Another thought took over. Maybe she could enter Syria through Turkey and figure out a way to get her children to safety overland. The idea of a refugee camp was daunting, but it would be better than sitting at home waiting for a letter that never came.
Determined, she walked away. The police wouldn’t find her. Her part in this was done.
***
Jed squatted down beside the terrorist Wright had shot, who had then fallen from the upper balcony. Wasn’t much left of his face but his DNA was everywhere. Wearing latex gloves so he didn’t contaminate evidence, he searched the guy’s pockets. He pulled out a cell phone and turned it on. It looked like a burner but Jed would bet the tech guys would get a ton of information off this sucker. They needed as much actionable data as possible, as quickly as possible, in case more attacks were imminent or more terrorists were sitting home in front of their TV high-fiving each other for a job well done. Disgust twisted his stomach.
He dug into another pocket.
Men, women and children were among the dead. Indiscriminate slaughter in the US’s heartland. Most of the mall’s security had been taken out at the beginning of the attack—a highly sophisticated and targeted assault. It obviously wasn’t the first time terrorists had hit mainland USA and probably wouldn’t be the last, but this struck too close to home. This wasn’t Iraq or Afghanistan. It was Minnesota for Christ’s sake.
He found another cell phone in the man’s pocket and frowned. It was exactly like the first. Maybe one didn’t work? He turned them on and they both fired up.
Why carry two cells?
Had someone not turned up for the party? Was it a spare? Had he taken it from a dead colleague?
“Hey,” he shouted to the Evidence Response Team tech shadowing him. Her name was Cindy. She was petite, dark-haired, and had that intense focus and attention to detail that, he suspected, made her damn good at her job. He held up both cells. “Need to photograph and bag these ASAP.”
Cindy pulled out some bags, then fast-tracked the evidence by handing them to another cop who was delivering anything that needed expedited straight to people from the state lab where FBI and local forensics people were working in close collaboration. Deciphering communication and biometrics data would give them the fastest way of discovering who these people were and making sure the whole crew was dead or captured. He walked over to where an AK-47 lay discarded on the floor. He looked back at the dead guy, and over to another dead terrorist nearby. Both of them had assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Both had handguns strapped to their belts. Why was that rifle just lying there?
Jed didn’t know but he intended to find out. They bagged that too.
The air stank of smoke, blood, and burnt gunpowder. It stuck to the back of his throat and made him nauseous, but he had a job to finish and time was against him. He looked up and saw the hunting shop and remembered he hadn’t paid for the knife that had saved his life, and the life of Vivi Vincent and those two kids. He walked down to the store, still checking every crevice for anyone who’d been injured or was hiding. Inside the store, bullet holes riddled the back wall. A feeling of unreality hit him as he assessed the damage. He’d been within inches of death today. It had taken him by surprise and he’d let his guard down. Maybe his boss had been right about him needing a break, but the chances of him getting one now were a thousand-to-one against.
He left a hundred dollars on top of the register, and stuck a yellow sticky-note to the monitor of the register to say what the cash was for. He grabbed the plastic shopping bag that he’d left here a few hours ago. The toy was for Bobby’s son. Bobby had been his and his twin brother’s best friend growing up. They’d all joined the Army together. His brother, Liam, was now the Chief of Police in their small hometown. Jed had joined the FBI. Bobby had stepped on an IED and been blown to kingdom-come.
Emotion punched his throat. He still missed his friend every single day.
The tendons in his neck were strung so tight his jaw ached. He tried to loosen up his shoulders, but gave up. Walking around in a knot of tension was a permanent state of being these days. At least he was alive. He needed to stop whining and get on with the job.
He walked back to the toy store. The idea that gunmen would fire on a place where children gathered pissed him off. Those bastards had traumatized kids for life.
Michael Vincent’s russet hair and big, blue eyes flashed into his head. Brave kid.
He frowned. Why the hell didn’t he talk? Was it physical? Psychological? Had he been abused?
It happened.
He saw it almost every day.
His mother didn’t seem the type though. In their brief encounter her love and devotion to her son, combined with a level of courage normally associated with those serving their country didn’t jive with some asshole who abused those weaker than themselves. Her fiery temperament sure as hell matched her hair. He smiled for the first time in what felt like eternity. Maybe he would track her down after all this was over and invite her for coffee. He rubbed the back of his neck. Yeah, like she’d go for coffee with a guy who’d left her son in a store with armed gunmen.
The word struck him in the solar plexus.
Gunmen.
Gun-men.
What about the female terrorist he’d seen?
He tried to call the head of the local FBI field office but couldn’t get through. He called his boss instead. Lincoln Frazer answered on the first ring.
“Enjoying your vacation so far?”
“Yeah, it’s been a blast. Question. Any females found among the bodies of the tangos yet?”
“No. All male. Why?”
Jed squinted up at the pockmarked roof. “Not sure.” He hung up, which would piss off his boss but he needed to think. Had he really seen a woman? The individual had been shorter than most guys, not slim but not fat either. Damn. He suddenly wasn’t one-hundred percent sure and didn’t want to start a shit-storm for nothing. He wandered into the clothing store next to the restaurant. They’d cleared the backrooms and storage areas but nothing had been assessed in terms of potential evidence yet. That was part of his job. Cindy shadowed his every move, taking photos of everything.
“This is odd…” She sounded puzzled.
“What is?”
The flash of her camera bulb dazzled him for a moment. He blinked away the glare and crouched beside her behind the sales counter. There was a bunch of wadded up material, but they weren’t new clothes, or the kind of clothes this store sold for that matter. Personal items? Something dark and sticky stained them. Blood? He pulled the items carefully, aware they could be booby-trapped. He inched out the material and thankfully there were no wires visible. Just clothes. He spread the dark sweater and black canvas pants across the counter. Pulled out a long black headscarf. His heart pounded. Cindy took more shots. He called his boss.
“What?”
“I think one of the terrorists is a woman, and I think she escaped.”
“Are you sure?”
“We just found wadded up clothing identical to what I thought I saw on a female perpetrator earlier. They were under the cash register in a women’s clothes store. Fuck!” He was furious with himself for not mentioning it earlier. He knew better than anyone to always share every detail no matter how insignificant you thought it might be. He jammed his hand in his hair. They needed to figure out who this woman was. “If only the kid in the store could tell us something.”
“Which kid?”
“A little boy named Michael Vincent. He was hiding in a toy store during the attack. I saw at least three terrorists in there with him, but his mother insists he can’t speak or communicate in any way.”
“Is his mother the hot redhead?”
Jed held his phone away from his ear and blinked. Was the guy a mind-reader now? He moved it back. “Pardon me?” he asked.
“You need to find a TV and turn on the local news right now. Actually forget local. This thing is going national and international.”
>
“What is?” Jed strode down to an electronic store just along the corridor. He avoided looking at all the bodies that the ME’s department was trying to get out of there. People he hadn’t been able to save.
“The press is telling his story to the world,” Frazer said.
There was a bank of TVs on the wall. On every one of them a serious, polished and beautiful Vivi Vincent was being interviewed. But it must have been recorded earlier that day, before the attack, when her stockings hadn’t been shredded and her skirt and blouse were unstained by blood and grime. Then the scene cut to a view of Michael sitting behind a screen, drawing a picture of the reporter with astounding detail and accuracy even though he couldn’t see her.
Eidetic memory.
“They’re calling the kid a prodigious savant when it comes to seeing something for a brief instant and then recreating it on paper. He has a photographic memory…so even though he can’t talk—”
“He might still be able to help us identify the bad guys.” Oh, hell. Jed didn’t know how the press had gotten hold of the kid’s story, but it didn’t matter. “If any of the terrorists did survive, that report just put a giant bull’s-eye on the kid. Find out where they are, Frazer.” Jed hung up on the man. He went back to the clothes store and searched through the trashcan by the counter. Still wearing his latex gloves, he pulled out tags and tossed them beside the register. Cindy eyed him with interest. She knew they were onto something big. “We need to find out what clothes these are for.” If his hunch was correct they’d have a description of size and shape of the woman, the clothes she was wearing, and with luck her DNA, maybe even her prints.
He called one of the local FBI field agents who he knew was working somewhere in the mall, caught him up to speed and told him to get his ass there right now.
“Gotta go,” he told the tech, ignoring her shocked protest.
Then Jed started jogging back to his SUV. Terrorists who attacked innocent shoppers a few weeks before Christmas weren’t going to baulk at eliminating one young boy. Vivi Vincent and her son were in danger. He needed to find them fast.
CHAPTER FIVE
Michael wouldn’t eat. Didn’t matter if she offered him candy or soda, he still wouldn’t eat.
Vivi needed a way to bring him back from whatever head-space he’d floated off to, and she had to do it now, before he was set back months, if not years, in progress.
The hotel where they were staying contained a huge indoor water park. That and the proximity to the mall was the main reason she’d chosen it.
“Here.”
He flicked a listless eyelid.
She thrust a pair of swim shorts and towel at him. “We’re going to the pool.”
Michael turned to face her. Finally. His expression contained both wary interest and banked fear. He loved the water. She hoped that love would be enough to kick-start the recovery process so she could get him back into his normal routine. The most important part of that was eating regular meals and getting plenty of sleep, so she planned to exhaust him, feed him and then let him rest.
She’d already pulled on her bathing suit beneath yoga pants and t-shirt, and wore a pair of red crocs Michael had bought for her birthday last summer. “Come on. I’m going for a swim and I’m not leaving you here alone.”
He moved reluctantly, knowing she wouldn’t be budged now that her mind was made up—a stubborn streak they both shared—and went into the bathroom to change.
Two minutes later they headed downstairs, the hotel buzzing despite the terrorist attack that was so close-by. Life went on. Police presence in the city was massive. It was dinnertime so groups of people were headed to the restaurant. Some of them looked clearly traumatized. Several sported cuts and bandages. One woman gave them a weird glance that Vivi put down to her general walking-dead appearance.
She was limping but trying to hide it. The cuts on her feet were more painful than she’d anticipated and throbbed unmercifully. They were heavily bandaged and she hoped she could get Michael onto one of the slides before he realized she couldn’t enter the pool with her wounds.
Duplicitous parenting. Something she usually disapproved of, but tough times called for tough measures.
They entered the pool area and were hit by a wall of heat and the stench of chlorine. The heavy rush of the water from the many interlocking slides was deafening, but also strangely soothing—enough white noise to block out even the memories of gunfire and screams. The place was almost empty of people. The idea of being in a crowded space, any crowded space, freaked her out now. It was something she was going to have to deal with eventually.
A small group of children rushed past them in a short, shivering line. The odd parent was dotted around, staking out lounge chairs while they acted as spotters to make sure the kids were OK.
Michael took one look at the slides, handed her his towel and ran off to play. A wave of relief rushed her and her knees went weak. She dropped onto a nearby lounger, so shattered and terrified all her energy fled.
Her son flew out the end of one of the slides and erupted from the water grinning.
A starburst of relief filled her chest. It was going to be OK. Everything was going to be OK. He’d latched onto another boy about his own age and they took off to do the slide again. He was a good swimmer and she allowed herself to relax just a little. After discovering autistic children were particularly drawn to water she’d had him take lessons three times a week, and now he swam competitively. Autistic or not, he was a great swimmer. Lifeguards kept eagle eyes on the slides, so she allowed herself to mentally unwind.
Just breathe.
It was over.
They’d been through hell.
But they’d survived.
Some unknown instinct had her turning to look through the glass windows toward the main lobby of the hotel. A man stood there staring at her. He was about 5’8”, dark hair, dark eyes, beard, swarthy skin. When she caught his gaze he looked away. She turned back to the pool, then glanced at the window again, but he’d wandered away toward the coffee bar.
Great. Now she was going to racially stereotype everyone she met. She detested prejudice. It was one of the things she’d fought hardest against when getting Michael into mainstream school and not special ed.
Her eyes frantically sought out Michael again, panicked after having taken her gaze off him for more than a few seconds.
She knew she was obsessing and it wasn’t healthy, but she couldn’t help it. She’d almost lost him today. There was no one to lean on—just her. She had no family. David was too busy being important to even think of helping with Michael and she’d rather eat raw liver than subject her sensitive and struggling son to his hard-core parenting methods. She hadn’t even kept his name, and he hadn’t objected when she’d changed Michael’s last name to Vincent too.
He was ashamed of his son, and she was ashamed of him.
She stood and caught sight of Michael’s red hair—darkened to auburn by the water—plastered to his skull. He was running toward the next slide with a big grin on his face.
“Don’t run,” she muttered, too far away to be heard over the rushing water even if she’d yelled.
Loosen the damn reins, Vivi, you’re going to strangle the kid.
Fuck off, David.
Great, she even argued with her ex inside her head, as if reality hadn’t been bad enough. She rolled her eyes and sat back down. She tried to relax, breathed deep, opened a book she’d pulled from her purse, and read the first line. Twice. Images of blood and death kept intruding and she put the book away.
Today had been hell, but it was over now. Tomorrow they’d head home to Fargo.
Fargo. Not where she’d thought she’d end up living. After her divorce, an old friend had offered her a partnership in her translation business. While Vivi didn’t need to live there for them to work together, frankly she had no reason to live anywhere else.
Plus, she liked the isolation. The excuse not to keep up with
her old life in DC and NYC. Winters were hellish. Summers were buggy as all get out. Every January she contemplated moving somewhere more temperate but Michael loved it in North Dakota. His school, his teachers, his friends. She’d put up with almost anything as long as her son was happy. Hell, she’d sell her soul to figure out a way to get his voice back.
He hadn’t always been mute.
He had always exhibited behaviors on the edge of the autistic spectrum, maybe Asperger’s. He craved routine, liked his things in the exact right place and excelled at repetitive tasks. But he had no truly obvious disabilities except when stressed he zoned out and would often crawl into small, cramped spaces and stay there for hours.
It was exhausting. The search for answers. The constant worry.
She hunched up and watched Michael blast out of the biggest slide the pool had. Fearless. Brave. The grin that wreathed his face more than made up for the effort of having to drag him down here. She smiled back. Agent Brennan had praised Michael’s bravery earlier today. It had touched her deeply that he’d instinctively understood what her son needed, something she’d been too terrified to give him.
She spotted the guy who’d been staring at her through the window. He now wore neon green shorts that looked way too big for him. Reminding herself to breathe and that the world was full of good people just trying to get by, she closed her eyes and counted to ten. It wasn’t some movie where everyone was out to get her. This wasn’t some conspiracy plot to destroy her. He’d obviously been scoping out the pool and not her. He dropped a towel on a lounger, half-hidden behind a huge palm tree and headed toward the nearest slide.
Michael ran past and gave her a wave. His buddy looked perturbed, probably because Michael wasn’t actually talking to him, but he sent her a shy smile too and a little wave. She waved back, then checked her watch. She’d give him another half hour and then they’d go eat.
Cold Pursuit (Cold Justice) (Volume 2) Page 5