Criminal Enterprise (29 page)

W
INDERMERE STARED OUT
the passenger window. A Saint Paul police cruiser sat angled halfway into the middle of the road ahead of them, its side panels dented and mangled. Windermere glanced at Stevens. “You see that?”

Stevens nodded. “This guy’s Buick took a hell of a beating itself.”

Tomlin’s front lawn looked like it had just hosted a monster-truck rally. A mess of tire tracks led from the empty driveway to the road—directly through the mangled cruiser. There were people everywhere: city cops running around blind, neighborhood looky-loos, and kids—teenagers—all over the place. Total chaos.

“Becca Tomlin’s Navigator is gone,” said Windermere.

Stevens followed her gaze and nodded, grim-faced. They climbed from the Jeep and started up toward the house. The teenagers were everywhere. They milled about in little clusters of kids and parents, five or six little groups spread across the grounds. Tears and hugs all around. Windermere looked at them. “What the hell happened?”

“A party.” Stevens surveyed the lawn. “A pity party for Heather Tomlin. I told Singer to make sure he got rid of the kids.”

Windermere frowned. “Guess he didn’t.”

“Andrea wanted to come tonight.” Stevens shook his head. “Had to ground her to keep her inside.”

Windermere looked at him. Then she looked at the clusters of kids and parents again. “A party,” she said. “Jesus.”

A big Saint Paul city cop came barreling at them from the driveway. “Who are you?” he said, his hand on his holster.

“FBI.” Windermere showed him her badge. “What happened?”

The cop studied the badge and stepped back and looked sheepish. “Guy made a run for it,” he said. “Ruined my cruiser.”

Shit. “Someone chasing him?”

“Three units. Tough night for a chase, though.”

Windermere looked at the empty driveway again. “He took the truck, huh?”

“That’s right.” The cop nodded. “Broke through the line and sped off. Crushed my cruiser like it was a Hot Wheels toy.”

“Where’s the BCA agent?” said Stevens.

The cop looked at him, looked at Windermere. Then he looked up at the home. “Maybe you want to see it for yourself.”

They followed the cop through the clustered families toward the mansion, every light in the place blazing. To a one, every kid they passed had the facial expression of a plane-crash survivor, and as she approached the house, Windermere felt a sense of foreboding, like whatever these kids had lived through, it was awful, and evil, and waiting inside.

The cop led them up the front steps and stopped by the door. “It’s messy.” He looked briefly at Stevens and then back at Windermere.

Stevens frowned. “Let’s just see it.”

The cop shrugged and pushed open the door. Another city cop stood inside, and the first cop nodded to him. “FBI.”

The second cop stepped aside, and Windermere saw the bodies.

T
HERE WERE TWO BODIES.
A big guy at the base of the stairs. A beard and red flannel and a shot at close range through the forehead. The other body was Singer. Stevens swore. “Son of a bitch.”

The BCA agent lay flat on his back in the hallway, his blood pooling red-black around him. There were at least three shots in his torso, and his service pistol lay on the hardwood a few feet away. Stevens crouched beside the body. Swore again.

Windermere looked at the cop by the door. “So what the hell happened?”

The cop shifted his weight and avoided her eyes. Saint Paul police had arrived to check out the report of shots fired, he said. Screwed the pooch a little bit before someone spied Singer’s abandoned sedan and clued in to the Tomlin factor. “We called for backup,” he said, shaking his head, “but the guy moved too fast.”

He’d taken his wife’s Navigator. Sprayed the uniforms with machine-gun fire and then drove the truck straight at the line of patrol cars, swerved at the last minute and cut across the lawn, played bumper cars at the curb, and hightailed it down the street.

“That truck handles a lot better than our Impalas, I’ll tell you,” the cop told her. “Hell of a blizzard out there.”

Windermere looked him over. Then she pulled out her cell phone and called the FBI office. Reached Mathers, working the night shift. “Supercop,” he said. “You in on this mess in Saint Paul?”

“I need to update our APB on Carter Tomlin,” she said. “He’s in his wife’s Lincoln Navigator SUV—”

“We shot it to shit,” the cop interrupted. “He won’t get far.”

“His wife’s SUV,” Windermere told Mathers. “Look out for body damage, gunshots and the like. This guy just killed a BCA agent, and he’s on the move again. Talk to the state patrols in Wisconsin, the Dakotas, and Iowa. The Canadians, too, at the border crossings. Tell them to keep an eye out for this guy and his truck.”

“Gotcha,” said Mathers. “What about Henderson?”

“Good point.” Windermere turned to the city cop again. “The woman, Tricia Henderson. She was here, too?”

The cop shook his head. “All the kids say the guy came alone.”

Windermere relayed it to Mathers. “Henderson’s somewhere else,” she said. “They split up. Keep looking for her, but Tomlin’s job one.”

“I’ll get the word out,” said Mathers. “You talk to Doughty?”

“No,” she said. “Was I supposed to?”

“Last I heard he was pissed. I thought you guys patched up your differences.”

“We’re all pissed, Agent Mathers,” she told him. “There’s a psychopath on the loose. Keep me posted.”

Stevens still hadn’t moved beside Singer’s body. Windermere walked to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He was rigid beneath her touch.

“Mr. Stevens?”

Tomlin’s eldest daughter stood in the doorway, looking at Stevens across the bodies. Windermere straightened and hurried across to her. “Come on, honey,” she said. “You don’t need to see this.”

The girl ignored her. Stared at Stevens. “Did you talk to Andrea yet?”

Windermere stopped. She turned back to Stevens, who was looking at the girl with a forced plastic smile. “I’ll call home in a bit, check on her,” he said. “I’ll tell her everything’s over and that you’re fine, okay?”

“No,” the girl said. “That’s not what I mean.”

Something about the look on her face made Windermere go cold inside. “What is it?” Windermere asked her. “What do you know?”

Heather had the spotlight now, and she shied away from it. Gathered herself and looked at Stevens again. “She was here, Mr. Stevens. She snuck in with everybody else.”

The smile dropped from Stevens’s face. “God damn it. Where is she now?”

“She’s gone, Mr. Stevens.” The girl started to cry. “Nobody knows where she went. She’s just gone.”

A
NDREA STEVENS LAY
in the back of Coach Tomlin’s SUV, struggling with the duct tape that bound her wrists together. She felt the truck slow but couldn’t see anything except streetlights and snow, wedged as she was in the cargo compartment.

She’d heard Coach Tomlin throw his guns into the backseat. If she could just get her hands free, she could take one of the guns and shoot him. Then she could escape, and maybe someone would tell her what the hell was going on.

The big man who’d taken everyone hostage said Heather’s dad was a murderer and a drug dealer and a bank robber. Andrea had figured the guy was a whack job at first, some weirdo with a gun and a grudge, but then Coach Tomlin had come home with that rifle and he’d basically copped to everything. Then he’d killed the big man, and the police officer, too.

So he’s a murderer,
Andrea thought.
What does that mean for you?

Don’t think about that.
Focus on getting free.
Tomlin had taped her up tight, but she’d managed to work her wrists looser. Not completely free, not even close, but just loose enough to give a little hope.

She felt the truck pulling over, and then it came to a stop. Tomlin groaned from the front seat. “Jesus, fuck,” it sounded like.
Maybe he got shot,
Andrea thought. She had put her head down and tried to pray when she’d heard people shooting, but she was being jostled around too much to focus on God. So she’d tried to make herself small and—miracle—it had worked. Nobody had shot her.

But maybe Tomlin was shot. He could be dying right now. The police would find the truck and his body and then they’d find her in the back. Her dad would be furious, but she would be safe, so he would have to get over it, sooner or later.

Tomlin coughed, a wet, phlegmy sound that made Andrea want to puke, and then the truck started moving again.
Crap,
she thought.
Not dead yet.
She wedged herself in against the floor and the backseat, and worked again to free her hands.

I wonder what he’s going to do with me.
She remembered the way the coach had been looking at her just before he’d grabbed her, and she felt her insides go cold. At fifteen, Andrea was already used to the sidelong looks from men double and triple her age. The way Coach Tomlin had looked at her, though, was nothing like those other men. Those other men wanted her for their own perverted reasons. In Tomlin’s eyes, she’d seen only hatred.

Andrea could feel the panic starting to rise again, and she forced herself to breathe slowly.
Dad’s saved hostages before,
she told herself.
You’re going to get free.
She worked on the duct tape on her wrists.
Come on, damn it.
Felt the truck start to speed up and imagined how Tomlin would react when she pointed the gun at him. She wondered if she really could kill him.

Then the truck shifted, and Andrea was thrown across the rear compartment. By the time she could regain her position, the truck was slowing again. Then it stopped. She listened to Tomlin breathing heavily in the front seat, and then he turned off the engine, and she heard him walk around to the back. He opened the liftgate and looked in at her.

He was bleeding. He’d been shot in the stomach, off to one side, and his coat was matted with thick red-black blood. His hand, too, was bloody, and he pressed it to the hole in his coat and winced as he looked down at her, his eyes duller now but still filled with hate.

Andrea stared up at him. He wasn’t holding a gun.
Just get out and start running,
she screamed at herself.
He’s shot. He won’t catch you.

Too late. Tomlin reached in and grabbed her. “Come on.” She swore at him through the gag as he wrenched her to her feet. They were in a parking lot, she saw, outside a motel. Shady, low-lying buildings and fast-food restaurants in the distance, empty lots and dark warehouses closer. The parking lot was nearly empty, and the snow swirled around her.

Tomlin dragged her to a motel room and shoved her through the door. He walked her to an unmade bed and pushed her down onto it.
Here it comes,
she thought, squeezing her eyes closed. But her coach left her there, and she squirmed onto her side when she heard him moving around the room. He locked all three locks on the door, and then he staggered to the other bed and collapsed down onto it. He stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard, his bloody hand pressing down onto his wound.

He’s hurt bad,
Andrea thought.
He’s got to die soon.
She struggled with the duct tape but couldn’t get it to give any more. She couldn’t struggle too much, anyway, or else he’d figure out what she was doing.

The tape wasn’t giving.
Crap.
Andrea felt the panic rise again, and she screwed her eyes tight and forced herself not to cry.
You’re stronger than this jerk,
she told herself.
You have to survive.

S
TEVENS WOKE
UP
Nancy. She groaned into the phone. “What time is it?”

“Where’s Andrea?” he said. “Is she in her room?”

“What?” The tension in his voice seemed to jolt her. She was wide awake now. “What are you talking about, Kirk?”

“Check her room.” He was in Tomlin’s kitchen, though he had no idea how he’d arrived there. The whole room was blurry white light. “Hurry, Nancy. Please.”

“I’m going,” she said, fear creeping into her voice. “What’s going on, Kirk?”

“She snuck out to Heather’s,” he said. “After I left. Tomlin came home, and there was a shoot-out. No one’s seen Andrea since.”

Nancy gasped. “Oh my God.”

“She’s probably in her room. She snuck back in while you were sleeping, and she’s pretending she never left. It’s fine.”

Of course it’s fine,
Stevens told himself.
What the hell would Tomlin want with a fifteen-year-old girl?
He heard Nancy call out Andrea’s name. Heard her knock on her bedroom door. He waited, his whole body tense. Then Nancy started to cry. “She’s not here, Kirk.”

Stevens steadied himself on the granite counter beside him. “Must have tried to walk home,” he said. “I’ll search the neighborhood. Pick her up on the way.”

Nancy sobbed into the phone.

“You keep an eye out for her. In case she beats me. Okay?”

He waited. She sniffed. “Okay.”

Stevens ended the call and stood in the blurry kitchen. Someone said his name. He blinked and found Windermere beside him. “I talked to the kids outside,” she said. “One girl—Megan something—said she called Andrea, told her to sneak in. Nobody can remember her leaving.”

Stevens clenched his fists tight. “Son of a bitch.”

Windermere touched his arm. “That doesn’t mean she’s with Tomlin, Kirk. None of the city cops saw her in Tomlin’s truck, either.”

“She just disappeared,” he said.

“She’s on her way home,” said Windermere. “Let’s drive the route.”

S
TEVENS TRIED
A
NDREA
’
S
cell phone again. Got her voice-mail message, so chipper and upbeat it took his breath away. He swallowed and left her a message—“I’m not mad.
Please
call.”—and then put his phone down and concentrated on the road.

They drove slowly, peering out at the houses and the beached, snowbound cars. The blizzard had subsided a little, and visibility was better, but they saw nobody on the sidewalks as they worked a grid pattern between Summit Hill and Lexington.

After an hour or so of slow searching, Stevens pulled up outside his house. Light shone from almost every window, as though Nancy Stevens had tried to make her home a beacon for her missing daughter. Stevens parked and climbed out of the car, Windermere behind him, and together they walked to the house.

Nancy was pacing the living room. He knew as soon as he saw her that Andrea hadn’t shown. She stopped pacing and looked at him, caught his expression, and swayed on her feet. Stevens rushed to catch her, and she held him tight, her fingers tearing at his sleeves. “Where is she, Kirk?”

“We’ll find her,” he said, helping her down to the couch. “I promise, we’ll find her.”

Windermere caught Stevens’s eye. “I’ll keep looking.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said.

She shook her head. “Stay with your wife.”

Stevens stared at her. The thought of sitting at home, helpless, while his daughter was gone seemed perverse, but Nancy gripped his arms tighter, and he realized he couldn’t leave her behind. “God damn it.” Stevens hesitated. Then he tossed his keys to Windermere. “Take the Jeep at least.”

Windermere caught the keys. She looked back at him briefly, and then she walked out the door.