by Alex Gates
Ben cracked his door and slid out. I protested.
“Don’t start,” he said. “You almost let a computer nerd outrun you on that leg. I got this. You play backup for once and call that patrol over. I got a feeling we’ll need some help.”
He wasn’t wrong. I cursed my leg anyway. But we didn’t have time to argue about the logistics of capturing a potential psychopath when three little girls’ lives depended on us. I redialed the patrol as Ben slipped between my car and the fence.
Kirwin’s brake lights flashed.
Then turned white.
The Jeep squealed as it jammed into reverse. Gravel and cinders pelted the alley. Kirwin shot backwards, but I didn’t have time to move. I gripped the steering wheel as the bastard pummeled his car into the front panel of my mine. Somehow, he’d clipped only the headlight and hadn’t shot off the damned airbag.
Ben pulled his gun, but Kirwin knew better than to attempt a second ram. He kicked the car into gear and stomped on the accelerator. The car burst out of the alley.
“Son of a…” I threw the Crown Vic into drive as Ben leapt through the opened door and slammed it behind him. “Hold on!”
I pitched my phone at him. Ben shouted to the patrol, but the cruiser had circled around and parked on the other side of the school. He’d never reach Eddie before he spun his car out onto crowded Banksville Road.
“Shit, shit, shit.” Ben fumbled with this seat belt as he searched the streets before us. “Where the hell did he go?”
Crane Avenue only dumped onto Banksville. Kirwin wouldn’t get anywhere fast if he didn’t hop onto the main highway. I took a guess and headed towards the highway, flying down the hill and under a narrow railroad trestle. Ben flipped our light on. It didn’t stop Kirwin.
We’d cornered him, and now he was running.
But where did he think he’d go?
In Pittsburgh’s South Hills, it took twenty minutes to cross three miles on a good day and that included taking a path only the locals knew through the nearby Maronda Homes subdivision to skip a single red light. The roads were narrow, the traffic heavy, and Kirwin drove like a jagoff, bounding onto Banksville at a speed that’d tear out both of our suspensions on Pittsburgh’s wintered, potholed roads.
“Where’s he going?” Ben shouted at dispatch, confirming Kirwin’s make, model, approximate speed, and direction with the operator. “He’s heading north—where’s he think he’s going?”
Hell if I knew. Banksville Road didn’t offer many places to turn, and it funneled us towards a very big river to the north. The streets tightened this close to the city, and we raced over a narrow highway that barely allowed enough coverage for the cars, trucks, and dangerously large semis already fighting for space in the lane. I dodged one car, but I couldn’t squeeze too far into the shoulder. Billboards and cement framed businesses consumed the space beside the road. A jerk to the left, and we’d end up smashing through the Eat N Park’s takeout counter.
A row of orange barrels marked the beginning of an impending nightmare.
“Construction?” Ben swore. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Not sure what he expected. Half of the city was buried in snow, and the rest was trapped by endless road work. I clutched the wheel and balanced the car between the thick barrels marking the left lane as closed. Kirwin wasn’t as careful. He side-swiped one of the cones, bursting it and the sandbag underneath. His car jerked into the closed lane, bounding against the milled down roughness.
I didn’t follow, expecting him to jerk his wheel and slice into my lane once more.
I hated being right.
Hated even more the sign that stretched over the road.
Tunnel – ¾ Mile
He wouldn’t dare.
Kirwin sped over ramp that spun Banksville Road into the Parkway. He cut over four lanes of merging traffic like an idiot. The area was already disorganized with drivers inexplicably braking before the tunnel into downtown. He’d get someone killed.
“Christ.” Ben checked the lanes behind us and shouted for me to skip into the center lane. I didn’t trust the move and stayed in place as Kirwin swerved in front of me. “He’s not going into the city…is he?”
“No.” My hands ached as they clutched the wheel. My leg wasn’t fairing any better. The tension bolted me into the seat, and I sweated even as snowflakes fell. “He’ll go West End. He knows he can’t make any headway in the tunnel. We’ll all jam up.”
But Eddie gunned it, almost slamming into a car in the far-right lane. The Toyota blasted off the road and lost control, bumbling onto the shoulder and fortunately coming to a stop on a gravel pull-off for trucks.
The West End exit approached. Kirwin stayed in his lane. I prepared to dive for the exit ramp.
Instead, he jerked the car to the left, dodged a confused Mercedes, and aimed directly for the Fort Pitt Tunnel.
This man was goddamned insane.
The tunnel was a half-mile nightmare on the best of days. It sliced through the mountains bordering the city and offered commuters the chance to brake check the entirety of rush-hour traffic struggling to make it downtown before eight AM. Narrow, dark, and two-laned, it swept cars and trucks inside with a frenzied frustration.
Kirwin shot inside.
How stupid could one man be?
The lights streaked the side of the tunnel in orange epileptic bursts. It only made the walls press in tighter, binding up traffic just as Kirwin darted between two cars. He got stuck behind a pickup truck, but the flashing red from my dash only terrified the surrounding cars. I was boxed in almost immediately.
“No!” Ben shouted as I cut through a narrowing space between cars. The Honda in the right lane backed off. I surged behind Kirwin. “Don’t chase this close! Just follow him. We’ll catch him on the other side.”
That wouldn’t work. The tunnel ended where the Fort Pitt Bridge began, offering twelve hundred feet of confusion for the two inbound claustrophobic lanes to merge into a chaotic four. Commuters then had twenty panic-stricken seconds to swarm the bridge and suicide toward one of the four designated exits. I couldn’t let Kirwin speed ahead. We’d wind up on opposite ends of the city.
The tunnel turned dark, and a flurry of red brake lights suddenly flashed. I skidded to a stop, but it was too late. Kirwin rear-ended a Mazda and came to a crashing halt. My heart crushed with it.
The Mazda limped to the side of the lane.
But Kirwin didn’t stop.
He hit the gas, his Jeep crawling as quickly as two flat front tires could deliver him. The end of the tunnel approached. His vehicle dashed into the light…
Then abruptly turned.
I swore as the Jeep parked diagonally across both lanes of the tunnel.
Ben shouted, and I stopped a good ten feet before his car. A surrender?
No.
Kirwin scooted across the driver’s side, battered the passenger side door, and bolted from the vehicle.
I swore, but I didn’t need to tell Ben to move. We sprinted from the car at the same time, rushing the last fifteen yards of the tunnel only to dart on the side of a crowded roadway merging more cars from the west. Kirwin ran, dashing over the left lane of the exceedingly dangerous Fort Pitt Bridge.
“Kirwin, stop!” I yelled. No one could hear me over the roar of traffic. My leg wasn’t cooperating, but I slammed my feet into the pavement to keep up with Ben. “Police! Stop!”
Cars blurred past from a second road hooking onto the bridge. The rest of traffic blared their horns from the tunnel. A mercy. Without Kirwin’s cockeyed Jeep, we’d have been instantly run down.
Ben cut closer to the shoulder. I followed, staring as Kirwin hobbled a quarter of the way across the bridge. He slowed at the railing.
And looked down.
Oh God, no.
I called to Ben. “He’s gonna jump in the river! Stop him!”
But Kirwin had the head start. He raced to the side of the bridge. Hopped a waist high railing.
/>
And fell.
The splash from the icy Monongahela River consumed his body.
8
I know you want it to be over.
But I’m enjoying every minute.
-Him
They didn’t find Eddie Kirwin’s body.
A day on a rescue boat patrolling the freezing Mon River yielded nothing. The search continued into the night, but Kirwin might as well have jumped off the bridge and into another dimension. If his corpse wasn’t lodged against the pillars of the Fort Pitt Bridge, maybe he’d swam to shore?
The river rescue thought that was impossible, but they didn’t know why Kirwin fought so hard to run.
He knew where those girls were. And he was going to lead me to them.
I made it home before the frost nipped my toes, but I thought it’d be midnight before I got warm. I dropped my bag at the foot of the stairs. The files had to come up with me.
The bedroom door was cracked, low light flickering into the hall. James waited for me, a Netflix movie on the TV and balanced laptop on his legs. He should have been trying to relax at night. So much for that plan.
I hadn’t expected that he’d still be awake. Waiting for me, probably. Or waiting to go to sleep together in our favorite way.
What used to be my favorite way.
Well, at least I could read the file. The excuse avoided any uncomfortable propositions.
And explanations.
And a sadness I wasn’t ready to admit just yet.
James crossed his arms behind his head, his chest bare. The blankets shifted down. He didn’t wear anything else. Not a bad sight when I got home, and a girl could do worse than a block of muscle warming her bed. The glaucoma episode had weakened his already bad eye, but it hadn’t stopped him from hitting the gym every morning to take care of the parts that hadn’t betrayed him.
I undressed and chastised him. “Not supposed to be watching TV this late at night.”
“You’re not supposed to be working so late.”
I flung my shirt at him with a smirk. At least he could still see a bit of movement even in the dark. He pitched the blouse away and called me closer.
“Now the panties.”
If only.
Even if I thought I could handle that sort of closeness now, I hardly had the energy to kick off my shoes. I made a go at it, failed, and decided I’d take off the remaining sock in the morning. I sunk into bed only after turning the bedside light on. As good as a river of lava down the bed. James adjusted his pillows and laid on his side, facing me, watching me read.
One good thing about his sight? At least he wouldn’t accidentally skim the file and see something…
Unbearable.
“How was your day?” he asked.
Bad. Horrible. Traumatizing. I forced a smile. “About what I expected.”
“Problems?”
“All of them.” I kissed the fingers that stroked my shoulder. That was good. Just a little touch. My stomach hadn’t clenched in dread. “The usual complications.”
“Didn’t find the body?”
“They said they think they’ll pull him out of Emsworth Lock and Dam.”
James knew me well. Better than anyone, and that was still a strange comfort and intrusion.
“But you think he lived?” he said.
“I hope he did.”
“Really?”
“If he’s dead, it won’t help me find the girls.” I tapped the files in my lap, the sole connection I had to the three victims. “He’s the only lead we’ve had in years.”
James rolled over with a hum.
Damn it. I closed the folder. He wasn’t the only one with a clairvoyance about his partner.
“What?” I asked.
“Professional opinion?”
It was that bad? I dreaded and depended on that professional opinion. James was as brilliant as he was a complete pain in my ass, but I knew better than to disregard any advice the criminal behaviorist offered regarding my suspects.
Or me.
James never gloated, never intruded. He just absorbed everything about the case, the suspect, his profile. He let the darkness and hatred into his head, but it hadn’t corrupted him, even when he investigated the worst, most twisted offenders.
“Even if you find Kirwin…” He breathed deep. “He won’t help you find the girls.”
“Have some faith in my interrogations.” The blankets wrinkled my files. I smoothed them with a cautious hand. “I can make him confess.”
“So, you think Kirwin is the kidnapper.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
I ignored the prickling, ominous tension settling in my neck. What did James see that I didn’t?
“He had Kaitlyn Gibson’s teddy bear,” I said.
He agreed. “Had.”
“What?”
The pillows weren’t comfortable for either of us. James pulled himself upright and rubbed his chin. The stubble grew in, the same chestnut shadow of his hair.
“He had the teddy bear, but it was lost in the house explosion.”
A lot of evidence was lost in the explosion. None of it made me happy. “So?”
His words slowed—not condescendingly, but cautiously. As if he picked the pieces of the case like a tourist collecting seashells on a beach. “The kidnapper was obsessed with the girls on Poppy Drive for years. He’s watched the families for a long time, probably for multiple years prior to the first kidnapping. This means stalking in a way we can’t fathom. Memorizing schedules, habits, lifestyles. Everything and anything relating to the families—to the girls—is precious to him. It brings him closer to the children. He learns more about them. The knowledge he acquired is just as important as the girls he stole.”
We agreed on that. “That’s why he had the teddy bear. It’s his obsession.”
“Exactly.”
“So why don’t you think Kirwin is the kidnapper?”
“Because he lost the teddy bear. That toy isn’t just a part of the plan to capture Kaitlyn. It is Kaitlyn. The bear would be his trophy. If Kirwin were the kidnapper—a man so dangerously obsessed with those girls—the bear would never be left behind. He would never allow any sort of trophy from his girls to be destroyed. He’d sooner die with that bear than let it burn an explosion.” James sighed. “I’m sorry, London. Kirwin is not the kidnapper.”
“Then how did he get the teddy bear?”
“That is the real lead, but I don’t think it’ll give you answers.”
“Why?”
“Kirwin must have a connection to the girls. Maybe he knows the kidnapper. Maybe he’s been…” He didn’t want to ask the question. “How many men are in these videos?”
The most frustrating and disgusting part of the case. “Only one. Simms thought he jealously guarded the girls, treating them as his own personal…”
James understood and mercifully interrupted me. “If Eddie Kirwin has Kaitlyn’s doll, we can assume the kidnapper is allowing other men the opportunity to molest the girls.”
I hated that I lived in the world where rape was a logical assumption. “And he just gave Eddie the teddy bear? Why? If the bear is a trophy, then the obsession is real. He wouldn’t give up that trinket.”
“Unless the obsession had weakened.” James lowered his voice. “Kaitlyn was abducted four years ago. If he now has Sophia…”
Then he had no need for Kaitlyn.
And if the obsession waned…if he no longer felt a connection with the girl…
She might already be dead.
My heart twisted, and I spoke words I didn’t recognize. “You’re wrong.”
He expected that. “And I think you’re too eager to solve this case. You’re fitting a story to the evidence, and not the evidence to the case.”
And now he insulted me? “I have a good reason to follow this lead.”
“No, you have a reason to hope this is the right lead. Find Kirwin, and you think it’ll give you the
answers. You’re looking to solve this fast.”
“Shouldn’t I? I owe it to the families, to the girls.”
“Of course.”
He settled into the pillows. I didn’t like that sort of silence—like he already knew what I would say, how I’d react, and the consequences of ignoring him.
But he was wrong.
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m going to run a scenario past you. Tell me if I’m close.”
He’d never once missed the bull’s eye that was my head. But this time—like all times—I didn’t want to hear the truth.
“You wanted this case,” he said. “You thought you could help. The kids were in trouble, and their families were in pain. And that’s admirable, London. It’s why I love you.”
“But?”
“This case is different, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t answering that. “Every case is different.”
“Not like this. You jumped in headfirst, not realizing the horror you’d find. But you did it, and you won’t back down. Not out of a sense of duty or obligation, but for a personal reason. Because you wish you had someone like you working your case when you were in the same position as those girls.”
“It’s not always about my kidnapping, James.”
“Neither of us believe that.”
But I could pretend. I could ignore it. Why couldn’t he?
“You took it without knowing all the details before you started,” he said. “The rumors spread, of course. But you’d never seen the photos or read the reports. And now the case is worse than you feared.”
“I wouldn’t want to meet the person who isn’t shocked by this misery,” I said.
“True. But because of that, because of what you’re already working with, don’t you hope all this horror could be done with a single arrest of Eddie Kirwin?”
“I wish every case were quick.”
“But what happens when this one isn’t?”
I shuffled the folders and checked the time. Psychology had its limits, and I hated when James swirled in my head after midnight. “I know you’re trying to help.”