The streetlights were few and far between, of course. Strip club visitors were as cagey as gamblers about not wanting to be seen coming and going.
The abrupt cutoff of the scream echoed in Molina’s mind. Not good. A killer could be doing anything now, down on the warm asphalt between the cars…raping, strangling.
She moved unheard on the well-used moccasins she had found at the Goodwill, but she could hear no one else moving either, not even a distant blast of noise as Kitty City’s door opened and closed. It remained shut.
The neon from the sign up front cast pink and blue images on the roofs and hoods of the trucks and vans and cars filling the lot.
Then…something scraped. A shoe.
Someone moaned.
Over there.
Suddenly footsteps, running.
From two directions.
She paused at the building’s rear corner.
The parked vehicles had thinned back here.
She peered around the building’s sharp concrete-block edge, then broke into the open, weapon lifted, feet and hands braced.
A man was bending over something on the unpaved sandy soil surrounding the rear Dumpsters.
Something thumped sand. Footsteps. Another man was rounding the opposite edge of the rear wall, almost like a partner forming a pincer action.
Except that she had no partners here, just suspects.
The man on the ground jerked his head around and up into a sliver of blinking neon.
Rafi Nadir.
The man who’d rounded the corner was heading right for him.
“Stop. Police.”
She didn’t shout it, but her low, deep tone had such a shocking note of parental, paternal authority that both men paused, one in rising from the ground, one in heading toward him to keep him on the ground.
“Stop. Both of you.”
The gun was held two-handed, by-the-book style, ready to fire.
Both men recognized that. They stared at her.
Then Rafi continued rising, turned and ran, heading for the cars.
“Stop!”
The second man pursued Rafi, crossing her direct path of fire.
She bellowed, “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”
He glanced her way, saw the gun was pointed dead-on at him. “He’s getting away.”
She nodded, not taking her eyes from him. “Stop,” she repeated, almost whispered. “Or I’ll shoot.”
Max Kinsella stood poised in midstep, staring like a deer in the headlights, not stricken, merely astonished into inaction. “That was Nadir!”
“I know.”
“He’s your killer.”
“It’s more important to check the person who’s down. You do it.”
“I can catch him. You handle the scene.”
“No.”
“You’re letting him get away.”
“Maybe. But I’ve got the gun, and you don’t.” She realized he might be armed, moved toward him.
Without even straightening from his running crouch, he put out an empty hand. “You don’t want to come within range, or it’ll really get serious.”
She hesitated. The police professional couldn’t afford to do anything a suspect under control suggested. Kinsella wasn’t ever under control, which he’d just reminded her. “Check her.”
He turned and did as she said, crouching over the fallen form as Rafi Nadir had only moments before.
An almost undetectable patter of running feet died into silence as she listened.
Kinsella had his fingers on the carotid artery. “Unconscious, but a pulse.”
Molina dug in her bag for her cell phone. “Call nine-one-one for an ambulance.”
“You’re crazy!” he said, even as he dialed. “We had him—uh, yeah. A woman unconscious at Kitty City, Paradise and Flamingo, rear parking lot. Assault. Lieutenant Molina, LVMPD on the scene. Right.” He looked up at her again. It was just bright enough to see that the look was bitter and accusing.
“Punch in oh-one,” she said, “but don’t hit talk.”
He did.
“Now. Put the phone on the ground and kick it, gently, toward me.”
He muttered something.
“What was that?”
“‘To the moon, Alice, to the moon.’”
“Never happen.” She bent as the phone slid toward her, keeping the gun pointed at him. She picked up the phone, hit talk, and connected to the dispatcher, asked for assistance.
“I get it,” he said suddenly. “You’re going to pin this on me.”
“Interesting idea. You were on the scene. The only witness to the running man, whoever he might be, is…me. And you, who nobody would believe. Worked for The Fugitive, TV series and movie.”
He snorted with disgust.
She sighed. “I love it. A really great scenario. But not practical. What’s her pulse?”
“Sixty-four.”
A distant whine announced the ambulance.
“Not bad. She’ll live. I think we’ll let the EMTs handle this. Time to say good night, George.”
He stood, slowly, as if every joint hurt. “It’s not over.”
“Of course not.”
“I never thought you were crooked.”
“Funny, I always thought you were.”
“He’s dead meat.”
“I better not find your fingerprints on it.”
He moved away from the fallen girl, who was beginning to moan like someone coming out of anesthetic. Molina didn’t want any confusing memories on the victim’s part.
“Go on. Get out of here, or I’ll have to arrest you. Or shoot you. Take your pick.”
He moved, slowly, deliberately.
By the time the ambulance squealed to a stop and the emergency technicians spilled out to tend to the victim, Kinsella was just disappearing between two vans and Molina was just finishing returning her unfired gun to its holster.
A patrol car and then another screeched up. She had deliberately called them second. Uniforms were fanning out, flashlights poised, ready to search the parking lot.
It was suddenly a crime scene, overlit, crowded, filled with milling people trying to save the victim and preserve evidence. The sounds and fury weren’t too different from that inside Kitty City.
Molina gave what directions she had to, then accompanied the victim to the ambulance. A young woman, stripper going off duty, like any nurse or convenience-store clerk going into the dark to find her car and finding instead a man with a plan.
She was almost fully conscious.
“You’ll be fine,” Molina told her, bending down before the ambulance crew whisked her to the bright fluorescent lights of the emergency room.
Not exactly the spotlight the young woman had craved.
Molina watched the ambulance maneuver to turn around, saw it start off, the siren escalating into its usual ear-piercing yodel.
“Handy you were here, Lieutenant,” a uniform commented, trying not to sound curious.
“Handy,” she repeated blandly. “I’ll leave it to you. Doesn’t look like anybody died here this time.”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’d like a copy of the full report, though, first thing in the morning. This might be part of an ongoing.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Too bad Max Kinsella wasn’t one scintilla as respectful of rank.
Chapter 40
Calling the Cops
“Molina,” the phone barked.
Matt felt a moment’s qualm. She sounded pretty disgruntled. He was making a big mistake. But what else could he do? Everything he did nowadays could be a mistake, a fatal mistake.
“This is Matt Devine. It’s vital that I talk to you.”
“Go ahead.”
“No. In person.”
She sighed pointedly. “My desk is covered with case files up to my chin. This about one of them?”
“Not really.”
“It’s personal?”
“Partly.”
“Do you have any idea of what I’m up against? All right. Come in at, um, six o’clock then. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee dregs to celebrate Thank God It’s Friday.”