Paranoid(120)

“Agreed,” she said. “I can be there in twenty.”

“Meet you there.” He clicked off and she wasted no time calling Biggs, filling him in and ending with, “I’m on my way.”

“Pick me up. I’m ready.” In the background she heard Biggs’s wife’s groggy voice protesting, but then he clicked off and by the time she’d driven to his home, with its fresh coat of gray paint, he was waiting, leaning against the porch support. At the sight of her Honda pulling up to the curb, he jogged to the passenger side and slid inside.

“Explain to me again why we’re interested in this dude.” Biggs snapped his seat belt into place as she drove toward the highway, merging with the thin flow of traffic heading south. “What’s the ex-con got to do with the Sperry homicide?”

“That’s what we hope to find out.” She slowed for the roundabout, then hit the gas on the far side and sped across the bridge spanning Youngs Bay, where water dark as pitch stretched out on either side of 101.

Her pulse was ticking and she felt a mix of apprehension and excitement. This could be the turning point in the case. As she squinted into the night, the wheels of her car humming along the dry pavement, she reminded herself to keep a cool head. Bruce Hollander could turn out to have nothing to do with the Sperry murder. This could all be a wild-goose chase. Cade Ryder had been wrong before.

Still, what did she have to lose?

*

Cade had been on the phone the entire drive to Seaside, not just alerting Kayleigh of what was going down, but also keeping in contact with the Seaside PD.

The town itself had a carnival feel to it and had been a destination for Portlanders seeking sand and surf for over a hundred years. Its long promenade stretched along the shoreline of the Pacific Ocean, separating the heart of the town from the beach. Broadway was the main street of the town, linking the Pacific Coast highway to the business district and ending in a turnaround at the prom. As such, Broadway was lined with shops and warehouse-type malls, taverns, and amusements like putt-putt golf and bumper cars. In the summer, the sidewalks were packed with pedestrians, the streets clogged with cars, bicycles, and surreys.

Now, near midnight, at the end of May, the streets were quiet, cars parked in lots or along the street, a few people strolling the sidewalk. Smokers were hanging close to the entrances of taverns, where music and laughter rolled out of open doors, but the bumper cars, T-shirt and souvenir shops, and ice cream vendors had closed for the night.

It was the hope that Hollander would come quietly, and it was the expectation that he would not. Rather than risk a shoot-out in the brewery, where bystanders could be wounded or killed, the cops were situated around both the front and back of the building, watching the exits. Dillinger, a deputy situated inside, communicated to them through a hidden mic. They were all wired up, able to speak to one another.

“Pretty fancy for your little town,” Cade had remarked when given his earpiece.

“That’s what we’re known for down here: fancy,” Swanson had remarked, his voice deep with sarcasm.

Kayleigh and her partner had arrived. They were also linked by headsets and taking positions on the street.

Now it was only a matter of time.

So they waited.

Hidden in the recessed doorway of a closed restaurant next to the pub, Cade glanced at his watch.

Nearly 1 a.m.

The brewery would close soon.

Good.

Time ticked slowly past. A few cars rolled along the roadway only to curve around the turnabout at the west end of Broadway, then wander through the blocks. A cluster of teenagers laughing and swearing, probably high, jaywalked noisily, running between parked cars to disappear down a side street, never knowing they’d just passed several armed cops.

Suddenly there was movement in the doorway of the Wooden Nickel.

Cade braced himself, his weapon in hand.

A couple in their early twenties emerged. Their hands were all over each other, their mouths kissing hungrily as they moved as one toward a shiny Nissan four-door parked near the bridge where Kayleigh was positioned. Someone, probably Swanson, whispered into his headset, “Jesus, get a room!”

“That’s the idea,” another cop said. “Ooohwee.”

“Shh!” someone reprimanded sharply.

The man helped his obviously inebriated date tumble into the passenger side, then hurried around to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel, only, once the door was closed, to pull the woman close. They went at it again, going so far as to start the windows steaming before the embrace was broken.

Cade had ignored them for the most part, keeping his gaze trained on the door.

With a roar, the Nissan tore away from the curb, sped down the street, the red glow of its taillights disappearing as the driver turned a corner to disappear between the buildings.

The street was once again quiet, the eerie silence interrupted only by the hum of traffic on the highway, the rumble of the sea to the west, and an occasional burst of raucous laughter from the pub.

Cade waited.

But not for long. Within minutes the word came through his headset. “He’s settling his tab,” Dillinger whispered. “Get ready. Wearing a Mariners cap and a camo jacket.”

Cade’s fingers tightened over his pistol.

Dillinger again: “He’s headin’ for the door.”

Cade saw the movement of shadows in his peripheral vision. Other members of the team had stepped closer to the entryway. He told himself to be calm, even though every muscle in his body was tense, his nerves strung tight as bowstrings.