Second Guess (The Girl in the Box Book 39)

by Robert J. Crane

  “Still amazes me they don't add some lanes here,” Jamal muttered under his breath. “Are you Minnesotans pathologically averse to adding more roads?”

  “Traffic departments don't believe adding lanes mitigates traffic,” Augustus said tightly, skidding between the fenders of a Porsche, which was wasted in this mess, and a Ford F-150.

  Jamal's eyebrows crinkled in tight together on his dark face. “Say what?”

  “It's a thing,” Augustus said. “They say it doesn't really lighten traffic, that it increases demand or something, so building more roads isn't a solution.”

  “That sounds like some bullshit right there,” Jamal said. “You're telling me if we went from a four-lane highway here to a fifty lane, the traffic wouldn't be solved? Because I think it'd be free flowing.”

  Augustus popped us into a slide that nearly caused me to have a heart attack, but he dumped us onto the ramp at France Avenue and then accelerated madly down it. “Yeah, if you could build fifty lanes, maybe. But I think that's an unrealistic number, first of all, and that the bottlenecks occur as you're taking exit ramps onto popular street destinations, which nullifies the advantage of the free-flowing interstate movement.”

  “So add more roads to popular surface routes, too,” Jamal said.

  “Now that's really easier said than done. Think about how you'd have to handle the right of way acquisition on that, say, downtown, where you've got a thirty-story building–”

  “CAN YOU PLEASE CONCENTRATE ON THE DRIVING?” I asked as we fishtailed through the last of a waning green light, heading south. “And where are you going?”

  “Hitting American Boulevard,” Augustus said calmly. “I think I can go faster on it than trying to catch up to him on 494.”

  “How is that going to work?” I asked.

  Augustus didn't answer, concentrating. “He'll make it work,” Jamal said.

  I gripped the OS bar tighter. “He better,” I muttered. “We get our first jobs in months and they all come at the same time.”

  It was true. I'd had to dispatch Eilish to New York with Olivia, and Angel had gone to take a case in California with Kat. Scott Byerly was still here in town, but when the emergency call had come in from Minnesota State Patrol about a car chase with some superpower properties to it, we'd been denuded of all our female talent, and Scott had been at lunch with his dad in Minnetonka.

  That left the three of us to pile into Augustus's Accord, the nicest car any of us owned, and off we raced to try and catch up.

  “He's passing the Penn Avenue exit now,” Jamal said calmly as Augustus screeched tires turning onto American Boulevard. It was a suburban street, nothing but mini malls and warehouses and the occasional turn-off into tree-lined, aging neighborhoods to break up the monotony. At least the streets weren't covered with snow, which, it being late May, was actually a possibility here, albeit remote.

  “Yo, can you put on my driving music?” Augustus asked, nodding at the laptop.

  “Yep.”

  I stared between the two of them in abject disbelief as Augustus blew through a red light on American Boulevard at about sixty miles per hour, prompting a cavalcade of honks and me to nearly faint as he weaved expertly between two trucks, both of which skidded furiously to a stop as soon as we'd threaded the needle between them.

  “Gyahhhhh!” I said in a sudden outpouring of breath and stress.

  “Mmhmmm,” Augustus said, and then loud music blared over the speakers. A few beats in, he was nodding his head.

  I frowned. “Is this DMX's ‘Party Up’?”

  “I'm a fan of the classics,” Augustus said, blowing through another red light. I could see a semi flashing his lights through my window from twenty feet away, barreling for me. He missed clipping the Accord's back bumper by – I estimated – 3 microns or less.

  Augustus must have sensed my despair. I wasn't quiet with it, after all. “Chill, boss. I got this.”

  “This is not a good time for us to be breaking all manner of Minnesota's laws,” I said, trying to compose myself. I ran a finger under my collar and found a ring of sweat, presumably from the stress of riding with this maniac.

  “I understand.” Augustus's voice was edged with stress, and I felt a twang of regret.

  Of course he knew the pressure we were under. We all knew. Governor Shipley hadn't been quiet about her nervousness vis-à-vis metahumans.

  “Yeah, the governor's got a burr up her ass,” Jamal agreed. “Lyndale is coming up fast. You're clear to 77. I'm turning all our lights green.”

  “Can we save the traffic report for another time?” I asked, leaning up between their seats again. “Where's our target?”

  “He's snagged,” Jamal said in triumph. “Traffic is moving at twenty MPH from Portland all the way to 77. Even his crazy ass ain't cutting through that very fast.”

  I nodded, looking at his screen. Our perp was obvious; everyone else was in ordered lines, driving as one does in heavier traffic – with patience, relative aplomb, and maybe an occasional middle finger thrown to show your disapproval of the actions of others.

  This guy? He was stopping and starting furiously, his stolen Chevy Impala making janky motions as he forced his way between two vehicles. And flipped someone off in the process.

  “Where's he going?” I asked, watching him force his way to the exit, scraping his bumper against a stray Tesla. That was going to leave a mark.

  “I don't know.” Jamal paused, squinting through his corrective lenses at the screen. We waited a few minutes in silence until he started to take definitive action. “He's on 77 South...”

  “Uh oh,” Augustus murmured. That wasn't good.

  “He's hitting Killebrew Drive,” Jamal said, and I could feel my own tension ratchet up a notch.

  “Naw, naw, don't do it,” Augustus said with a glum dread, gripping the steering wheel tight as he blew through another intersection in a mad effort to catch this bastard before he could reach his – oh so dangerous – likely destination.

  A few more seconds and Jamal straightened, looking over his shoulder at me, sheer panic taking his voice high. “He's turning in.”

  “The Mall of America,” I said, cold dread filling me at the thought of our angry, desperate criminal heading for the largest target-rich environment in the area.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Suspect appears to be heading to the Mall of America,” I said into the phone. “Repeat–”

  “Heard you the first time,” Lieutenant Louise Mann of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety said. “This isn't a radio, Treston.”

  “Service is sketchy sometimes,” I said, “and I want you to understand the importance of what I'm telling you.”

  “We are watching him over the traffic cameras,” Mann said, with all the delicacy of a working mom whose kids' school just called to tell her they had the flu.

  I tried to bury my annoyance with her. “Got an ID on him yet?”

  “Rocky Thornberg,” she said. “A two-time loser looking to avoid strike three. Felony assault conviction in '12, drug trafficking in '14. He just got out of a stretch in Stillwater.”

  “He's really racked up the frequent flier miles,” I said. “What did he do to get on your radar this time?”

  “Shoplifting from the Apple store in Southdale,” Mann said.

  “Guess he really wanted that new iPhone,” I said, feeling my heartbeat rise into a steady drumbeat as Augustus ripped through another intersection.

  “Actually, he grabbed a computer and dashed.”

  “Probably needs it to write his memoirs,” I said. “Boy, Commit a Felony.”

  “Look, I didn't hire you for your wit,” Lt. Mann said. “How far out are you from the mall?”

  A squealing of tires to my left caused my elevated heartbeat to come to an abrupt stop. Unlike the Chevy pickup heading toward us, barreling over the open road.

  “Hold please,” I said, using my metahuman speed to brace myself.

  The pickup sma
shed into the back quarter of the passenger side of Augustus's Accord and sent us in a one eighty.

  “SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!” Jamal's voice crowded out the thoughts of panic racing through my head.

  “What is going on over there?” Mann's voice sounded tinny and small clenched in my hand, somewhere around my waist as I hung on for dear life.

  The Accord skidded to a stop facing the opposite direction of where we'd started, and Augustus pivoted around, looking through the back window. His eyes slid over me quickly, coolly, and he snapped the car into reverse, accelerating–

  Then he spun us back around and through the intersection, where traffic had stopped on both sides.

  My heart was just pounding furiously.

  “Sorry, couldn't get that light to turn,” Jamal said, shaking his head. Pebbles of safety glass fell from his shoulders.

  “What was that?” Mann asked, losing the battle with calm.

  “We just had to leave the scene of an accident,” I said, bringing the phone back to my mouth. Looking into the front seat, I could see Jamal's computer screen had picked up a spiderwebbing of cracks during our spinout. “American Boulevard and Bloomington Ave.”

  Lt. Mann made a throaty, annoyed sound. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Trying to catch this guy before there's a problem,” I said tightly.

  “I'm pulling our units back,” she said, annoyance fading instantly. “This is already too dangerous.”

  Augustus looked over his shoulder at me. “She's kidding, right? I just smashed up my ride for this job. I ain't backing off because some pencil pusher gets nervous.”

  “Look, the suspect doesn't know we're coming,” I said, trying to be the voice of reason in Lieutenant Mann's ear. “We'll observe, keeping our distance–”

  “Yes, keep a very long distance,” Mann said. “As in, go back to your office. This pursuit is terminated.”

  “Yo, she kidding?” Augustus asked, snapping his head around again.

  “I doubt it,” Jamal said. “She sounded serious.”

  Fortunately, she couldn't hear either of them the way they could hear her. Meta hearing had its advantages. “Lieutenant, what's your plan to deal with him when he gets out of town?” I asked. If he even left town.

  “We'll cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said abruptly. “You've already caused one accident today, that's enough havoc for us. It's not worth endangering innocent people. Not for a computer.”

  “I don't think this is about a computer, but okay,” I said. “We'll head out.”

  “Good. Thanks,” she said, and hung up.

  “Man, my ride,” Augustus moaned, slowing down and signaling a U-turn. “All this for–”

  “What are you doing?” I asked, and pointed straight ahead. “We're not letting this guy just ride off to who knows where without keeping tabs.”

  Jamal straightened up. “Uh, Reed...she had a point. If he's just stealing a computer, it's not worth risking a metahuman incident to chase him down. Even for a quality MacBook.”

  “I'm not saying we engage him,” I said, gesturing for Augustus to stay the course. He popped out of the turn lane and went right back to speeding along American Boulevard, albeit at twenty miles an hour less than he'd been traveling a minute before.

  “What are you saying?” Jamal asked suspiciously, squinting at me through his glasses. “Because I'm guessing when she told you to go home, she both meant it, and that there'd be consequences if we didn't.”

  “We're free people, okay?” I slapped on my best smile. “This isn't a police state. And we're in Bloomington. Home of the Mall of America, that beacon of commerce and tourism. Why not partake of dinner at one of the fine establishments within? Have a little...mini-golf or something after? Hit Nickelodeon Universe.”

  “If you think I'm riding the Avatar Airbender on a full stomach you are outta your mind. Fully,” Augustus said.

  “It ain't that bad. And they have a Shake Shack at the new food court on the third floor,” Jamal said.

  “I'm saying...let's go out, gents,” I said, forcing a smile. “We'll head that way, keeping an eye on the situation, and if things go wrong, we'll be right there to help.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Augustus said, keeping us at a steady sixty miles an hour. This time he got a green light, and I realized we were only minutes out from the mall. “That makes sense, I guess.”

  “Where's he at, Jamal?” I asked, leaning over to look at the cracked computer screen.

  Jamal looked down at his screen, and the view shifted. “Well...about that...”

  I tensed. “What?”

  “Shouldn't be a shock.” He looked back at me, reflection of my discomfort perfectly framed in his glasses. “But he's heading right into the Mall.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It was obvious as hell where Rocky Thornberg had parked his car. It was in the east parking garage on the second floor, smashed into the bollards that ostensibly kept some maniac from driving a car bomb into the mall itself. The driver's side door was flung open and a small crowd was milling about it.

  Augustus squealed tires to bring us to a stop just behind it, and he and I were out in a hot second. A quick glance at the car revealed nothing, but I caught sight of a woman with a stroller who showed a flicker of recognition at the sight of me.

  “He ran in there!” she shouted, taking a hand off the stroller to point at the bridge to the mall.

  “Thanks!” I took off, just a hair slower than Augustus as I bolted over the pedestrian foot bridge. I could hear Jamal coming in behind us, trailing about twenty, thirty yards.

  “Must be nice being famous,” Augustus said, ripping open the first door to the mall's vestibule. He shot through and ripped open the second, into the mall proper, a cool blast of air catching me by surprise as I trailed in his wake.

  The Mall of America was a massive, four-story monstrosity of untrammeled commerce. We'd entered on one of the side panels of the squarish block that was the building. The four corners, holding anchor stores, were attached by these mighty wings, straight lines of shops stacked three stories high in most places. At the east and west sides were the massive parking garages. In the center of the square was Nickelodeon Universe, a full theme park, and in the basement was a massive aquarium, which I kept meaning to check out but never had.

  At each of the four compass points was an entry like this, leading up to a multi-story, open-air rotunda. It was ahead, and easily a couple hundred feet across, with escalators and some benches standing between us and the rail.

  “What now?” Augustus asked as we came to a stop just in front of the rotunda rail. Looking down at the tile floor a story below, there seemed to be nothing but the usual disorganized flow of shoppers moving along their thousand independent routes.

  No hooded figures moved mysteriously and furtively toward a malign destination. If Rocky Thornberg was down there, he was blending in reasonably well.

  “I don't know,” I said, but that wavering didn't last long.

  There was a scream from above, and the three of us bolted for the escalator, stampeding up, ignoring and/or leaping over anyone in our path. Which prompted some more screams.

  Coming out of the escalator on the third floor revealed another blur of brightly lit shop fronts, fighting for shoppers' attention. The smell of cookies and coffee fought for preeminent position in my nose. I found the source of the trouble immediately.

  Rocky Thornberg looked about like you'd expect a criminal to look. Fur-collared coat – in May, clearly prepared for Minnesota's psychotic seasons – faded denim jeans with a hole at the knee that didn't look factory made, a shaved-bald head, and clenched teeth as he hauled some lady by the collar along the parapet, his back to the rotunda.

  A mall security guard's walkie talkie blared behind me and I looked back; the guard was down, clutching his head, a bloody wound dripping scarlet down his cheek and temple. Clearly somehow he'd gotten the worst of Rocky, or Rocky'd gotten the better
of him.

  “Let's–” I started to say.

  Rocky Thornberg heard me, though, over the shouts of the crowd behind us. People were already clearing off, spooked from what had happened with the guard. Clearing off or staying, frozen, watching him with gape-mouthed horror. He was focused on me, though – us, really – watching with a furrowed brow and angry eyes. He yanked his hostage closer, wrapping a hand around her neck and dragging her to the rail.

  “This just got worse,” Augustus muttered.

  “You got anything to work with here?” I asked him, sotto voce.

  I caught the subtle shake of his head. Not surprising; it wasn't like there was a ton of rock and dirt just lying around in the Mall. “There's a planter that way. It'll take me a minute to summon the dirt, and who knows if seeing it fly over here sets him off?”

  “I don't have a shot,” Jamal said, and I picked up on the subtle crackle of electricity. The lights flickered slightly overhead. His lightning was out of play unless we wanted the hostage soaking up voltage.

  Her eyes were huge, panicked. Thornberg had his wrist against her throat, and power enough to crush her larynx. He could do it faster than any of us could stop him.

  “Shit,” I muttered as Rocky dragged her back another step. He was flush against the railing now, and it met him just above the belt.

  “Yo,” Rocky called out. “You come at me, I will snap this bitch's neck like a twig.”

  “Sniper unit,” I heard the security guard's walkie talkie crackle. I'd forgotten the Mall of America had its own police force, complete with a SWAT team. It made sense; when you were a target for terrorists, you needed to be able to protect yourself.

  “Two minutes out,” came the reply.

  Shit. “Stall,” I muttered meta-low. I raised my hands at Rocky. “Okay, okay. No one's going to make a move at you, man.”

  “Better not!” Rocky called back, his face buried in the side of the hostage's neck. The sniper team could probably take the top of his head off without hurting her, but...