by Jordan Dane
Following Lucas Baker had been easy. She knew where he was going.
With surveillance gear, Alexa had eavesdropped on his intimidation tactic with the gutsy bounty hunter, all under the nose of the cop who waited outside The Cutthroat. Afterward, she hung back in traffic and forced herself to be patient. Baker had been so focused on getting his laptop back, he hadn’t paid attention to the dark sedan tailing him. He had the ego of a predator, not the prey.
And she had counted on that.
But after a man stepped out of the shadows to speak to Baker in the skate rink parking lot, she realized she’d been just as careless and egotistical. She hadn’t seen the incident coming, but then again, the intruder hadn’t seen her either. After spotting him with her night vision binoculars, she had covered her blond hair with a knit cap and left the anonymity of her vehicle to creep closer. She edged along the shadows in the parking lot with her .45-caliber H&K MK23 drawn.
The two men talked in the dark, but she never got a good look at the second man and had no time to do a proper surveillance of their conversation. When it looked as if their business was concluded, Baker headed for his car. That’s when the stranger pumped two in his chest. The muzzle flash took out her night vision capability, blinding her for a second. By the time she recovered, it was over.
The sudden savagery shocked her. Who the hell are you, my deadly friend? The man had taken a life without hesitation. A seasoned killer.
And just like that, Lucas Baker had become a dead end, literally. Those who lived by the sword, died by it, she thought. One day she might not be so cavalier about that kind of fate, but she had no sympathy for a guy like Baker. Preventing his murder required incentive and opportunity, and she had neither. And saving Baker’s life hadn’t been in the cards. Now, given the new scenario, she had to adapt and improvise.
She kept her eyes on the man who had killed Baker using her night vision gear. He picked up the computer bag and his shell casings, then dissolved into the shadows, as he had come. Carefully, she weighed her options. The man would have to report to someone.
In the next parking lot over, she saw him get into a dark BMW sedan. He headed out of the lot without his headlights until he got to the main road, doing the speed limit. After yanking the knit cap off her head, she pulled from the curb, minding all the traffic laws.
Trailing a killer was a gamble, but one she was willing to take. The stakes were too high to play it safe.
She lagged behind him, not wanting to spook the guy. When he merged onto the Dan Ryan Expressway heading south, she blended with traffic, not wanting to stand out. She calmed her heart and settled in for a long, steady pursuit.
But when the bastard swerved off the Calumet Expressway, heading for the Indiana state line, all that changed. He picked up speed. And off the freeway it would be harder to lurk behind him this time of night.
“What the hell?” she said aloud. “Did you spot me?”
She had to be careful now. He might have picked up speed to watch his rearview mirror to see if anyone followed. But even if she kept her composure and didn’t panic, she still had a dilemma. She could lose him if she lagged too far behind, but if she sped up, he might spot her. This section of road had less traffic.
“Cagey bastard.”
Baker’s killer might have eyes in the back of his head, but if she didn’t hit the accelerator, she’d lose him anyway. She took a calculated risk and sped up. Barreling through the dark, the BMW sedan flashed in and out of overhead streetlights ahead. And she used his red taillights to keep her eyes on him.
But in a dark section of road the taillights disappeared. It took her a moment to figure out what he’d done.
“Shit.”
Playing hardball, the guy was running without lights, making him hard to see. A dangerous game. The killer had upped the stakes, leaving her little choice. She gripped the steering wheel and floored the gas pedal, dousing her headlights. Until she could confirm the man knew he had a tail, she had to play by his rules.
“The gloves are off, baby. Let’s play.”
CHAPTER 11
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, but not nearly enough. Speeding, Alexa gripped the steering wheel and glared through her windshield, navigating by moonlight. Just her luck. Mother Nature hadn’t cooperated. What she wouldn’t give for a full moon and a clear night. She barely saw the center lane stripes and had to guess at the curves in the road.
Spotting the BMW, she gunned her vehicle to keep up. Her target’s dark shadow loomed dead ahead, still running without lights. Few cars remained now. And only two drove at breakneck speed.
At the last minute he veered onto a dark frontage road, forcing her to pull the wheel hard right. Momentum shoved her against the car door. Her seat belt locked across her chest. She prayed the car wouldn’t flip, putting her in a ditch. The bastard knew where he was going, but she could only react—a formula for disaster.
No pretense anymore. The guy knew he had a tail. She turned on her headlights and pushed the car faster. Tall grass and fence posts blew past, caught in the tunnel of her headlights. She got close enough to see the back of his head through his rear window, but he never turned around. A man with long dark hair, from what she could make out.
He broke from the frontage road and hit an entrance ramp. She followed hard left.
“Damn it.” With her chest heaving, adrenaline pumped through her veins like a drug.
Up ahead, an overpass glimmered in the dark. More traffic.
“Oh, shit.”
The guy hit the exit ramp doing eighty. At the busier intersection ahead, a traffic light turned red, but he didn’t hit the brakes. He blasted through it, forcing cars off the road. One hit a guardrail with the grinding tear of metal. She slammed on the brakes, barely missing a car in the intersection.
The bastard put too many innocent people at risk, and she refused to compound the problem. He sped away without lights, leaving her at the traffic light. Her heart pounded her ribs, pumping her full of juice. Damn it! She throttled her steering wheel with the palm of her hand until it ached. Losing wasn’t part of her vocabulary.
“This isn’t over, you son of a bitch.”
She’d gotten close enough to get his license number, but didn’t have high hopes for DMV to give her answers. A guy who killed the way he did wouldn’t be caught so easily. Round one went to him, but their fight had only just begun. She’d run DMV to see if she got a hit, but had money on her long shot—the bounty hunter.
For whatever reason, Jess Beckett had kept one step ahead, making her the odds-on favorite to come up with another hot lead. Hedging her bet, Alexa had placed a GPS tracker on Beckett’s car outside The Cutthroat, after her cop friend went inside. If nothing else, she’d track the impetuous woman to make sure she didn’t get in the way. At least that was how she preferred to think of it. In reality, if she came up empty, she didn’t want to explain why a damned bounty hunter had gotten a jump on her again. It was only a matter of time before Garrett Wheeler, covert liaison to the Sentinels, would know she had ignored his advice and pursued her personal agenda to Chicago. When that happened, she’d have questions to answer, but until then, making progress was key.
One way or another, she would find another way into Globe Harvest. The stakes were too high to fail.
Stanislav Petrovin kept his eyes alert, parked off the shoulder of a rural frontage road near a stand of trees. Preferring the anonymity of the dark, he sat in his BMW with engine running and lights off. Several times, he had detoured and hid his vehicle in the shadows to watch traffic and make sure he’d lost his tail. Now, convinced the chase was over, he pulled back onto the road with headlights on, thinking about what he would report to his superior, Anton Bukolov.
Eliminating the threat of the vehicle tailing him had not been an issue. Few had the stomach for driving as if they had a death wish. Disregarding the risk to himself, he was more concerned with what his pursuer had seen and known about this segment o
f Bukolov’s organization. Lucas Baker had become a liability. He’d been right to kill the man, but had the damage been done?
Bukolov would expect his assessment. What would he tell the old man?
He’d learned a valuable lesson long ago. The success of a mission always outweighed his personal safety. He preferred to stare death in the face on his terms than to place his life in the hands of Bukolov if he failed. His superior was not known for his mercy.
And he hadn’t become second in command by playing it safe. So far, the rewards tipped the scale in his favor, at least in his judgment. In this country, he had power, saved from a life of mediocrity.
But tonight’s unexpected encounter set Petrovin on edge. Despite the setback, perhaps evacuation of their local facility would be in order. They had a plan for such an eventuality. It would not hurt to be ready. Severing a gangrenous limb to save the body made sense.
Yet one course of action was quite clear to him. At a minimum, the bounty hunter and her connections would be eliminated. He’d take this task on himself, along with a team of handpicked men. Failure would not be acceptable.
For the second time in two days Sam jolted awake from a call in the middle of the night. She flipped the light on and squinted, groping for the phone on her nightstand. She recognized the number displayed by caller ID.
“Yeah…Cooper here.”
“Hey, Sam. Sorry to wake you.” The voice of night desk sergeant Jackson Miller stirred a repeat of her worst fears for Jessie. Miller had been on duty when her friend was pulled in for questioning the other night.
“No problem, Sarge. What’s happening?” She forced herself to remain calm.
“Thought you’d want to hear. Lucas Baker is dead.”
The words resonated in her head like a harsh slap to the face.
“What?” She sat up in bed, her face in a grimace. “How? When did this happen?”
“I don’t have details yet, but with Baker connected to Harrison Station as an informant, Garza is on his way to the scene now. At this point all we know is that the guy got gunned down outside a skate rink.”
Miller gave her the nearest intersection and Sam’s mind flashed on the location. The place wasn’t far from The Cutthroat. The coincidence was too much to ignore. Damn it! Could Jess be connected to a murder? If the thought occurred to her, then other cops would make the same leap. And Detective Ray Garza had been the one who’d interviewed Jess the other night. He’d have the incident fresh on his mind.
Without a doubt he would bring Jess in for round two. Only this time she might need a solid alibi.
Sam looked at the clock on her nightstand; just after two in the morning. South Chicago Station would still be working the scene. She threw off her covers and sat on the edge of the bed. Waiting until her shift started wasn’t an option. She had to know more now, especially the timing of Baker’s murder. Had she been with Jessie and Seth—or had it gone down after they dropped her off?
Even if she could serve as Jessie’s alibi, she’d have a hard time explaining what happened at The Cutthroat. She didn’t have all the facts herself. And during the course of an investigation, detectives retraced the victim’s whereabouts prior to the murder. She didn’t see how she’d avoid getting pulled into the case. And if that was going to happen, she needed real answers from Jessie this time.
But before she got off the phone, Sergeant Miller conveyed his true reason for calling.
“You might wanna steer clear of this one. The timing of your friend’s run-in with Baker could backfire on anyone standing in the way. And Chief Keller will be interested in how this turns out. You get my drift?”
“Yeah, I do.” She took a deep breath and dragged fingers through her dark hair. “Thanks for the heads-up, Sarge. I owe you one.”
“I’ll add it to the list.” He had a smile to his voice that quickly faded. “Watch yourself, Sam.”
“Will do. And thanks, Jackson.”
After she hung up, Sam stared through the shadows of her bedroom, thinking about Jess and her possible involvement with Lucas Baker. In her heart of hearts she wanted to blindly trust her childhood friend, but as a cop, blind trust wasn’t an option. And because she did know Jessie, she had to admit a fraction of doubt lurked in the back of her mind.
Sam spotted the crime scene up ahead. Red and blue bursts of color strafed the walls of nearby buildings, coming from police cruisers strategically parked to block off side streets. And yellow crime scene tape set up the police barricade, with floodlights coming from the back parking lot of the skate rink. Beyond the perimeter, techs bagged and tagged evidence, dressed in uniform vests. The Mobile Crime Lab was present, which meant ET-South would be working the scene, forensics investigators of an evidence technician unit assigned to the area.
A group of curious onlookers cast a shadowy obstruction, blocking her view. And TV reporters, operating from the perimeter, capitalized on the dramatic backdrop of the investigation as cameras rolled. She parked down the street and made her way back to the scene with her badge clipped to her belt and visible.
Nearing the police barrier, she was stopped by a beat cop in uniform, one of the few assigned to crowd control. When he saw her badge, he waved her through with a nod. She’d seen him before. Detective Ray Garza was talking to an evidence tech across the way, and Sam headed toward him, negotiating her way around the main activity. In her hand, she had a large cup of coffee. This time of morning, java never hurt as a goodwill gesture.
When Garza saw her, he had plenty of questions.
“I know why I’m here, but what about you? You got a good reason for the extracurricular?”
“Come on, Ray. I came to see you in action. I’m interested in moving out of Vice.”
“If that’s true, you should avoid this case.” He grimaced. “For you, this one has got career suicide written all over it.”
“Thanks for your heartfelt concern, but why don’t you let me worry about that.”
“It’s your neck, Coop. And a damned fine one at that.”
Garza took the coffee she offered without a thank-you, keeping his eyes on her. His words had been flirty, but the expression on his face said otherwise. The man was all business. When he looked like he wanted to ask her another question, she beat him to the punch with her own agenda.
“When did this go down?” She reached into her pocket for a pair of latex gloves and pulled them on. “What did the M.E. say about T.O.D.?”
She wanted to establish Baker’s time of death, to confirm that she’d been with Jess when the man was killed. Across the parking lot, the body had been bagged and lay on a gurney, ready for a trip to the morgue. The medical examiner stood nearby, giving his preliminary assessment to an investigator. If Garza wouldn’t cooperate, she had other options. One way or another, her morning trip would pay out.
“I don’t think I want you at my crime scene, Cooper. The way I figure it, you’ve got a conflict of interest. And until I figure out how your friend Jessica Beckett is involved with Lucas Baker, that’s too much coincidence for me to swallow.”
“This isn’t your case, Ray. South Chicago’s got lead.”
“You don’t want to push this, Sam. Trust me.”
She forced a smile. “All I want are the facts, Ray. If you can’t handle that, then I’ll find someone who can.”
After taking a gulp of coffee, Garza glared at her. She returned the favor and didn’t blink. Eventually, he caved and answered her question, bare minimum.
“Witness accounts put T.O.D. around midnight. Anything more, you get from the lead investigator. I don’t want any part in whatever agenda you’ve got. And I won’t play a hand in flushing your career down the toilet, even if you don’t give a damn. Thanks for the coffee.”
Detective Garza walked away, distancing himself from her. She’d be on her own.
With Baker gunned down close to midnight, Sam knew she couldn’t rightfully claim to be with Jessie. She was walking home at that hour. Seth mi
ght work as Jess’s alibi, but a skeptical detective could be convinced that both Jessie and the kid had gone looking for Baker after they’d dropped her off, trying to even the score or settle unfinished business. At The Cutthroat pool hall, she’d had the distinct impression that she interrupted something bigger than a misunderstanding and a barroom brawl.
Until she knew more, she wouldn’t mention any of this to Ray Garza. Putting Jess in the vicinity of Baker’s murder at the nearby Cutthroat would have piqued the detective’s interest, enough for him to bring Jessie in for questioning. And Sam wanted first shot at the truth. Her stubborn friend would play hardball with Garza and dole out her version of what happened, filtered through her considerable self-preservation skills. Who knew how that would turn out? No, she needed to get to Jessie first, but not without more intel to strong-arm her friend into cooperating.
To confirm what Garza told her about Baker’s time of death, she spotted a forensics tech she knew, a guy named Greg Walters, working the blood evidence. Walters confirmed the eyewitness accounts of the incident that had established a reasonable time of death.
“So who reported the shooting?” she asked.
“The manager of the rink. He only saw the shooter for a few seconds. He called 911, then took cover. The guy was scared shitless.” Walters nudged his head toward the body bag. “You need to see the body? If you’ve got a weak stomach, I’d pass.”
Although she would have preferred to avoid a look at the corpse, she needed to keep the tech talking. And acting squeamish on the job wouldn’t cut it. She planned to take notes, supporting her claim to Garza that she came in the interest of advancing her career—instead of imploding it, which was the more likely outcome.
After the tech unzipped the body bag on the gurney, he directed the beam of his Kel-Lite onto the face of Lucas Baker. The stench took her breath away, and Sam recognized the smell. At the time of traumatic death, the muscles relaxed and the bowels emptied. She clenched her teeth, trying not to react, but even worse, she knew the gore would haunt her.