by L. K. Hill
A huge, ancient heater was secured against the wall near the floor just under one window, and Kyra stood on it to reach the pane. She managed it, but her hands were well over her head. She’d have to pull herself up and try to roll through sideways.
The other problem was that she didn’t know what was on the other side. They were still on the first floor, but the ceilings were twelve feet high and the drop most likely onto concrete. She was strong, and a good climber, so she could deal with anything, but she didn’t like the idea of not having a plan before she actually hung from the outside of the window by her fingers.
She glanced toward the door. She’d have to do this quickly. If she remained in the bathroom for more than ten minutes, the cop would come pounding. Taking a deep breath, she threw her bag onto the window’s ledge and heaved her body up.
Chapter 21
Gabe checked his Kevlar vest yet again. There was no need, but he’d grown antsy and needed something to do.
The drive to the right place in the Carmichael district was longer than it should have been. Their destination was only four or five miles from the station, as a bird flies, but there were few birds in Abstreuse and too much city to cut a straight line to anywhere.
The layout of the Carmichael district had no rhyme or reason. Entire clusters of buildings didn’t front any streets. In order to reach them, one had to weave through a labyrinth of choppy passageways and snaking alleyways. Sometimes a street name changed for no apparent reason in the middle of a long stretch. Other times, two adjoining alleys would have the same name, or a bisected alley would have different names on either side of the bisection. The only way to get to know the place was by spending time there, but the beat cops had a good idea of where to go and which streets and alleys led to where.
The force of officers drove along dark, quiet alleys and back streets. Not only did they have to protect themselves physically—as in, from the bullets of gangsters who had no qualms about opening fire on cops—but they also didn’t want to pass anyone who might alert Norse to their coming. While not all pedophiles were violent, the Sons of Ares were downright homicidal. If they went in, guns blazing and sirens wailing, Norse might kill Evelyn before they could get to her. And that was assuming she wasn’t already dead.
Gabe winced and pushed the thought away. Death was something every law enforcement officer dealt with in their careers, and Gabe worked homicide in one of the most violent cities in the country. It was never a good night on the job when you had to deal with a dead body, let alone a dead child.
So they’d kept to quiet, dark routes, coming upon Norse’s abode with stealth. Now Gabe waited just outside the door beside Tyke and Cora; waited for the order to go in. Finally Shaun came up beside them and nodded.
“Police!” The first to go in and clear the room were the SWAT team. They were decked out with vests, helmets, and bullet shields. The man who’d yelled kicked the door in and a dozen officers filed in ahead of him, guns drawn. Three seconds after they entered, gun fire exploded inside the residence, most of it not that of the officers.
Gabe hunched down lower outside the door, as did Tyke and Cora. Only thirty seconds passed before the gunfire ceased, though it seemed much longer.
Grunts and sounds of tussling came from the room, but within minutes, shouts of “Clear!” rang out from several part of the structure. The officers had control of the building.
Gabe went in, gun drawn and pointed downward. The interior of the structure was filthy and cluttered. Broken pieces of furniture lounged in every corner and along every wall. Newspapers, food containers and garbage covered the floor. Holes in the walls revealed two-by-fours and insulation underneath. Around some drywall punctures was a bluish, powdery substance Gabe thought was asbestos. And drug paraphernalia—pipes, syringes, and joints half hidden under old newspapers—were everywhere. The stench of urine and pot and human reek hung in the air.
Two men lay face down on the floor. Both wore baggy sweats and filthy tank tops. One had a black and orange dew rag tied over his bald head—gang colors. The other was so covered in thick tattoos that it was difficult to figure out what color his skin was. Not that it mattered. The Sons of Ares weren’t picky about race.
As Gabe crossed the room, the two men’s hands were cuffed behind their backs. The officers arresting them pulled them to their feet and Gabe shined a light in their faces, scrutinizing them. En route, a picture of Norse, who’d been picked up several times on misdemeanor charges, had been sent to them. Neither of these men was him.
He shook his head at Tyke, who nodded and moved on to survey other parts of the structure. Gabe nodded for the arresting officers to take the two gang members away. He ran his eyes over the room.
“Any sign of the little girl? Or Norse?” He kept his voice quiet, but the silence of this part of the city was such that everyone could hear him clearly. More than a dozen cops moved through the dwelling, now. The only lights in the place were a dim red color, as all light in the Slip Mire was, so the cops ran their white flashlights over everything. They shook their heads at his question, or answered in quiet murmurs if he caught their eyes.
Gabe backed into one corner of the main room, trying to get a feel for the structure as a whole. In truth, it was never meant to be a residence. It was the bottom floor of what was once either an office building or a business of some sort. In what had probably once been a break room was some semblance of a kitchen, but it didn’t look like the plumbing actually worked. The facilities consisted of a toilet that seemed operational, but there were no walls around it. One could see from the ‘kitchen’ to the bathroom unobstructed. The few standing walls were covered in grime, and the carpet was moldy. Few of the windows had glass; most were covered with boards, paper, or blankets. It was early summer, which meant cold wasn’t a problem; the coverings were for privacy.
Where would someone hide a child in a place like this?
Perhaps they hadn’t. It didn’t look like Norse was even on the premises. Tanya hadn’t been certain he would bring Evelyn here. It had just been an educated hunch.
Gabe’s eyes fell on a closet across the room. The door stood ajar, where the SWAT team had obviously opened it to make sure no one was hiding. Gabe crossed to it and opened it wider. A common coat closet, it was tall and narrow. A shelf above the rack held old boxes and ancient electronics. Nothing hung there—not even hangers—and a jumble of blankets covered the floor.
Squatting down, Gabe reached for the blankets. They were mussed, which meant whoever first checked the closet probably rifled through them already, and in truth the mound was too flat to hide a person, even a small one. Gabe reached for them anyway. He pushed one aside, trying to see what lie beneath it, but only found a second blanket. He tried to push that one aside to, but they were all jumbled together. Pushing the handle of his gun into the palm of his hand so that he could make use of his fingers while still holding it, Gabe reached down with both hands to dig through the pile.
Something sprang up so fast and hard from the blankets, slamming into Gabe’s chest, that he was knocked backward. His shoulder blades slammed into the filthy floor. He let out a cry and then a grunt when he hit, bringing other heads around. He caught a flash of a person leaping over him and sprinting toward the door.
Tyke leapt over Gabe as well and chased the dark, fleeing figure.
How on earth had that tiny mound of blankets held a person—and an adult at that? The silhouette hadn’t been small. Without time to wonder, Gabe lunged into a sitting position and struggled to his feet. A glance down showed him the answer to his mystery. He turned and sprinted after Tyke, mind piecing together what he’d just seen as he ran.
The closet floor was three feet below ground level. A kneeling man could almost squeeze himself into it. Curled into a ball, the man’s back created a small mound above floor level. Obviously the blankets had been thrown over him and looked merely like a ragtag pile sitting on the closet floor. Clever. Very clever.
> Gabe made it outside to find several clusters of officers doing various things—pushing the two hand-cuffed gangsters into the backs of squad cars, putting their heads together to consult on things found in the building, taking measures to secure the scene and keep bystanders back. As Gabe burst through the door, most of them looked up at him. They pointed off to his right and Gabe followed their fingers. In the distant murkiness, he could make out movement. It was Tyke running.
Gabe started to follow, not wanting Tyke to sprint into the most dangerous part of the city alone. Before he got ten paces, a uniformed cop grabbed his arm. “Wait, Sir. This way. Come this way!”
“What?” Gabe skidded to a halt. “Why?”
“Trust me, Sir. We can cut them off.” They already had a twenty second lead, and Gabe simply didn’t have time to consider, so he let the unie pull him down an adjacent alley, praying the officer knew what he was doing.
The two of them sprinted, side by side down the alley. The walls were dark brick, the street pitted pavement. At first, the alley loomed large enough to get an average-sized car through, but it narrowed as they went until Gabe wasn’t even sure a mini coop would fit.
Gabe glanced to his side. He didn’t know the cop who ran beside him, though the man looked familiar. They’d probably crossed paths before. The man was roughly Gabe’s height—perhaps a few inches shorter—and looked to be dark of hair and eye, though in the red, midnight light of the Slip Mire, everyone looked dark complexioned.
“What’s your…name officer?” Gabe panted.
“Morris, Detective.”
“And where will this take us, Morris?”
Morris’s sentences were intercut with his labored breathing as they ran, the walls of the alley speeding by them. “The alley they went down,” pant, pant, “and this one will,” pant, pant, “come together eventually. See the way it’s angled? They are,” he pointed, “two prongs of a Y shape. We’ll end up on the,” pant, pant, “same drag. If we’re fast enough, we may even be able to,” pant, pant, “cut them off.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir. Been assigned here for,” pant, pant, “over a year. Been in these alleys,” pant, pant, “lots of times.”
Gabe didn’t ask any more questions, instead pushing his legs to go faster. Morris matched his speed.
Their prong of the Y proved long, and running at the speed they were was unnerving. In the dark with only bobbing flashlights to illuminate the way, it was like being on a roller coaster: you never knew how much further the alley would go or which way until the passage twisted in front you.
Finally, up ahead it looked like the alley dead-ended. As they neared the spot, though, Gabe could see that the alley veered off to the left at an angle. Morris was right. This was where the two allies met and merged into one: the stem of the Y. The problem was, there was no way to know if Tyke and the suspect had already passed this point.
Gabe got his answer ten seconds before he and Morris reached the fork. As they ran toward it, a dark silhouette ran past up ahead, followed by a second, more lightly dressed figure. Gabe recognized Tyke’s sprawling run. He’d always chased suspects with his head back, his chin and chest thrust out.
As they passed, Gabe pressed for more speed, and Morris kept up, but having to round the slight corner while avoiding slamming into either brick wall slowed them down. When they picked up speed again, Tyke was two hundred feet ahead of them, and the suspect still well out in front.
The chase went on like that for several more minutes, until up ahead, Gabe could see another fork. The alley broke right and left. “Morris,” he panted. “Up there. Another fork.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Morris give a shake of his head, though he didn’t know why the man bothered with motion while they struggled to keep up with Norse. “Shouldn’t split up,” the officer panted. “Fork outward.” Pant, pant. “Probably won’t,” pant, pant, “come back together.”
The dark figure ahead of Tyke careened into some crates stacked against the alley wall. For a moment, Gabe exulted. The suspect was tired from the run. He couldn’t be moving in a straight line to have crashed into those crates.
Then, right at the place where the alley forked, the man spun and raised his arm to shoulder level.
Oh no. Even as he thought it, the sound of gun fire echoed through the alley. Tyke crumbled to his knees.
Gabe and Morris came up so fast, Gabe nearly trampled Tyke as he went down. He skidded to his knees, catching his friend before he hit the ground. Morris followed suit. Tyke wore a Kevlar vest, as they all did, but the bullet still hit him in an unfortunate place: low on his neck, near his collar bone, and just inside the part of the vest that covered his shoulder.
Not a mortal injury—hopefully—but still gushing like a war wound. Morris’s practiced eye ran over the wound as well. His thumb and forefinger went to the radio attached to his shoulder. “Charlie 14, this is Davis 6. I have an officer down. He needs a bus.”
The radio crackled. Davis 6, what is your location? a male voice asked, but Gabe shook his head.
“No ambulance will fit down here, Morris. It’s too narrow.” Gabe un-fastened his vest and took off his shirt. It was loose cotton, buttoned up the front, and he had a white tee-shirt beneath it. “We’ll need people to come here and take him back.”
“The paramedics won’t do that will they?”
“No.” The shirt was damp with Gabe’s sweat, but he bunched it up and used it to staunch the bleeding of Tyke’s wound. “This part of the city isn’t safe and they’re unarmed. Have a few officers meet you to help carry him back.”
He shoved the shirt under Tyke’s vest as well as he could, using the weight of the vest to hold it in place. Tyke grunted and bellowed.
“Take it…easy Gabe,” he managed through gritted teeth, squirming away.
“If I take it easy you’re gonna die, Tyke. Now shut up and thank me later. Morris here is going to have to drag you back the way we came. Don’t be stubborn or you’ll just bleed out faster.”
Morris raised an eyebrow, wiping glistening perspiration from his own forehead. “You going after the suspect? He’s got a weapon, Detective, and a lot of distance on you.”
“Yes, and if he knows where this little girl is and we don’t find him, we’ll never find her either.”
After a moment, Morris nodded reluctantly. “Good luck, Detective. Be careful.”
Gabe started to rise but Tyke grabbed his arm, thrusting out his gun with his other hand. Nodding, Gabe took Tyke’s firearm and stuffed it in the back of pants.
Norse—Gabe was sure it was him; he’d caught a flash of the gangster’s face when he turned and shot Tyke—had taken the fork to the right and Gabe followed, running as fast as he could to make up for the seconds spent beside Tyke.
After a time, he caught movement ahead. The alley stayed long and isolated for a time, with no forks or transecting alleys Norse could have taken. Then, ahead, Gabe could see that it opened up into multiple routes, like spokes on a semi-circular wheel.
Gabe ran faster, praying he would be able to see Norse down one of those paths. If not, the chase would be over. For a moment, he thought he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced toward the side of the alley, but couldn’t pinpoint where the movement had come from—the shadows, or perhaps even on the rooftop of one of the buildings. It was there and gone.
Just as well. Probably just some junkie or hobo he’d disturbed by running through where they’d hunkered down for the night. The last thing he needed was interference from one of the twisted souls that inhabited the murkier parts of the city.
Three hundred feet before reaching the delta of passageways, the alley narrowed so much that he slowed, thinking he’d need to turn sideways to get through. He actually didn’t. His shoulders fit through the space on both sides, though just barely. He picked up speed again. Then something snagged his ankle.
He plunged forward with such speed and force that he
barely had time to pull his arms up and catch himself. If he hadn’t, his face would have been the break that stopped him. The unforgiving pavement of the alley, littered with broken glass and sharp gravel, cut through the skin on the underside of his forearms like butter. He skidded to a halt with a groan, his gun sliding noisily away from him across the pavement. Instinct made him flip instantly onto his back.
Just as he did, a figure leapt from the shadows, landing on top of him and driving a sharp, wedge-shaped object toward his chest. It glinted in the dim light, and it was all Gabe could do to stop it from plunging into his heart. He crossed his forearms, creating an X and tried to push the man holding the knife away from him, but he was exhausted from the long chase and the knife lowered, inch by agonizing inch, toward Gabe’s chest.
He could see Norse’s face clearly, now, a foot above him. The man’s dark eyes glittered with malice, his face screwed up into a snarl. The tattooed teardrops under his eye were visible in the red light. He pressed the knife down harder. Gabe’s arms—though trembling—kept it at bay. He was just shy of the strength he needed to actually get out from under the knife, so they stared at one another, deadlocked and trembling.
The irony—or perhaps stupidity was a better word—of the situation dawned on Gabe. Norse could have shot him dead with no problem at all. He could have tripped Gabe and put several rounds in his head before Gabe had time to rise. Or he could have simply turned and waited for Gabe to approach, as he had with Tyke. But the Sons of Ares gang consisted almost entirely of sadistic bastards. They preferred the bloody, personal feeling of knives and other instruments of torture to the detachment of a gunshot from a distance. Norse’s ridiculous brutality had given Gabe an extra chance to make it through his shift alive.
The thought gave Gabe a surge of strength and he managed to push Norse’s knife-wielding arms two inches higher. The skin around Norse’s eyes tightened in anger. He shifted his grip on the knife from both hands to just one, using his free hand to rake his fingernails across the torn skin of Gabe’s forearms.
