Page 129 of Bonded in Death

He ran.

He flashed back to the night, decades before, when he’d been forced to run. His legs didn’t move as fast now, but they wouldn’t take him.

They wouldn’t take him. He’d kill them all first.

Eve pounded down to three with Peabody on her heels. The door to 3-C hung open.

“Clear it, clear it fast. Black suit,” she shouted at her team as she and Peabody cleared. “Box him in. He’s running.”

And so did she, down the steps as Santiago and Carmichael ran up.

“He didn’t come this way. He didn’t come out the front,” Carmichael told her.

“Clear the basement level!”

Alarms went off.

“Fire exit. Goddamn it.”

She launched herself over the railing, hit the floor, then streaked toward the back. She looked right, left, and saw him running across the intersection at the end of the block.

She shouted orders, locations, directions as she raced through rain that had decided to come back with a vengeance.

Though she had to dodge umbrellas and people who weren’t lookingwhere the hell they were going, she cut the distance in half before he looked over his shoulder and spotted her.

Then he did exactly what she’d feared. He pulled out a gun.

She felt the impact of the bullet on her shoulder, a light punch. And kept going.

Her own weapon in hand, she was still yards away when he planted, changed tactic.

With a wild grin he aimed not at Eve but at two women, oblivious as they walked arm in arm under an umbrella and chattered away.

She was fast, but not as fast as a bullet. With no choice, she flung herself in front of the women. She felt the impact again along her ribs, and a quick, hot sting as the women, shrieking, fell on the wet pavement.

One of them wrapped an arm around her leg and started screaming for help. For the police.

“Lady, lady, I’m a cop. I’m in pursuit.”

And losing him, losing him in the rain.

The woman kept screaming, and before Eve could pull free, a good Samaritan built like a maxibus got in her face.

“I saw what you did. You knocked these ladies down.”

“We’re cops, we’re cops. In pursuit.” Panting, Santiago ran up, waving his badge. “An armed suspect. Go, Dallas, go!”

She went, but when Roarke cut across her path from the north, she knew they’d lost him.

“No sign of him the way I came,” Roarke told her. “Feeney’s circling in the van, and your BOLO went out.”

Breathing hard, a drenched Santiago caught up. “I used to steal bases like they were candy, but fucking A, Dallas. You’d’ve had him, you’d have had him if those civilians hadn’t gotten in the way. And let’s hear it for Thin Shield.”

“He fired on you?”

“Twice,” Santiago said to Roarke. “Second time he aimed for the civilians. Bastard. Dallas knocked them down to spare them a bullet, then they tangled her up just long enough.”

“We lost him. All this, and we still lost him.”

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