Crush (Karen Vail Series)

by Alan Jacobson

  That’s what she kept telling herself as she pumped her arms harder, catching up a bit to the last car, reaching up for the railing—lifting herself up—and getting thrown back against the train’s siding. She held on, whipped around and stretched her right arm onto the opposing handle while feeling for the wide metal steps she knew lay somewhere near her feet.

  She lunged forward—and slammed her shin into the hard edge of the step above. But at least she was aboard. She had a feeling that would not be the hardest part of catching John Mayfield.

  A sudden, spasmodic coughing fit wracked her body. She bent forward while straining to hold on, hacking away until her throat felt raw. A moment later, she was able to stand erect, the spasm passing. She risked taking a deep breath, squared her shoulders, then wiped her mouth on her sleeve.

  Inward and onward. Mayfield’s inside.

  Vail pushed through the door, then reached for her handgun—but it wasn’t there. Neither was her backup weapon, which had been burned in the fire. Her Glock was locked in Dixon’s vehicle, where she had left it when they went to work out. There were no fixed Bureau rules on where to leave your sidearm when you were not able to carry it with you—so long as it was secure. Leaving it in a gym locker did not qualify as “secure”—so she’d left it in the car.

  Fuck. Given Mayfield’s size—and what he does to his victims—she would have to be extremely careful, unarmed and in the close quarters of a train. Not much room to maneuver, to duck and roll—or run. Not that she shied from a conflict—this was Karen Vail—but cooler heads had to prevail, and if the circumstances were not to your advantage, you changed those circumstances so they would help you achieve your goal.

  Vail apparently did not have that luxury.

  She looked around, then stepped into the rail car and pulled her credentials case. Held it up to soothe the minds of the passengers and to identify herself should a fight with Mayfield break out. At least they’d know who to root for.

  As she moved forward, the creds raised to eye level, the passengers waved and gave her a thumbs up. Actually, they did neither. Most sat there, some squinting confusion. The presence of an FBI agent who no doubt wore a very serious expression did not spell good news for the rest of their expensive wine train journey.

  None of them presented a threat, so Vail moved on. She walked through the car, headed toward the end of the train, searching the seats—below and behind—for the big man who, until recently, went by the moniker of “UNSUB.”

  But Mayfield was no longer an “unknown subject.” They knew who he was. And, at the moment, they knew where he was.

  Except that Mayfield was not in this car. Vail turned around and walked toward the front of the train, the slight side-to-side sway of the car throwing off her balance as she stepped toward the doorway. Into the next car, also one with large, plush, fixed rotating seats that faced the windowed sides. And above, a glass ceiling.

  But this was not time to dream about the vacation that could have been, the one that John Mayfield had stolen from her and Robby. Now was the time to catch the bastard, make him pay for the people he had murdered.

  So she moved forward, suddenly realizing that while she was making her way through the train, there’d be no way to know if Mayfield had jumped off the train. Fuck. I hadn’t thought of that. I hate it when I blow something. And I blew this. But what was I to do? No backup. It was just me and my two eyes.

  Vail pulled her phone and moved to the nearest window. Normally, the patrons in the gold velour seats would’ve moved aside at the sight of her big, black handgun. People tended to do that, FBI badge or not. But those who were unaware of who she was merely threw dirty looks at this pushy woman who was bullying her way past them to grab a window view. C’mon, people, it’s dark out now. Not a whole lot to see out there.

  While standing there, nose against the glass, hoping to see a large man dressed in gym clothing bathed in a car’s headlights, she phoned Dixon. Dixon answered quickly, as if she was expecting the call.

  “Yeah—”

  “I’m on the train. You see Mayfield?”

  “Who the hell’s Mayfield?”

  “Panda,” Vail said. “Panda’s other name—his real name, I think—is John Mayfield. He was onboard, but I lost sight of him and have no way of telling if he’s jumped off.”

  “Haven’t seen him. I’m in the car, coming up alongside the train now.”

  “Good. Keep pace with it. I’ll let you know if I find him.”

  If I go flying through the glass, that would likely serve as your first clue.

  Vail signed off, shoved her BlackBerry into its holster, then crossed into the next car. No windowed skylight in this one. But a well-restored and meticulously maintained interior nonetheless. Carpeted interior, paisley fabric seats . . . and curtains on the windows. I could enjoy this, she thought, if Robby were here and she wasn’t chasing a serial killer through the Napa countryside.

  Focus, Karen. Catch the fucker.

  She moved between cars, hearing the rhythmic clanking as the wheels struck the rail joints, thump-thumping as the train barreled down the track. Vail scanned the car she was in. People seemed to lean away when they caught a glimpse of her—she was no doubt looking pretty ragged . . . hungry, tired, stressed, and, oh, yeah, there was that gold badge she was holding out in front of her. She hoped people still respected authority.

  Vail forged forward into the next car, where patrons were sitting at tables, gold velour curtains blanketing the mirrorlike windows, beyond which lay the Napa countryside—actually, probably now Rutherford, on its way toward St. Helena, if she remembered her map correctly. There was a hint of light out the left windows, to the west . . . a silhouetted vineyard flicking by.

  Gone, blurring past her, signaling the metaphoric passage of time.

  Then she had a feeling. John Mayfield was still on the train. Somehow, she just knew.

  So she moved forward. Stopped to ask a man in his forties if he had seen a large man dressed in gym attire moving through the cars. Yes, he said, and he pointed “thataway.” Vail couldn’t help thinking she was in some inane children’s cartoon, asking “Which way did he go?”

  But she continued on nonetheless. Because this wasn’t an ink and celluloid drama. It was an honest to goodness race to find a man who murders people. Innocent people.

  She moved into the next car and saw the door ahead close suddenly. Was it possibly her offender? Impossible to say. She pulled her phone and called Dixon. “Anything?”

  “If he came off the west side of the train, no. If he came off the east, I have no fucking clue.”

  “I think I just saw him. Who’s en route?”

  “Task force is lights and siren, but probably at least fifteen out. I just called St. Helena and Calistoga PDs.”

  “Ten-four. Wish me luck.”

  Vail signed off and hung up. For now, it was her ballgame. Hopefully she could stay in the game until the others arrived. And being on a train filled with people—who paid handsomely to be here—didn’t make her job any easier. If Mayfield wanted to make this a hostage situation, there’d be little she could do to stop, or defuse, it. So she kept moving forward.

  As she climbed through the doors of the next car, she grabbed the waitress and asked a question she should’ve thought to ask earlier. “Just how many goddamn cars are on this train?”

  The answer told her she was in the last one before the locomotive. Mayfield was either here—which he was not—or he was in the locomotive. Or he had bailed out. Vail looked west first and did not see anyone—but in the near darkness, there was no way she could be sure of what she was seeing. To her right, the east was totally black.

  Yet she sensed Mayfield was still aboard the train.

  Vail pushed forward into the connecting area between the car and the locomotive—and saw, to her right and now behind her as the train continued on, John Mayfield, standing in the middle of the road, car-jacking a vehicle.

  So much f
or intuition—

  She pulled her BlackBerry, but Dixon was already calling through.

  “Got him—” Dixon said. “Two cars ahead. Silver SUV—”

  “I see it.”

  Dixon pulled right, around the car in front of her, along the shoulder of the winding road.

  “I’m getting off,” Vail said. “Pick me up.”

  She yanked open the side door, looked at the descending metal stairs, and stepped down. Damn. It’s not enough I had to jump onto the train, now I have to jump off it. If she didn’t hate Mayfield before, she sure hated him now.

  Glanced right. Saw what looked like Dixon’s car.

  Why haven’t I heard back from Robby? Where the hell is he?

  Vail stepped down to the lowest rung, then sprung off the train and into the brush, rolling onto her shoulder as she landed. Cushioning scrub or not, the impact still stung.

  She pushed herself up, saw Dixon’s head poking through the window, yelling at her.

  “Hurry the hell up!”

  Blaring horns. Vail ran onto the roadway and got into Dixon’s car.

  Dixon floored it as soon as the door closed, throwing the seatbeltless Vail backwards and sideways. She grabbed for the door handle and righted herself. Pain shot through her left shoulder.

  Dixon’s engine was revving, groaning as she kept the pedal against the floor.

  “Don’t lose him,” Vail shouted. As if she had to tell Dixon to step on it. Dixon was driving along the rough hard-pack shoulder, which made for a less than comfortable ride. But neither of them cared, not with their quarry in the SUV ahead of them, speeding along this twisty-turny stretch of Highway 29 that was now out in the suburbs, vineyards on both sides illuminated by Dixon’s headlights.

  Suddenly, a buzz on Dixon’s phone.

  “Get it,” she yelled.

  Vail reached over, grabbed Dixon’s cell, and flipped it open. “This is Vail.”

  “It’s Brix. I’m en route, passing Pratt Avenue.”

  Now there’s a street that rings a bell. “He’s at Pratt,” Vail said to Dixon. To Brix: “I don’t know where we are—”

  “Sounds like he’s a couple miles back,” Dixon said. “Tell him we’re passing Ehlers.”

  “We’re—”

  “I heard,” Brix said. “I’ll be there soon.”

  Vail ended the call, shoved the phone back into Dixon’s pocket—and that’s when she realized her partner was wearing the bare minimum: gym shorts and shirt, no bra, and tennis shoes without socks. But she had her sidearm strapped to her shoulder and her phone holder clipped to the shorts’ waistband. It looked bizarre—and downright geeky—but who the hell cared?

  Vail caught a sign on the left—Bale Grist Mill State Park—and realized the area was becoming more rural as they drove down 29.

  Dixon tightened her grip on the wheel. “He’s speeding up, I think he realizes we’re behind him.”

  “Where’s your cube?”

  “In here,” she said, banging her right elbow on the large armrest.

  Dixon lifted her arm and Vail reached into the deep receptacle. She pulled out the device, flipped the switch, and the blinding light filled the interior and reflected off the windshield. It made them both recoil.

  “Jesus—”

  “Shit, sorry about that.” Vail rolled down the window and set the magnetic base on the roof.

  “Two-way’s in the glove box. Tell dispatch we’ve got a code 33. Give our twenty.”

  Vail located the radio, then saw something that brought a smile to her face: her Glock. Missed you, big fella.

  She keyed the two-way and followed Dixon’s instructions. “ . . . Code 33, stolen silver Nissan SUV headed—”

  “North.”

  “North on Highway 29.” She lowered the radio. “Get us closer, let me grab the tag.”

  Dixon pressed the accelerator, the engine roared louder and the vehicle closed on Mayfield’s SUV.

  “Roger,” the dispatcher responded. “Code 33 on primary. All non-emergency traffic go to red channel.”

  Vail leaned forward and squinted. “I see a five. X-ray, Tom, Robert—” Vail moved the radio back to her lips. “License on the stolen Nissan. California plate. Five X-ray Tom Robert.”

  Mayfield swerved left to avoid a motorcyclist, who leaned right, onto the shoulder.

  Dixon gave the man extra room and cut back into the lane. “I hate high-speed chases. Too fucking dangerous.”

  The headlights caught a large sign up ahead and off to the right. Vail pointed. “What do you say we forget the chase and go see Old Faithful spew her wrath?”

  Dixon veered right around a stray cat. Vail grabbed the dashboard with her left hand, then set the radio between her thighs when Dixon slammed on the brakes and yelled out—

  “What the fuck!”

  A cruiser, light bar flashing, was approaching from the opposite direction. Dixon’s car dovetailed, her rear end flying right while she coaxed the front end left, back into pursuit of Mayfield.

  “Mayfield saw the cruiser, turned left,” Dixon said. “Right into the Castillo del Deseo.”

  “The what?”

  “Castle of Desire,” Dixon said. “A dozen years to build. Looks and feels like a real Spanish castle.” She accelerated up the inclined cement drive, the taillights of Mayfield’s SUV still barely visible around the bend. She sped past the seedling evergreens, then crested the hill. Ahead, in the darkness, was a large, dramatically lit brick structure.

  Vail craned her neck to take in the enormity of the approaching complex. “Robby said he went to a castle a few days ago. Wish I could’ve seen it with him. Just a guess . . . but this won’t be nearly as fun.”

  Dixon swung the vehicle in behind Mayfield’s parked Nissan. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  Dixon nodded ahead, toward the castle. “You’re gonna get your wish.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  Weapons drawn, Vail and Dixon rushed out of their car and approached the Nissan from behind, beneath window level. The headlights from Dixon’s car lit them up like precious jewels against black velvet. They moved up alongside the SUV and pulled open the doors. The dome light was disabled, but there was enough brightness from Dixon’s headlights to check the interior.

  “Clear,” Vail said.

  “Clear,” Dixon repeated.

  They looked out into the darkness.

  Vail spotted him first. “There!” She threw out a hand to the left of the castle, at what appeared to be a grassy knoll with thick elder trees peppering the hillside. A large man was running alongside the massive building.

  They took off in that direction, trying to keep an eye on Mayfield while watching for hidden ruts, low barriers or other structures that would lay them out face down on the ground.

  Dixon pointed. “Over there, by the opening in the wall—”

  They ran forward, across the grass and through the stand of thick-trunked trees. In the shadows of the dim lighting hanging from various points of the castle wall, the trees looked eerie, like witches ready to pull their roots from beneath the grass and start walking.

  They pulled up against the high, rough hewn brick wall. Vail peered around the edge. “Clear.”

  They fell in, through the opening, which was a back lot of the castle, with machinery and stainless steel white wine casks arranged against the far wall of the large square. To their left was another building constructed of the same materials and architecture. By the looks of it, it was a miniature castle all its own, perhaps a private residence for the winery’s owner.

  Vail and Dixon moved into the square and squatted to get a better view of the area. There were only a few places where someone could be hiding. Mayfield didn’t have enough of a lead on them to sprint across the lot to the stainless steel casks. And he couldn’t have made it to the residence. But to their right, twenty feet away, was a service entrance into the castle.

  Two heavy, ornate wood doors were swung fully open, inviti
ng them in. As they approached cautiously, Dixon’s phone rang. Dixon mouthed “Brix” to Vail, who pressed forward.

  Dixon remained where she was and answered the call. “We’re at the castle, around back,” Vail heard as she moved into the room. More stainless containers stood on thick metal stands, hoses coiled on the cement ground beneath them. Metal steps led up to a catwalk, where workers could presumably monitor the huge vats of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

  Vail knelt down and swept the area, then proceeded forward up a couple of steps . . . into the castle. Immediately to her left was an ornate plaza, with dim lanterns providing enough light to be romantic—and authentic—but far from useful when conducting a foot pursuit of a serial killer.