Page 75 of Killer Clone

Hagen lowered his chin. His face showed all the regret and disappointment and anger tightening her chest. “Whoever it was must’ve read everything about us in Broad’s reports and brought their killings to our turf. We screwed up.”

No. They hadn’t screwed up. Not entirely. “We stopped Maureen King. She would’ve killed again.” A vision of the rope around the tree in the woods flashed into Stella’s head. Her defiance shrank. “But, no…we screwed up badly.”

Delafayette groaned again. Hagen drew nearer and bent over, examining the wound on his head.

“That looks nasty. Let’s hope there’s no skull fracture.”

Sirens going, an ambulance sped under the bridge, followed by two patrol cars. Stella waved them down.

As the paramedics eased Delafayette out of the toolbox and onto a stretcher, Hagen told one set of officers to remain with the vehicle. The other two were both young and fresh-faced, the kind of newly minted officers who were excited to be called to the scene of an emergency but relieved they didn’t actually have much to do when they got there.

With Delafayette taken care of, Stella turned to Hagen. “Why would Maureen King’s accomplice come after us? Why kill us when we’re the people most likely to understand whathe’s doing? He hasn’t just been killing. He’s been trying to lead us around. You went to the alley with Ander because of a tip-off and were shot at. The truck was there too.”

Hagen stared at her. “He’s targeting us. He wants revenge.”

“Because we stopped his run in Claymore Township? Because Maureen died in front of us?” Stella lowered her hand. “Or maybe he thinks the law enforcement officers who stopped him in Pennsylvania would make better sacrificial victims than a psychiatric patient and a couple of small-town cops?”

Being shot on the job was a risk she was prepared to take.

But being hung upside down and bled to death by a lunatic with a hankering for an apocalypse was a step too far.

They were going to catch this monster, and they were going to throw away the key.

Hagen snapped his fingers at the younger officers. “You two can stop standing around like a couple of saltshakers. Get back in your car and follow us.”

They drove to the parking garage outside the abandoned warehouse, where the chase had begun. Hagen stopped next to Patrick Marrion’s Ridgeline. One of the officers approached the bed, and Stella told him not to touch it. She and Hagen had already screwed up enough.

“Forensics is going to be all over that thing. Any news on the train?”

The officer stepped away and spoke into his radio. His shoulder squawked back. He shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

“Dammit. Right, you wait here and keep an eye on that truck until forensics get here.” Stella waved at the officer’s colleague. “You come with us.”

The officer followed as Stella and Hagen headed toward the stairwell. Stella bounded up to the first floor and stopped. The dirt on the steps to the second floor was undisturbed, but thedoor to the landing hung on one hinge, and mud was smeared across the tiles.

Stella drifted her hand to her gun.

“Looks like Maureen’s accomplice had an accomplice of his own,” Hagen whispered.

“Makes sense, considering Maureen wasn’t available.”

“Right. Until he killed him. You still think it was Otto Walker?”

Stella nodded and relaxed a little. Her arm drifted back to her side. What Hagen said made sense. Otto Walker had helped kill Patrick Marrion. Then the killer tried to cover his tracks, or perhaps, Walker got cold feet and tried to back out. Whatever the cause, the killer—possibly named Trevor—turned Walker into his next victim.

And now he was in the wind. Whoever he was.

She stepped into the corridor. The rooms in front were empty of everything except dust, smashed tiles, and bits of broken timber. A steel door stood at the end, sealed with a padlock.

“Officer, you got a bolt cutter in your car?”

The officer nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” He doubled back down the stairs. The handrail squeaked as he pulled himself around the landing, and his boots thumped on the steps.

Stella approached the door. It must’ve stood there for a while, the final permanent barrier to have survived the dereliction of the old building. The last tenants might’ve used this part of the building as a storeroom or an archive. Only the lock itself was new.

The officer’s footsteps thumped up the steps. The handrail squeaked. He ran down the passage, a set of bolt cutters two feet long upright in his hands. His cheeks were red, and despite the cold, a bead of sweat ran down his temple. He must’ve run all the way there and all the way back. Good man.

“How long you been in law enforcement, Officer…?”

---