Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(117)

He seemed to understand what she saying. “I have a backup piece. Thirty-eight.”

“Trade you for my shotgun?”

“Makes sense.”

She popped open the trunk of her vehicle, where she had supplies for tactical situations, including an extra vest and a gun locker.

“So,” he said conversationally, as they geared up, “a wounded detective and a federal PhD.”

“Best cavalry ever,” she assured him.

“We’d better get it right because the paperwork alone will make us both wish we were dead.”

D.D. smiled, tried to pretend her hands weren’t shaking. What had Phil said, she needed to rely more on her team? Well, she’d communicated. This wasn’t her entering alone. She had officers in front, a feebie at her side, and backup on its way.

She was learning, adapting.

Still, taking Keynes’s .38, a gun that used to feel so natural in her grasp . . .

She pictured Jack. She pictured Alex. She promised herself she’d return home to them soon enough.

Then, she followed Keynes into the abandoned housing complex.





Chapter 48


THE FIRST BULLET WINGS OVER MY SHOULDER. I duck reflexively, veering right as drywall explodes to my left. A second shot, third, fourth.

She’s laughing as she pulls the trigger. Maybe not even aiming, but enjoying the show as I dart right, then left, then right, flinching and ducking. I resist the urge to look over my shoulder, to see how close I am to impending death. Instead, I keep on trucking, bare feet pounding down the debris-littered corridor.

In self-defense class, a teacher had advised us to flee if ever confronted by someone with a gun. Apparently it’s astonishingly difficult to hit a moving target. At least, your odds of survival are higher running from a shooting gunman than, say, getting into a car with him and driving to a remote location where he can do exactly what he wants.

So I sprint. Chest heaving. Elbows tucked tight, head ducked low, trying to make myself a smaller target. My foot hits something sharp, then something stabbing. There’s no time to pause, pick out slivers of wood or, worse, pieces of glass. I keep on running, transitioning from a relatively domesticated section of the building to some kind of construction zone, the smell of dust and neglect heavier in the air. The hall is too dark for me to see where I’m going or adjust my footsteps to avoid the sharpest objects.

More shots fired.

I run for my life.

Doorway to the right. I careen through it without a second thought, intent on getting out of the line of fire. Only afterward does it occur to me it might be a bedroom or, worse, a bathroom. A room with no exit where I’d be trapped.

But in this case, it appears to be yet another common room. I’ve given up on my theory of being trapped in a traditional Boston triple-decker. The structure is too vast. Too many hallways, too many rooms. Not a warehouse or commercial building because the rooms are small. Maybe a group home? Abandoned, undergoing renovations, something.

I should stop, get my bearings, but I can’t think anymore. I sprint down dark hallways, leap through dark spaces, like a deer through the woods.

I might be crying, which is stupid. Last thing I need to do right now is make any undue noise.

I crash through another doorway, step on something sharp, and feel it slice deeply into the ball of my foot. I can’t help myself. I draw up short, hopping on one leg, biting my lower lip against the scream.

Belatedly, I flatten myself against the wall. Will myself to stand still.

Breathe. Think. Breathe.

I can’t keep running pell-mell through a maze of sharp objects and unknown spaces, waiting to become trapped, shot, killed. I need to come up with a strategy. Something worthy of taking on a homicidal maniac armed with a gun.

A woman who’s been waiting five years to destroy me.

Though, to be fair, I’ve been waiting five years to kill her too.

My breathing is ragged. I force myself to inhale deeply, try to smooth out my racing pulse so I can listen for the sound of approaching footsteps.

Then, I concentrate on thinking.

Lindy. She’s here. In Boston. She tracked me down. Visited my mother’s farm. Found me at Devon Goulding’s house. Then followed me back to my highly secure apartment, where she broke in using my landlord’s keys. Neat trick, that. It had never occurred to me that for all my extra bolts, my landlords would remain the weak link. But yes. Their own approach to locking up is haphazard at this stage of their lives. And once she had their keys . . .

Lindy. In my apartment. Lindy bringing me back here to finish what Jacob had started.

I want her dead. The flatness of the thought, the direct, compelling need, grounds me, further calms my breathing.

I’ve hated her since the first time I saw Jacob watching her. Since she threw her arms around him in welcome. Since they sat on the sofa, heads nearly touching.

Then, her forcing me to go out, approach that woman in the bar.

I don’t think about that night, or any of the others that followed. I don’t talk about her, Jacob, what they made me do. No, I save those memories for my nightmares, where all these years later, I still wake up screaming.

Jacob made me roll the bodies from his rig to the marshy grass alongside the road. Then he made me sit and watch till the gators discovered the unexpected treats.

He never said a word. Just watched me with eyes that told me someday this would be my fate. Except Lindy would be the one to roll my body out the door, and she’d be clapping gleefully as the local wildlife came to feed.