The Third to Die

by Allison Brennan

  “He could have a friend in the area that he’s staying with,” Michael said.

  “Catherine feels confident that he’s a loner, but it’s possible,” Matt said. “We’ll craft the press release to make it clear that we are concerned for his safety. Not make it seem like he’s dangerous, but that we’re looking for his father as a person of interest. If he’s cornered, even a friend or family member could be in danger.”

  Ryder said, “Since he has an employer, you could have the employer contact him, tell him that he needs to come in for a meeting.”

  Matt appreciated the out-of-the-box thinking. “Not bad. He might be suspicious, but that could buy us some time. Or have his aunt call him.”

  “Tell him what?” Michael asked. “That we were asking about him?”

  “Exactly. We went down to talk to her. Have her reach out and ask him if everything’s okay. We’ll call Catherine on our way out to Liberty Lake and get her take on it, but I like the idea.” He glanced at his watch, finished his coffee. “In fact, we need to head out there now to escort Maddox into the Spokane station preferably before the roads turn to ice. Ryder, while we’re gone, keep in contact with Jim and let me know the status of John Doe throughout the day. And keep working on tracking Hamilton through all means at our disposal. Tony is going back to the judge to try and spin this another way, even a limited warrant would help.”

  His phone rang as they were walking out. It was Andy Knolls. It was frigging cold and Matt missed Miami, missed Tucson, missed every warm state in the union.

  “Andy,” he said in lieu of hello. “Heard from Packard that everyone is accounted for.”

  “Yes. I’m escorting Corrigan now to headquarters.”

  “It’s still early.”

  “I was thinking about what you said last night, about Glen Hamilton’s childhood and everything he lost when his father went to prison. I contacted the bank that foreclosed on the house to find out exactly what happened to its contents. There could be something in the financial records, and because it was a foreclosure, it’s all public information. I’m going to meet the manager before they open. He’s more than happy to help.”

  “Great, if you learn anything about the father or kid, call.” Matt glanced at his watch. “We have a debriefing at eight. Will you be there?”

  “Probably late. And be careful, the roads are icy and weather is going to turn fast.”

  “You have a partner, correct? No one out alone.”

  “Yes, Officer Eric Tolliver. And I’ll follow all protocols. Abigail is tracking every police vehicle in Liberty Lake so we know where everyone is at all times.”

  * * *

  Brian was up at five in the morning, which gave Kara the opportunity to doze a bit on the couch. She didn’t know how well he’d slept, but all she needed was an hour and she’d be good for a while. She was used to erratic sleep patterns, and she rarely slept more than four hours at a time, anyway. The nap she’d had yesterday at the station had sustained her, and all she needed was a little boost to get them safely downtown. Once Brian was safe at SPD, she’d crash in the break room.

  Her phone beeped and she glanced down. She’d gotten a good hour and fifteen minutes, and smelled fresh coffee, bacon and eggs in the kitchen. She stretched, looked at her text message. It was from Matt.

  We’re on our way to escort Maddox to SPD. ETA 15 min.

  She responded that they’d be ready, then walked into the kitchen.

  “Eat,” Brian said.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice.” She poured fresh coffee and sat down to a plate of scrambled eggs with veggies and bacon. “Wish you were single. I’d move here in a heartbeat.”

  “Maybe you should learn to cook.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “I am a mean microwaver.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Did you talk to Julie?”

  “She sent me a text message at five this morning. Said she couldn’t sleep, wanted to make sure I’m okay. I told her when we get this resolved, I’m joining them down in Scottsdale. I could use a day of spring baseball right about now, and I’m not looking forward to this storm. It’s going to be nasty.”

  “We should be at the station before it hits, then we stay put. You promised.”

  “Did you hear from Corrigan?”

  “All is well.”

  “Good.”

  “Costa will be here in ten or so minutes to escort us in. Another patrol is going to relieve the guys outside and sit on the house to make sure Hamilton doesn’t come around here and make himself at home.”

  Maddox grabbed his keys off the counter and started for the door.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “It’s twenty degrees outside. I’m warming up the car. This isn’t Southern California, kid.”

  She cleared her throat and held out her hand.

  Brian was about to argue with her; she could see it in his eyes, then he relented. “I really hate this.” He dropped the keys in her palm.

  “I know.”

  She called the patrol that was down the street.

  “Can you both come to the house? There’s hot coffee in it for you, and your relief will be here shortly. We’re getting ready to leave.”

  “My savior,” one of the cops said.

  She chuckled.

  “This is overkill,” Maddox said.

  “Yep.” Babysitting cops was no fun. She’d done it once before, backing up a federal protection detail. Even the smartest of cops didn’t want to follow someone else’s lead on their personal security.

  She met the officers at the door. She pointed to the taller cop. “You’re with me. Your partner can collect coffee for the two of you. And your relief will be here by oh-eight-hundred to watch the house.”

  The first snowflake fell as she stepped out into the cold.

  “It’s going to be a mess out there pretty soon,” the cop said as he flanked her.

  “I sure miss Southern California about now.”

  Kara walked across the yard toward the garage. This setup was tactically a nightmare. The garage where Julie had her workshop was between the house and the carport where Brian parked his police truck. No direct line of sight until you passed the garage.

  “Eyes open,” she said.

  “He’d be an idiot to take on four cops.”

  Glen Hamilton was no idiot; otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away with multiple homicides. But he could be desperate. They were already seven hours into his twenty-four-hour kill window; he’d killed his first two victims in Liberty Lake before dawn.

  Costa could be wrong and neither Maddox or Corrigan were the targets. He thought it was one or the other. So far, no one was missing so his protective strategy was working. They had double duty on the two likely targets. Hamilton may have done surveillance and spotted the extra firepower. Otherwise why hadn’t he gone for his chosen target? Everyone else was on the buddy system. Much easier to take out two cops than four—not that taking out two cops was easy.

  “Where are you?” she muttered.

  “Excuse me?” the uniformed officer said.

  “Talking to myself.” She approached Maddox’s truck cautiously. Unlocked it. Started the engine. She removed the clicker from his key ring. Under normal circumstances he’d probably leave the car unlocked and running while puttering about in the house, but she didn’t want to give the killer a chance to get inside. He could hide in the back seat—Maddox didn’t have a cage in the back for criminals because as deputy chief he wasn’t in the field other than as a commander.

  She got out and locked the car with the clicker and looked down the street. A car was idling, a steady stream of hot, white exhaust drifting in the cold air. Not unusual. Not in this weather.

  Except... That car wasn’t parked on the street last night. She’d done
a perimeter check when they got home, then had the backup patrol check at regular intervals. She made note of all the houses and cars within the sight lines of Brian’s house. Most cars were garaged. A truck had been on the street all the way down. Not that dark gray, older model Camry.

  Someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.

  She motioned to the cop who was with her to stop—she didn’t want to call attention to herself and give the Camry driver any reason to think she was onto him. Then she pulled out her phone and hit Costa’s number.

  “Costa,” Matt answered.

  “It’s Quinn. I think our suspect is outside Brian’s house, parked down the street in a dark gray Camry.”

  “Plates?”

  “Can’t see them. The car’s running. It wasn’t here last night when we arrived or during any of the hourly perimeter checks. ETA?”

  “Seven minutes, maybe less. Do not confront him.”

  “When since you’ve met me have you ever thought I was an idiot?”

  As she watched, the Camry started moving. Then it accelerated fast down the street.

  “Shit, looks like he’s bolting. He was probably expecting Brian. He’s not going to engage me.”

  “Can you get a visual?”

  Though she itched to confront the driver herself, she didn’t want to tip her hand if it was Hamilton. She turned partly away from the Camry as if she hadn’t noticed it, and said to the backup officer, “Don’t be obvious. I think our suspect is in that gray Camry down the block. I can’t really make out who’s in the driver’s seat, but do you remember when the car arrived?”

  “No. It wasn’t there last night—and I don’t remember seeing it when we approached the house a few minutes ago.”

  The cops were inside for less than five minutes. Was the car parked elsewhere? Had he just arrived? There were a few places he might have been hidden that Kara couldn’t see from Brian’s house—why had he pulled out now?

  Because he knows Brian’s routine. He knows he turns on his truck every fucking morning to warm up.

  Kara ordered the officer to go back into the house and stick with Brian, then she ran back to the truck and jumped in. She immediately backed out and just missed hitting the Camry. Damn! She thought she could nail him with her bigger truck, but he was moving too fast. If she hit him and it wasn’t Hamilton, she’d have apologized. That’s why she had insurance, right?

  She caught a glance at the driver as he rounded the corner. She was certain it was Hamilton, though he didn’t look much like his license photo. But he was familiar. Had she seen him recently?

  She put Costa on speaker as she pursued the suspect.

  Costa was in the middle of a sentence. “...dammit, she’s gone and...”

  “I’m still here,” she said. “I’m in pursuit.”

  She hadn’t driven a squad car in years, and this truck was decked out completely differently than the LAPD black-and-whites.

  “Is it him?”

  “He bolted when he realized we spotted him. I’ve seen him before. Recently. He doesn’t look like his photo—I’ll get it, just give me a minute.”

  “Plates!”

  “Washington state. Alpha Romeo Tango one niner zero niner. Dark gray Toyota Camry, tinted windows. Fuck!”

  Hamilton was driving too fast for the icy roads, but he didn’t care. Kara finally found the lights and sirens on the truck, flipped them on. As Hamilton turned another corner, his rear wheels skidded. He gained control and sped up. Kara made the turn smoother, the larger truck tires giving her better traction.

  A group of kids started to walk across the street, and that bastard was going to hit them.

  “Quinn!” Costa shouted over the phone. She could barely hear him over the sirens.

  “Get out of the way!” she shouted, even though the kids couldn’t possibly hear her.

  The kids—six or seven of them—hesitated as they realized the cars weren’t stopping, then split up and started running in different directions as the Camry barreled down the narrow street. The driver intentionally swerved into the group and clipped one of the kids, who went flying into a yard, his head slamming into the hard ground.

  “Shit! He hit a kid. I can’t pursue. He turned north on Liberty Lake Road.”

  Kara stopped the truck and turned off the sirens, then fumbled with the radio. “This is Detective Kara Quinn in Deputy Chief Maddox’s vehicle. We have a 10-57 at my location, call a bus.”

  “Who is this?” the dispatcher asked.

  “Quinn. With Maddox. Kid is injured in a hit-and-run.” She couldn’t just sit here and explain herself. She grabbed her phone and jumped out of the truck. “Costa, find that bastard, I have to check on the kid.”

  She ran over to where several kids were standing around the boy who had been hit. He was conscious, but unmoving. Stunned. In shock. Dammit, a kid!

  She took off her jacket and put it around him. “An ambulance is coming,” she said.

  “Are you a police girl?” one of the children said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not wearing a uniform.”

  “I’m a detective.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “What’s your name, kid?” She leaned over him, looked in his eyes. His pupils were wide. She didn’t want to move him, but it was freezing out here.

  “That’s my brother, Joey.” The little girl who spoke couldn’t be more than seven. Her big brown eyes were rimmed with tears. “He’s going to be okay, right?”

  “Yeah, we just need to keep him warm.”

  Within seconds, all the kids had their jackets off and were handing them to Kara. She wrapped Joey up the best she could. Then she noticed the blood on the back of his head.

  She pulled out her phone and called 911. “I need an ambulance here, now!” She gave them the corner she was on.

  A moment later, the operator said that an ambulance had already been dispatched, ETA fifteen minutes.

  “Make it faster.” Kara would never forgive herself if her pursuit of Hamilton had caused a kid’s death. She needed Joey to be okay.

  People started coming out of their houses, some carrying blankets. One by one Kara returned the coats to the children who had shared them, replacing them with the blankets.

  “Joey, you with me?” Kara said.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Good. You’re going to be fine. You get to ride in an ambulance, okay? And they’ll take real good care of you, make sure you get fixed up.”

  “M-my head hurts.”

  “You know what? I’ve had a concussion before. It hurts a lot. But it got better, and you’ll get better. Just do everything the doctors tell you to do, okay?”

  “I’m going to be a doctor,” Joey’s little sister said.

  “Good,” Kara said, because what else did you say to that?

  “Shouldn’t we bring him into the house?” one of the adults said.

  “We can’t move him,” Kara said. “We don’t know the extent of his injuries. Does anyone have a portable heater? An umbrella?” The snow was coming down lightly, but it was getting heavier with each passing minute. She was doing her best to keep the flakes off Joey’s face.

  Three minutes later she had an umbrella over the kid, and a minute later a portable heater was blowing lukewarm air on both of them.

  “Joey, keep talking to me,” she said.

  “I’m sleepy.”

  “I know, but you need to stay awake. If you have a concussion, the doctors like it when you stay awake, so they can ask you questions.”

  “My arm hurts.”

  She figured from the odd angle that it was broken.

  “I had a cast once,” she said. “Broke my wrist. It hurt a lot, but everyone on my squad signed it.”

  “How did you break your wrist?” Joey
’s little sister asked.

  “Catching a bad guy.” She wasn’t going to tell a seven-year-old that she’d finally caught up with a serial rapist at UCLA and beat him up before her partner Colton Fox pulled her off. That wasn’t one of her finest hours, but damn, that bastard had ruined the lives of a dozen women, and Kara had wanted to make him hurt. It was worth the broken wrist.

  “Like that man who hit Joey?”

  “Yeah. Exactly.”

  “You’ll find him, right?”

  “You bet we’ll find him. He’s going to jail, I promise.”

  She finally heard the ambulance in the distance. A car pulled up on the street and Costa jumped out of the passenger seat. He squatted next to her.

  Joey was closing his eyes. “Hey, Joey, stay awake, okay? Um, my name is Kara. Do you have a dog?”

  “Two,” he said sleepily.

  “What are their names?”

  “Fred and Daisy.”

  “I like those names. What kind of dogs?”

  “Um, mutts, my dad says.”

  Joey’s sister said, “Mom says they’re lab mixes.”

  “Joey, do you like playing with your dogs?”

  “We walk them every night.”

  “That’s great.” She glanced at Costa.

  “We couldn’t find him,” Costa said. “But we have an APB on his car. Every cop is out looking for him now.”

  In a low voice, Kara said, “He deliberately ran into these kids. To stop me.”

  “You had to stop,” Costa said. “You had to help. You didn’t have a choice.”

  She knew it, and it still made her angry. “I want him, Costa. I want him bad.”

  It could have been so much worse.

  42

  Liberty Lake

  8:10 a.m.

  Glen’s heart was racing. He forced his right foot to ease up on the gas.

  That bitch cop had spotted him. How had she known? Nondescript car. Down the street. It made no sense!

  But she did, and she followed him. He hadn’t wanted to hit the kid, but he needed to buy time, to get away. He thought she was going to keep coming for him, so he detoured, went east, kept off the interstate.