Pursuit Read online

  A LINK IN THE CHAIN

  “What do you have?” Captain Walker sat down, closing a Missouri State Patrol convention brochure and its intended agenda.

  Julie pulled a two-page report from her binder. “A disappearance seventeen years ago. That in itself is not unusual, but three others took place over a period of ten months—all within a couple-hundred-mile radius. At the time, they were thought to be runaways.”

  “Females, I presume.”

  Julie nodded. “Tracked a mother of one of these women to a trailer park. When I phoned her, she says, ‘It took you near a decade or more to get back to us. Why you botherin’ now?’ I asked Mom if the girl took any items with her when she left: clothes, toiletries, anything. She said, ‘Marylou left cocky, naive, and naked as a jay.’ That doesn’t sound like a runaway to me.”

  Walker puzzled with a ring of keys, dropping them in an ashtray. “The problem with cold cases is they’re just that. People just don’t give a damn. Tell you what. Pursue the three runaways, but keep it to yourself. If the commish finds out, I’ll be down in the basement with you, and I am way too old for that. Good luck, and, of course, not a word of this to anyone.”

  Critics praise Gene Hackman, an author who “takes aim at a clear target: telling a good story. He hits it, too.”

  —St. Augustine Record on Payback at Morning Peak

  Thank you for downloading this Pocket Books eBook.

  * * *

  Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Pocket Books and Simon & Schuster.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

  Prologue

  A brisk fall day in 1995. The oaks and cottonwoods battled for color rights in the annual October leaf display.

  The wooded path wound east across two rock-strewn creeks, through a grove of walnut trees, and out into a slight rise overlooking a hundred acres of sweet corn.

  “I’m Cleopatra’s handmaiden—prettier, of course, and smarter, but always demure.” Betty’s schoolbooks were piled atop her head. She swayed her hips along the dirt path in time to a dum-ditty-dum-dum beat.

  “Yes, of course, and I’m Amelia Earhart flying across the Pacific.” Beverly, the younger of the two sisters, had always been more levelheaded and astute.

  “Ah yes. And we know what happened to her, don’t we? While others fritter away their time on adventurous nonsense, I, on the other hand, reign supreme gathering my awards and accolades.”

  “You got a B in gym class, for heaven’s sake. Give it up.”

  “Give it up? Hardly. Mr. Scott says I could go all the way.”

  “Mr. Scott, I think, means the two of you could go all the way. You’re almost seventeen, get with it.”

  “Oh, Bev, you’re no fun. Every time I do well, you beat me down. Go on ahead.”

  He parked not in his accustomed dirt road spot but farther on in a wayside picnic area. Dodging into the wooded expanse between the road and wetlands area, he found the animal trail that led him back to a knoll and his favorite dogwood.

  Arriving early had been the plan, not just to get settled but to convince himself he would be doing the right thing. He needed time to think, not about what he was going to do but the consequences. His past deeds had been easy. The planning, execution, all a snap. He watched, off and on, for days, under this particular yellowed tree. The anticipation when the distant school bell rang. The delicious wait as the two girls emerged along the bushy path. He felt he knew them, shared their silly rhymes and school songs. Others crowded his past life. Drifters, thumb trippers, but now a different grander path, a different set of prey.

  They came right on time, their incessant bickering a dreary habit. The two of them, though dressed in identical clothing, were not twins but made a handsome pair. The older and taller of the two was also prettier, while the other, more thoughtful. It would be difficult convincing them he was injured and needed help. Using a long oak branch as a makeshift crutch, he braced the gnarled cane against a large stone and recited in his head the memorized plea. “Help, please help. I’m injured and can’t walk.” It needed to be just right. Not too much hooey and not overdone.

  The two of them would be a challenge, but they would keep each other company at his Bait Shack. Down on the path from school, he could hear them arguing.

  “I need to go, I can’t wait.”

  “Hold it til we get home. I’m leaving, stupid. See you at the house. Remember, chores.”

  The younger girl moved on.

  He saw her through the gap in the trees. She, flouncing her golden hair and sprinting away. It just got so much easier. Charlie’s day brightened with opportunity.

  Other than a few errant scratches around his throat from the older girl’s stupid protests, he was fine. Wearing a turtleneck to work would quiet any nosy questions.

  Later, sated and filthy from digging, he felt regret. Not for his happening, as it were, but for the missed chance of a double conquest. Maybe later.

  Saturday afternoon, and Julie Worth parked at the Westside Mall to shop for her teenager’s birthday. Despite leaving her Jeep close to the entrance, she would still have quite a walk. As she started across the vast macadam lot, the air held the crispness of a perfect late-fall day. Near the mall entrance, the early rumblings of a disorderly crowd, with several people rushing through the electric doors. A woman fell, trying to push through the slow-moving exit.

  “A man, with a gun. Inside.”

  Julie helped the woman to her feet.

  Others rushed past her.

  “Jesus save me!”

  “Move it, bitch!”

  She pressed against the rough brick surface of the mall entrance. Part of her wanted to stop, seek cover, and wait for backup. But she knew that was so 1999. Columbine changed everything. Old rules—call it in, wait for a Special Weapons and Tactics team—still applied to a barricaded badass. But this situation looked like an active shooter, someone still racking up a body count. And the orders were simple—go stop him. About 30 percent of the time, the first cop in would get shot. So she knew she would have a two-out-of-three chance of going home tonight.

  A woman clutching a child stumbled and grabbed Julie by the waist. “He’s killing people, call the police.”

  I am the police. Julie stepped through a broken glass door and pushed against the human stampede. With one hand clasped on her holstered 9-millimeter Sig Sauer, she held her badge high above her head and moved toward the corridor wall.

  Once firmly inside the mall, she saw only a few people remaining in the wide hallway, some crouched in store entries. Julie signaled them to slip away. She waited and listened. Halfway down the mall at the junction of another hallway, a body lay sprawled on the floor.

  Julie stayed to the extreme left side of the wide passageway. Stepping lightly, she stopped at each store entrance to assess the situation. Echoing effects of shouts and cries for help played tricks with the direction of voices.

  She took a deep breath and called 911. “Sergeant Worth. Missouri State Patrol. I’m at Westside Mall. Active shooter on scene. Man down in center of corridor. Condition not known, send an ambulance. I am armed.”

  She put her phone on vibrate and once again eyed the corridor before her: a man in a pale green security guard shirt and navy blue pants, splayed out in front of an information kiosk. A distant siren drew close; someone else must have called 911 first. Julie secreted herself in each storefront, checked the area and moved on. Her phone vibrated. She didn’t recognize the number. “Sergeant Worth, who is this?” She stepped deep into the vestibule of a shoe store, her hand cupped over her phone.

  “Lieutenant Mac White, city police. Serge
ant, I suggest you get the hell out of there while we assemble our SWAT team.”

  “Due respect, sir. I got caught in the middle of this, but now that I’m here, we have what looks like a security guard down in the center of the mall. I’m fairly close to him, probably safer here than trying to make my way back out. Hold, please.”

  Across the X shape of the concourse she saw movement. Behind the counter of a fast-food stand, a man with one arm hooked around the neck of a screaming boy. The man’s other hand held a sawed-off shotgun.

  “Still there, Lieutenant?”

  “Just heard from my captain. Listen, Trooper, he wants you out of there. Now.”

  “Tell him I don’t work for him. I just saw the suspect. Looks to be forty-five to fifty, white male, dark blue T-shirt, red-and-blue baseball cap. Heavy beard, long brown hair, five foot ten, one eighty. He’s got a hostage; kid about fourteen. Suspect is armed with what looks like a sawed-off shotgun.”

  “Hold tight.” The officer was on the radio, a garbled voice coming back at him. “State your name again, Sergeant.”

  Before Julie could answer, a loud shotgun blast came from the fast-food stand. Broken glass rained hard on the terrazzo floor. A sign above the information booth knocked lopsided on a chain. Then a scream.

  “Anybody around here better listen up! I’m gonna kill this little bastard!” He raised his voice. “You listening?”

  Julie tucked down low behind the window valance. If she crept along to just one more storefront, the information booth would hide her from view of the food stand on the other side. She whispered into her phone.

  “Subject will kill his hostage. How long before SWAT?”

  “Ten minutes tops.”

  “Kid will be dead by then. I’m going in.”

  “You are not to—”

  She closed the phone.

  The gunman’s voice faded and then grew loud as he paced. She waited until the sound cut back; then she slid around the corner of the storefront and lay flat on the stone floor, pushing her way forward, ranger style, with her elbows. She smelled old floor polish and dirt from thousands of shoes. When she reached the next store, she turned 45 degrees to her right and continued to crawl across the open center of the concourse, toward the pagoda-like stall in the center.

  The man in the security uniform, blasted in the face. Julie, still prone, searched for a pulse. None. A half door on the booth left open, describing someone’s hasty exit. A sliver of light edged through the far side of the hexagon-shaped structure. She crawled in and surveyed the food stand from the top of the cracked board.

  From somewhere, a woman cried out a prayer in Spanish. A dull thud came from the food stand. Julie peeked through the splintered board as a man with a head wound and blood-splattered white chef’s gear stumbled out of the stand and fell to the floor.

  Shotgunman still paced, his head bobbing, the young boy still secured by his crooked arm. Through the opening to the kitchen jutted three sets of hands, all stretched toward the ceiling. The man continued to pace and then stopped to slap the boy. He wrapped his arm back around the kid’s neck.

  Julie’s phone vibrated against her pant leg. She whispered, “Go.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Kiosk.”

  “We’re at the end of the corridor. SWAT is on the way.”

  “Hold.” She crawled into a corner where someone had left a jacket on the back of a chair. She bundled it up in front of her mouth, almost gagging from a heavy, perfumed scent. She pulled the phone under her makeshift muffler. “This guy’s berserk, Lieutenant. He’s beating the crap out of a kid; three other hostages are in the kitchen. If he sees you guys, he’ll really snap. He’s yelling. Wait.” Julie pulled the phone from the muffler.

  “Somebody better hear what I got to say, or there’s gonna be shit to pay!” he shouted even louder. “Get it, goddamn it?”

  Julie once again wrapped the phone close to her mouth. “Hear that, Lieutenant?”

  “Yeah, made out some of it. Nuts.”

  “He whacked one of the cooks on the head. Needs help.”

  “We can’t see him from where we are. Can you?”

  “He’s about thirty feet from me. I’ve got an idea.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  A loud slapping thud came from the food stand, followed by the boy’s cry for help.

  “Gotta go. I’m gonna stand up, so if you have your sniper scopes on the kiosk, I’ll be wearing”—she held up the coat into the light—“a pale blue jacket. I’m in the middle of the concourse in the info booth. Pale blue jacket.” She slid the barrel of her Sig an inch to make sure a round was chambered. Then she tugged the tight-fitting, wrinkled blazer over her broad shoulders and clipped the mall ID badge higher on her lapel. She grabbed a pair of tortoise-rimmed reading glasses from the counter and ruffled her hair. The front of the jacket lost its button, but she still concealed her pistol in her left waistband.

  “I’ll talk to you, sir!” she yelled. “Hey there! Help! Don’t shoot!” If he was going to fire, it would probably be in the first couple moments.

  “Who the fuck is it?” The man’s head popped around the stand’s swinging door. He still had the kid in a neck hold.

  Julie took a deep breath, her hands high overhead. “Please, I have two babies at home.” The lie seemed to work; she had his attention. “Sir, can I just walk away? Promise I won’t tell a soul.” Hands still overhead, she cleared the booth and got to within twenty feet of the food stand, in good pistol range. She gestured toward the corridor, which would bring her even closer. “If you’ll just let me get to my car”—she pointed down the hallway toward the back of the mall—“I’ll be out of your hair and on my way.”

  “Hold up there! Damn it all and shut the fuck up! Come over here.” He let go of the boy’s neck and pulled him in tight to his side. He brought the shotgun up to belt level, the short barrel and chopped-off stock piece looking like a stretched-out handgun. “I ought to blow your girly brains out—”

  “I just want to get to my car.” She shifted from foot to foot. “I hurt my side when I fell down in the booth, and I have to call the babysitter to tell her—”

  “Close your mouth, for Christ’s sake. One more word, and I’ll blow this shit-for-brains’ head off.” He brought around the sawed-off shotgun and pressed it against the boy’s head.

  Julie held up one finger as if asking permission to speak.

  The man looked down both long corridors. “Take that jacket off, or I’ll make a mess here. Wanna see if you’re armed. Do it.” He turned on an evil grin and lowered the gun slightly, waiting for his show.

  Julie slipped her right arm out of the jacket and took off the glasses. “What do you want to see?” She reached across and slowly pulled her left arm sleeve free of the jacket and pinned it against her hip. Her right hand now held the Sig behind the coat. She stood feet together, head bowed, submissive.

  The man gestured with his 12-gauge weapon. “You work here with the rest of these bastards?” The end of the shotgun rested on the counter, pointing down the long corridor, away from Julie.

  Without a view of the man’s head and upper body, she would not have a shot, and neither would SWAT. She would have to draw him out. Julie dropped the jacket and glasses. Her weapon flashed across a short arc and leveled on the man’s chest. “Police officer. Release the child and slowly take your hand off the weapon.”

  His eyes turned into fiery red orbs. “I’ll kill you, bitch! I’ll—”

  Julie secured her 9-millimeter with both hands, her left foot slightly in front—classic shooter’s stance. “I’ll say this for the last time. Take your hand off the shotgun.” She watched the air slowly drain from the suspect’s body, his lips bunched into puffy regret.

  His fingers began a slow retreat.

  He’s going to give it up.

  The kid screamed and jerked away. When he did, the man’s left hand flew toward the scatter gun, firing a round as he le
veled the barrel at her.

  He never heard the sound or felt the two .9s as they dug through his body. The third left a dime-sized hole in his forehead.

  Julie saw the blood on her left leg, midthigh, and just below her knee before she felt the sting. She lifted the still-connected phone. “Scene secure. Shots fired. Subject down. Officer down.” She backed against the information booth and slid to the floor.

  The Dragons will do it this year. God is my witness.” Todd, aka Big Man, fancied himself a hot ballplayer.

  Todd Devlin, Julie’s partner, and several other troopers enjoyed a lunch of burgers and fries at Wing’s Diner. A couple guys agreed about the local team’s chances. Julie listened to their heated discussion but couldn’t commit to the conversation except to say that she’d spank all their butts in a one-on-one and spot them h,o, and r, in a game of Horse.

  There began a chorus of oohs and aahs, as if she were goddess of the court.

  She made a quick fake to Todd’s right and mimed a one-handed three-pointer. “Swish! She shoots and scores! Give it up, boys. You’re outclassed.”

  They enjoyed her performance, but her thoughts were on the lieutenant’s words to her as she left the station for lunch. “Captain wants a word with you at one thirty.”

  “What’s it about? Any idea?”

  “He seemed pissed. Wear your raincoat.”

  After lunch, she had a half hour, so she decided to take a slow walk back to the station. She had been lucky with the shotgun pellets. The skin was punctured, but no bones were struck, and no nerve damage. She just needed to keep moving.

  “You sure you want to walk? A girl can’t be too careful.”

  It was her first day back, and Julie knew that Todd was more concerned about her injuries than she was, but she played along with him. She patted her hip, her short leather jacket hiding the Sig automatic tucked high on her waist. “I can manage, thank you.”

  She liked Todd. He was a good worker and loyal to a fault. Maybe a bit too easy, as her father used to say.