Closer Than You Think (28 page)

‘Faith?
Faith.
’ He grabbed her wrists again, still gentle despite the look of affront on his face. ‘I am
not
bleeding. The bullet never touched my skin.’

‘You don’t know that. You could be bleeding under the vest.’ She fought back a sudden surge of tears.
Adrenaline crash
, she thought dimly. ‘I watched Gordon die in front of me,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I can’t let you die too. Not because of me.’

‘I’m not going to die, Faith. Not today, anyway,’ he added lightly. Mockingly.

‘Don’t
do
that. Don’t you
dare
joke like that. It’s not funny. Combs tried to kill you.’

‘No, honey, Combs tried to kill
you
. He shot me and the bellman on purpose. To draw you out.’ He pulled his leather coat back on, wincing as he shoved his arms through the sleeves.

Faith took a step back, suddenly cold. Exhausted. The tears she’d fought streaked down her cheeks when she tried to blink them away. She dropped her chin so that he couldn’t see. ‘Just . . . don’t get shot again, okay? I can’t handle any more blood on my hands.’

‘You aren’t responsible for this, Faith.’ He slid his forefinger under her chin, urging her to look up at him, wiping her cheeks with his thumb. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Stay here. Please. I’ll be back for you as soon as I can.’

His eyes were intense, both colors darker, the lines where they merged appearing more jagged than they had been before. Beautiful. Powerful. Like a storm.

‘All right,’ Faith managed. ‘I’ll wait.’

Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 3.05
A.M.

He cleared the hotel exit, his body shaking. He’d missed. He’d had her in his sights and he’d missed. Shooting the bellman hadn’t brought her running outside like he’d hoped. The white-haired bastard hadn’t let her up. Hadn’t let her run to the aid of her fellow man.
I should have blown his white head to high heaven when I had him in my sight.

But he hadn’t wanted to kill him. Not right away, anyway. He’d only wanted to maim him so that Faith would stand up and drag him away, like she’d done with her boss in Miami.

But the bastard hadn’t been maimed. He must have been wearing a vest. And he’d parked his damn SUV in the way.
I couldn’t see.

And now he’d tipped his hand.
She knows I’m here. Dammit.
It was a hell of a lot easier when she’d believed he was still in Miami. Now she’d be even more careful. Worse yet, now the cops would believe her.
Shit
. It had been so much simpler when they’d thought her delusional.

He tossed the golf bag into the van and drove away slowly, like the rapidly approaching sirens weren’t making his heart beat out of his chest.

The hotel had cameras in the parking lot. He’d worn the ball cap, so they hadn’t caught his face, but his vehicle would be the subject of a BOLO within minutes. He needed to ditch the van. Needed to change vehicles before they locked the city down and caught him.

Hands shaking, he gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ached. ‘Stop this,’ he hissed aloud. ‘They will not catch you.’ Because he was careful.
You planned for an outcome just like this, remember?

He’d already scoped out the perfect place to swap the van, because he’d known about the cameras. He’d even made a secondary plan to buy time to get there.

Calming himself, he pulled into an alley, jumped out of the van and quickly changed the Tennessee plates for an Ohio set he’d stolen long ago. For once he was grateful for the gloves he wore, he thought as he screwed on the new license plate. It was cold outside.

It took him thirty seconds more to place magnetic signs bearing the logo of a local roadside assistance company on both sides of the van, the back doors, and the hood. He’d had the signs made with night-time getaways in mind. Roadside assistance vehicles might be called out at any time of the day or night, so no one would question his being out at three
A.M.

With his van disguised, he drove to the closest suburb, thinking through what had just happened. The white-haired bastard was a cop. Who was he? Where would he take her?

I have to find her. I have to shut her up before it’s too late.
That the white-haired man had worn the look of a frustrated lovesick puppy was the key. He wouldn’t be able to stay away from Faith.
So I’ll find him. I’ll follow him. And when he goes to her, I’ll kill them both.

He felt much better now. By the time he passed the all-night grocery he’d scoped out earlier, he was breathing almost normally again. He drove a lap around the parking lot, biding his time. Within minutes a woman came out pushing an overloaded cart. She looked tired.

A tired woman was exactly what he needed tonight. She hit a button on her key fob and the hatch of a silver Nissan minivan in the third row began to rise.

Nothing like a good heads-up.
He parked in the slot next to her vehicle seconds before she arrived with her unwieldy cart, piled too high for her to see over or around. She left the cart by the open hatch and came around to the driver’s side to put her purse on her seat.

He moved then, staying between the vehicles, out of any camera’s range. Covering her mouth with one hand, he pressed his pistol to her head with the other. She surprised him, exploding into motion. He’d thought she’d be too exhausted to put up such a fight.

Yes,
he thought as her adrenaline rushed to fire his own. He’d thought he’d needed a tired woman who’d give him no trouble, but he’d needed exactly
this
. A woman’s fear had a potency like nothing else. His heart raced, his thoughts cleared, and his strength was renewed.

He yanked her against his chest, shoving the gun against her temple harder in case she’d missed it the first time. ‘Don’t fight and I won’t hurt you. I want your minivan. Drop your keys.’

She stopped struggling, Her keys landed on the asphalt at her feet. ‘On your knees.’

She dropped to her knees, drawing a huge breath through her nose as she did so, intending to scream as soon as he released her. They always did that. Normally he used that breath to his own advantage, covering their faces with a sedative-laced rag.

But he hadn’t come prepared for that, so he put the barrel of the gun at the base of her skull, pulling his hand from her mouth a split second before he pulled the trigger.

The silencer emitted a pop, but nothing loud enough to draw attention. She slumped to the ground and he kicked her under the white van, then loaded her groceries into the back so that no one would be alerted by the full cart. By the time she was discovered, he’d be long gone.

Cincinnati, Ohio, Tuesday 4 November, 3.15
A.M.

Deacon found Bishop briefing the SWAT team when he arrived in the lobby of the hotel across the street, still breathing hard from his sprint. And from having Faith Corcoran nearly ripping his shirt off.
Good God.
His skin still felt supercharged.

During those moments when they’d crawled backwards, her curvy body pressed tight against his . . . he’d thought he would literally combust.

But seeing the bullet hole in the bellman’s chest had more than taken care of deflating the very visible evidence of his desire. It could have been Faith lying on the ground in a pool of blood. It had been too damn close, and now an innocent man’s life hung by a thread.

Bishop gave him a fast up-and-down look. ‘You and the doc okay?’

‘Yeah. But the bellman might not make it.’ The medics had arrived on the scene as Deacon was running across the street. The hotel had brought them in a back way to minimize their exposure to additional gunfire, although it appeared their gunman had ceased firing.

‘He was standing next to her?’ she asked.

‘No. I was standing next to her. The bellman was several feet away.’

The cop on Bishop’s right nodded, grimly satisfied. ‘He’s not much of a shot then, if he missed by that much. Good to know. I’m Sergeant Rayburn, team leader.’

‘Special Agent Novak, but you misunderstand me. The first shot he took was aimed at Dr Corcoran. If she hadn’t turned to talk to me at the last moment, she would have been hit instead of the glass door. The bellman wasn’t shot until after we were on the floor inside the lobby.’

Rayburn frowned. ‘Then the bellman was deliberately shot.’

‘Bait,’ Bishop said with disgust. ‘Combs wanted to draw the doc out so he could try again.’ She turned her attention to the older man hurrying toward them, his face pinched and drawn. ‘That’s the hotel manager,’ she said to Deacon. ‘Did you get the key, sir?’

‘I did. The room is registered to Anthony Brown. He checked in Sunday afternoon.’

‘We need all hotel guests to stay in their rooms,’ Deacon said to the manager. ‘Nobody goes in or out until we give the all-clear. We may evacuate, but for now, everyone stays put.’

‘This can’t be happening,’ the manager said, his face graying visibly.

‘I also need the last eight hours of footage for the hallways on the second floor, the elevators, the roof, and all exits,’ Bishop said. ‘Can you pull that together?’ She waved an officer over, glancing at his badge. ‘Doyle, stay with him. I want to know who went in or out of that room.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Doyle said.

‘If you’re ready, gentlemen,’ Bishop said. ‘Let’s go.’

The SWAT team split up, taking different stairwells up to the second floor. Deacon followed one half, Bishop the other. Everything was quiet as they assembled outside the hotel room door.

‘How do you know this is the one?’ Deacon asked softly.

‘The window was missing one of its panes,’ Bishop murmured. ‘Someone cut it out carefully. No jagged edges, nothing to notice unless you were looking, but when I did look, it was obvious.’ She glanced at Rayburn. ‘On three.’

She slid the keycard through the reader and stood back, letting the team enter first. Bishop followed and Deacon brought up the rear. The bedroom was empty, the bed unmade. A half-drunk cup of coffee sat on the nightstand. A laptop computer sat on the desk, its screen dark. On the dresser were a wallet, a set of car keys, an expensive wristwatch and a handful of change.

‘Detectives?’ Rayburn backed out of the bathroom carefully. ‘He’s in here.’

Deacon entered the small bathroom with dread, knowing what he’d see. But even after more crime scenes than he wanted to count, finding the dead was always worse than he expected.

This was no exception. Deacon crouched by the tub while Bishop stood at his back taking pictures. The man had been in his mid forties. Wearing only a pair of boxers and a T-shirt, he lay in the tub, a bullet hole in the base of his skull. The tiled wall was covered with splatter. Blood and brains. Combs had made no attempt to wash away the evidence.

‘Fuck,’ Deacon whispered, both for Faith and for the newest victim of Combs’s evil.

‘Execution style,’ Bishop noted, her voice emotionless. Deacon knew that Scarlett Bishop was considered a cold-hearted woman by others in the department, but he wasn’t fooled. He’d seen the pain in his new partner’s eyes many times over the last month. She cared too much.

We all wear our masks,
he thought sadly. ‘He must have a silencer. Somebody would have heard the gunshot.’ Straightening, he grimaced when pain streaked through his shoulder.

Bishop frowned at him. ‘What happened to you?’

‘I got shot,’ he said flatly. ‘He got me in the shoulder. Don’t worry. The vest caught it.’ He left the bathroom and examined the bedroom, looking for anything Combs had left behind. Of course there was nothing. ‘Status, Sergeant?’

‘We’re clear here, but he might still be hiding in the hotel. We’ve got the exits locked down. We can evacuate or do a room-to-room search if need be.’

‘Let me check on the security tapes first,’ Bishop said. She made the call to the front desk, then turned back to Deacon and Rayburn, frustration evident on her face. ‘A man Combs’s size left this room at 3.04 with a golf bag over his shoulder. He exited through a side door at 3.05. He drove away in a white van with Tennessee plates. Backup arrived at 3.07.’

Deacon hadn’t expected Combs to stick around, but . . . 
Dammit
. They’d been so close. ‘I doubt that he broke down his rifle. Probably just stowed it the golf bag until he was able to dismantle it. On the up side, he kept the van
and
the plates. He doesn’t know what information we have, or he would have gotten rid of them. Did the camera get his license plate?’

Bishop nodded. ‘Officer Doyle, the uniform I put downstairs at the desk, already added it to the BOLO and informed Isenberg, who’s shut down all major roads out of the city.’

‘When CSU gets here, show them this.’ Rayburn pointed at the windowsill. ‘These gouges in the wood are from the stand he used to set up his rifle. He came prepared. Where were you when you got hit, Agent Novak?’

Deacon joined him at the window and pointed to the lobby, barely visible with all the emergency vehicles now parked in front. ‘In the shadow of my SUV. When I lifted my head – about two feet off the floor – he fired.’

Rayburn whistled softly. ‘Your guy might be military. If not, he trained somewhere. To make that shot, with it being dark outside and the lights around the overhang making a glare? And considering he’d already missed several times before and had to have figured the cops were on their way? He has a steady hand and a good eye. You’re damn lucky, Novak.’

‘Lucky I had the vest, I think. He didn’t want me dead. He wanted Faith Corcoran to jump up and try to save me. I was bait, just like the bellman. I didn’t realize how skilled he needed to be to make the shot. Thank you, Sergeant.’