“I’m going to leave now,” he said.
“I don’t think I can let you do that. Not alone.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“I’m pretty sure I can. If I have to.”
He was back on his feet now, facing me.
“I have an alternate plan,” I said. “I’ve got a motel room on Michigan Avenue. You come back with me. You have something to eat. You could probably use a drink about now, too. I know I could. We’ll sit down and figure this out.”
“You’ll just take me to the police.”
“I’m not a cop. I haven’t been for a long time. I won’t take you anywhere else, I promise.”
I could tell he was thinking it over. He’d probably been living in that car for too long now. Not much money left. Maybe none at all. Running out of gas. No food. If nothing else, I’d be able to keep him alive for a few more days, unless he really wanted to put on a mask and start holding up gas stations.
“My aunt’s car is here,” he finally said.
“I don’t think they’ll mind,” I said, looking around the empty lot. “Worst they can do is tow it. She’ll get it back eventually.”
“All right,” he said, “but I’m coming back here tomorrow.”
“Like I said, we’ll figure that out. Let’s go.”
I took a few steps down the street. He looked at the car he was leaving behind for a moment, then he shook his head and started to follow me. Nobody would have confused us for long-lost best buddies, but it was better than fighting again.
When we got back to the main street, I pointed in the direction of the auto parts store. “My truck’s over there.”
He nodded, didn’t say a word, but he kept following me. It occurred to me then that a suspicious person would have been a little more wary of this whole situation. He could have been playing along, planning out when he’d take my money, and maybe my truck, too. I had about three seconds to think that one over.
Then we both heard the train.
It was coming from the southwest, still picking up steam as it came out of the big turn from the station. It was going on twelve thirty at that point. A little late for the rendezvous, but Darryl King looked at that train, and it was obvious he had the same thought I had. He turned and ran back down the side street. Now it was my turn to follow, and once again to chase him, all these years later. Somehow he had gotten a lot faster than me.
Down the incline, past his car, to the bottom of the street where the two railroad bridges passed over. Then he stopped dead.
He was looking at that one spot, where the trail ran up to the breadbox.
Darkness. No movement.
Then something.
I was still a good thirty yards away when I saw the man step out from the trail. Even from where I was I could see that he was a twig of a man. He was a sliver. The two of them stood there looking at each other. I stopped running.
I waited to see what would happen. After all these years.
That’s when the vehicle came barreling down the side street. I looked back and was blinded by the headlights. Everything that came next happened before I could even think about how to react. I recognized that same green minivan, made the connection with Ryan Grayson. I heard the screech of the tires as the vehicle came to a sliding halt. The driver’s side door opening and Ryan Grayson himself practically falling out of the car. The dull thud of the gun hitting the road, then Grayson picking it up and waving it wildly at the two men on the sidewalk. Darryl King grabbing his brother by the shoulders and pushing him to the ground, as Grayson came closer and aimed the gun at both of them, at point-blank range now. Nothing could stop him at this point. Just one more little movement of one finger and it would be done.
But it didn’t happen.
Everything frozen in that one instant. Darryl and Tremont King on the concrete, waiting to see which one would get shot first. Ryan Grayson with the gun pointed and then the look on his face of a man about to pull the trigger. Then the bewilderment that it wasn’t happening. That a bullet wasn’t tearing into flesh.
I saw Tanner Paige through the passenger’s-side window. He was looking out at the whole scene with his hands on his head.
That’s when the second vehicle came. A sleek dark SUV. Then the third and the fourth and a few more that I stopped counting.
The agents came streaming out of their vehicles, all wearing black bulletproof vests with FBI on the back in white letters. They yelled at Grayson to drop the gun and to lie down on the street. They yelled at Paige to exit the vehicle with his hands on his head. They yelled at Darryl and Tremont King to stay exactly where they were, not moving a single muscle. Everyone complied.
An agent came up to me and told me to put my hands on my head, just as they had done to Paige. It was all still an underwater dream to me, but I knew enough to cooperate, and a moment later I felt the cold sting of the handcuffs being put on my left wrist. Before he could do the other wrist, I heard a voice from behind us telling him to let me go.
The handcuff was removed. The agent pushed by me to assist his teammates in securing the area. There were at least seven, maybe eight vehicles now, with their headlights blazing from both ends of the street. The whole scene lit up in sudden bright clarity like a nighttime movie shoot.
I still hadn’t made the connection. How all of this could have happened. How Grayson and Paige could end up here, first of all. Here on this lonely back-alley street that I had only discovered myself a matter of hours ago. Then a whole goddamned team of FBI agents, right behind them.
But of course, I knew that voice behind me. The familiar voice of the agent who ordered me uncuffed. I turned to see her face.
“It was you,” I said to FBI Agent Janet Long. “You set me up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It was my first time inside the McNamara Federal Building. The FBI occupied the twenty-sixth floor. Everything was gleaming and immaculate. The room I sat in was worlds away from the old Detroit precinct interview room, where you’d find food wrappers, coffee stains, and a wobbly table and chairs that should have been put out on the street years before.
I sat there with my hands folded together on the table. The door opened. Agent Fleury came in. Janet’s partner. I didn’t look up.
“How are you doing?” he said. “Can I get you anything?”
I didn’t answer.
“Look,” he said, sitting down across from me and putting his leather portfolio on the table. “You have to understand something. This is a person who brutally killed seven different women in seven different states. Now possibly eight women in eight states, if the information you’ve developed is correct.”
He sat there and waited for me to say something. I didn’t.
“I’m really curious, Alex. What did you think we were going to do? Just sit around and wait for something to fall in our laps? After we’ve been working on this guy for years?”
He opened up his portfolio, took out a piece of paper, and slid it across the table. I didn’t bother looking at it. I was reasonably sure I knew what it was anyway.
“For the record,” he said, “this was my call. Not Janet’s. The law is very clear on this point. We contacted the judge. He verbally approved the warrant. We don’t have to have it in our possession. We only have to know it’s on the way. So that part was covered.”
“Is the GPS tracker still attached to my truck?” I said, finally speaking up. “Or are you going to track me all the way back to Paradise?”
“The device has been removed.”
“You said this was your call.”
“Yes.”
“Was it your call to have Janet take me for our little walk around downtown, so you’d have the chance to attach it?”
“Once again, Mr. McKnight… I mean, here’s where I should apologize for the deception, but I’m not going to, because sometimes the ends really do justify the means. In this case, it’s not even close. It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made. I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”