Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

  Her hand came away hot with blood. She wiped it on her jeans, grabbed her phone, and called the Portland police. Quietly, urgently, she gave her FBI badge number and location. “Officer down. Repeat, officer down.”

  Her own pulse hammering, she stood and crept to the rear of the house. She got a bare view that hinted at a patio, lawn, and bushes at the back of the property. She ran for the back door. It was wide-open.

  Gun raised, Caitlin entered, clearing the doorway in vertical increments as she turned the corner. She found herself in the kitchen.

  She stepped out of the doorway and swept her weapon from left to right across the kitchen. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. Counters and sink under the windows. Large island in the center. Fridge and cabinets on the interior walls. She slid around, clearing the room in sectors, heart thudding.

  She found the light switches. Flipped them. Nothing—Detrick or his partner had cut the power.

  Edging farther into the kitchen, she slipped on something slick. She steadied herself and turned her flashlight on. To her horror, a pool of blood sprang into red view.

  On the floor, around the corner of the island, a young woman in a Greenspring College sweatshirt lay motionless. The back of her head was wrecked from heavy blows. Caitlin crouched and put her fingers to the girl’s carotid. No pulse.

  Caitlin’s breathing turned shallow. Bloody shoeprints led from the young woman’s body to the kitchen stairs.

  From the living room, Rainey called, “Clear.”

  Caitlin stood, stepped around the island, and swept the beam of her flashlight across the room. “Kitchen clear. Rainey—upstairs.”

  She turned off the flashlight and rushed up the kitchen staircase. Her boots thudded on the wood. Before she reached the top, she crouched, gun raised, heart pounding. Slowly she straightened, weapon aimed directly down the hall.

  In the hallway at the top of the staircase, a second young woman lay sprawled. The bloody footprints continued along the hall.

  Aghast, Caitlin thought, Emily isn’t Detrick’s statement kill anymore.

  The sorority was too tempting a target for him to pass up. He was taking out the house like a redneck roaring along a highway smashing mailboxes with a baseball bat.

  Rainey charged up the stairs. “No sign of Emily or that woman downstairs.”

  “The back door was wide-open.”

  She knew, with sickening clarity, what had happened. The blond in the black suit, Detrick’s groupie, had already dragged Emily away.

  “Detrick called an audible,” she said. “Instead of grabbing Emily and fleeing with her, he stayed here.”

  From a bedroom at the end of the hall came moans, then a scream. Caitlin and Rainey raised their weapons. Rainey led, Caitlin immediately behind her, hand on Rainey’s shoulder. They approached the door. Rainey took a position pressed against the wall to the left. Caitlin took the right.

  Caitlin turned the knob. The door was locked.

  She called, “FBI.”

  Inside, a girl yelled for help. Caitlin stepped back. Rainey trained her weapon on the door to cover her. Centering her balance, Caitlin raised her leg and kicked the latch. The door didn’t budge.

  “Move away from the door,” she shouted.

  Scuffling sounds. A young voice. “Moved.”

  She adopted a sharp angle and emptied four shots into the frame around the latch. This time when she kicked, the door flew open.

  Inside, a young woman sat on the floor, cradling her injured roommate.

  Rainey poured through the doorway and swept her weapon to the right. “Right clear.”

  Caitlin was right behind her, angling left. “Left clear. All clear.”

  Icy rain was blowing through the room. The window was open, the screen kicked out.

  The young woman on the floor looked up from under dark hair. She pointed at the window. “He jumped.”

  Rainey knelt at the injured girl’s side. After a second, she called for paramedics and air support.

  Caitlin leaned out the window. There was no sign of Detrick.

  She phoned Emmerich. “He’s running.”

  “I’m ten minutes out, with a Portland Police TAC team. Other units should be there in under five.”

  “Detrick’s accomplice has Emily. She’s probably going to rendezvous with him.” Below the window was a concrete patio and broken patio chairs. “He hit the ground hard. He may be injured.”

  “Be careful,” Emmerich said. “But find him.”

  Rainey knelt at the side of the injured young woman. The girl was unconscious.

  “She’s breathing. Her pulse is strong.” Rainey turned to the girl’s roommate. “What’s your name?”

  “Julia.”

  “Julia, how many other people are in the house?”

  “Maybe . . . two dozen? All in their rooms; they told us to come upstairs . . .”

  “Help’s on the way. When we leave, close the door, push that dresser in front of it, and don’t open it until you see uniformed police officers leading paramedics inside the house. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah.” The girl nodded vigorously.

  Caitlin and Rainey ran back to the hall. Behind them the door shut and they heard the dresser scrape across the floor.

  As they ran down the hall, doors opened a few inches. Rainey shouted, “Stay in your rooms with the doors locked. The police are on the way.”

  She and Caitlin bolted down the stairs. Outside, through the sleet, distant lights flashed blue and red. The police were coming from campus—a mile farther along the road, past the top of the hill. Rainey swept her flashlight across the lawn. Muddy footprints led unevenly toward the woods.

  “He’s limping,” Caitlin said.

  “The Remington.” Rainey ran across the street to grab the shotgun from their Suburban.

  Caitlin aimed her flashlight at the trees. Detrick’s footprints disappeared into a tangle of rhododendrons.

  From behind her, beneath the gusting sleet, came a sound. A muffled rumble. It swelled into the growl of a heavy engine. Headlights blared on.

  A black SUV accelerated down the street toward the Suburban.

  Caitlin was in motion toward it before she even formed the thought. “Rainey.”

  The headlights illuminated Rainey in the street, near the Suburban. The black SUV sped straight at her. Rainey leaped, trying to dive out of the way. The SUV hit her.

  She flew onto the hood of the vehicle and slammed into the windshield, cracking it. Slid, raggedly, and fell to the pavement.

  The SUV kept coming. It was a black Tahoe—practically the twin of the Suburban. It scraped the FBI vehicle. Then, swerving toward the sorority house, it mounted the curb and drove onto the lawn. Its headlights swelled, blinding Caitlin. She thought: I’m fucked.

  She spun, and the Tahoe sideswiped her.

  It was a glancing blow. But still it knocked her off her feet and sent her skidding facedown along the sidewalk.

  The Tahoe lost traction, spun, and stopped on the lawn, driver’s side facing Caitlin. The headlights cast stark beams and shadows up the street.

  Stunned, shaky, Caitlin raised her head. Vaguely she saw faces in upstairs windows. A figure on a neighboring porch—who immediately ducked back inside. Blue and red lights flashed through the firs that lined the top of the hill. She heard distant sirens.

  The driver’s door of the Tahoe opened. The dome light came on. Emily was in the back seat, apparently bound—cuffed or zip-tied to the inside door handle. She was fighting futilely to break free.

  The driver climbed out. It was the blond in the black business suit. She cast a glance at Rainey, who lay motionless in the road, and turned to Caitlin. The woman’s eyes were cold. River stones, smooth, flat, eroded of empathy.

  Even flat on the ground, Caitlin recognized that
look. She’d seen it before—in Austin, on the street outside Detrick’s office at Castle Bay Realty, when this woman had glared as if she wanted to gut Caitlin like a deer.

  It was the receptionist. The woman who thought Detrick was amazing. Brandi Childers.

  A knife gleamed in her hand.

  Caitlin rolled, scrabbling for her Glock. Brandi charged.

  A shotgun blast hit the woman in the chest.

  The blare of the gun was cut by the wind, but nothing else looks like twelve-gauge buckshot hitting center mass. Brandi’s white dress shirt and pale skin and pale gleaming hair turned to a miasma of red. She toppled like her strings had been cut, and hit the lawn.

  The slush turned scarlet beneath her. She lay still.

  In the street, Rainey racked the action on the Remington. She held it, trained on Brandi, two seconds longer, making sure. Then she backed against the side of the Suburban and sagged to the asphalt.

  Caitlin lurched to her feet. She kicked the knife from Brandi’s hand, confirmed that she had no pulse, picked up the knife, and staggered toward Rainey.

  Rainey was slumped against the Suburban, bloody and covered in glass spall. The shotgun shuddered in her grip. Caitlin dropped to one knee at her side.

  Rainey said, “Fine, it’s fine.”

  It wasn’t, but Rainey’s eyes were clear, her pulse strong when Caitlin grabbed her wrist. Rainey nodded: She could hold on. Caitlin handed her Brandi’s knife and stood. The flashing lights were closer, sirens clearer.

  She blinked. Up the road toward the college, a pickup truck sat crosswise in the narrow street, grille and tailgate nearly touching parked cars along either curb, blocking the road.

  Like the trash cans had blocked a lane on the highway in Crying Call after the courthouse escape.

  She spun to look at the Tahoe. Through the icy downpour, she saw a shadow heave into the far side of the SUV. Emily screamed.

  Detrick. Caitlin raised her gun and pitched toward the vehicle. Detrick jumped into the Tahoe’s driver’s seat, jammed it in gear, and floored it toward the street. Caitlin aimed, but Emily was in the line of fire. She had no shot.

  The Tahoe slid into the slick road and hit a parked car. Detrick spun the wheel. He turned, eyes glinting, and took Caitlin in. Then he accelerated down the street, away from the approaching lights and sirens.

  Caitlin took two steps toward the FBI Suburban. It was wrecked.

  Rainey looked up. Her voice cut through the wind. “Run.”

  60

  Caitlin took off after the Tahoe, running along the sidewalk. Her ribs ached. Her shoulder ached. Her left leg felt like bruised meat. The sleet hit her in the face.

  Behind her, the sirens grew louder. She glanced back. Rainey remained crumpled against the Suburban. The spinning lights of the police cars had topped the hill. Soon, they would barrel down the narrow street and discover the pickup truck blocking their path. The truck wouldn’t slow them long—a minute, tops—but that could be too long. Detrick was speeding out of this neighborhood toward main roads and Interstate 5. If Caitlin lost sight of him, he would disappear in the lowering storm.

  If that happened, Emily was dead.

  The Tahoe’s taillights shrank in the icy downpour. Caitlin’s throat tightened. She would never catch an SUV on foot. No way.

  Then she thought: I goddamn will.

  To get to the bottom of the hill, Detrick had to go around four switchbacks. She could cut him off.

  Spinning, she ran back to the sorority house and into the backyard. At the rear of the property she pushed through the bushes.

  She came out on a steep, wooded hillside. She heard the Tahoe in the distance, coming around the hairpin turn. She ran, off-balance, toward the road below to intersect him.

  After a hundred yards’ slippery sprint down the hillside, she glimpsed the asphalt through the trees, splashed white with sleet. Headlights were coming. She sped up.

  Before she reached the road, the Tahoe rushed past.

  “Shit.”

  She forcibly told herself: Ignore it all. Everything that ached from getting sideswiped. The bruises, the cuts. Ignore the cold ice hitting her in the face. Run harder. Dig in, princess. She dashed onto the road. The Tahoe’s taillights were halfway to the next hairpin turn.

  Her breathing came hard. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow. She had at least another half mile in her legs at this speed. And she had more speed. And what the hell was she saving it for?

  She pummeled across the road and ran down the hill on the far side. Heard the Tahoe make the next turn. Arms in front of her face, she crashed past bushes and branches. Saw the road below her.

  The Tahoe’s headlights rose, and it passed in front of her again. She burst onto the pavement, only seconds behind it this time. It continued toward the next curve. Its brake lights came on—late. The Tahoe veered, scraped the guardrail, and barely negotiated the turn.

  Detrick seemed impaired. Abandoning any last shred of caution, Caitlin crossed the road and leaped, pouring downhill in the dark. Behind her, back by the sorority house, the flashing lights dimmed in the storm. She listened for the Tahoe’s engine.

  Her foot snagged on a vine. She pitched forward.

  She balled, tumbled, tried to roll, but hit with enough force to knock the wind out of her. Shouting in shock, she slid downhill through mud and grit and leaves. Rolled a second time, came up on her feet with off-balance momentum, and kept going. She heard the Tahoe’s engine again. In the distance, the headlights swung around the switchback.

  The SUV came around the turn. She was ahead of it.

  She ran from the trees, stepped onto the roadway, and raised the Glock.

  Detrick accelerated, directly at her. Icy fear sluiced through her. She held her finger against the trigger. Waited. She planned to fire multiple rounds into the radiator. She had a semiautomatic pistol. To hit the target, she had to be close.

  The headlights screamed in her eyes. She aimed between them and squeezed the trigger.

  Fired, heard the round ricochet. Squeezed again.

  Dead trigger. The Glock didn’t fire.

  Christ.

  The vehicle roared at her, bright, closing. She threw herself toward the side of the road. The Tahoe swept by. She spun, her heart jackrabbiting. Shined her Maglite on the Glock. Goddammit. The extractor port was fouled with muck from her muddy slide. It had caused a double feed. The gun was jammed.

  She’d missed. Detrick was past.

  The Tahoe continued downhill. Ahead of it lay the final switchback. She had only one more chance to shortcut down the hillside to the road below and stop him.

  She stuck the slim flashlight in her mouth. Locked the Glock’s slide back and stripped the magazine. Racked the slide three times. Grabbed a fresh mag from her belt, inserted it, racked the slide again.

  The round didn’t seat. She tap-racked, but the gun still felt wrong. God knew what was in the springs, the chamber, the barrel. She had neither the time nor the tools to clear the gun. She holstered it.

  She threw a look at the receding Tahoe. It was almost at the switchback. She turned toward the shortcut, watching for the brake lights to come on.

  They didn’t.

  She blinked icy rain from her eyes. Under her ragged breath, she said, “Oh, Jesus.”

  The Tahoe’s headlights caught the view ahead of it. Trees, a guardrail, yellow caution signs. It didn’t slow.

  Good Christ. It swerved on the sleet-slick pavement and missed the turn.

  The noise was a shriek, a can opener slicing metal. The Tahoe cut a gash in the guardrail and plunged off the road.

  • • •

  Caitlin climbed around the torn section of the guardrail. Beyond it, the slope was plowed by the Tahoe’s plunge. The SUV had nose-dived down the hill, tearing through saplings and ferns. Below, in the
dark, she heard rushing water.

  She swept her flashlight along the fall line on the hill. Tire tracks ran in two trenches down the slope. After sixty yards, they went ragged and disappeared into the darkness. She gritted her teeth. The Tahoe had veered and rolled.

  She picked her way down the hill. The sound of rushing water grew wilder. She slid the last ten feet on slick earth and scrambled to a stop.

  The Tahoe lay wrecked in a concrete storm channel that was raging with runoff.

  Under the beam of her flashlight, whitecaps frothed. The water was breaking against the grille of the SUV. The vehicle lay half submerged, driver’s side down, the hood and roof facing her. One glaring headlight remained above water.

  Caitlin breathed raggedly. Through the icy rain her breath wreathed her like smoke. The storm channel was twenty yards wide. Most days, water probably trickled along its center an inch deep. Tonight, a churning torrent splashed onto the channel’s angled banks. She swept the flashlight around the scene. Ten yards downstream from the Tahoe, the channel dropped precipitously to the main river. She could hear the thunder of tons of water crashing below.

  “Oh, my hell.”

  The SUV’s front wheel was lodged on debris. A tree limb, rebar, something. It was keeping the Tahoe from being swept away.

  For now. The water in the channel was rising.

  Caitlin aimed her flashlight at the Tahoe’s windshield. Water half filled the interior of the vehicle. Nobody was at the wheel.

  Through the SUV’s sunroof, Caitlin saw Emily. The girl was clearly zip-tied to the interior handle of the rear passenger door, directly behind the driver’s seat. That door lay against the bottom of the storm channel. With the water at the midline of the vehicle, Emily could barely keep her face above the surface. She was fighting for air.

  Caitlin pulled out her phone, called Emmerich, gave him the location. “We need fire and rescue. Now.”

  “Two minutes,” Emmerich said.

  The water was lapping over Emily’s chin.

  “She doesn’t have two minutes.” She couldn’t wait for fire and rescue.