Jeffery Deaver: Solitude Creek

‘Well, I don’t see a lot of others,’ Foster pointed out.

Carol Allerton said, ‘We’ve got that delivery boy. He knows something.’

Foster muttered, ‘The pizza kid? That’s a non-lead. It’s a dead lead. It’s a pushing-up-daisies lead.’ His face tightened. ‘There’s something about that asshole Serrano. I don’t like him. He was too slick. You learn anything in body-language school about slick?’

Dance didn’t answer.

Allerton: ‘It’s a pepper.’

‘What?’ Overby asked.

‘Serrano’s a pepper. Just saying.’

Foster read texts. Sent some.

Allerton thought for a moment, said, ‘I think we should try again — to turn him, I mean. Offer him more money.’

‘No interest,’ Dance said. ‘Serrano’s a dead end. I say we put better surveillance on Guzman. Get a team in place.’

‘What, Kathryn, twenty-four/seven? You know what that costs? Try the pizza boy, try the domestic staff in Guzman’s. Keep following up on the other leads.’ Overby looked at his watch. ‘I’ll leave it to you guys and gals to work it out.’ His body language suggested that he regretted using the second G-word. Political correctness, Dance reflected, could be so tedious. Overby rose and walked to the door.

And nearly got decked as TJ Scanlon pushed inside. He looked past them and into the observation room. Eyes wide. ‘Where’s Serrano?’

‘He just left,’ Dance told him.

The agent’s brow was furrowed. ‘Shit.’

‘What’s up, TJ?’ Overby asked sharply.

‘He’s gone?’ the young agent exclaimed.

Foster snapped, ‘ What? ’

‘Just got a call from Amy Grabe.’ FBI special agent in charge of the San Francisco office. ‘They busted this guy in Salinas for possession, major. He gave up Serrano.’

‘Gave him up?’ Foster’s brow furrowed deeply.

TJ nodded. ‘Boss, Serrano’s on Guzman’s payroll .’

‘ What? ’ Dance gasped.

‘He’s a shooter. He was the triggerman took out Sad Eyes. Serrano picked up the BMW at Guzman’s that afternoon, popped Sad, then went back and finished his shift planting daisies or pansies or whatever. He’s taken out four witnesses for Guzman in the last six months.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Foster raged. His eyes on Dance. ‘Outfielder for the As?’

‘Is it confirmed?’

‘They found the piece Serrano used. Ballistics check out. And it’s got Serrano’s prints all over it.’

‘No,’ Dance whispered harshly. She flung the door open and began sprinting down the hall.

He grabbed her before she got three feet into the parking lot behind CBI.

The tackle took Dance down hard and she sprawled on the concrete. She got her Glock out of her holster but, fast as a striking snake, he pulled the gun from her hand. He didn’t turn it her way, though. He saw that she was lying stunned on the ground and fled, a pounding sprint.

‘Serrano!’ she called. ‘Stop!’

He glanced at his car, realized he couldn’t get to it in time. He looked around and spotted, nearby, a slim redheaded woman in a black pantsuit — an employee of the CBI business office. She was climbing out of her Altima, which she’d just parked between two SUVs. He sprinted directly toward her, flung her to the ground. And ripped the keys from her hands. He leaped inside the SUV, started the engine and floored the accelerator.

The sounds of the squealing, smoking tires and the engine were loud. But they didn’t cover the next sound: a sickening crunch from the wheels. The woman’s screams stopped abruptly.

‘No!’ Dance muttered. ‘Oh, no.’ She rose to her feet, gripping her sore wrist, which had slammed into the concrete when he tackled her.

The others in the Guzman Connection task force ran to Dance.

‘I’ve called an ambulance and Sheriff’s Office,’ TJ Scanlon said, and raced to where the redhead was lying in the parking space.

Foster raised his Glock, aiming toward the vanishing Altima.

‘No!’ Dance said, and put a hand on his arm.

‘The fuck’re you doing, Agent?’

It was Overby who said, ‘Across the highway? There? On the other side of those trees. It’s a daycare center.’

Foster lowered the weapon reluctantly, as if insulted they’d questioned his shooting skill. He reholstered his Glock as the stolen car vanished from sight. Foster glanced toward Dance and, though he didn’t fling her words of the young man’s innocence back in her face, his body language clearly did.

What would the next few hours, next few days bring?

Kathryn Dance sat in Charles Overby’s office, alone. Her eyes slipped from pictures of the man with his family to those of him in tennis whites and in an outlandish plaid golf outfit to those with local officials and business executives. Overby, rumor was, had his eye on political office. The Peninsula or possibly, at a stretch, San Francisco. Not Sacramento: he’d never set his sights very high. There was also the issue that you could get to fairway or tennis court all year round here on the coast.

Two hours had passed since the incident in the parking lot.

She wondered again: And a few hours from now?

And days and weeks?

Noise outside the doorway. Overby and Steve Foster, the senior CBI agents here, continued their conversation as they walked inside.

‘... got surveillance on the feeders to Fresno, then the One-o-one and the Five, if he’s moving fast. CHP’s got Ninety-nine covered. And we’ve got One roadblocked.’

Foster said, ‘I’d go to Salinas, the One-oh-one, I was him. Then north. He’ll get, you know, safe passage in a lettuce truck. All the way to San Jose. The G-Forty-sevens’d pick him up there and he disappears into Oakland.’

Overby seemed to be considering this. ‘More chance to get lost in LA. But harder to get to, roadblocks and all. Think you’re right, Steve. I’ll tell Alameda and San Jose. Oh, Kathryn. Didn’t see you.’

Even though he’d asked her — no, told her — to come to his office ten minutes ago.

She nodded to them both but didn’t rise. A woman in law enforcement is constantly aware of the gossamer thread she negotiates in the job with her bosses and fellow officers. Excessive deference can derail respect, as can too little. ‘Charles, Steve.’

Foster sat beside her and the chair groaned.

‘What’s the latest?’

‘Not good, looks like.’

Overby said, ‘MSCO found the Altima in a residential part of Carmel, near the Barnyard.’

An old outdoor shopping center, with a number of lots for parking cars.

And for hijacking or stealing them too.

Overby said, ‘But if he’s got new wheels, nobody’s reported anything missing.’

‘Which may mean the person who could do the reporting’s dead and in the trunk,’ Foster offered. Implicitly blaming Dance for a potential death-to-be.

‘We’re just debating, would he go north or south? What do you think, Kathryn?’

‘What we know now, he’s associated with the Jacinto crew. They’ve got stronger ties south.’

‘Like I was saying,’ Foster reminded, speaking exclusively to Overby, ‘south is three hundred miles of relatively few roads and highways, versus north, with a lot more feeders. We can’t watch ’em all. And he can be in Oakland in two hours.’

Dance said, ‘Steve, airplanes. He flies to a private strip in LA, out in the county, and he’s in South Central in no time.’

‘Airplane? He’s not cartel level, Kathryn,’ Foster fired back. ‘He’s I’m-hiding-in-a-lettuce-truck level.’

Overby put on his consideration face. Then: ‘We can’t look everywhere and I think Steve’s is the more, you know, logical assessment.’