Scorched

by Laura Griffin

  Please, please, please.

  Her fingers encountered the bolt. She flipped it, jerked her arm back through the window, and yanked open the door just as a dark shape rounded the corner.

  Screaming, she dove through the doorway and into the stairwell. Pain burned her scalp as he grabbed her by the ponytail. She mule-kicked backward and connected with his body.

  “Fucking bitch!”

  She raced down the steps, barely touching them as she rounded landing after landing. He was behind her. He was gaining. She took one more flight and wrenched open the door.

  She was in a dim hallway lined with numbered doors. She tried the first one, then the second.

  “Help!” She pounded on another locked door. “Somebody help!” She glanced frantically over her shoulder as the stairwell door squealed open.

  Across the hall, a door opened. She barreled through it, startling the tenant who’d ventured a peek into the hallway.

  She slammed the door and locked it as an old man watched her through Coke-bottle glasses. She glanced down and realized her hand was bleeding from punching the glass.

  “Fire escape! Where is it?” She rushed for the nearest window and looked out. She had to be on the sixth or seventh floor.

  “Is there a fire escape?” she demanded.

  “What the hell is this? Who are you?”

  The door rattled. Kelsey glanced at it, unnerved. She shot a glance into the kitchen and caught sight of something just beyond the window.

  She rushed across the room and shoved a drop-leaf table out of the way. “Go into the bedroom!” she barked, fumbling with the window lock. Her hand was slick with blood. “Call 911!”

  She lifted the windowpane and squeezed through the opening, hoping Trent wouldn’t be able to do the same. She glanced at the alley below and prayed the rusty slats would hold her weight. She climbed down the first vertical metal staircase. Her phone rang, startling her, and her foot missed a rung. She crashed to her knees on the grate. Through metal slats she saw Dumpsters and delivery trucks way, way below. The metal squeaked under her and she fought a wave of nausea.

  Her phone buzzed again. It would be Gage, wondering where she was.

  “Gage!” she shrieked, too terrified to look for him as she struggled to focus on the endless vertical stairs.

  Five more levels.

  Above her, shouting.

  Four more levels.

  She glanced up and saw Trent’s head poking out from the window. The entire metal frame shifted and groaned as he climbed onto the platform. She watched, horrified by his agility, as he descended two entire levels in a matter of seconds.

  In his hand was a gun.

  • • •

  Gage shoved his phone in his pocket and skimmed the sidewalk. “Where the hell’d she go?”

  Agent LeBlanc shook her head. Gage spotted Derek crossing the street and waved him over.

  “She’s not answering.”

  Derek looked up and down the block, just as Gage had been doing for the last ten minutes.

  “Think she stopped for coffee or something?” Derek asked.

  “No.” Apprehension tickled the back of his neck. He eyed the rooftop again.

  “Maybe we should—”

  “Quiet!” Gage cut him off. “You hear that?”

  “What?”

  In the distance, a scream.

  • • •

  She grabbed the railing and scrambled down. Three more levels.

  Her hands slipped on the rails. She was bleeding. Her heart pounded wildly as Trent closed in on her. Two more flights.

  She glanced up.

  Pop.

  The bullet was like a firecracker right beside her head. She leaped onto the last level, where a hinged metal ladder lay flat atop the grate. No time to position it, so she dropped to her stomach and dangled her legs off the side.

  It’s too far, she thought, looking down. She shimmied to the edge, and her knuckles were white on the metal slats as her legs dangled in midair.

  Pop!

  She let go.

  CHAPTER 20

  “Kelsey!”

  Gage and Derek sprinted around the corner as Elizabeth struggled to keep up. She’d heard gunshots. Those had definitely been gunshots, and they weren’t far away. Gripping her weapon and praying she wouldn’t have to use it, Elizabeth shoved past pedestrians and raced across the street, then stopped short as a taxi whizzed past her, horn blaring. Stunned by the close call, she stood paralyzed for a moment, then lunged for the sidewalk. She rounded the corner, but Gage and Derek had already disappeared from view.

  She jerked her phone from her pocket and pressed the button to connect with 911.

  “Shots fired at—” Where the hell were they? She recalled the sister’s address and rattled it off. “Officer needs backup!”

  “One moment, please.”

  “Immediate backup!” She shoved the phone into her pocket and sprinted down the narrow alley. She reached a one-way street and checked right, then left. Should she turn or keep going? She raced for the next intersection and checked in both directions. She spotted Derek just as he vanished around a corner. She took off after him.

  Another shriek. She halted to listen. It was behind her.

  Doubling back, she reached the street she’d just crossed and ran down it. She passed an alley and saw a flash of movement.

  Another flash of movement jerked her attention up, where a man in a dark suit was clattering down a fire escape. He dropped to his stomach on the last level and leaped to the ground.

  “FBI! Freeze!” she yelled.

  He froze, crouched on the ground with his back to her, facing the direction where the other person—Kelsey?—had just dashed around a corner.

  “Hands in the air!” Elizabeth pointed her gun at his back as she approached. He was silhouetted in the alley, against the bright flow of traffic.

  She’d heard gunshots. But where was the gun now? Elizabeth darted her gaze into doorways, between Dumpsters, looking for threats.

  “We’re on the same team,” he called, slowly rising to his feet.

  “Hands where I can see them!”

  “Relax, I’m with the FBI. I’m with you.” His arms moved downward.

  “Hands up!”

  Beyond him, cars and trucks and cyclists whisked past, oblivious to the confrontation happening right in their midst. God, where was her backup? Her pulse raced as she moved cautiously toward him. Where was his weapon? She recalled him hurrying down the fire escape. He would have tucked it in his pants or his holster.

  And then she spotted it. It was on the ground near a puddle. He must have dropped it and it skittered out of reach.

  She relaxed a fraction.

  “Turn around,” she ordered. “Slowly.”

  Slowly, he turned around. Relief flashed across his face.

  “Hey, I know you.” His arms started to move down.

  “Hands up!”

  He smiled. Very friendly, except that his hands were in the air and her gun was pointed straight at his chest. She strained to keep her arms steady.

  “You’re the new agent,” he said. “Elaina, is it?”

  “Elizabeth.”

  In the distance, sirens. Panic flitted across his face, then disappeared. Another smile. “Hey, we’re on the same team, Elizabeth. I’m—”

  “I know who you are.”

  His gaze narrowed. The smile returned, but it didn’t reach his eyes now.

  “You were after Kelsey Quinn,” she said. “You’ve been after her since the night of Reid’s murder. She was there, wasn’t she? She saw you kill him. And then you staged the scene.”

  The smile vanished. His face hardened. His gaze flicked right and she knew he was thinking about that weapon. A warning whispered in her head. She’d pushed him too far.

  • • •

  Kelsey careened around the corner and found herself in yet another alley. Terror squeezed her chest. This neighborhood was a labyrinth.
She glanced around as she ran down the narrow passage, looking for an escape, a hiding place. She heard sirens, but they sounded blocks away, back near the park.

  She tripped on a pothole and fell against a Dumpster. She paused to look over her shoulder. No Trent. She ducked behind the giant metal bin and bent over to suck down big gulps of air. The alley smelled of garbage and urine. A wave of dizziness washed over her as she braced her hands against her burning thighs and gasped for oxygen.

  Where had he gone? And where had Gage gone? Remembering the missed call, she pulled her phone from her pocket and stared down at it, dazed.

  A sharp whistle and her head snapped up.

  “Kelsey!”

  It was Derek at the end of the alley. He jogged toward her, pistol in hand. Kelsey pushed off of the Dumpster and stumbled toward him.

  Behind her, a door banged open.

  • • •

  “Whoa!” Gage stopped short as he stared down the barrel of the gun.

  “Shit, man.” Derek lowered the weapon. “Announce yourself. I almost took your head off.”

  Gage looked at Kelsey and felt a punch of fear. “Fuck, you’re bleeding.”

  She slumped against the brick wall. Her cheeks were flushed and she was gasping like she’d just run a marathon. “He’s here. He was chasing me.”

  “Who?” Derek asked.

  “Trent Lohman. With a gun.”

  “Kelsey, you’re bleeding.” Gage took her by the shoulders and lowered her to the ground, which she let him do with almost no resistance.

  “I’m fine.”

  But she wasn’t fine. Not by a long shot. Blood saturated her arm. He tugged her sleeve up. “Shit, Kelsey.” His heart lodged in his throat as he searched for a bullet wound.

  “I’m fine. Ouch!” She pulled away.

  “I need to look at this. What happened?”

  She laughed—and it sounded a bit hysterical. “I punched through a window.” She tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. “I was trying to get off the roof. Trent was chasing me.”

  Gage stripped off his shirt to make a bandage for her wound. He exchanged a look with Derek.

  Trent Lohman was a fucking dead man.

  • • •

  “Step over to the wall.” Elizabeth tried to sound calm as she pointed her weapon at his center body mass. “Put your palms against it, feet spread.”

  Trent Lohman didn’t move. He watched with an icy gaze as she stepped over to his gun and—not taking her eyes off him—crouched down to pick it up. She tucked it into the waistband of her pants. The sirens grew nearer, and he darted a glance over her shoulder.

  “What are you doing, Elizabeth?”

  She raised her weapon. “I said, hands against the wall.”

  “Or what? You going to shoot an unarmed man? A fellow agent?”

  “I’m going to arrest you.” Her mouth was so dry, she could hardly speak. Her heart was racing.

  “No, Elizabeth, you’re not.” His voice was low now, and she could barely hear it over the approaching sirens. “You’re going to turn around and walk away and pretend this never happened.”

  He took a step back. And another. Fear gripped her. He glanced at her gun. Fully loaded, the Glock weighed thirty-one ounces. Right now it felt like thirty-one pounds.

  He looked into her eyes. She stepped closer. Seconds ticked by. She knew he saw the tremor in her arms because his lip curved in the faintest smile.

  He bolted.

  “Stop!”

  She sprinted after him. He raced around the corner. She burst into the sunlight. Brakes screeched. Horns blared.

  She heard a sickening thud.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kelsey loathed hospitals. She hated the smells, the sights, the crowded waiting rooms. She hated the delays. She and Gage had been here for three hours, and even though a young intern had stitched her up ages ago, they were still stuck in an exam bay.

  The doors to the corridor pushed open, and Kelsey watched with curiosity as a woman came toward them with a purposeful stride. She stopped just outside the curtain.

  “Dr. Quinn? I’m Elizabeth LeBlanc.” She cast a tentative look at Kelsey’s arm and seemed to decide not to offer a handshake. “How are you?”

  “Almost finished, I hope.” Kelsey glanced at the nurses’ station, where her paperwork seemed to have been sucked into the Bermuda Triangle. “How are you?” she asked, studying the agent’s face. It wasn’t as pasty as it had been earlier, when she’d been watching a pair of ME’s assistants zip Trent Lohman into a body bag. But still the woman looked a bit shell-shocked in her wrinkled pantsuit, her blond hair pulled back in a messy bun.

  “What’s the word from Gordon?” Gage asked. His steely expression said he was in no mood for brush-offs.

  “I just got off the phone with him. A lot’s happened. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

  “We’re sure,” Kelsey said, surprised by the agent’s candor. Everyone else they’d talked to tonight—including Gordon, whom Kelsey had called while she was having her arm sutured—had demanded all kinds of information, but provided little in return. About all they knew right now was that Trent was dead, Gordon was still in Washington, and CNN was doing all anthrax, all the time.

  The media was having a field day. All reports so far indicated they were dealing with inhalation anthrax, which was scariest from a public health perspective. The news stations were hungry for visuals, though, and kept running pictures of cutaneous anthrax, which was characterized by skin legions and grotesque sores. The pictures were frightening, and it was no wonder there was a run on antibiotics in Washington, D.C.

  The agent glanced at a television mounted in a nearby waiting area. “So you’ve seen the news?”

  “Three more letters,” Gage said.

  “Four,” she corrected. “The most recent one hasn’t been announced. We’ve now had a total of four letters turn up in D.C., one in New York, and another that just showed up in a mail-sorting facility in Los Angeles. All were addressed to political targets, such as senators or cabinet members.”

  “Any fatalities?” Kelsey asked.

  “Another postal worker. And a staffer who works for a New York congresswoman is in ICU. She opened the mail Friday and started experiencing respiratory problems over the weekend.”

  Gage shook his head.

  “It’s hard to find a silver lining here, but”—she took a deep breath—“the positive news is, Gordon is no longer alone in trying to address this threat. The entire Department of Homeland Security has been spurred into action. We’ve got elevated security levels at airports, malls, stadiums. We’ve got stepped-up security at train stations and subway entrances. We’ve even got police posted at several D.C. pharmacies to deal with the run on antibiotics.”

  Kelsey looked at Gage and was pretty sure she knew what he was thinking. Just days ago, he’d been within arm’s reach of the man who started all this.

  She turned to the agent. “Why do I get the impression you didn’t really come here to tell us all this?”

  “You’re right.” She took out her phone. “I have a photograph to show you.”

  She pushed a few buttons and handed the phone to Kelsey. The picture on the screen was clearly an autopsy photo, and Kelsey’s stomach clenched as she recognized the face.

  “That’s the man from Blake’s.” She looked at Gage. “The man who came after me.” She turned to LeBlanc. “Please tell me he’s not really a cop.”

  “Manuel Artigas. He was a career criminal down in South Texas. Detectives investigating his hit-andrun ‘accident’ now think he was murdered by Trent Lohman. They have an eyewitness who provided a description of the car that struck Artigas. Traces of paint from the victim’s clothes match paint from the bucar Trent was using that day.”

  “Bucar?” Gage asked.

  “A Bureau car. A vehicle from the motor pool.”

  “You’re saying this man was Trent’s accomplice, and Trent murdered him, too?” K
elsey asked. She looked at the picture again. The man was Latino, which would fit with the hair evidence recovered by Dr. Froehler at autopsy.

  “The new theory of the case is that Trent hired Artigas to help kill Blake after Blake stumbled across Trent’s connection to this ACB terrorist cell.”

  “This all started with me,” Kelsey said, feeling a sharp pang of guilt. “I asked him to help ID those bones, which led to the ACB cell in the Philippines.”

  “Which led to that training video, in which Ramli is the ringleader,” LeBlanc said. “We may never know for sure how it happened, since both Blake and Trent are dead. But it appears Blake had some sort of tip-off that Trent was closely involved with this group. Maybe Trent tried to cover something up and Blake got suspicious. Or maybe he tried to stymie Blake’s questions about the group. We’ve gone back and analyzed both of their phone records and it appears that Blake systematically called a list of people Trent had been contacting on his cell phone. Personally, my guess is that Blake got hold of the phone and copied down the numbers for investigation.”

  Kelsey glanced at Gage and felt a faint stirring of hope as the scenario started to take shape. Not once had the agent mentioned evidence against Gage.

  “Again, we may never know just how it unfolded, but that would account for Blake’s calls to Dr. Shamus at Berkeley and Robert Spurlock, aka Charles Weber, up in Utah. Blake called Spurlock repeatedly, but he never answered his phone and the call went to voice mail.”

  “Spurlock was dead by then,” Kelsey said. “Postmortem interval indicates he was killed at least a week before Blake’s trip there.

  “Which might explain why he gave up on the phone and decided to pay him a visit.” LeBlanc paused. “He must have had at least some inkling of the importance of all this by that point.”

  Kelsey looked away and closed her eyes. All this because she’d asked him to run some tests for her.

  “Hey.”

  She looked at Gage.

  “Cut it out,” he said sternly.

  “What?”

  “The guilt. If your case hadn’t tipped him off about what Trent was doing, something else would have. And we’d still have this threat on our hands, only we’d probably be in the dark about the FBI connection.” He looked at LeBlanc. “Am I right?”