Hot Pursuit

by Christina Skye

  “How about a ray gun and a secret handshake to go with it?”

  He didn’t answer, pulling a small wire out of his pocket.

  “What’s that for?”

  “A lapel mic. I’ll be able to hear whatever you say the whole time we’re here.” He slid the wire under her jacket and draped the cord down into her shirt pocket, where he clipped a small transceiver in place. “Looks like you’re set. Remember, all our people will be wearing a lapel pin with the state flag of California. If you need them, use them.”

  “I’ll remember.” They were nearing the church, and Taylor felt a stab of pain when she saw the shiny hearse decorated with flowers.

  Jack smoothed her lapel and touched her cheek, just for a second. “You’re good to go, O’Toole. Break a leg.”

  The ceremony was grim, rain sheeting off the roof of the little church. A dozen mourners sat restless and uncomfortable, trying to ignore the rain as the minister spoke about happier rewards and the greater world beyond.

  Taylor sat listening, dry-eyed and cold, almost numb. She hoped that Candace was in a place with granite slabs and perfect traverses. That would be her true idea of heaven.

  She turned her head. Jack seemed to be listening to the minister, but his eyes shifted constantly. At a door halfway back, she saw Izzy, dressed in a raincoat with the collar turned up. So far there had been no men with machine guns, no sudden assaults by strangers bursting from an unmarked car. There were only a few people who sat uncomfortably, doing their best to mark the passage of a friend.

  When Taylor looked up, she was surprised to see the minister had stopped speaking and people were filing out of the church. She stood up and turned, coming face-to-face with the woman she had met at the shopping gala.

  “Martha Sorenson.” The woman held out a hand. “When I heard, I—I couldn’t believe it.” Her voice broke and she looked away. “You know that Candace worked at my lab for five or six months. I still can’t believe she’s—” She took a shaky breath. “It was a nice ceremony, wasn’t it?” The question seemed vacant, spoken not to Taylor or anyone else in particular.

  As she put away her hymnal, Taylor heard the tinkle of metal and noticed Martha Sorenson was wearing a bracelet of small cats, just like the one that belonged to Candace.

  “Candace had a bracelet like that.”

  “She loved that silly thing. One day at lunch she insisted that I buy one, too.” Gently Martha touched the metal figures, one by one. “She was so young, so naïve. She didn’t deserve . . . this. Nobody deserves what happened to her.”

  Taylor moved closer as they walked to the doorway of the church. “Had you seen her recently?”

  “She came into the lab once, looking for Rains. If Harris Rains were here now, I’d kill him myself.” The older woman’s voice was raw.

  “Maybe it wasn’t Rains.”

  “What do you mean? Rains was behind this; I know it.”

  Taylor stared out at the sullen sky. “She was seen with a foreigner just before—before it happened.”

  “Who told you that?”

  Taylor rubbed her neck. “I can’t remember. Just a rumor, I suppose.”

  Martha turned, blocking her way. Her face was pale and blotchy, her eyes bloodshot.

  From crying, Taylor realized.

  “The police said nothing about her meeting a foreign man.”

  Taylor couldn’t recall if this information was to be kept secret or not. “Maybe it was a mistake.”

  Martha nodded slowly. “A very big mistake, I’m afraid.” Then she walked out into the gusting rain.

  As Taylor stood in the doorway, Jack moved in behind her, flanked by a huge man with a broken nose who looked a lot like Vinnie de Vito’s bodyguard. Sure enough, Sunny and her uncle were standing underneath umbrellas outside. When she saw Taylor, Sunny ran forward. “I was desperately worried about you,” she said over a hug. “You didn’t answer your phone, and you didn’t answer your door. Then Uncle Vinnie heard about Candace. Even though we didn’t know her, we wanted to be here for you, Taylor. I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I. It’s all like a bad dream.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing, Sunny. I’m just tired. I’ll be fine.”

  Sunny’s uncle moved closer and touched Taylor’s arm. “I offer my deepest condolences, my dear. To die young is the worst of tragedies.”

  Taylor didn’t answer, a burning in her throat.

  “We’re worried about you,” he said. “Very worried.”

  “I’ll be fine. Really.”

  “I have a car. If you want to drive back to San Francisco with us, it would be our pleasure.”

  “We’ll see.” Taylor was vague, fairly certain that Jack would have other plans.

  After a last look of sympathy, Sunny’s uncle moved back outside, his arm on Sunny’s waist.

  They made a sad group, straggling over the wet grass toward a square of naked earth not far from the church. Underneath his umbrella, the minister intoned the final ritual.

  Dust to dust.

  But there was no dust here. Only rain and tears, Taylor thought, as the simple brown casket was lowered into the wet earth.

  And then it was done.

  Taylor closed her eyes. Some part of her was unable to believe that death was so close. Almost like a sleepwalker, she found Jack’s arm.

  “You okay?”

  She didn’t answer, turning back toward the cars, frozen through nerve and bone.

  “We’ll go now.”

  She nodded numbly, noticing a cluster of people near the path to the church. She saw a flash of light and realized they were reporters.

  A woman waved her arms, talking loudly as she strode closer. “Ms. O’Toole? You were her friend, Ms. O’Toole. Have the police told you anything? Did Candace know her killer?”

  “You’ll have to ask the police that,” Taylor said dully.

  “Do the police have any leads?”

  “You’d have to ask them about that, too.” When Taylor started to move past her, the woman tried to grab her arm, but Jack pushed her firmly out of the way, which only made her more angry.

  “What about Harris Rains? The word is, he was involved.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Are you certain of that, Ms. O’Toole?” the reporter said, her voice shrill. “I’m told that you and Harris Rains were having an affair.”

  Taylor swung around, her hands closing into fists. “Are you completely crazy as well as a monster? We’re at the woman’s funeral. She’s gone. Don’t come here with your obscene questions. Let her have her peace.”

  “But—”

  Jack shoved the journalist aside and then they strode on toward the church. “Do you want me to go back and punch her?”

  Taylor smiled grimly. “A pleasant thought.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s almost over.”

  “All her friends were here,” Taylor said quietly. “Candace would have liked that.” She kept walking, not feeling the rain against her face. The cold didn’t seem to matter now. Up ahead she saw the minister come out of the church, carrying an umbrella. He waved once and started toward her. As he did, several reporters broke away from the crowd by the road.

  “Damned vultures.” Jack moved to Taylor’s side to block their way.

  One man charged ahead, shouting questions, and Jack knocked him to the ground. Suddenly, more reporters sprinted over the grass.

  Would Candace have no peace, even now?

  Taylor saw the minister with his back turned. He shook his head as the scuffling continued. “This is an outrage, an absolute outrage.” His voice sounded tense with disapproval. “Why don’t you come with me into the church, my dear? It will be more quiet there.”

  Sighing in relief, Taylor followed.

  Jack held the struggling reporter on the ground and motioned to a nearby agent. “See that he’s removed,” Jack said grimly.

  “Yes, sir.”
>
  “Where’s Izzy?”

  “Near the limousine.”

  Jack nodded and looked up. Taylor was a few feet away under an umbrella, talking with the minister, her head lowered. Maybe that would be good for her. She hadn’t talked during the whole trip from Arizona, and he knew the pain was eating away inside her.

  With it came the guilt, as if she had been somehow to blame for Candace’s death.

  He touched his earpiece, frowning as he heard Izzy’s voice.

  “I’m at the car. Let’s move.”

  “Copy.” Jack turned back toward the church and cursed.

  Taylor was gone.

  “The flowers were nice.” Taylor walked to the front of the empty church, passing sprays of white lilies, yellow roses, and one elegant orchid, the only warmth on a cold day. “She would have loved them.”

  The minister moved along the pews, then shook his umbrella and set it carefully on a pew. “She was so young, so much alive. And then a thing like this.”

  He turned. As he did, Taylor felt fear wedge in her throat. This wasn’t the man who had spoken in the church and offered the eulogy at the gravesite. This man had hard eyes, a thin, cold mouth, just like the man in the photo Jack had shown her in Monterey.

  He was the Albanian, Viktor Lemka.

  She whirled, running for the door. “Jack,” she blurted. “Help—”

  But she got no farther. Caught hard, she felt her arms shoved behind her, her mouth covered by a thick cloth. She felt a prick at her neck, kicked blindly, hearing the Albanian curse.

  He was pulling at her coat as she fought him, his eyes pale and eager, as if he was enjoying her pain.

  Then the room spun around her, and the flowers were gone.

  Jack was running to the church when he heard Taylor’s voice, a murmur nearly drowned by static. Where was she? Had she fainted?

  Then the side door opened, and Taylor emerged, umbrella over her head. She walked slowly, a bouquet of white lilies in her hands.

  He sprinted toward her, relieved. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the hearse lumber along the gravel path beyond the church, heading back toward the road. “Taylor, stop.”

  She just kept walking.

  He jumped a low stone fence, grabbing her arm. When he turned her around, someone else stared back at him beneath the umbrella, a woman with heavy features and sullen eyes, who was wearing Taylor’s coat and her black hat.

  “Izzy, Taylor’s gone. Get back to the church.”

  Jack was at the front steps when the door burst open and Martha Sorenson ran toward him, her face bruised. “He killed my sister. Candace—she was my sister, all I had. I was a fool not to see it before, but—he’ll kill again if you don’t stop him. Don’t you see?” She struggled to hold Jack. “Your friend—she’s there, in the car with him. He’s hidden her in the coffin.”

  Chapter Forty-three

  Jack was running hard.

  In front of him, the hearse swung sharply and swerved onto the main road along the river, the driver’s face out of sight. Jack slid into a two-handed firing stance and shot out the right front tire.

  The hearse fishtailed over the wet road, but kept on moving.

  “Izzy, get me a rifle. I’m going after him.”

  Izzy sprinted up with sniper gear, and Jack dropped to one knee, sighted, then took out two more tires. This time the big car shook, crashing through a row of oleander bushes.

  “Remember, he’s to be taken down alive if possible.”

  “I’ll remember,” Jack growled. “Get your people into position past the bridge. I’m stopping him there.”

  Izzy burst into a hail of sharp orders as Jack sprinted toward the little stone bridge that crossed a branch of the river. By crossing the marsh, he made a shortcut that would put him at the bridge ahead of Lemka. A bullet whined past the SEAL’s head as he zigzagged through the reeds and up the final slope.

  The hearse rocketed toward him, Viktor Lemka’s angry face glaring through the windshield.

  Still moving, Jack shot out the last tire. The hearse slowed but didn’t stop, momentum driving it straight toward the bridge. As bullets whipped past, Jack dropped, using the bridge for cover so he could shoot out the windshield.

  The glass exploded into small chunks that blew back into the car. When the last fragments fell, Lemka emerged into view, shouting curses and firing over the wheel.

  Suddenly the passenger door jerked open and a man rolled out, firing as he hit the grass. Instantly, one of Izzy’s men took him down with a clean headshot.

  Lemka turned the hearse sharply, nosing toward the water. Screened from Jack’s view, he jumped clear, clawing his way along the steep bank.

  Jack sprinted around the bridge and put a bullet in the Albanian’s knee, then shot the gun from his hand while Izzy shouted and half a dozen men poured forward over the grass in pursuit. Jack was ahead of them, almost at the hearse when it struck a stone barrier at the water’s edge, shuddered, then flipped to one side, rolling down the slope and pinning the Albanian against a row of boulders.

  He screamed shrilly, then sobbed as his body was caught and slowly crushed, inch by inch, beneath the plunging steel frame.

  Jack heard the distant wail of sirens as he hit the water. Seconds behind the out-of-control hearse, he fought through icy currents, thick with silt and reeds. Cursing the lack of visibility, he shrugged off his jacket and jackknifed down through the shifting darkness until he felt the outline of the hearse’s back door.

  A pocket of air had gathered inside, and Jack heard Taylor’s muffled shouts carried through the silty water as he swam in closer. Barely able to see, he shattered the side window with a rock and found his way up into the precariously shifting pocket of air near the back door.

  “I’ve got you, Taylor. Hold on.”

  The lid shuddered. Her hand emerged from the open coffin. “H-help me.”

  “I’m right here. Stay in the air pocket while I get the back open.”

  “H-hurry. Not much left.” She was fighting to hold the coffin open as the hearse shook, nosing downward.

  Jack took a breath and worked his way outside to the back door. After two tries, he freed the handle and wrenched open the door.

  The hearse pitched forward sharply. Instantly, the coffin slid down, bubbles churning as the air pocket vanished. Still holding his breath, Jack found the top of the coffin and pulled it up, seizing Taylor’s arm as icy water poured around them.

  Suddenly she tensed, jerked from his arms. He felt her straining wildly, kicking against the water below him in a fury of small bubbles.

  Her air was gone.

  He shot to the surface, grabbed a breath, then dove down again, holding her head as he found her mouth and blew hard. Then he squeezed her arm and kicked downward, searching for the barrier that held her. Precious seconds passed before he felt one of her legs tangled in the curtain rope from the sinking hearse, dragging her down. He dug into his pocket for his knife, slashing at the heavy strands as she was pulled relentlessly to the muddy bottom.

  Her moan was muffled in the cold currents.

  Again he shot to the surface, where Izzy was waiting in a rowboat. He tossed Jack a big police flashlight. “What else do you need?”

  “Get an ambulance up here with oxygen. Blankets, too.”

  He wasted no more time, gasping as he dragged in air, then plunged down into the darkness again. When he found Taylor, she was drifting sluggishly, and he tilted her head to give her more air, then kicked down, holding the light as he hacked away the last cords of twisted silk. The deadly tendrils fell away like black wings, drifting in the murky light.

  Jack caught Taylor’s body, kicking furiously toward the surface until they finally broke free into dim gray light. Helicopters roared overhead while an ambulance screamed from the riverbank. Reporters, held back behind a hasty barricade, waved cameras while they shouted questions.

  None of it mattered to Jack as he swam toward the shore with Taylor lim
p in his arms. He pulled her up onto the grass, checked her airway, then flipped her over and gave a sharp thump on her back.

  Nothing happened.

  He tried again, kneeling close and shoving hard along her ribs, pressing her whole body into the grass.

  She shuddered, coughed hard, lurching in spasms that shook her whole body.

  When she was done, Jack turned her carefully, angling her head and brushing the wet hair back from her face. “Can you hear me, Taylor? Come on, talk to me, honey. Give me hell.”

  Her eyelids fluttered. She coughed painfully, staring up at the sky. Then her hands twisted, sliding around him. “You were r-right.”

  He closed his eyes on a prayer of thanks, holding her as close as they could get in their wet clothes. “Take it easy, love.”

  “Have to t-talk. So—scared. So cold.”

  “Shhhh.” He kept stroking her hair, dimly aware of Izzy’s shouts and the ambulance surging closer.

  “He was too strong. He opened—coffin.” She coughed brokenly. “The Albanian. D-dressed as minister.”

  “It’s over. You’re safe, Taylor.”

  “S-sorry.” She clung tightly, shivering as Izzy put a blanket around her shoulders. “Sorry for Nancy Rodriguez.” She was crying in a ragged voice, her body shaking. “Sorry I was a fool. So—damned sorry, Jack.”

  “Forget it.” Jack drew her closer, kissing her cold face and wet hair, shivering a little himself.

  She looked at him, frozen, bedraggled, and beautiful as she managed the ghost of a smile. “Never apologize for t-telling the truth. Someone very smart told me that once.”

  “Not so smart,” Jack whispered. “And he was terrified he’d lost the thing he valued most.” Then he gathered her in his arms and carried her up the wet, rocky bank toward the waiting ambulance and a circle of cheering agents.

  Chapter Forty-four

  “Captain Ryker, can you hear me?”

  The big fishing trawler was quiet. No sounds drifted up from the engine room or from the deck as the woman in the Navy uniform flashed her light carefully through the hold, stopping on the small metal locker next to the wall. “Captain Ryker?”