“My father has never been content,” Sarah said. “He’s worked his whole life to get drugs off the street. He’s never been satisfied ignoring the problem or busting little dealers.”
“Perhaps he should have been.” Detective Doyle leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table as he studied Sarah. “What else do you know?”
“That’s all,” she said, meeting his gaze. She pulled her hands out from beneath her legs, wrapping her arms around her middle, feeling like she had when she stepped off the elevator—sick and cold all at the same time. Maybe I’m catching the flu Jeffrey had.
“Sarah’s father has always been very controlling,” Jay said. “And very paranoid about her safety. She’s even had a bodyguard.”
“Really?” Detective Doyle’s eyebrows rose. “Tell me about that, Sarah.”
“He’s my cousin.” The room was starting to spin. Something isn’t right. She told herself that it was informing on her father that had her feeling so awful, so uneasy. So frightened.
“Did he go with you on these undercover raids, these busts at the park?”
She nodded. When did I tell him about the park?
I didn’t. Those eyes . . . Recognition hit with startling force. He knows because he was there. The beard was new, but she’d never forget those eyes. Sarah felt the blood draining from her face.
A sharp pain in her stomach was followed by a sudden burning in her esophagus. She stood quickly, tipping the chair backward. “Jay—I’m going to be sick—” Covering her face with her hand she ran from the room.
Jay stood and started after her.
Detective Doyle pulled a gun from the desk drawer and pointed it at Jay. “Sit down, Mr. Kendrich.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
Sarah tore down the hall, hand over her mouth as she looked for a restroom. The first one she spotted was men’s, but she didn’t care. She ran inside, hovering over the sink not a second too soon.
Her stomach heaved as she lost her breakfast, lunch, and what felt like everything she’d eaten in the past week.
Finished at last, she dragged herself to the next sink, turned on the faucet, and rinsed out her mouth.
Stay calm, she told herself, though alarm bells rang in her head. Detective Doyle was the man she’d bought from in the park the night Eddie Martin’s man didn’t show up—the night her father became so angry, and later worried.
Was it because Dad really was doing something illegal and guessed I’d bought from a DEA agent? She couldn’t convince herself that was the truth. Detective Doyle had scared her that night, and he made her uneasy now.
Sarah sagged against the sink, feeling worse by the minute. No matter how important this meeting was, it was going to have to wait. She needed to go somewhere to lie down, and she needed to do it quick—before she passed out. Lifting her head, she checked in the mirror to make sure her face was clean. Her mouth opened, and she stifled a scream, staring in horror at a pair of legs sticking out from beneath a stall, blood pooling around them.
* * *
“Up there,” the detective—or whoever he was—ordered, gun thrust in Jay’s back.
Jay climbed the concrete stairs as slowly as he dared. When he reached the rooftop, he stepped outside, eyes scanning each direction for any sign of Sarah.
Did she realize something was wrong? Did she go for help? He listened, waiting for the door to shut behind them. When it didn’t, he risked turning a little to see why.
His captor had propped it open, the rubber stopper keeping the door ajar, a sure invitation for someone to come up here. For Sarah to come up.
Following his gaze, the man confirmed Jay’s worry. “Now she’ll know right where to find us. Especially with the nice clues I left along the way.”
“She won’t come,” Jay said. “She’s long gone by now.”
“We’ll see.” The man held up a blood-soaked washcloth. He squeezed it, sending bright red drops to the pavement. “If I were a betting man—which I am”—he grinned—“I’d say you’re wrong. She’s more like her father than she realizes, and she’ll want to do the right thing.”
Jay didn’t bother responding, but instead spent his energies scanning the area for possible escape routes. It was windy on top of the building, and with a sinking heart, he saw that the guard rails were nothing more than two bars of metal running horizontally around the roof. It wouldn’t take much to push someone over the edge.
Carl doesn’t fight fair. He remembered Sarah’s warning. It clearly applied to a few others besides her cousin. Not much was fair when you had the barrel of a gun inches from your heart.
“So, you, uh, obviously don’t work for the DEA,” Jay ventured, deciding conversation was perhaps his only chance of distracting the man.
“Not now I don’t. Maybe someday.”
“You don’t think this kind of thing will be a problem on your résumé?”
“Anything that’s a problem, I take care of. Like you,” the man said. “Walk over there. All the way to the far side.”
Jay did as he was told. He looked around as he walked, unable, even in such dire circumstances, to ignore the view. The sun was low in the sky, casting an orange haze over the city. A few boats bobbed on the Charles River, and the red seats of Fenway Park glistened in the distance. Sixty stories below, all across the city, people were celebrating Christmas, the season of brotherhood.
Jay stopped about five feet from the edge. “I’m afraid of heights.” Actually, right now, that’s true.
His abductor chuckled. “Then maybe I’ll have to shoot you first, to make it a believable lover’s spat. You think about it though. Personally, I’d rather jump. At least you get a thrill before you go.”
* * *
Sarah wrapped her fingers around the top of the bathroom stall, germs the farthest thing from her mind. Stepping up onto the toilet, she peered over the divider into the unmoving eyes of the man lying prone on the floor. His face was frozen in shock, and his suit coat lay partially open, revealing a red stain on the front of his shirt. Another stain, lower, seemed to be the source of the blood near his legs.
Sarah let go of her death grip on the wall and dropped her foot down to the floor. Feeling faint again, she sat on the edge of the toilet, careful to keep her feet away from the blood that was seeping closer.
Who are you? She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing all of this away, wondering how she’d gone from getting engaged to sitting in a bathroom stall next to a dead man in less than twenty-four hours. What if he’s not dead? The thought terrified her even more, because she knew she had to find out.
Taking a deep breath of the stale, copper air, she pushed open the door to his stall. Her fingers shook and bile rose in her throat as she stepped around his legs, reaching down to check for a pulse. His skin was cold, already starting to stiffen. She pressed her fingers against his wrist, waiting, praying.
Nothing.
She stood up and backed away, hands clasped to control her shaking. What do I do? What—
A lanyard around his neck caught her eye. It slid off to the side of his chest, disappearing beneath his lapel. Shaking even more violently than before, she leaned forward, reached out, and flipped the lanyard to the center of his body so she could read the attached identification.
Drug Enforcement Administration
Worcester Mobile Task Force
Judd Doyle
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Jay was tired of standing but didn’t dare sit down or complain. A quick glance at his watch told him they’d been on the roof for almost fifteen minutes. During that time the sun had dipped below the horizon so that it was almost dark. The wind had picked up. Jay was starting to feel uncomfortable in more ways than one. Thanks to Christa and her scissors, his ears were exposed and freezing. His fingers were numbing as well, but he didn’t risk putting them in his pockets; he needed his hands free. Every fraction of a second would count in defending himself. He had to do something soon—before the guy
decided he’d waited long enough and carried through with his threat to shoot.
Except that Sarah wasn’t here. Jay had extracted enough monosyllables from the guy to understand that she was the bigger concern, while he was an unfortunate bystander, the bait. Sarah was the one with the information—information that couldn’t leave this building.
Unless it already had. Please let her be gone. Jay uttered the same prayer over and over.
“All right. I’ve wasted enough time.” The man leveled the gun at Jay’s heart. “What’s it going to be? A tragic fall, or did your girlfriend kill you?”
“Be a bit difficult to pull that one off, since she isn’t here,” Jay said. Beneath his jacket, his heart thumped wildly. I’m going to have to rush him. It’s the only chance I’ve got.
“She’s hiding somewhere. My partner and I will find her. Now jump or take the bullet.”
Jay raised his hands in the air. “I think I’ll reconsider my position on heights.”
“Wise choice,” the man nodded. “Less messy for me.”
“Glad to help.” Jay glanced over his shoulder as he stepped backward, judging how much farther until he reached the rail.
“Hurry up.” The gunman followed him closely, the Beretta never wavering from Jay’s heart.
Grab the rail. Raise my leg to climb up. Kick him instead . . . Lame plan. Think of something else—quick.
He did. He thought of Sarah, alone and hunted down. If she were the one standing by the rail, he’d already be in motion. He couldn’t wait any longer, could not leave her by herself. He turned, grabbed the rail, bent over, and raised his leg.
A gunshot echoed across the rooftop.
“Jay!” Sarah’s voice pierced the air. No, Sarah. His foot came up as he looked over his shoulder, kicking as hard as he could, feeling contact. Pushing off from the rail, he whirled around, fist already in motion. It caught air.
The gunman pitched to the side, surprise on his face as he fell. Jay dove on top of him, jerking the gun from his hand, flinging it across the roof. He raised his fist, pummeling it into the side of the guy’s face again and again.
“Jay. Stop. I think he’s—dead.” Sarah touched his shoulder. “We’ve got to get out of here. There’s another man inside. I sent an elevator down empty, and I think he believes I’m on it, but that won’t buy us much time.”
Jay froze mid-punch, realizing that the guy wasn’t fighting back, wasn’t even moving. Jay climbed off, staring in shock at the blood starting to ooze through the fabric of the man’s shirt.
Jay looked over at Sarah and saw the gun gripped in her hand. She was pale and shaking all over. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her away from the body.
“You saved my life.” Awed, he looked into her eyes. “You can’t remember how to use the brakes on a ten-speed, but you can shoot with accuracy from across a roof, fifty feet away?”
Tears slid down her face. “My father taught me how to shoot to kill.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Sarah met Jay outside of the women’s restroom in Boston’s South Station. They’d separated for a few minutes so she could attempt to clean herself up and so Jay could purchase tickets to somewhere—far away preferably. “Where are we going?”
“We’re not,” he said. “Police are all over the place. Probably because of holiday travel, but still . . . We get on a train, we’re stuck. I bought two tickets to D.C. at the machine, but we aren’t going to use them.”
“Oh.” Sarah lengthened her stride, trying to keep up with Jay’s brisk pace. What she really wanted to do was lie down—on the nearest bench, the floor—anywhere. “The car again?” He nodded. “If we’re lucky, they’ll track that purchase and think we have something big and important to tell someone in Washington. In the meantime, Kirk’s Jetta has almost a full tank. That will get us across the state line and then some. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”
Sarah shivered as they stepped outside the station. The wind blew hard against them, raining wet snow across her line of vision.
“Keep your head down and walk fast,” Jay said. “Stay behind me. I’ll act as a shield.”
She pulled the jacket tighter and lowered her head as they crossed the street, grateful the blinding snow gave her a real excuse to do so.
By the time they made it to the car, her toes were frozen and her body was shaking with chills. Jay hurried to the driver’s side, clicking open the automatic locks. He had the engine started before she was inside. He cranked on the defrost and grabbed the scraper.
“See if there’s any kind of map in the glove box, will you?” he asked as he got out.
With difficulty she used her numb fingers to pop the latch while he scraped the windows. The box yielded nothing except an owner’s manual and a couple of gas receipts.
“No luck,” she said when Jay was seated again.
“Thanks for trying.” He hit the automatic locks and backed the car out. “Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Connecticut was nice,” she said, remembering the Yale game that seemed about a hundred years ago. She sat on her hands while they drove, willing the heater to warm up faster.
“That’s the same direction as Washington. I’d rather go north, or west.”
“West,” Sarah said.
At a stoplight Jay dug through his pocket. He held out a somewhat smashed package of Fig Newtons. “I got these in the vending machine. It was the closest thing they had to a decent meal.”
She took the flattened cookies. “Thanks. Did you get some too?”
Jay shook his head. “No. I’m too stressed to eat right now. You have them.”
She would have protested, but it had been a long time since lunch, and she’d thrown that up, along with everything else she’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours. Her stomach ached with hunger, though she was more than a little leery of eating again. After ripping open the package, she nibbled the edge of a cookie.
“These wipers are terrible,” Jay complained. He rolled down his window, reached out, and tried to catch one as it swished to the side. A clump of icy snow came off and stayed in a perfect diagonal across the windshield. “Great.”
“Anything I can do?” Sarah asked.
“Yeah. Take my phone and call Kirk.”
She tensed, the bite of cookie sticking in her throat. “Anything else?”
“No.”
Sarah turned away, staring out the passenger window. Traffic was thinning now as they neared the interstate. She wasn’t sure whether it was good or bad that there weren’t a lot of cars. She wasn’t sure running away, heading west, was the right thing to do.
She was pretty sure that right about now Jay was rethinking their engagement.
She leaned her head against the cool glass. The heater was finally working. She was starting to get warm. Too warm. Maybe I have a fever. Maybe I have the flu. Her eyelids felt heavy. But she didn’t want to fall asleep with things as they were now. They’d been tense and stressed in the past hour and a half since fleeing the Hancock Building and the two dead bodies. She’d been frantic and demanding.
Before they’d left the roof, Jay had retrieved the tape recorder and his cell phone from the phony Detective Doyle. Jay wanted to call Kirk, tell him what had happened, and decide what to do next.
Now Sarah cringed, remembering her reaction, her hysteria and outright insistence that he not call Kirk or anyone else. After all, it was Kirk who’d sent them to the Hancock Building. Kirk who knew the detective who lay dead.
“That’s exactly why we need to talk to him,” Jay had argued. “Kirk didn’t set us up. Someone found out about our meeting. Don’t you think that same person is going to find out Kirk is helping us? Do you want Christa and the boys to be in danger?”
“No.” Sarah had pushed the hair back from her face and struggled to see him through her tears. “But the man who found out is dead.” She kept her gaze averted from his body. “Let’s just go away somewhere—disappe
ar.”
“We can’t,” Jay had said. “Kirk’s risked everything to help us, and we have to help him in return. You know that. What happened to the girl who risked her life for James yesterday?”
“She just killed someone.” Sarah glanced over her shoulder once more as Jay led her away. “Don’t call him,” she’d begged. “If you love me at all, do not call him.”
Jay hadn’t called. And now Sarah still didn’t give in. It was a critical time to be having their first fight—when they literally needed each other just to stay alive. But they’d made it out of the building and this far safely without calling Kirk. Why couldn’t they make it even farther, somewhere so far away no one would ever bother them again?
Her gaze shifted down to the red stains on the knees of her jeans. She’d had to kneel on the bathroom floor to get the real Detective Doyle’s gun free. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the gruesome images parading through her mind—the detective’s eyes staring blankly, his cool skin . . . and then Jay against the railing, the pistol held firm in her hands as she took aim. The second she knew that aim was true . . .
Her stomach lurched, and she leaned forward, dry heaving.
I killed a man.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
The rest-stop sign seemed like a godsend to Jay. He concentrated on keeping his eyelids open, as well as the windshield clean, the last mile to the pull-off on I-90 West through New York. It was only one a.m.—ridiculous how tired he felt. He’d worked this late before, and he’d certainly stayed up later than this finishing papers or cramming for exams, but somehow driving in the storm, constantly checking the mirrors to see if anyone was following, had worn him out.
It didn’t help matters that they hadn’t dared to stop anywhere to eat all evening, and he was starving. Between hunger and sleep deprivation and arguing with and worrying about Sarah all afternoon, he had one heck of a tension headache. It burned behind his eyes, up over his scalp, and around to the muscles in the back of his neck.
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