The Darkness of Evil (Karen Vail #7)(81)

He closed his eyes, the only acknowledgment, the only victory, he was going to allow her.

Vail knew she had to bully him because it was the only language Roscoe Lee Marcks understood. Show weakness and he would go for the jugular. Literally.

“You’ve got three seconds,” she said. “Two.”

Marcks lifted his foot off the accelerator and the car slowed. He angled the vehicle toward the right shoulder of the two-lane roadway and brought it to a stop.

“With your left hand, using two fingers, remove the Glock and hand it back to me. No fast moves.”

He did as instructed and she released his hair to grab the pistol’s handle, keeping the tanto’s pressure constant against his neck. She wanted to check the handgun’s chamber but needed two hands—and there was no way she was going to remove the knife from Marcks’s neck.

“Now give me the keys.”

He pulled them out of the ignition and handed them back—but moved them away when she reached for them. She dug the knife further into his skin, drawing more blood. “I swear, you f*cking try anything—anything—and I’ll kill you. Now give them to me!”

He handed them back and she took them.

She wanted to handcuff him but there was nothing to secure him to: no headrest. Nothing except the steering wheel. If she had him lean forward and put his hands behind his back, there would be no way for her to reach over the seat to fasten them.

Vail set the Glock on her lap and reached for her cuffs—but they weren’t there. She patted the area around her, felt around with her shoes, taking care to keep firm pressure on the tanto—but they were not there.

She felt for her phone—gone as well. Shit.

“Pop your door open, then put your hands on the dashboard. Splay your fingers. And push your chest against the wheel.”

As he leaned forward, she removed the knife from his neck and got out, pointed the Glock at his head as she came around to the front seat—

But Marcks accelerated hard and the Buick lurched forward, the rear door slamming into her side and spinning her into the asphalt.

Vail got to her knees and squeezed off three rounds at the retreating vehicle, pinging the metal and doing nothing to stop Marcks as he once again fled.

Into the ether.

VAIL STOOD UP and watched the LeSabre disappear down the road. She had forgotten that older cars did not have ignition locks that prevented the removal of the keys unless the engine was off—both an anti-theft and safety measure enacted by the federal government.

Sonofabitch. He knew what he was doing. She kicked at a rock in the road and sent it skipping down the pavement. How could I miss that? Because I’ve taken three blows to the head. Probably have a concussion.

Vail slipped the tanto into its sheath, realizing that Tzedek had once again saved her life. She had to remember to thank Uzi—the knife was turning out to be one of the best gifts anyone had ever given her.

She turned and looked in both directions but saw no one, no houses, no cars. And she had no phone … she could not even look on a map to see where she was.

Vail turned and started back from where she came, reasoning that she knew approximately how far it was to get back to the main road. There would be people and cars there—and a way to reach someone on the task force.

She holstered her Glock and palpated her swollen face, opened and closed her sore jaw, and felt lucky to be alive. She took a deep breath as she trudged forward, tried to ease her stress, to decompress after all that had occurred in the past hour or so.

And then she realized that she still had not heard from Jasmine.





42


All right, what’ve we got?” Hurdle was pacing near the spot where Vail’s phone was found, vapor puffing from his mouth like steam from a locomotive. The other task force members stood in a circle nearby, while crime scene technicians processed the area behind them. More snow was expected, so they erected a temporary tent.

“BOLO’s out,” Walters said.

“The license plate came back to a used car lot in Fairfax,” Curtis said. “I’ve got a uniform on his way there to talk with someone, see if the Buick was stolen or purchased and if so, by whom.”

Ramos held up his phone. “We just got an image of the perp. A frame capture.” He played with the screen and threw his head back. “Looks like Marcks. Sonofabitch.”

Hurdle clenched his right fist. “I’m really beginning to hate this guy.”

“He kidnapped one of our own,” Morrison said. “From a goddamn police department—fifty yards from where we were all sitting.”

“He’s got a big set of balls, I’ll give him that,” Tarkoff said. “Or a death wish.”

“Let’s look at this a minute,” Curtis said, holding up his hands. “Remove the emotion. It’s not easy, believe me, I get that. Seeing him take Karen on the surveillance video—” His voice caught. “That was tough to watch. But we gotta push that out of our minds. We’ve gotta think clearly.” He said it as if he were trying to convince himself.

His eyes settled on the photo of Marcks on Ramos’s phone. “He found out about our task force. He knew about Vail’s involvement in the case and somehow figured out where to find her. Assuming that was the Buick Karen saw when we left the BAU, he went to a goddamn FBI office—a ten most wanted fugitive—and hung out in the profiling unit’s parking lot until she left and then followed us here. Drove into the police department, parked his car half a football field away from the hounds trying to track him down, and grabbed one of us up.”