Cold & Deadly (Cold Justice: Crossfire #1)(105)

A woman laughed on the line.

He felt lightheaded when he recognized the voice of the person talking to Ava. “Shit. That’s my neighbor, Suzanna Bernier.”

“Get in.” Parker slid into the driver’s seat of his car and was half way down the street before Dominic closed his door.

Alex fished his cell from his pocket and used his retina to unlock the screen before tossing it to Dominic. “Open the icon with Mallory’s image. Let’s see where she is first. If she’s at your father’s house or the hospital she’s safe.”

The app connected to a map and a red dot appeared on the screen, heading northwest out of the city at high speed.

GPS. “We have a signal. She’s on the move.”

Alex said nothing but turned on his car’s GPS screen which now mirrored his cell. It seemed likely that both Mallory and Ava were in the clutches of this evil woman and from the conversation he was overhearing on his cell, this was not good.

“Buckle up.” Alex accelerated and blew through a red light. A few seconds later a siren started in pursuit. Alex glanced in the mirror. “Get rid of him.”

Dominic called his father on his personal cell—thank God the FBI’s rules and bureaucracy meant he always carried two—and did something he had never done before. He used his connections for his own purposes. “Pop, don’t argue with me but put the president on the line, right now. We have a serious situation.”

It took a few seconds and then a few more before the background din of the party receded. Dominic imagined the men standing in the library.

A line up of traffic at another red light had Alex pulling up on the wide sidewalk and bypassing the queue. They bumped down the curb back onto the road with a bone-jarring bounce.

“Hello?”

“Mr. President,” Dominic said quickly.

“Dominic.” Hague sounded exasperated. “I keep telling you, call me Joshua or Uncle Josh the way you have done your entire life—”

“The thing is, sir, at this exact moment I need to talk to the president, not my godfather.”

“Okay,” Hague said slowly. “Go on.”

“I need you to contact capitol police. There is a woman going by the name of Suzanna Bernier who is a neighbor of mine. I have reason to believe she has been killing FBI agents.” He heard a gasp from the older man.

“She currently has Ava Kanas and Agent Mallory Rooney—who is heavily pregnant—in a vehicle heading northwest. I am assuming Bernier is armed. I need traffic units to let a black Audi through as we are in pursuit of a tracking signal, but we have a traffic cop on our tail.” Alex reeled off the plate number and Dominic repeated it. Then he told the man the location of the other car and road on which they were traveling.

“I don’t know what make or model of car Suzanna Bernier is driving, but the cops can probably figure it out. Order police to put up roadblocks in a twenty-mile radius but don’t try to stop our Audi. I have the horrible feeling if we don’t catch up with them soon, they’re all dead.” Dominic couldn’t even grasp that idea.

More traffic had Alex cursing and laying on the horn to force his way through.

The president was shouting instructions to his staff. The traffic cop was still in hot pursuit, the siren giving an appropriately urgent soundtrack to Dominic’s already hammering heart.

“I have to go, sir.”

“Take care, Dominic. Don’t go rushing in without backup.”

“Let’s hope I don’t need to.” Dominic hung up and held on as Alex took a shortcut going in the wrong direction down a side street, then taking a corner on two wheels to get them ahead of the traffic. Dominic tried not to remember the wreck that had almost killed him last week. His entire world had been turned upside down since that moment and part of that turmoil had been caused by falling in love with Ava Kanas. Ava was the most important thing in his life, and he had the horrible feeling that because he hadn’t held on tight to her hand when she’d needed him most, he was about to lose her forever.

And it was all his fault. He should have defended her faster and more vehemently. He should have tossed in his shield and left when she left. He’d been so damn sure he could talk them out of the situation but had failed. So maybe he wasn’t as shit-hot as he liked to think. Maybe he really had got where he had because of who his father was.

The traffic cop abruptly turned off the siren and fell away from the chase.

Thank God.

They were catching up to them. Dominic didn’t think he’d ever traveled at this speed before, and he was praying Alex could squeeze even more out of the sports car. He thought he heard Mallory speak, and then he heard the sound of retching and an exclamation. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alex tense.

The red dot on Alex’s screen stopped moving. Suzanna had halted the car. Then the signal that presumably represented Mallory’s cell was moving into the forest, and the sound of gunshots came distinctly through Dominic’s phone.

*

Ava cursed her heels as she ran into the woods, heading for the dense undergrowth. She heard Suzanna getting out of the car and dared not stop.

Ava instinctively reached for her weapon and silently swore when she remembered she’d handed it in to the fricking director and hadn’t worn a backup to the party.

Where was Mallory? Ava scanned the area and saw the other woman pressed against a large oak. Their eyes connected. Ava’s lavender gown was a neon freaking sign in the forest. At least Mallory wore black. Ava turned and ran in the opposite direction.