~
Chase pulled the phone from her pocket, intent on opening the message she had received in the hotel room, the one that had distracted Martinez enough for her to get away, but all she ended up doing was smear blood across the screen.
“C’mon!” she cried, wiping the phone on her jacket.
She managed to open it on a second try.
As expected, it was from Floyd, and as before, it was a simple message.
Not a single word this time, but an address.
Stitts’s address.
Somehow, she managed to copy the address and drop it into the map program with one hand.
Then she dialed 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“Yes, it’s FBI Special Agent Chase Adams, I need to speak to Detective Tim Jasper.”
Chase took a hard left and then, for the first time since fleeing the parking lot, glanced up in the rearview. The map program instructed her to continue straight for seven miles, which wasn’t ideal.
If Martinez was after her, and she expected that he was, then it would be easy to follow her.
“Agent Adams, what’s your badge number?” the female 9-1-1 operator asked.
Chase scowled.
Badge number?
Her mind flashed to her badge that she had left in her hotel room before going to visit Martinez.
“I—I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Please, I need to speak to—”
“One moment please.”
The phone clicked and for a second, Chase thought that the operator had hung up on her. A sudden, buckling pain gripped her entire left side and she cried out in agony.
Her body instinctively contracted in that direction, pulling the steering wheel to the left. The car veered into oncoming traffic, and someone blared their horn.
Chase righted the vehicle just as a male voice came through the telephone.
“Agent Adams?”
She recognized the voice immediately.
“Jasper! Jesus, you need to help me. Martinez… Martinez killed Oren and Julie and he killed those girls back in Alaska. He shot me, too… he fucking shot me—”
“Slow down, Chase.”
“He shot me in the hotel room, I think the bullet went through, but—”
“Slow down.”
“I think he’s after me. Martinez is sick, demented—”
“Slow down!”
Chase finally took a deep breath.
“You’ve got to help me.”
“I intend to—but you need to slow down. Where are you right now?”
Chase glanced outside at the bright sun, the cars passing by.
“I’m driving… I don’t know exactly where, staying on 93. I’m heading toward—”
Chase hesitated.
“Yeah? Where’re you going?”
Instead of answering right away, she chewed her bottom lip.
Again, Chase had the feeling that something just wasn’t right.
In Alaska, Martinez was buddy-buddy with Chief Downs; knew him well. In Boston, he was pals with Jasper.
And Paul, the driver.
What had Martinez said back in the hotel room?
Something about rookie agents always needing a motive…
In this case, though, Chase was certain there was a motive, although she had no idea what the hell that was.
But why? Why is he doing this?
“Chase? You still there? Why don’t you tell me where you’re headed and I’ll pick you up. Better yet, come on in down to the station. It’s not far. I can take you to the hospital, get the bullet wound in your stomach looked at.”
“I’m going—”
Again, Chase paused.
…the bullet wound in your stomach…
She hadn’t told Detective Jasper that the bullet had hit her stomach.
“Shit!” she swore.
Martinez had already gotten to the man already—he had his fingerprints on everything.
“Chase? Everything okay? Just tell me where you are—”
Chase glanced quickly at the cell phone, and memorized the directions to Stitts’s house. Then she rolled down the window and tossed her cell phone on the road.
They were going to trace it, probably already had.
Chase couldn’t trust Jasper or his men.
She couldn’t trust anyone but Stitts… but maybe this was just wishful thinking.
Please tell me that Martinez hasn’t already gotten to Stitts, too.
CHAPTER 41
Chase had no idea how Martinez found her, but when she turned onto Arlington Road, she spotted a sleek, black car gaining on her.
His car.
The best course of action would have been to change her route, maybe even to head somewhere other than Stitts’s house.
Only, she couldn’t do that.
Chase had lost so much blood already that she was having a hard time even remembering the directions. Her entire shirt was soaked with the tacky substance, as was the inside of the red coat.
And to make things worse, she had started to feel dizzy over the past five minutes or so.
Just five more minutes, five more minutes and I’ll be at Stitts’s house, and he’ll help me.
But both of those things were a lie, and deep down, she knew it.
Without her phone, she had no idea how much longer it was to Stitts’s place, or even if she had remembered the directions correctly.
And when she got there? Who’s to say that he would actually be home?
After all, she had tried to call him, what? A dozen times over the past few weeks? Two dozen?
And he had never answered. Not once. Hadn’t returned her calls either.
There was also the distinct possibility that Martinez had already gotten to him, the way he had gotten to Downs and Jasper and…
Chase drifted into unconsciousness for less than a minute before her eyes snapped open again.
The tree was so close that she had no chance to avoid it. The only thing she could do was slam on the breaks, hoping that when she struck it, it wouldn’t kill her on impact.
Her neck swung forward when the sedan smashed headlong into the tree. The airbag didn’t discharge properly, probably owing to the age of the vehicle, and it only slowed her forehead before striking the steering wheel. Darkness threatened to overcome her again, but she fought it with all the might she had left.
Passing out again would mean certain death.
Martinez was after her and he would lop off… what? Her head? Her arms? Legs?
She refused to give him the satisfaction.
Chase unclicked her seatbelt, leaned over the passenger seat and tried to shove the door open.
It was jammed.
Wheezing, trying to ignore the pain in her side and now in her head, Chase somehow managed to turn herself around to drive both feet into it.
With a metallic groan, the door swung open just as two headlights filled the car.
Grunting loudly, fighting the spins and the pain that gripped her, Chase somehow managed to crawl across the seat.
And then she fell.
The tree that the car had struck lined an embankment, and when her body spilled from the vehicle, it immediately started to slide.
Chase tried her best not to scream, but she had already lost all control.
PART III - TRYING TO SHOOT
~
PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER 42
“OH, THAT’S RIGHT. I KNOW all about little Felix and Brad. You see, Chase, I’ve been at this a long time and you don’t stick around in this game by not knowing everything, all the facts… even about the victims.”
Chase closed her eyes again, only this time it wasn’t from the pain, but from the weight of Martinez’s words. She ground her teeth so hard that a fine powder rained down on her tongue.
A game… that’s all it is to him, a fucking game.
“Last chance, Chase. Come out now, hands up, or Felix and Brad die be
fore you do. Last… chance…”
Chase grunted and shifted her weight to the side opposite the gunshot wound.
She closed her eyes, and images of Brad standing at the landing, his face half-covered in shaving cream flashed in her mind. And then she pictured Felix and the countless times she had arrived home from work and had slipped silently into his bedroom to kiss his blond head.
Tears slipped from her eyes.
Chase could hear Martinez somewhere on the road above, and knew that he was about to make his way down to her. And then she would be put to a decision.
And if he didn’t? Even if he stayed up there all night, she would have to do something soon; Chase didn’t know how long she could go before the pain in her side combined with the blood loss would put her down for good.
“You know, Chase, I was just going to kill you the night you came into my room,” Martinez continued. He let out a soft grunt, and she knew that he was starting toward her now. Chase flattened herself as much as possible beneath the culvert. “You woke up, remember? You turned to me. I don’t know if you realized it, but I was cleaning my gun then, and I was going to kill you. Shit, if I’d known that you were going to put up such a fight… well, I would’ve just done it then.”
The word gun resonated with Chase and she reached behind her.
It was still there.
She had no idea how it was possible, but the gun that Martinez had given her was still jammed in the holster. She was surprised that it hadn’t fallen off during her sprint from the hotel, the altercation with Paul, and then the crash.
But it hadn’t.
With a grunt of her own, she grabbed it and pulled it free.
Now we’re even.
“To be honest, I’m not sure you’re worth the trouble, Mrs. Adams. I mean, the other girls—those pieces of shit Yolanda and Francine, they begged and begged, but they didn’t put up a fight. Oren, he was different. Heh, he tried to give up his girlfriend, Julie, tried to convince me to just take her. Real winner that guy. But you…”
Chase heard Martinez shuffle now, and her breathing quickened when he stopped just above her.
“You… meh, I guess it’s fitting. Just you and my ex-partner Stitts to go. And then—”
Chase squeezed her eyes tight for a moment, and took a deep breath. Then, with one final groan, she pushed herself away from the side of the embankment, sliding out backward, gun raised in front of her.
Martinez’s mouth turned into a wide ‘o’ of surprise, and she realized that he wasn’t just near the culvert, but was actually standing directly on top of it.
This shocked her as well, but not nearly as much as it did Martinez.
Chase didn’t hesitate.
She pulled the trigger three times, one after another.
She wasn’t the best marksman, but she was good. Good enough to hit a man with all three bullets at this range.
But even though Martinez leaned backward, she never saw him recoil from impact.
There was something wrong.
The shots… they felt hollow. The gun wasn’t that different from the one that she had trained on back in Seattle: a .22 Glock. Granted, it had been a while since she had fired a gun, and yet this was… different.
She had no time to contemplate this further, however, because after the ringing faded from her ears, she heard something else.
Laughter.
Special Agent Martinez was laughing.
And he was still coming for her.
CHAPTER 43
Chase ran. She ran through the woods and stomped through the snow, until her breath was coming in ragged gasps and her lungs were burning.
Although Martinez’s motives were still a mystery, he was nothing if not determined. She knew that he wouldn’t stop.
He wouldn’t stop coming for until one of them was dead. What had he said?
The rookie agent always wants a motive, a reason…
She didn’t know if this had just been a strategy to throw her off, but it had been a lie. At least in his case.
There was a motive here… this had been meticulously planned. All of it, from Yolanda and Francine to Oren and Julie to… her.
Martinez had waited for his friends to be in power, in charge—first Downs then Jasper—so that he could move freely, so that he could make sure that it would end up looking like the bartender did it, like a junkie had gone mad and tossed the bodies into the river.
Out of breath, Chase put her hand on a large oak tree and moved around the other side. Then she lowered herself to the snowy ground.
Coming or not, Chase had to inspect her wound. She listened closely, and when she heard nothing other than the sound of croaking branches, she unzipped her jacket with a wince.
“Shit,” she swore.
The right side of her blouse was dark with blood, and there was a half a dozen down feathers clinging to it.
She picked these away carefully, then inspected her wound through the thin streams of light that filtered through the trees. Chase had no idea what time it was, how much time had passed since she had left the hotel, but it appeared as if the sun was well into its daily voyage to the horizon.
The good news was that the bullet appeared to have gone directly through her. The bad was that it was starting to smell, which meant that it had punctured her intestines. It could have been worse; had the bullet struck a lung, she likely wouldn’t be walking now, let alone running through the woods.
Chase put her fingers next to the wound and pressed gently.
She grunted and her abdominal muscles contracted. Fresh blood seeped from the bullet hole.
She needed to stop the bleeding.
Chase grabbed a fistful of snow and took another deep breath. She packed it tightly against the exit wound and then, before she lost her nerve, did the same with where the bullet had entered.
The sensation instantly sent an icy blast up and down her body, one that made her breath, which had since steadied, go ragged again.
She put her head back against the tree, and closed her eyes.
A moment before she passed out, something that Floyd had said to her what seemed like years ago came rushing back.
Martinez had a sister… but she died… was murdered.
And that, Chase knew, was the key.
The motive that she had been searching for all this time.
CHAPTER 44
“Come on, don’t be shy. I just couldn’t live with myself if you guys got heat stroke or something. So, get in. Like I said, I’ve got A/C in here.”
Chase put her arms over her sister’s shoulders and pulled her against her chest.
“Thank you, but we’re fine just walking. I like the heat, anyway.”
The man leaned further out the window and pulled the giant sunglasses down his nose.
Then he smiled, and for a moment, Chase considered getting into the van. She had heard about creepy men, stories her dad and her mom had told her, things that had been repeated at school, and how to avoid them. But this man… a man with a smile like that? With perfect teeth, and kind eyes? He even had the tiny creases in the corners like dad did. He couldn’t be one of them, could he?
But then the man said something, something that made the tiny hairs on the back of Chase’s neck stand on end.
“I’ll take you right home, no stops. Promise.”
Georgina pulled away from her. Not much, but just enough to cause Chase to tighten her grip on the girl’s shoulders.
“Georgina,” she whispered.
Chase wasn’t sure if it was the heat getting to her, or if the act was inspired by her words, but her sister suddenly pulled away from her. The act took her by surprise and Georgina somehow managed to wriggle free of Chase’s grasp.
“Georgina! No!” Chase cried.
In that moment, the van door opened, and the man stepped out. He was wearing a pair of white overalls, Chase noted, and was much larger than she had first suspected.
In fact, he might have bee
n the largest man she had ever seen, which is exactly what she would tell the police later.
“See? It’s nice and cool in here,” the man said, wrapping a meaty forearm over Georgina’s shoulders.
The girl’s eyes suddenly went wide.
“Chase? What—”
The man pulled a large knife from one of the many pockets in his overalls, and pressed the tip against Georgina’s throat. The movement was so smooth, so fast, that it barely registered with Chase.
And all the while, the smile on his face never faded.
“Don’t scream. Don’t run and don’t scream.”
Georgina squirmed, but unlike Chase’s, this man’s grip was tight and strong.
Tears started to spill down her cheeks, turning her freckles into something that looked like mud streaks.
Chase felt her heart thud in her chest.
“Don’t run. Don’t scream,” he warned again.
Chase wouldn’t have known what to do if the man in the overalls hadn’t told her. He wanted to be in control, and was letting her know exactly what he needed her to do in order to remain in power.
So Chase did the exact opposite.
She screamed as loud and as long as she had ever screamed before, even more than when her dad had broken the news that her dog Papi had been struck by a car and needed to be put down.
And Chase ran.
She ran as fast and as hard as her little legs could manage.
CHAPTER 45
Chase awoke with a start. At first, she didn’t know where she was, but when her breath exited her mouth in a frosty puff, everything came flooding back.
She glanced down at herself and realized that the snow that she had packed over the bullet hole had turned a pale shade of pink, but wasn’t soaked red. The bleeding had slowed.
How long have I been out?
Having tossed her cell phone out the car window, she couldn’t know precisely, but one thing was for certain: evening was upon them now.
A crunch of snow somewhere in the distance made her ears perk.
Fuck! He’s still coming!
No matter what time it was, Martinez was still coming.
Frozen Stiff Page 15
