Vivian still felt as if she was being tossed about by some unpredictable force of nature as she sat in the passenger seat of a sedan that was starting to feel far too familiar. The car’s engine growled under Sterling’s direction, the man himself a portrait of controlled haste. Vivian, however, found her thoughts snagging multiple threads, as always.
She wondered if this was another huge difference in their professions—Sterling’s agent-oriented mind always laser-focused on the task at hand while her brain, trained for breaking into secret places unseen, tried to analyze about ten different things at once.
“Jenna Caldwell,” she said, looking out into the thick clog of New York traffic. It was 3:35 in the afternoon now, and things were getting quite crowded out on the streets and sidewalks. “We need to dig into her past employments. She’s the common denominator at every scene, and I have a hunch that’s where we’ll find our leverage.”
“Agreed, but remember that cleaners like Jenna often get paid off the books. It’s going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. I guarantee you that Amelia Hankins likely wouldn’t have remembered had she not done business with her just three days ago.”
In her mind’s eye, she could see Jenna’s stern features, the kind that betrayed nothing, that would keep secrets locked tight behind sharp eyes. Vivian knew that world well—the silence, the shadows, the currency of anonymity. But she also knew that everyone left traces, intentional or not.
The car lurched forward as Sterling took advantage of an opening in traffic, the cityscape around them blurring into streaks of color and light. Vivian let out a slow breath, trying to still the drumbeat of anticipation. God, how did the FBI, Interpol, the CIA, and their ilk tolerate all of this waiting and hoping? Each second felt like a drop falling into a pool of potential breakthroughs or backslides. It was maddening.
Up ahead, she saw a cop car marked with a 223 on the back—the unit they were looking for. The unit that had been trailing Liam Wright.
Sterling had placed his phone on the center console, with the number of the officer who was tailing Liam Wright already pulled up. He pressed Call, and it was answered on the second ring.
“This is Officer Bentz.”
“Bentz, it’s Sterling. I see you just up ahead. You just passed the subway entrance on the right. You still got the van in your sight?”
“Roger that.”
“Let me know if he turns off. I’m going to slowly make my advance and pass you when I can.”
“Sounds like a plan. There’s another car about two blocks over, ready to come in at an angle to block the van off if you need it.”
“Perfect. Thanks for the help. You mind staying behind us after I pass in case we need backup?”
“Not at all,” Bentz said with a little flicker of excitement in his voice.
Vivian could almost feel the raw energy as Sterling managed to inch closer and closer to Unit 223. Not wanting to alert Wright with sirens and lights, Sterling could only rely on his deft driving and the occasional good fortune in the left lane.
And then there was the van—a black rectangle bobbing in traffic roughly four car lengths in front of Bentz’s Unit 223. It took another two minutes before Sterling could overtake Bentz, using a dicey maneuver at a flashing yellow light at a crosswalk. Sterling got a few middle fingers and cries of outrage but he didn’t even flinch.
Sterling added some speed, nearly colliding with the back of a cab and then jerking the car suddenly to the right and back again. Coming up on the left side of the van, Vivian could now see the sideview mirror.
“New York City isn’t really the best place for a high-speed chase, is it?” Vivian asked.
“Not at all…despite what movies might suggest. That’s why I plan on simply getting in front of him and stopping.”
“Oh. Well, I guess that works. Not as exciting, but…”
He smirked at her from behind the wheel as he pulled in closer to the van. Just one car separated them now, and despite the sluggish pace of it all, Vivian couldn’t deny the little spike of adrenaline.
The van gave a right-turn signal as they approached a light. When the van turned, so did Sterling. The van lumbered around the corner like an old dog chasing its tail. It was there that Sterling decided to make his move. He cut in front of a delivery truck that was also taking the turn, coming so close to sideswiping it that Vivian had to bite back a cry of warning.
In the lane beside the van, Sterling slammed on the gas, quickly closing in the space of roughly thirty feet of empty lane ahead of them. The driver of the van—Liam Wright, presumably—looked out to him as they passed. Vivian, on the passenger side and closest to the driver as they passed, got a good look at him before Sterling overtook the van. The driver appeared to be rather young, surely no older than thirty. He had long, scraggly hair that hung to the sides of his head, blond and curly. When he looked over to them, his eyes were wide with anger and surprise, perhaps feeling that he was just one errant jerk of a wrist away from an accident.
Vivian was jerked out of her study of him when Sterling finally started blasting on the horn, alerting the drivers in front of him. There was still about twenty feet of open space, but it was closing quickly as Sterling sped up to cut in front of the van. Vivian was accustomed to high-speed chases, having been involved in a few of them in order to elude capture. But never in traffic like this. So when Sterling finally jerked the wheel hard to the right to swerve in front of the van, Vivian couldn’t help but close her eyes and simply pray for the best.
She uttered a curse as the sedan came to a shuddering stop, angled awkwardly across two lanes. Within just a few seconds, horns began to blare from behind them as the intrusion was instantly blocking already-busy traffic.
No sooner had Vivian righted herself in her seat, realizing that they’d somehow managed to avoid a collision, than Sterling was getting out of the driver’s side. Vivian reached for her door handle but realized it would do no good. The van’s driver’s side front bumper was less than a foot away from her door. She could maybe open the door and have enough room to squeeze out, but she doubted it.
So she could only sit there for a moment as Sterling made his way quickly around the back of the car and hurried to the driver’s side door of the van. Feeling a bit like an idiot, Vivian ambled over the center console and got out on the driver’s side. As her feet touched the pavement, she heard police sirens approaching, either coming to their aid or to make sure traffic didn’t become an enormous mess.
“Out of the van!” Sterling commanded, showing his badge through the driver’s side window. He hadn’t drawn his sidearm yet, but Vivian saw that his right hand was hovering over it.
The driver’s eyes were wide with a whole new emotion now—fear. His hands went up almost robotically and then he realized he needed one of them to open his door. When the door opened, he nearly stumbled out of the van, his eyes darting around in the chaos of blaring horns, angry pedestrians, and the wailing sirens from nearby cop cars.
“Jesus, man,” the driver said. “What’s this about? Who are you—”
“Are you Liam Wright?” Sterling asked.
“Yeah…why? What do you think I’ve done?”
“We just want to talk, Liam,” Vivian said, though her eyes were hard, unyielding.
“But not here, obviously,” Sterling said. “Get in our car, Mr. Wright.”
“But I—”
“Do it now, of your own accord, or you can do it in handcuffs,” Sterling interrupted.
“What about the van?”
“I’ll get it out of the way,” Vivian said.
“Fine,” Liam spat, his tone indicating it was anything but fine. He nodded curtly and allowed Sterling to lead him to the backseat of their car.
“Park it along that street,” Sterling said, nodding to the one-way street to their right. “The first space you can find, please. I’ll pick you up.”
Vivian nodded and got behind the wheel of the van. As she shifted into drive and started to move it out of the street—careful not to strike too-eager drivers and pedestrians who were impatiently trying to get around—she also did her best to take mental notes of the vehicle. It was mostly clean, and she could see no obvious signs of anything illegal, no telltale signs of violence.
But as she brought the van to the first parking spot she saw, she took a deep breath and picked up a faint but unmistakable scent. A fragrant mix of roses and lilies and other flowers filled the confined space, stubbornly clinging to the air.
Quite a number of flowers had been inside this van at some point in the day.
So it appeared they had the right van. The question that remained was what role the driver played in the group she and Sterling had been chasing.