again.
I run my hand over my forehead, staring at the darkened sky, turning bullet gray with the oncoming rainstorm, the clouds pregnant with doom.
The case has been turned over to the Fugitive Task Force, but because Fitzgerald wasn't yet indicted, and still in holding, the U.S. Marshals Service hasn't stepped in.
I’ve explained all this to Mayor Vega no less than six times today, along with the fact that we’ve deployed nearly the entire force to find him.
“It’s been almost ten hours, Inspector.”
“Chief, and I know, Ms. Mayor. We’re doing everything we can to find him.”
I called for a perimeter nearly the minute my feet hit the floor, Officer Jackson still outlining how they think he escaped.
“I just don’t understand how he got out.”
“According to our investigation, he called the guard, saying he was sick around one a.m. He then overpowered him, used the guard’s own taser to incapacitate him, got his key card and used that to get into the control center.”
“Where was the other guard?”
“Patrol. But we found him also tasered, gagged, then suffocated with a medical waste bag, just like the first guard.”
“That’s horrible.”
She has no idea. Young cops, they both left behind wives.
The worst part is, there’s another running theory that says Leo had an accomplice, someone who got into the control room and turned off the cameras. The digital recording is blank, even before the guard entered Leo’s cage.
We haven’t gotten anything useful from any of the other prisoners being held in the block. And, like I said, no camera footage.
“I’m going to say this again, ma’am—we need to alert the public. He’s dangerous, and the best way to catch him is to let people know we’re looking for him.”
“And terrify everyone even more? Stone, your last stunt had my office fielding calls from terrified constituents for two days.”
I’m glad I’m not in the same room, given the tone of her voice. “Tell people to stay in their homes, and should they see anyone matching his description, then to call us.”
“Not yet,” she says, and I close my eyes, pinching the bridge of my nose.
My headache is back.
“Not until we know he’s breached the perimeter you’ve set.”
I sigh.
“Give me an update every hour,” she says, like I haven’t been doing that. She hangs up before I can reply.
The task force has assembled in a conference room just down the hall, and I walk out of my office, heading back to the bullpen.
Reagan is at his desk and looks up. “Your wife dropped this by, sir.” He hands me a manila envelope, and I open it.
Inside is the sketch I ordered of Meggie’s attacker. I take it out and look at it.
I’ve always had a hard time seeing a likeness from a sketch, and even now, it really doesn’t look like Fitzgerald, to my way of thinking. It’s not in color, and the eyes are too far apart, the jaw wider, too. But it does look familiar, so it must be right.
I give it back to Reagan. “Put this on my desk.”
I grab another cup of coffee—this might be number twelve—at the coffee station near the door, then walk over and survey the current leads. The task force has made a list of all of Leo’s former employers, known contacts and military buddies, and is checking in with all of them.
On another board is a tentative timeline of his escape. It goes blank after 1:47 a.m., although the bodies weren’t found until after the five a.m. shift change.
Nearly a three-hour window.
Burke is looking at a map of the city, a red perimeter outlining our estimated border, although, frankly, it could be hours off.
He’s holding a cup of coffee. “He’s probably long escaped the perimeter,” he says, reading my mind, then takes a sip. “If he caught a taxi, or took the train, he could be all the way to the Mall of America. Maybe even gotten a ride from some trucker.” He points to a gas station a block from the Mall.
“Which means by now, he could be in Tennessee.”
“Or Colorado, or Montana.” Burke finishes off his coffee.
“Did we check the bus stations?”
“Yes. Scanned all the cameras, and talked with the employees on shift at the time. No one matching Fitzgerald’s description came on the radar.”
I walk over to the known associates board. Look it over. “And no one here has seen him?”
“Not for years.”
Like I said, slippery.
“He’ll make a mistake, Rem,” Burke says, but his words do nothing to dent the roil in my gut.
My phone vibrates and I fish it out of my pocket. Eve.
“Hey babe, what’s up?”
“I’m at the house, Rem. And besides it being dark and creepy, I’m not sure what you want. Clothes? Books?”
Deep sigh. “I have no idea.”
“I’ll be here for a while. Can you come by?”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty tied up here—”
“Go,” Burke says, and he’s one to talk. He’s supposed to be on paternity leave. But there’s nothing worse than sitting at home when you want to be on the front lines. Shelby’s five phone calls today have told me that much. “You can’t do anything from here,” he adds.
He’s right. Burke is at the helm of the task force.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I say.
“I was thinking I should get the baby clothes out of storage. You know, just in case the remodel takes longer.”
I smile, glance at Burke, then turn away. “Yes, you should.”
I know what you’re thinking. It’s high risk, Eve is older, but women have babies, even at this age. And I have a good feeling about this baby. Besides, fate owes me, don’t you think? I pause. “Everything is going to be okay,” I say again, for both of us.
“Love you, Rem,” she says and hangs up.
Love you, too.
“You all right?” Burke asks I pocket my phone.
I nod. “Let’s just find Fitzgerald so I can get on with the rest of my life.”
“I’m going to make more coffee,” Burke says, and I leave him to that.
I have Danny’s truck, and rain spits on the windshield as I pull onto the street, the sky an eerie green. Traffic is snarled—I’m caught in rush hour, and by the time I pull up to the house, it’s over an hour later and dark outside. But Eve probably took a cab, and I think the electricity is off to the house, so I park at the curb and run through the downpour to the front porch.
Our poor house. With the tree gone, it looks like a giant thumb has pressed in the roof, one side of the porch sagging. The front door is ajar, so she must be here. I push it open and turn on my phone light. “Eve?”
No answer. I step inside. The place still smells soggy and mildewed. We’ll have to replace everything. “Eve?”
Maybe she’s upstairs, but our bedroom has been roped off—probably Sams’ work. He’s also put up plastic sheeting over the open edge of the room. I stand in the shadowy darkness and listen to the rain hit the plastic. It’s almost enough to drown out the thump of my heartbeat.
Stop panicking, Rem. She’s fine. But I dial her number anyway. It goes to voicemail.
I head back down the stairs, and it’s in the landing that I hear a sound in the kitchen. A chair scraping back, maybe. “Eve?”
The family room is dark, and I work my way through it and stand at the door between the dining room and kitchen. More plastic covers the destroyed walls, the open roof. I flick my light around the room.
No Eve.
I turn back, to retrace my steps and that’s when I see him sitting in my wife’s rocking chair, the one she inherited from her grandmother.
He’s simply rocking, a creak on the floor from his weight. I swallow, and the sound is deafening in my head.
“Hello, Detective.”
I flash my light at him, just to make sure, and he puts up a hand, wincing. I hold it there. “How long have you been here, Leo?”
He puts his hand down, like he doesn’t care about the light anymore, and looks at me, his gaze even. “Were you looking for someone else?”
Everything inside me goes cold.
“She’s not here.”
I don’t react.
“I mean, she was here, but…she left.”
“Where is she, Leo?”
He continues rocking. “She’s very pretty. I can see why you married her. And smart. A crime scene investigator? I looked her up while I was waiting for you.” He holds up a phone.
It looks like Eve’s, with the Bones cover, from the television show, one of her favorites.
Maybe she’s still in the house. I turn off the light, but as I do, I text 911 to Burke. Slip the phone into my pocket and hold up my hands. “Leo, this doesn’t have to end badly—”
“Doesn’t it?” He stops rocking. “You didn’t have to come to Florida, did you? You could have left me alone. Believed me when I said I didn’t hurt those girls.”
“Did you hurt Eve?” My voice doesn’t shake, but it wants to.
He lifts his shoulders. “Dunno yet.”
I close my eyes. Please, God. Open them. “Just tell me where she is, and you walk away. Just disappear.” I’m holding up my hands. “I won’t come after you.”
He shakes his head. “I think we’re past that.”
“We’re not—”
“Johnny says we are!” He shouts it, a quick burst of heat and fury that grabs my bones and shakes hard.
Then he sucks in a breath, shaking his head, as if he’s even scared himself. “Johnny says Eve knows too much. That she has to die. And Johnny knows what to do. He always knows.”
“Leo—”
“And that you have to be stopped.”
He gets to his feet.
My breath is in hitches. Worse, I’m not carrying.
I hold up my hands. “I’ll stop, Leo, just—”
He rushes me.
Maybe I learned more than I thought from the MMA fighters in my gym, but I sidestep him, turn and pounce on him, slamming him into the floor. I try for a submission hold, but he’s fast and he rolls, throwing me off.
When I crash into a table, a lamp takes the hit, shattering on the floor.
I stagger to my feet, but he’s faster. He takes me down and sends a ringer into the side of my face. I see gray, but I’ve got him by the throat, and I pull him down and slam a left into his jaw.
He headbutts me and now I’m fighting blind, blood in my eyes, pain dissolving through my face. But I don’t let him go.
I’m never letting him go.
He’s my only connection to Eve. So I curl my legs around him and continue to beat his ear even as he does the same to me.
My head is ringing, and he’s grunting. And then, behind the rush of pain and adrenaline, through the thunder and onslaught of rain, sirens pierce the night.
He hears it too, and pushes off me, finding his feet.
I do the same. “Tell me where she is.”
“You’re not taking me,” he says, his eyes hot. Then he picks up my fireplace poker.
Aw. “Put it down, Leo—”
“I didn’t kill those guys in the jail.” He lunges at me, and I slap it away.
“Yeah, then who did?”
“Johnny.”
Right. He lunges again, and I grab the poker and pull him in, slamming my elbow into his face. His nose explodes and now we’re both bloody. He goes down and I pounce on him, and sure, he’s bigger than me, but like I said, I’m not letting him go.
He’s trying to pull me off, but I have him in a choke hold.
Somehow, he’s grabbed the poker.
He slams it against my head, and the world turns white.
Next thing I know, I’m on the floor.
And Leo is on top of me, the poker against my neck.
Again, I’m drowning, the last of my air squeezed from my lungs.
I’m struggling, but with my head spinning, I got nothin’.
Leo’s not moving, and another ringer to my jaw has me nearly out.
But I refuse to give up. I get my hand around a shard of the broken lamp.
I’m all about adrenaline. Instinct.
I swing the shard into the side of Leo’s neck, deep.
He reels back, his hands going to his wound.
I’ve hit the carotid.
He falls back. Pulls the impalement from his neck, slaps his hands over the wound.
It clicks in, then.
I don’t know where Eve is. No, no—
Rolling to my knees, I scramble over to him, put my hands over the gush of blood, trying to seal it up. “Leo, where is Eve!”
His face is whitening, and he’s lost his anger.
He’s afraid. I see it in his eyes, and now I am too. “Eve. Tell me where she is.”
His mouth opens. Blood spittles out. “Johnny took her.”
Oh, God. “Leo—where did you take her!”
Voices, and my front door bangs in. “Police!”
“Here—I’m here!” I shout. “Get a bus, now!”
“C’mon, Leo.”
He looks at me, blinking, almost in disbelief. “Johnny did it. He takes what you love.” His face crumples. “He takes everything.”
What? “Where did he take her?”
Leo’s eyes widen and he takes one last breath. “Home. He took her home.” Then he’s gone. I grab him by the shirt. “Leo, stay with me!”
Burke is on his knees next to me, reaching for the wound, trying to help. “What happened?”
Leo is unresponsive, his blood a lake on my wooden floor. Burke takes his pulse, puts his hand over his mouth. “He’s gone, man.”
“No, no—give him CPR.”
“He’s got no blood to circulate. It’s done.”
I stare at him, and slowly pull my hands away. They’re shaking, and there’s so much blood, from him, from me, the room is helter skelter. I sit back, trying to breathe. “Maybe it was a bluff. Maybe she’s okay. Maybe—”
“Who?” Burke asks.
I lean against the wall, just needing something to hold me up. I look at Burke. “Eve. He took Eve.”