Michael Prescott - Deadly Pursuit

“Good thought. We can messenger the tape up to D. C Have the Headquarters lab take care of it.”

Lovejoy pursed his lips. “That’s one possible approach. But we might have to wait awhile for the results.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Local talent.” Lovejoy stopped by a bank of pay phones, found the Yellow Pages, and flipped to a section marked Television Production Services. “One of these outfits may be able to digitize and enhance the image while we wait.”

A couple of quick phone calls, and they had an appointment at a video-production house called Sorcerer’s Apprentice on Flagler Street in downtown Miami.

A revolving door ejected them into the scorching dragon’s breath of the day. The air was humid and thick, the heat stifling. Lovejoy sneezed twice before climbing into the first taxi in the queue.

“I hate this climate,” he said as he dabbed his nose. His standard complaint.

“You hate all climates.” Her standard response.

Lovejoy gave the video firm’s address to the driver.

As the cab pulled away, Moore said thoughtfully, “You know, taking this tape to an outside agency for analysis isn’t exactly going by the rules and regs.”

“Well, sometimes it may be necessary to… slightly… bend the rules.”

She had never expected to hear Peter Lovejoy say that.

Sorcerer’s Apprentice was an unprepossessing warren of offices in a rundown brownstone. The receptionist introduced them to a technician named Davis, a youngish man, bearded and pony-tailed and

amazingly pale for south Florida. He wore a loose T-shirt that growled HATE THE STATE.

The slogan led Moore to expect a hostile reaction when she and Lovejoy identified themselves as federal agents, but Davis merely nodded, listened patiently to their request, and said, “Okay. Come on.”

He led them down the hall to a narrow room cluttered with electronic gear. Lovejoy surrendered the tape, and Davis popped it into a camcorder plugged into a connection box at the back of a Quadra 950 computer, then ran the video in a full-motion display.

“Huh,” he said, sitting comfortably at the console. “Pretty bleary, all right.”

“Can you enhance it?” Lovejoy asked.

“You can always tweak an image. But in this case, maybe not enough. Let me grab a frame and see.”

He ran the video in slow motion, then frame by frame, till he found the most promising image. A double click on the mouse made a dialog box appear; he selected “Capture to RAM” in response to a prompt.

“You want just his face?”

Lovejoy said yes.

Davis cropped and resized the frame, enlarging the man’s face to fill most of the screen. He activated a pull-down menu, clicked on one of the options, and increased the contrast.

“Looking a little better already. Now let’s sharpen it up, improve the edge definition.”

He clicked on another menu option, then went on clicking as the blurred picture came into progressively crisper focus in a rapid series of adjustments.

“That’s as clear as I can get it,” he said finally.

“Quite possibly clear enough,” Lovejoy muttered. “Personally, I think we’ve got a match.”

Moore thought so, too, but wanted to be sure. From her briefcase she removed a copy of Jack Dance’s mug shots, modified by a sketch artist to incorporate his disguise. She compared the profile view with the face on the monitor.

Same hair. Same glasses. Same nose and jaw.

“It’s him,” she said. “We’ve confirmed him in Miami.”

Davis leaned back in his swivel chair. “Want a hard copy of this frame?”

Lovejoy nodded. “If possible.” Half a minute later a laser printout was in his hand. “Thanks. You’ve been a considerable help. What do we owe you?”

“No charge. Glad to be of service to the authorities.” He saw Moore’s raised eyebrow and added, “Oh, don’t mind the T-shirt. A holdover from my Murray Rothbard phase. I used to think anarchy was cool.”

“What happened?” she asked, amused.

“I got mugged.” Davis pivoted in his chair and tapped the screen. “This is the serial killer, isn’t it? Saw his picture in this morning’s Herald.”

Lovejoy coughed into his fist. “The Bureau is involved in a large number of manhunt operations at any given point in time, only a few of which make the headlines. It’s hardly prudent to jump to conclusions concerning any particular-”

“It’s the same man,” Moore cut in, impatient with her partner’s evasions. “But we’d appreciate it if you didn’t spread the story around. We don’t want this to get on the news. It’s best if he doesn’t know how close we are.”

“How close are you?”

“Well… we know he’s in Florida.”

Davis grunted. “Florida’s a big place.”

“He’s correct, you know,” Lovejoy said as he and Moore pulled away in a second cab. “Florida is a big place.”

“We need another break, that’s all.”

“In my estimation, we’ve already gotten more breaks than we had any right to expect.”

Moore had no answer to that. They were silent during the rest of the ride to the field office.

“Terrific lunch.” Jack polished his mouth with a paper napkin. “Steve, you’re a lucky man. Not only is your wife beautiful, she’s also a hell of a cook.”

Kirstie showed him a cool smile. “Cheeseburgers aren’t exactly gourmet fare.”

She was seated across the patio from Jack, her tray balanced in her lap, her suntanned legs stretched lazily along the chaise longue. Sometime earlier she had kicked off her sandals; her bare toes wiggled. Jack thought she had cute feet.

“Ordinary cheeseburgers-no.” He enjoyed taunting her with his phony courtesy, his lying compliments. “But yours are something special. What’s that sauce you put on them?”

“Ketchup.”

“Oh, come on, there was more to it than that. Some secret ingredient. Am I right?”

Her shoulders lifted. “Dash of Tabasco.”

“The master stroke.”

She looked away, a muscle in her cheek ticking angrily.

“I think you’re embarrassing her,” Steve said through a mouthful of potato chips. “She’s not accustomed to such rave reviews.”

“Well, she should be. Treat her right, Stevie, or you never know. I just might steal her away.”

Kirstie turned in his direction again. Her eyes were two blue slits.

She was not embarrassed, of course. Jack knew that. She hated him, feared him, and she wanted him off the island, out of her life. Well, he could hardly blame her.

The sun beat down. Flies buzzed, droning their insect songs. Anastasia, curled at Jack’s feet, burred in deep sleep.

Jack was glad they’d chosen to eat outdoors. The house was stifling, claustrophobic. It felt like a cage. Memories jumped at him from every corner-good memories, but tough to face now, as he pondered the problem of what to do about the Gardners.

The patio felt safer. Here he could smell the flowers and smile at the blue sky. Surrounded by beautiful distractions, he hardly even had to look at Steve… or at Steve’s wife.

But it was hard not to look at Kirstie. She was perfect. She was exactly his type.

He studied her as she finished her sandwich. A slender woman, not fashion-model tall, but perfectly proportioned. The teasing breeze had thrown her hair into lovely disarray. It tumbled across her shoulders-thin, gently rounded shoulders naked save for the tank top’s straps, the smooth skin dusted with soft freckles.

He liked the graceful curve where her neck met her collarbone, liked the way her skin stretched tight over the bone, liked the thinness and fragility of the clavicle itself, delicate as a wishbone, so easily snapped. And below it, above the yellow tank top, a vee of tanned cleavage that drew his gaze inexorably downward to her small, firm breasts, the nipples poking pertly at the thin fabric…