Page 82 of Jon's Helter Skelter Cold Case

Behind me there was the sound of footsteps rapidly approaching, and a quick glance told me it wasn’t the perp somehow magicking himself out of the building. Gonzalez and Marc were racing this way.

“He’s throwing up barriers in the hallway!” I called to them. “Gonzalez, flank!”

“Got it!”

Gonzalez blew right past me.

Look, I was in reasonably good shape. I couldn’t help it these guys were showing me up so easily, okay?

I caught Marc by the arm before he could follow his husband.

“Wait,” I panted. “Wait, he’s trying to draw us away from her.”

Marc stopped, barely breathing hard. His dark eyes were sharp on me. “Really? You sure?”

“It was in his lines, from the brief glance I got on them. He’s running away from her. We need to go in the opposite direction.”

“Well, I trust Donovan to back Javier up, so let’s go find her.” Then he beamed. “Yes! I hoped she was alive, that Grant was right.”

“Me too.” I was relieved for the whole Evans family. “Let’s find her and prove it.”

“I’m all for that.”

“Which buildings did you check out?”

He pointed to the two larger buildings. With no glass on the windows, it was easy to see outside, even though it was growing darker very quickly. “The barn and the…I actually don’t know what it was, but it’s empty as hell. Just one big room with nothing but trash in it. We were heading toward the smaller building when we heard the gunshot.”

The building in question looked like a box, and it was the only one that seemed to have an intact roof. Now that was a strong candidate for stashing a person.

“Let’s go,” I urged.

We quickly left the building through an open doorway and jogged in that direction. I heard more gunshots, but that was likely Donovan or Gonzalez trying to get past some kind of materialized barrier, so I wasn’t too worried.

Marc jogged at my side, but he also had a phone up to his ear. I stayed three feet away to help protect his phone. I knew he’d reported this to the local FBI office before we even came in here. A courtesy call and a heads-up in case we needed backup.

I’d say this situation called for backup.

“This is Agent Gonzalez.” Marc admirably kept his voice calm even while jogging. “I’m at the abandoned Prison Farm. We’ve found our perp, chase is ongoing, shots are being fired. Requesting backup. Yes, sir. Yes, sir, we have a good idea of where she might be. We’re checking that out now. Two are in pursuit of perp. Yes, sir. Thank you. See you soon.”

“They’re coming?”

“They are. ETA about fifteen minutes. Let’s see if we can find her before they get here.”

“I’m all for it.”

The building, now that I was closer to it, seemed to have been the clinic. Bars were still on the windows and probably why the windows were mostly intact, and the roof was still good. No, scratch that—the roof had been repaired. A bit shoddily, like the person who did it was following a tutorial but had no actual experience. Huh.

And lookee there! An intact door.

We were definitely closing in onsomething. If she wasn’t here, this was at least Chad’s hidey-hole.

The door wasn’t locked, fortunately, and we went right inside. The place was clean. Well, cleaner than the other buildings had been. Some graffiti on the walls, but no feces or broken furniture. Like someone had cleaned it out. Without a doubt Chad’s doing.

The building wasn’t large, maybe six rooms altogether, with some doors missing but others in place. Hmm. Okay, which door was our magic one, then?

From the far end of the hallway came some banging. Sounded like someone kicking at a wooden door, actually.

“That’s her.” Marc sped up and sprinted the rest of the way.

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