The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone #13)(87)

“You placed us all in jeopardy,” Foster said. “Coleen especially.”

He was right, but that was a chance I’d been prepared to take. Now I wasn’t quite so sure. This had not played out as I intended, but with Oliver and Jansen gone there might be another way to get us all out of here alive. I hadn’t mentioned the coin. Valdez had no reason to believe it was here.

Time to use it.

But before I could play that card, Coleen leaped to her feet.

Valdez’s attention had been momentarily on me, but he turned at the sudden movement. She was fast and agile, springing his way in just a millisecond. Perhaps she sensed, as I did, that Valdez intended on killing us all. Why wouldn’t he? That way there’d be no trail, nothing left linking anything that had happened over the past two days to him. But Valdez was a seasoned pro. A trained operative accustomed to tight situations. Sure, she had thirty years on him in age, but time had not dulled his reflexes.

He swung the gun around and fired.

“No,” Foster yelled.

The bullet hit her square in the chest.

I reacted and started to pounce, but he whipped the weapon back my way. Coleen grabbed at her midsection, struggling to breathe. Blood spewed from her mouth with each exhale. Her eyes changed from rage, to concern, and finally to fright. I could do nothing but watch. Foster tried to come to his feet, but having his hands bound behind his back made it difficult. She looked my way, her expression pleading for help. Then her eyes rolled skyward and she smacked facedown to the concrete.

Foster’s face was filled with shock.

Valdez’s attention alternated from Coleen to Foster.

A rage I’d never felt surged through me. Uncontrollable. One that canceled all fear and focused everything on one thing.

Attack.

I dove at Valdez.





Chapter Fifty-four


At the same instant our bodies made contact, my right hand grabbed for the gun. Valdez reacted to my assault with a moment of awkwardness, enough for me to take him down. I wondered if anyone heard the shot and, if they had, if it would raise any alarm. Loud noises were the norm at an amusement park, and this one had come from an obvious construction site.

We hit the pavement.

I lifted, then slammed the hand with the gun several times into the concrete, which caused it to clatter away. Valdez shoved his way off me and scrambled for a pile of rebar, gripping one of the remnant pieces and coming my way. I caught sight of Foster struggling to crawl toward Coleen, who still had not moved or made a sound. Valdez swung the piece of iron at me, trying to make contact. I dodged the swishes, retreating, eventually running out of real estate and hitting one of the walls. Valdez lifted the iron bar and tried a vertical blow, which I managed to avoid.

I kicked him in the chest.

Which sent him staggering back, but he found his balance and decided to just whirl the rebar at me. The projectile spun through the air and caught me hard in the thigh, thankfully not with one of the sharp ends, which could have done some damage. Instead it was a horizontal smack.

Which hurt like hell.

I dropped to the ground.

Valdez fled.

I made myself stand.

Adrenaline surged through me. The pain that had been there a moment ago went numb. I knew that was an illusion, but I embraced it. I rushed over to Foster and freed his hands, bound by duct tape.

“Deal with her,” I said.

My eyes probed the shadows and I spotted the gun near another rubble pile, which I grabbed before racing after Valdez.

I heard the wooden door through which we’d entered open, then bang shut. I approached and passed through, back into the park, catching sight of Valdez weaving through the crowd. The storm had blown itself out, but the warm air felt as if it were filled with invisible steam. People seemed to be enjoying the wet summer evening, the rain nothing more than a minor nuisance.

Valdez was headed toward a carousel where the choice of routes varied. He could go left or right. No way could I take a shot. He passed the carousel and banked left toward Cinderella Castle, lit to the night in all its glory. A breezeway bisected the towering structure. I realized that on the other side was the central hub and Walt Disney’s statue where all this had started. Nate’s body would still be there, as would be police, and security. Valdez seemed to sense that, too, as he angled right and stayed on this side of the castle, far away from any commotion on the other.

We kept moving, passing more attractions.

It’s a Small World. The Haunted Mansion. The Hall of Presidents. We came back into Frontierland and he suddenly disappeared into one of the breezeways I’d seen earlier that connected over to Adventureland.

I kept running, about thirty yards behind him.

I passed through the breezeway and caught sight of Valdez as he zeroed in on the Jungle Cruise, entering a wooden pavilion that looked like some kind of African outpost, where a line had formed for folks waiting their turn at the ride. I could see lights and water on the other side of the olden-looking structure and heard the rev of engines as boats arrived and departed.

I kept up my pursuit, rushing inside and watching as he vaulted a wooden railing. He’d avoided the queues to the left and negotiated a part of the interior that had been roped off, not being utilized at the moment for crowd control. I ducked under one of the black nylon straps and dodged the décor of tools and gear, heading to where I had last seen Valdez. At the railing I saw him on one of the canopied boats cruising “upriver,” deeper into the attraction. The banner atop the boat’s canopy identified it as the Nile Nellie. Another boat was being loaded with visitors to my left. More people waited to be off-loaded in boats behind it. I doubted any of these craft were built for speed, so overtaking Valdez did not seem an option. I rushed over to one of the safari-suited attendants.