Chapter Forty-Three

Detective Powers was on the scene of the torched storage unit by the time Blu and Crome returned. Blu explained what had happened and gave him the plate number for the truck. He would have tried to get something from Gladys, but it was after five and she would already be home from her job at the DMV.

Blu and Crome listened while Powers called it in.

The response that it had been stolen didn’t surprise Blu. What did surprise him was that it had been stolen only two hours ago and from a place two blocks away.

Powers worked a judge over the phone and within five minutes had an approved court order to view all the camera footage from every business in the shopping center. An officer at the courthouse picked up the document from the judge and met them at the store twenty minutes later.

Having had the practice with Detective Wilson in Myrtle Beach for analyzing video, it didn’t take Blu and Crome long to find the truck and the same man, who’d taken the other vehicles, stealing it too. Like in Myrtle Beach, they backtracked his footsteps and were almost stumped when they saw him come at the truck from the store exit.

Powers was the one who caught him entering the store with a group of shoppers. That took them half an hour, but it was a lucky break.

The problem was the big box store’s footage did not extend to where he’d parked. They would have to look at footage from all the stores in his path.

Blu, sensing they really didn’t have time for this, said, “Let’s start at the other end. This guy isn’t stupid.”

And that’s where they found the SUV he’d used.

All of them looked out from the store they were sitting in and found the SUV still there. His car. With his fingerprints.

Powers grabbed his radio as they all ran outside to it. He called in the plate number and came up with an address. The SUV was not reported stolen.

Blu and Crome ran back to his truck.

Powers protested but gave up and jumped in the backseat. While Blu drove, Crome punched the address into the truck’s GPS. It was eight minutes away.

  

Harmony rammed into the door with her shoulder but it didn’t budge. She did it again and felt her shoulder bruise. A voice from behind the door said, “Yes?”

It sounded like a groggy Maureen.

Harmony said, “Maureen! It’s Harmony. We need to get out of here. I can’t get your door open.”

“Harmony? Is Mick with you?”

Harmony didn’t want to spook her. She said, “He’s on the way, but we need to get out of here. Is there anything you can use to help me get this door open?”

Harmony backed up and slammed all her weight into the door. It finally opened and Maureen, standing on shaking legs, looked confused.

Harmony grabbed her hand and pulled her. “Let’s go.”

Maureen seemed to struggle.

  

The man had a new plan now—cut his losses and run. Things were coming apart. Harmony was loose in the house. Carraway and Crome were now closer to finding out who he was than he preferred. He was hoping to toy with them some more before he got them to his house and killed the women in front of them. Now he’d have to settle for leaving their bodies to be found.

He opened the drawer in the hall cabinet where he kept one of his guns, a nine millimeter H&K. After feeding a full clip into it, he set off hunting the women, finding them exactly where he thought they’d be, trying to get out the back door.

Harmony had one of the wooden kitchen chairs raised, ready to break a window.

The man raised the pistol and aimed.

Mick Crome rounded the corner from the front of the house. In his hands was a large handgun that looked just like the forty-four the man had lost at Carraway’s house. The biker pulled the trigger twice.

The man felt his body jerk back and slam into the wall behind him. For a split second, he lost half the feeling in his face before he felt nothing at all as he crashed to the floor.

  

Blu rounded the corner after Crome’s second shot and caught the last glimpse of the man falling to the floor, a blood smear down the wall tracing his slide into the abyss. Crome looked at the man, as if waiting to make sure he was dead. When he didn’t move, Crome went over to Maureen, who looked okay but was being supported by Harmony. The big forty-four Powers had given them back dropped to the floor.

Blu said, “I’ll check the house for others.”

Handing off Maureen to Crome, Harmony said, “I don’t think there’s anyone else here.”

It was his experience to make sure. The last thing he needed was someone getting the drop on them.

Powers stormed through the open front door, the locked one Blu had picked open. He said, “You couldn’t wait, could you?”

Harmony said, “If they’d have waited any longer, we’d be dead.”

Blu didn’t feel the need to add anything else.