Hot Pursuit

by Suzanne Brockmann

  And now she was getting as bad as Sam. Yes, a bloody message had been sent, but she didn’t speak Psycho-killer, so her ability to translate and understand was severely hampered.

  And the idea that Winston, their homeless man, was the psycho-killer in question was as absurd as the idea that Jules truly was Batman, which she knew with almost one hundred percent certainty that he wasn’t.

  If Jules really could fly with his batwings, he would have done so in front of her, many times throughout the years that they’d been friends.

  And okay, now she was losing it.

  Except the concern in Sam’s eyes was very real.

  “I’ll take Mr. Forsythe back upstairs,” she assured him. “We’ll wait for you to get back.” She turned to Doug. “Do you have time—”

  “Of course,” he said, taking a cell phone from his overcoat pocket, and dialing. “Just let me call Marileni. Make sure she can stay a bit longer with Mother and Dad.” He held up one finger as, phone to his ear he spoke rapid-fire in a language that wasn’t quite Spanish, it was. …

  “Portuguese?” Sam murmured.

  Douglas heard him and he smiled as he shut his phone. “Very good. Marileni was my nanny growing up—she’s from Brazil. And yes, she’s able to stay.”

  “Go,” Alyssa said, and Sam took off at a run that, with his broken rib, must’ve brought tears to his eyes.

  Jenn shouldn’t have opened the door.

  She knew she shouldn’t have opened the door, and yet she did, because she thought it was Dan and that he’d forgotten his keys, and now here she was.

  With little Frankie Bonavita, who wasn’t so little anymore, and who’d wanted her to go with him up to the roof, where they wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Give me the gun, Frank,” she told him as they climbed the stairs.

  On the way out the door of her apartment, she’d managed to hit the panic button—the one that rang silently. She’d also taken her coat and had dropped one of her gloves in the hall outside of the stairwell, and another on the stairs heading up.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” Frank told her. “They said they were watching Maria, so I couldn’t go to her. …”

  “Who said that?” Jenn asked. “But please, just, first—give me the gun?”

  “I can’t,” he said tightly. He’d lost a lot of weight since he’d been home, and his face was gaunt, his eyes sunken as if he were already dead. He was a mere skeleton of the vibrant young man he’d once been.

  “Sure you can,” she said. He was using again, that much was clear. Probably crystal meth—a side effect was this kind of paranoia.

  “It’s not safe,” he told her. Definitely meth.

  “Frankie, look at me,” she commanded, stopping there on the landing to the seventh floor. Her voice held far more authority than she felt. “You trust me, right? You came to me, right?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

  Oh, God. “Then give me the gun.”

  He was going to do it. She felt it—he was wavering and he was going to hand it to her. But then he shook his head. “I can’t. It’s not safe.”

  “Why isn’t it safe?” she asked, holding her ground. “Who told you that it’s not safe?”

  He shook his head.

  “They,” she said. “You said they. Who’s they, Frankie?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “They sent a letter. To me. They said I killed her but I didn’t.” His face crumpled. “Jenni, I didn’t, but they said they have evidence. And they said that instead of going to jail, they would send me back. I’m not going back! Christ, what’s that?”

  Having his gun back in her face was not conducive to clear thinking, but it soon became obvious that that had been the sound of someone opening the stairwell door from a floor or two above them. Whoever had opened it was whistling, making no attempt to be stealthy coming down the stairs.

  “Someone’s coming,” Jenn whispered to Frank. “Hide your gun.”

  He put it into his pocket, but he didn’t let go of it, and she knew that his finger was still on the trigger.

  The tune being whistled was familiar, and Jenn suddenly recognized it. It was the theme from the old TV show, Gilligan’s Island. And she had to fight so that she didn’t simultaneously burst into both laughter and tears.

  Gilligan was one of Dan’s many nicknames. It was Dan coming down those stairs, and his whistling was his way of telling her he was on his way to her rescue.

  Except, God, the last thing she wanted was for him to get shot.

  But there he was, rounding the corner and stopping short, looking down at them as if surprised to see them there.

  “Oh, hey, Jenn,” he said. “How are you? It’s, you know, Danny, your neighbor from the ninth floor … ?”

  He was sweating, but his gaze was steady, his face calm. She knew he’d run back here, as fast as he could, to help her, and she couldn’t keep tears from flooding her eyes.

  He was so tall and hard-muscled, with such broad shoulders—but that meant nothing in a situation like this one. Dan may have been strong, but he wasn’t bulletproof.

  His face was so familiar to her. In just a short time he’d gone from being some too-handsome player to her lover and dear friend.

  But she forced a smile as she met his dark brown eyes, playing along and trying to give him as much information as possible. “Of course. We met at the Halloween party. You were the cowboy with the big gun.”

  He smiled and even laughed a little as if she’d said something extra funny, but he nodded at her, saying “That’s right. Big Gun Gillman—it’s one of my nicknames.” He looked over at Frank and then back to Jenn, and then over to the railing, and she realized that he, too, had his hand in his jacket pocket.

  The silent message he’d just sent her was obvious—move out of the way in case violence erupted.

  But even as she moved, she told Frank, “Dan just got back from Iraq.” She looked at Dan. “Frank was over there, too. You know, I used to babysit for him. Remember, Frankie? We used to play those epic games of Monopoly with Maria?”

  She could see the oh crap in Dan’s eyes as he realized that this was Frank Bonavita, Maria’s missing brother.

  “Where’d you serve?” he asked Frank.

  “I don’t talk about it,” Frank said tightly. “You should go.”

  “Hey, Jenn, I’ve been meaning to drop by,” Dan said, his gaze solidly on Frank, “to pick up that book you were going to lend me. The one about the, um …”

  “Yes,” she said. “The, um … book I was going to lend you … Cooking Crystal Meth for Dummies.”

  Dan shot her a what? look.

  And yes, that was way too obvious.

  “I’m not cooking again,” Frank said fiercely. “I’m not. And I don’t buy it. I don’t leave the house so I won’t buy it, but it just keeps showing up. And I’m not an idiot. I saw you with Jenn,” he told Dan. “I saw you go in, and I waited for you to leave. So just go, so I can talk to Jenni. I need to talk to Jenni.”

  He was extremely agitated, and Jenn looked at Dan, afraid for him. “You should do what he says.”

  “Yeah, that’s not happening,” Dan said. “I’m not going anywhere. As long as it’s confession time, Frank, I know you’ve got a weapon, I’ve got one, too, and mine is aimed right at your chest. Do not move, do not even look at Jennilyn or I will drop you where you stand. I’m an active-duty Navy SEAL and I am good at what I do.” He kept his eyes firmly on Frank as he added, “Jenn, go down the stairs.”

  She hesitated, because she didn’t want to leave him.

  But then he looked at her—just a glance. And in that moment, as their eyes met, Jenn realized that she’d been wrong about the toaster. This was the moment about which she’d tell their children—the moment she truly knew.

  “Here’s where we find out if you trust me,” Dan said, still talking to Jenn with his gaze glued to Frankie, who, motionless, had started to cry.

&nb
sp; “I do,” she told him. Oh, God … “I just don’t want either of you to get hurt.”

  “No one’s getting hurt,” Dan said. “Right, Frank?”

  “I’m not going back,” Frankie whispered. “You can’t make me go back there.”

  “That’s right,” Dan reassured him. “You’re not going back. I can promise you that. I can help you, Frank, I want to help you. Whatever you were going to say to Jenn, you can tell me, and I will help you. But first Jenn’s gotta get the hell down those stairs. Say yes if you understand.”

  “Yes,” Frank whispered, his eyes tightly closed.

  Dan glanced at her again. “Jenni, go.”

  Heart in her throat, Jenn turned to leave. But she couldn’t do it without saying, “Frankie, don’t you dare shoot him—I love him, okay?”

  With that, she didn’t look back. She didn’t want to see the horrified surprise on Dan’s face. And she didn’t just go down the stairs.

  She ran.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  Marileni called back.

  It was not even three minutes after Sam left to follow Jules and Lopez and Mick Callahan over to Jenn’s apartment, where the panic button had been pushed.

  The elevator hadn’t even arrived. Alyssa was standing with Douglas Forsythe in the lobby, asking him about the different types of health-care providers who came in to assist him with his parents, while trying not to seem too obvious about the fact that she kept checking her phone, hoping for a text message from Sam or Jules.

  The problem was probably just a bug in the newly installed system, and Jenn was going to answer her door, perplexed by the crowd of operatives standing there.

  That was better, of course, than yesterday’s fiasco, when Alyssa had sent Lopez and Zanella over because neither Jenn nor Gillman were answering their phones.

  Alyssa didn’t know Jennilyn LeMay at all, but Sam had told her about his little talk with Gillman—who was going to reimburse Troubleshooters for his airline tickets to and from New York. Apparently, he was unwilling to get paid, in any way, to protect his “new girlfriend.” Except he wasn’t exactly protecting her. Lopez had said Gillman was “on his way,” which meant he’d left her alone.

  And even if the problem wasn’t more than a bug or a glitch, Gillman needed a good lecture about properly testing the system before leaving the client—girlfriend or not—unprotected.

  Alyssa surreptitiously checked her phone again while Douglas droned on and on and on.

  Currently, he told her earnestly, he was doing most of the work himself.

  What were they talking about? Oh, right—caring for his parents.

  Nurses aides, nursing assistants, visiting nurses—he’d tried all of them, in a variety of combinations, but his mother was something of a pickle, when it came to having strangers in her house. Marileni, of course, they’d known for years.

  And to be fair, they had found a nurse’s aide his mother had liked, but she’d just had a baby of her own and was officially on maternity leave. Still, she managed to come in once a week to help his father with his bath. His mother was still doing all right with a walk-in shower …

  Douglas was giving Alyssa details about the shower stool he’d ordered from a medical-supply company when his phone rang and he’d started speaking Portuguese again. As he got off the phone, his expression was apologetic.

  “Marileni’s grandson’s school just called. Umberto seems to have caught that awful stomach flu that’s going around. She’s got to go pick him up,” he told her. “I really must head home.”

  And that was not good news.

  Sam was completely wigged out by the fact that Winston had had her photograph. It was hard to say which would bother him more—Alyssa taking Douglas out to the dumpster by herself, or letting him go home without following a possible lead that could provide them with some answers.

  She checked her phone again, and Douglas asked, “Any word about Jenn? I hope she’s all right.”

  “Nothing yet. Can you give me five minutes?” she asked him as she called the main line of Maria’s office, knowing that one of the FBI agents who were on hand would pick up. Carol or John. “To show me—right now—where you saw Winston yesterday morning?”

  He frowned as he looked at his watch.

  “Three minutes,” Alyssa bargained, leading him to the front door of the building, as indeed it was Carol who picked up Maria’s office line. “Hi, it’s Alyssa Locke. I need you or John to join me and Douglas Forsythe out back by the dumpster, right now. Can one of you do that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m on my way.”

  “I want one of the FBI agents with us,” Alyssa told Douglas. “But she’ll catch up.”

  “I really have to hurry,” he said.

  So they hurried.

  In order to access the back alley, they either had to go through the building’s basement, or they had to walk down to the cross street, take a left and another left. But Alyssa had been with the team that checked out the basement earlier that morning, and even as innocuous as Douglas appeared, she wasn’t going to risk Sam’s wrath by taking the man through what could have been a perfect set for a horror movie.

  As opposed to a narrow back alley that smelled like urine and rotting food, covered in ankle-deep slush that they’d have to slog through.

  They were retracing Douglas’s route in reverse, and Alyssa stopped briefly at the entrance to the alley as she narrated what he’d already told them.

  “When you got out to the street,” she said, “here, right? He was gone?”

  “That’s correct,” he said.

  This entire neighborhood consisted of older buildings, some of them crumbling, some exquisitely preserved. Some had wrought iron fences and gates that locked, but some had gates that hung permanently open on broken hinges. Steps led down to what looked like basement apartments—again in a wide variety of upkeep.

  There were dozens of places Winston could have hidden from Douglas’s untrained eye.

  He glanced at his watch again, and Alyssa gestured for him to lead the way into the alley.

  “How often have you seen Winston in the area?” she asked as she followed him.

  “Oh … at least several times a week,” he told her. “He’s something of a local institution, although I had no idea his name was Winston. Savannah was right—you are good. You’re here only two days, and already you know more than we do.”

  “How well do you know Savannah?” Alyssa asked.

  “Are you sure I’m not a suspect?” he countered, and it was weird, his demeanor was almost flirtatious or coy—as if, after thinking it through, the idea of being a suspect was titillating.

  He was not unattractive, though, and maybe that was the problem she had with him. A man who looked like Douglas Forsythe—a man as wealthy as Douglas Forsythe—was used to getting whatever he wanted.

  And she just couldn’t see him providing intimate care for his elderly parents.

  “Just making conversation,” she told him.

  “Oh, and you’re quite good at lying, too, aren’t you?” he teased.

  What she needed to do was meet the parents, and get a look at the place where he lived with them. Because right now she just could not imagine it.

  She made herself smile at him, though. Where was Carol … ? “I’ve been friends with Savannah for a long time. Our husbands were both with SEAL Team Sixteen. Well, Ken still is. For a while, I thought that Savannah was going to run for office, but then she got behind Maria … Is that how you met?”

  “At a fund-raising event, yes. Back in … what was it? May, I think. Right after Maria announced her candidacy. I’d just come home. Mother had fallen and fortunately hadn’t broken her hip. But it was a very close call.” He pointed down the alley. “Fourth dumpster’s ours. Or rather, Maria’s. I tend to get possessive, but I have to admit that the campaign kept me sane. When he’s lucid, Dad’s stuck in 1975, and Mother’s happy enough to join him there. It’s been a chall
enge—and that’s aside from having to learn how to properly fasten an adult diaper. I’ve come to value my extracurricular activities quite highly. And I’ll answer your next question before you ask it: It’s only been recently that I’ve had to have someone stay with them when I go out. Dad’s gotten much worse. Mother’s afraid he’s going to wander off.”

  “That can be a serious problem,” Alyssa agreed, then got the conversation back on track. “You approached the dumpster… how?”

  “Just as we’re doing right now,” he told her. “I came in from the street, as we just did.”

  It didn’t make sense for the homeless man to run past Douglas, when the alley extended down in the other direction, all the way to the next side street. Why not run that way?

  As Alyssa stood, gazing down the alley, a car pulled in to the far end, followed by a police car, its lights spinning.

  Douglas saw it, too. “Wonder what’s going on,” he murmured. “Should we run? You’ll never catch me, coppers.” He did a terrible imitation of James Cagney.

  She smiled, because it was polite to do so, especially since this was taking far longer than the three minutes she’d promised. “So … Winston was where, exactly?”

  “He was standing over here.” Douglas put himself at the closest end of the dumpster. “I must have gone right past him, to get over here”—he moved again—“to the recycling bin. The bag of tins I was carrying was heavy, so I didn’t see him until I’d dumped it in. He startled me—I may have screamed. I’m rather glad no one heard me. He took off, running back the way we came.”

  He peered down the alley at the cars that were still parked there, clearly distracted by them, and the people who’d gotten out of them—several of them uniformed officers.

  “At which point you followed?” Alyssa asked him.

  “Not immediately, no,” he told her. “I had one more bag that I disposed of before heading back toward the street.”

  “Could you still see him at that point?” she asked, turning to look down the alley, toward the street where they’d entered.

  “No, he was already out of sight. He was moving quite quickly.” He added, “Despite his limp, of course.”