Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

As they sped to the front gate, where a dozen police cars were parked, Dance said, ‘Odd choice for a getaway.’

O’Neil nodded. Security in these parks was the best in the nation. Tall fences. High-quality CCTV cameras were disguised as rocks or branches or hidden in light poles and rides, and undercover guards, unarmed but equipped with high-tech com equipment, roamed the grounds, resembling typical tourists. And it wasn’t as if the unsub had tried to slip inside subtly to get lost in the crowd. No, he’d made as explosive an entrance as possible, crashing into a front gate, injuring two costumed employees then leaping through the breach and sprinting inside.

A hundred park visitors were standing in a loose crowd, some distance from the car. Looking over the crumpled vehicle, faint smoke wafting above. Easily half were taking pictures and videos.

Dance and O’Neil met with the incident supervisor from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Sergeant George Ralston, a tall, round African American.

O’Neil asked, ‘Any sightings?’

Ralston replied, ‘None. Hey, Herb. Whatta you know?’

Another man joined them. He was tall and solid and, Dance thought, a former cop. Introductions were made. He was the head of security for the park, Herbert Southern.

‘No sign yet.’

Dance asked, ‘Are you following him on security cameras?’

Southern said, ‘We were — sent our people after him. But he disappeared. Got lost in a crowd waiting for the Tornado Alley ride. Named after the cartoon? One of the most popular here. Hundred people were queued up. Security went through the crowd but they couldn’t find him.’

Dance supposed they weren’t particularly aggressive. Didn’t want to spook the patrons. She imagined the key word had been subtle. Make sure the customers feel safe.

‘Description?’ Dance asked.

Ralston offered, ‘White male, over six feet. Longish blond hair, green baseball cap, unknown logo. Sunglasses. Dark pants, light shirt, beige jacket. Wool or cotton. Gym bag. White.’

Blond hair. Of course he’d dyed it after Foster’s leak to the press.

‘Your security get a close-up of his face?’ O’Neil asked.

‘No. Kept his head down.’

Dance said, ‘Well, he’s not wearing any of those clothes any more. If he didn’t have a change of clothes with him in the bag, and I’ll bet he did, he’s bought a souvenir jacket and shorts and running shoes. And the gym bag is in a Global shopping bag right now. He can’t change his hair color so he’ll have a different sort of hat. Cowboy maybe.’

One of the big hits from the studio last year, a Wild West animation had won Oscars for something.

‘And some people thought he was wearing gloves. Light-colored ones.’

‘He was,’ O’Neil said. ‘For the fingerprints.’

‘What’s this about?’ Southern asked.

‘He’s wanted in connection with a homicide in Monterey,’ Dance explained.

‘The roadhouse thing?’ Ralston asked. ‘And the other one, right? On the wire. Last night.’

‘That’s right,’ O’Neil confirmed.

Dance added, ‘We came down here to look for a possible witness. The unsub beat us to it. He was at the apartment in Tustin — he killed the wit just before we got there.’

O’Neil’s face grew still. ‘Your deputy was wounded. Martinez. He’ll be okay, I heard, but he took a round in the arm.’

‘Ricky.’ Ralston nodded. ‘Sure. I know him.’

The security man took a call, listened. ‘Thanks.’ He disconnected and said, ‘Nothing. Well, we’ve got all the exits covered. This is the only park exit but there are service entrances with gates.’

Ralston said, ‘I’ve got officers headed there now. He’s armed. I don’t want your boys and girls approaching,’ he said to the security head.

‘No. We’ll work with your folks. Call ’em if they see anything. I’ve told ’em.’

Ralston added to Dance and O’Neil: ‘I’ve got teams circling the outer perimeter. There’s no way he’ll get out unseen.’

Southern shook his head, looking over the growing crowd of park-goers. These were his people, those he was in charge of protecting. Dismayed, he said, ‘Hostages?’

But, to Dance, a taking seemed unlikely. The strategy was that you negotiated only to buy time to talk reason into the hostage-taker or to get a sniper into position for a kill shot. You never gave him his freedom. This unsub was smart — no, brilliant. He’d guess that grabbing a hostage was a futile proposition.

She explained this, glancing at O’Neil, who agreed.

Then she said, ‘Here’s a thought. We don’t have a solid facial ID but he doesn’t know that. Can we—’ Dance looked around and saw a business office nearby. ‘Can we get a hundred printouts?’

‘Of what?’

O’Neil was nodding. He got it. ‘Of anything with a man’s face. Distribute them to officers and security people. Walk through the park, just looking at them from time to time and scanning the crowd.’

‘And keeping an eye out for anybody tall and blond, whatever he’s wearing. Anybody who turns away or avoids eye contact, that’ll be him.’

Southern walked to the office and a few minutes later came back with a stack of paper. He held one up. ‘Message from our new manager. Just saying hi to all the employees, happy to be working with you, that sort of thing.’

‘Excellent,’ Dance said. It had a face shot of the man, which from more than three feet away could very well be a security camera image of their unsub.

Southern and Ralston divided the sheets to distribute to the officers and guards and sent them on their way.

Dance took one and handed another to O’Neil.

The sergeant said, ‘You want radios?’

‘Phone’s fine for me.’

O’Neil nodded too and they both typed Ralston’s number into theirs.

Then: ‘And Agent Dance needs a weapon.’

‘What?’ she asked. ‘No.’

‘Kathryn,’ O’Neil said firmly.

The Orange County sergeant looked at her curiously.

‘I’m assigned to the Civil Division of the CBI, not authorized to carry,’ she explained.

‘Oh,’ Ralston said. That settled it. It would be illegal to hand over a weapon.

O’Neil sighed and said, ‘Then why don’t you stay near the entrance and—’

Wait here...

But Dance was already walking through an open turnstile, right under the nose of a large and disturbingly realistic grizzly bear in a Viking helmet, glaring down at her angrily.

Antioch March was, more or less, in the center of the theme park, near one of the rides — a roundy-round thing for younger kids, where they sat strapped into fiberglass leaves, like lettuce wraps from a Chinese restaurant. The ride would have made him puke.

Nearby was a jungle tour — where the guests were startled by the fierce appearances of oversized carnivores. They were the characters from a huge hit film, a blockbuster. March had seen it. The movie was gruesome and simple. But effective at shocking the audience. As gruesome and simple usually were.

The fake canyon he was now walking through reminded him of the Harrison Gorge. It was strikingly similar. He could smell the moist stone, the leaves, the loam, the dirt, the water. He could see, vividly, Todd. More than the colored leaves. Far more clearly than the leaves.

Focus here, he told himself. You need to get out, and soon. In an hour there’d be a thousand officers poking under every polyvinyl triceratops and singing bush in the place.

And then he saw them.

Two young men, dressed like tourists but clearly security guards, were glancing at printouts and scanning the crowd.

Hell. Had they gotten an image of him as he sprinted through the gate? He’d seen the dozens of security cameras hidden in trees and in the fake rocks of the exhibits.