Page 7 of High Velocity

God, I’d been so green. So excited I’d been assigned to the office where my father spent most of his career. This was every dream coming true…until I fucked it up.

“Hey, Steph, how the hell are ya?”

Well, if that isn’t an empty question. If there’s one thing I’m sure about, it’s Ben has no interest whatsoever in knowing how I am.

“Fine.” I brush him off, not bothering to return the interest. “Why are you calling me, Ben? All you say in your message is that you need help on a case.”

His chuckle grates on me, and so do the words that follow.

“I see we’re getting right down to business. No catching up on old times?”

I close my eyes against the rush of anger, and breathe in through the nose and out through my mouth in an attempt to curb my temper.

“What do you need, Ben? And how did you get this number?”

This is my personal cell. I handed over my Bureau-issued phone along with my badge and service weapon to SAC Bellinger when he put me on leave.

“Come on…give me some credit,” he taunts. “It took me five minutes to find after someone at your office told me you were on hiatus. What does that even mean?” he adds.

I glance out at the creek. The water looks higher than it did yesterday, and I’m pretty sure it’s flowing faster. It must be the start of the winter runoff now the days are getting warmer.

Whatever he thinks he needs me for, he’ll have to find another way. The building volume of water in the creek functions as a visual reminder of the rising blood pressure in my veins that got me here in the first place. Already I can feel my heart pumping harder.

“What it means is you’ll need to find someone else to help you on your case,” I tell him with determination.

“Ah, but I have a feeling you would want to be in on this one. I’m sure you remember Mitchel Laine?”

Damn right I remember him. My first collar twelve years ago. I was twenty-four and feeling pretty damn good about bringing down the man who had robbed a series of bank branches in smaller towns across several states. He’d repeatedly and brutally pistol-whipped an elderly teller at a bank in Manistee, Michigan, when she couldn’t get the vault open, leaving her with a shattered jaw and a fractured skull. Almost two years after I caught up with him, that miserable punk was sentenced to fifteen years in jail. I didn’t think it was enough at the time.

“What about him? He should be safely behind bars for at least another five years or so.”

“Sadly, no. He was released on good behavior three months ago. Overcrowding and a turn to Jesus granted him early parole.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me?”

It’s a slap in the face to law enforcement who spill sweat, blood, and tears catching these animals, only to have them released because of administrative inadequacies or limited capacity. Especially since in a lot of these cases, we have to spill more sweat, blood, and tears to get those same assholes back behind bars when they offend again, which a lot of them do.

“Not even a little,” Vallard returns, sounding grim. “He was released and never even showed up for the first visit with his parole officer. I’m pretty sure he’s responsible for a couple of bank heists; one in Monmouth, Illinois, one in Fort Dodge, Iowa. Similar MO; small branches, same kind of language used, ball cap, facial hair which is likely fake.”

I remember that’s what threw off investigators for so long last time, he’d change his appearance just enough. He’d go from a black mustache and goatee with a beanie, to a full beard and ball cap between robberies. He also traveled, crossing state lines and never hitting the same region twice. It took a while to pick up a pattern with the crimes taking place in different jurisdictions.

“Bigger towns though. He used to stick to populations under ten thousand. The ones you mentioned are well over.”

The theory had been, he picked the small towns, hoping for a more inexperienced and perhaps understaffed sheriff’s department or police force. Not that he ever copped to that, he never admitted to anything.

“He’s escalating. Two days ago, a Great Plains Bank branch near the Aberdeen airport in South Dakota was hit,” Ben relays in a serious tone. “Two civilians and an off-duty police officer were shot. The police officer is still in critical condition. Suspect took off running through a back door. His fake beard, ball cap, and navy hoodie were found in a dumpster in an alley on the next block over.”

“Jesus,” I hiss.

If this is Mitchel Laine’s doing, he definitely has escalated.

Despite my earlier determination, I feel myself getting sucked in, and I hate myself for asking, “What makes you so sure it’s him?”

“For the past five years, Laine has been corresponding with a woman named Tracy Elliston. She’s a twenty-nine-year-old hairdresser from Troy, Montana,” he explains.

I see now why he contacted me; Kalispell would be the closest FBI office to Troy, which also happens to be only thirty miles or so from where I am now. Although Ben doesn’t need to know that.

“You think he’s on his way to meet up with this woman.”

---