by Lisa Harris
A door to the stairwell opened above them, then a couple seconds later, slammed. She stopped and looked up.
“Do you think they’re still in the building?” he asked.
“It’s possible but seems unlikely.”
“Agreed.” Jonas motioned for them to keep heading toward the lobby. “Local backup should be here any minute. If they are in the building, we’ll know it.”
She kept running down the stairs. Whoever had opened the door had decided—for whatever reason—to avoid the stairwell. She knew they had to reach the lobby, but she wasn’t convinced their fugitives had left the building.
Her heart rate was rising and her breathing heavier, but she kept up her pace until they finally reached the bottom. Jonas shoved the door open. Getting in required a key pass. Thankfully, getting out didn’t.
Two officers stood just outside the lobby entrance.
“We’re with the US Marshals,” Jonas said, holding up his badge.
“We were told you were here,” one of the officers said. “No one matching the description of your fugitives has left the building since we arrived. Additional officers are on their way and will begin searching the neighborhood, including public transportation and ferries. We will find them.”
Madison turned to Jonas. “And if they are still in the building?”
“Then we need to look at the building’s security cameras.”
EIGHTEEN
Jonas strode back into the lobby toward the reception desk, working hard to keep his anger in check.
He held up his badge. “You remember us?”
Dylan frowned.
“The warning you gave wasn’t very helpful.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Jonas braced his hands against the desk. “You’re seriously going to play that card?”
“Look, all I know is that whoever you’re trying to find, I never saw them. That’s the truth.”
“Then what did happen?”
Dylan let out a sharp puff of air. “Zac came down right after I got here at midnight and told me his friend was in trouble. Something about an ex-boyfriend. I didn’t want any problems here, but he slipped me a little something and told me to let him know if anyone came asking for him.”
Jonas held up the photos of Jesse and Nadia again. “Did they come through here before the officers outside arrived?”
“No.” Dylan held up his hands in front of him. “I promise. I haven’t seen them.”
“Is there a back way out?” Madison asked.
“There’s a back service entrance, but it’s not directly accessible to residents or visitors.”
“But they could have left that way?”
He bobbed his head. “I suppose.”
“We need to look at your security footage.”
Dylan tugged on his tie. “I can’t just let you access our footage without a warrant.”
“Your help could mean a lot—otherwise, you’d be responsible for aiding and abetting two fugitives—”
Dylan held up his hands at Jonas’s words and motioned them behind the desk. “I can access the footage from here. What do you want to see?”
Jonas and Madison moved behind the desk to examine the large security screen that was split into half a dozen squares of views from cameras monitoring the building. “Can you pull up the footage on the seventeenth floor outside the elevators? Start at six a.m. and speed it up.”
Jonas stared at the grayscale footage of the landing. A man got off the elevator at six fifteen and headed into the apartment next to Zac’s. Other than that, the floor was quiet. Dylan skipped ahead.
“Wait. Pause it now.” Madison tapped on the counter. “That’s them.”
A couple exited Zac’s apartment. Jesse and Nadia. A moment later they stepped onto the elevator.
“So they definitely got on the elevator.” Jonas glanced at the time stamp. “That was just after we arrived in the building.”
“But we didn’t meet them on the elevator, and you didn’t see them leave, Dylan,” Madison said. “Which means they went where?”
“They had to have gotten off on another floor to avoid running into us.” Jonas shook his head, trying to anticipate where they would’ve gone. “Let us see the main entrance and the back footage between this time stamp and now.”
Dylan clicked a few buttons, and the two exits popped up on the screen.
Jonas leaned forward and studied the footage as it played. A dozen people came and went through the lobby, but not their fugitives. His irritation was growing. Every minute they spent trying to figure out where Jesse and Nadia went was another minute they had to get away. Before they even considered searching the entire building, they were going to have to verify they were actually still here.
Dylan took a step back once the tape cut off. “Sorry, but that’s it.”
“So if they didn’t leave the building,” Madison said, “then where are they?”
“They could have gotten off on another floor and taken the stairs.” Jonas tapped his fingers on the counter.
“Are there cameras in the stairwell?” Madison asked.
Dylan nodded. “A few.”
“Can you give us the view from the stairwell this time? We need to see exactly where they got off.”
Dylan searched the monitors for a few seconds then stopped. “There they are. It looks like they went up instead of down.”
“Why would they do that?” Madison asked, turning to her partner.
“I don’t know, but we need to find out what floor they got off on.” Jonas frowned. They’d heard a door slam shut above them. Had that been their fugitives?
“There they are,” Madison said, motioning for Dylan to pause the video again.
“What floor is that?” Jonas asked.
“The twenty-fifth.”
“What’s there?”
“It’s one of the penthouses.” Dylan folded his arms across his chest. “The owner’s in the middle of renovating one of the apartments, but there hasn’t been anything going on for several weeks. There’s some kind of dispute with the city and the paperwork.”
“Is that the only apartment on that floor?” Madison asked.
Dylan shook his head. “No. There are two, but the other’s currently vacant as well.”
“Do you have a floor plan?”
“Yeah. Give me a sec.”
Jonas waited while Dylan pulled up the schematics of the suite, then he studied the layout beside Madison. Past the entryway was an open living room, dining room, and kitchen, then four bedrooms laid out in an L-shape, allowing maximized views of the city. “We need access to that floor.”
“I’m not allowed to just let anyone into—”
Madison glared at the young man. “I’m pretty sure your management isn’t going to be happy when they find out you didn’t cooperate with the authorities who were tracking down two fugitives involved in a double homicide.”
“Murder?” Dylan held up his hands. “Do whatever you need to do.”
Jonas called in an update as he hurried to the elevator with Madison, with backup on standby. He didn’t want another hostage situation. He might not know what the fugitives’ plan was, but they were clearly desperate. The problem was that shedding one’s identity and disappearing was never as easy as it seemed on TV. In today’s world, it was almost impossible to avoid leaving behind breadcrumbs. Databases, corporate files, IP addresses, and GPS-enabled phones meant that one false move could end everything.
They stepped off the elevator into darkness. Jonas flipped the light switch. Nothing.
“Dylan failed to mention that the power’s apparently been shut off.” He flipped on his flashlight, then opened the door to one of the penthouses.
“I have to say this is a bit creepy.”
The apartment was dark, with the only light coming from a long line of windows. Dark storm clouds loomed over the city as thunder rumbled across the bay. Lightning flashed,
revealing appliances and cupboards covered with plastic. The view had to be stunning on a clear day. Maybe Madison had been right. Living a couple hundred feet above the ground might not be so bad.
He crossed the wood floors, checking every square inch of the apartment as they headed toward the hallway and the four bedrooms. Shadows flickered against the walls, but the space was eerily quiet. If they weren’t here, where were they?
According to the schematics they’d looked at, half of the floor belonged to one owner who was in the middle of renovating the entire apartment, but there were only so many places to hide in the unfurnished space that was littered with building supplies.
He opened the door to the first bedroom. A noise to his right caught his attention. He shifted his flashlight and caught movement.
“It’s a mouse.”
Madison took a step back. “I hate mice.”
“Think of him as another wanted fugitive on the run.”
She chuckled. “Very funny.”
Jonas headed into the hallway, then froze. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah, and this time it was definitely not a mouse.”
Someone was in the apartment.
Jonas started back toward the living room, carefully calculating each step. Both Jesse and Nadia had been armed at the bank, and he wasn’t going to take any chances of stepping into an ambush. He pulled his weapon out in front of him and cautiously made his way around the corner, searching for their target with each step.
The sound of crinkling plastic permeated the silence. Lightning flashed and he spotted a silhouette walking toward him.
Jonas shouted at the figure. “Put your hands in the air and lean against the wall.”
“Wait. It’s just me. Zac.”
“Do it now!”
Jonas moved in quickly with Madison just a step behind him. He quickly patted Zac down. When he was done, he clasped the man’s arm and turned him around. “We told you to stay in your apartment.”
“I know, but Dylan said you came up this way and I think I know why they came here,” Zac said, his breathing labored. “I started thinking after you left my apartment. Realized you were right and they’d just used me, but then I had to start asking myself why they would come here in the first place.”
“And?”
Zac glanced toward the row of windows. “I had to come up here and see if I was right. Can I show you something?”
Jonas glanced at Madison, then nodded, releasing his grip on Zac.
“In college, we used to rappel off buildings at night,” Zac said as they followed him toward the last bedroom on the west side of the apartment. “The previous owners of this place left behind some of those rescue backpacks with a control descent device used for emergencies.”
“Or for escaping US Marshals,” Jonas mumbled.
“Jesse and Nadia came by a few months ago,” Zac said, clearly not hearing the comment. “We got to talking about rappelling. I showed them this apartment. The construction people don’t always lock it, and it’s been empty for months. I’d been curious to see the place and figured no one would notice. We planned to try it out, but we never did.”
Jonas and Madison followed him into the last bedroom, where something was flapping along the far wall.
“You were right.” Madison tugged on a cord that had been clipped to an anchor on the wall.
“They must have remembered this place and figured if the cops showed up, they’d have an alternative route out of the building that would in turn buy them time,” Jonas said. “Though I have a feeling they weren’t expecting us to find them so soon.”
“I don’t think so either,” Zac said.
Madison pulled out her phone. “I’ll update Michaels. How much of a head start do you think they have?”
Jonas glanced at his watch. “I’d say ten to fifteen minutes.”
Her phone rang before she had a chance to place the call. She hung up a few seconds later. “We can arrange for SPD to take official statements from Zac and the concierge, but Michaels wants us back at the office ASAP.”
“You’re going to like this,” Michaels said as soon as they walked into his office forty-five minutes later. “We found out what was in that storage unit.”
“The key fit?” Madison asked. She picked up the plastic bag sitting on their boss’s desk. “Passports, driver’s licenses, social security cards, cash . . . So they definitely had an exit strategy.”
“Someone dropped the key in the chaos of getting away and now they’re stuck,” Jonas said. “Without all of this, they can’t leave the country.”
“Not easily, no,” Michaels said.
Jonas couldn’t help but smile at the discovery. “Which means they’re going to need new passports and IDs.”
Michaels nodded. “And a new place to hide out until they get them.”
“Is there any way to know who forged these passports?” Madison asked, setting the bag back down on the desk. “It would make sense for them to go back to the same forger and ask for another set.”
“It’s possible but would take time. I’ll hand these over to someone I know who might be able to figure it out. But for now,” Michaels said, “I want the two of you to keep combing through everything we have, including all of this. We need another lead.”
Madison leaned back in her chair, trying to work the kinks out of her stiff joints after sitting in one position for so long. The past few hours of going through every piece of evidence and multiple social media accounts had netted zero clues to where Jesse and Nadia might have gone after escaping the high rise.
“They have to still be in the city,” she said to Jonas, who was seated at the desk beside her. She stood up and walked to the window. The morning rain had cleared off, leaving behind blue skies and a trail of wispy clouds. They were out there. Somewhere.
Piper stepped into the room with a piece of paper in her hand.
“Piper? What have you got?” Madison asked, turning around.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been screening the calls coming through our tip line and Michaels asked me to give you this one. It’s from a security guard that works at St. James Cathedral. He says he thinks he saw our suspects inside the church about fifteen minutes ago.”
Madison glanced at Jonas. “Sounds like the perfect place for a clandestine meeting with a forger.”
“Yes, it does.” Jonas pulled his keys out of his pocket and turned to Piper. “Tell Michaels we’re on our way.”
NINETEEN
Jonas pulled into an open parking space along the tree-lined street near the cathedral while Madison surveyed the surrounding area. The cathedral with its twin spires was located in the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, but the quiet street revealed no signs of their fugitives. Just the continual wave of passing traffic along with a handful of pedestrians walking by.
“I remember coming here once with my grandmother,” Madison said, stepping out of the car and onto the sidewalk. “She loved history and brought me here one summer to show me the remarkable collection of stained glass windows. If you haven’t seen them, they’re definitely worth a visit.”
“I’ve never been inside, but I’ve driven by a number of times. I can see why she loved it.” He followed her onto the sidewalk, locking the car behind them. “It is beautiful.”
“She loved living in the United States, but always wanted to take me to France so I could see some real history, as she used to say.”
Jonas chuckled. “I suppose most of the cathedrals there make this seem like new construction. So she was French?”
“She was. She was a war bride.” Madison smiled at the memory as they hurried toward the front steps of the church’s entrance. “She was eighteen years old when she met my grandfather. He was a staff sergeant with the air force, and her family had worked with the French Resistance. Whenever he had some free time, they would go for walks around Paris to visit the museums and different cathedrals. They ended up getting married and se
ttled here after the war. My father was born nine months after they married.”
“My grandfather fought in World War Two as well,” Jonas said, pausing at the entrance of the church, “but ended up in England. When the war was over, he came straight back and married his sweetheart in rural Kansas. Spent the rest of his life being a farmer. They’d been married over sixty years when he died.”
“So how did your mom end up in the Northwest?”
“She followed my father here for work. They lived here their entire married life.”
Madison felt the unexpected tug of emotion as she stepped through the doors and into the cathedral foyer. Stained glass windows filtered the light overhead beneath vaulted ceilings. Ornate furnishings and shimmering candles lined the walls. A few people sat scattered in rows of wooden chairs. But it was the sense of peace that had always drawn her to places like this, especially in the world she dealt with that was so often void of peace. A peace her grandmother had reminded her she could find no matter where she was, because God’s Spirit lived inside his people. At the time, Madison had no idea just how important those words of encouragement were going to be. They were words Madison had clung to among the uncertainties that had crept in over the past few years. No matter what her emotions said, God’s presence would never leave her.
She scanned the inside of the cathedral, looking for the guard they’d been told to meet. He must have been watching for them, because a moment later, a uniformed security officer headed toward them.
“Officer Thompson?” Jonas asked.
“Yes.” The man rested his hands against his hips. “You’re with the US Marshals?”
Jonas and Madison held up their badges.
“We appreciate your calling in the lead,” Madison said.
“Of course.” Thompson rubbed his jaw. “I’m pretty sure I saw the fugitives you’re after, though they look a little different than they did in the news footage.”
“Can you tell us what you saw?”
“Of course.” He motioned them toward a small alcove where they’d have more privacy. “I probably wouldn’t have even noticed them normally, but I’d received the BOLO on them this morning and was keeping an eye out. About an hour ago, a couple walked in. They seemed quiet and respectful, and honestly, I didn’t think anything about it at first. They went and sat down. Again, there wasn’t anything odd about their presence.”