He quickly packed his two cameras and the tripod. Smoke was billowing into the sky and he heard the pop of glass as windows began to burst. The authorities would soon be here. And I will be long gone. Hefting his backpack, he jogged around the building to the lake side where he’d left his boat tied to the dock.
“You there. Stop.” It was a thin, ragged cry, but he heard it. Spinning around, he found himself face-to-face with the security guard, who staggered forward, dazed. Blood oozed from the open wound on his head. Albert hadn’t hit him hard enough. The man held his radio in one bloody hand, a gun in the other. “Stop or I’ll shoot. I will.”
Not today, Pops. Calmly he drew his own gun and fired. The guard’s mouth fell open in shock. He dropped to his knees, then collapsed for the second time that night.
“Shoulda stayed down, Pops,” he muttered. He ran to his boat and dropped his pack inside. With a quiet roar, the motor engaged. Quickly he pulled off the ski mask he wore. If anyone saw him now he could claim he’d seen the smoke and was coming to help, versus trying to flee. But nobody saw him. Nobody ever did.
Which made listening to their whispered secrets so much easier. He patted the cameras in his pack. Which made taking their money so much easier still. I love my job.
Oh my God oh my God oh my God. From behind the tree where he’d hidden, Austin Dent watched the small boat speed away, his hands pressed to his mouth. The guard was dead. That man had shot him. Dead.
They’ll say I did it. Run. I have to run. He took a few unsteady steps backward, lifting his eyes to the burning building once again.
Tracey. She’d been behind him as they’d run from the building. But when he got out, she wasn’t behind him anymore. And when he’d turned back… All he could see was smoke. A sob of anguish rose up in his chest. Tracey.
In the distance he could see the lights flashing. They were coming. The cops were coming. They’ll take me away. Put me in a cage. No. Not again. I can’t do that again. He stumbled back a few more steps, then turned and started to run.
Chapter One
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Monday, September 20, 12:40 a.m.
Higher, Zell,” David Hunter said into his radio, his voice muffled by the mask covering his face. He turned his shoulder into the wind that blew the acrid smoke into the night sky. Suspended four stories up, the bucket in which he stood held firm. The belt anchored him to the apparatus, but his legs still clenched as he held his position.
“Going up.” Jeff Zoellner, his partner, operated the lift from the base of the ladder.
David adjusted the angle of the nozzle mounted on the bucket as he rose, aiming at the flames that had consumed the lower two floors of the structure before they’d arrived. None of them had gone in. Too dangerous. Their only hope was to control this fire so that it didn’t spread to the trees surrounding what had been a six-story luxury condo.
Thank God this place isn’t finished. In a few weeks there would have been people inside. There may be one. The guard was missing. If he’d been on one of the lower floors, he was dead. If he’d made it a little higher, there was still a chance of saving him.
Arson. David’s jaw clenched as the platform rose. Had to be. He’d seen it before, up close and way too personally. The wind shifted again and he flinched when the flames lurched his way. For a split second he lost his footing. Focus, boy. Stay alive.
“David?” Jeff’s voice was urgent amid the crackling. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” The platform rose a few more feet, lifting him alongside a large picture window. Every condo on the upper floors had them. He saw no flames, but smoke billowed from the smaller windows which had already burst from the heat.
But all the picture windows were intact. Made of impact-resistant glass, they didn’t burst. They also didn’t open. They were for the view of the lake. Not for escape.
And then he saw them. His heart began to race faster.
“Stop.” He leaned over the edge of the bucket in which he stood, so he could get closer to the window. It couldn’t be. Nobody’s supposed to be inside. But it was.
“What is it?” The platform lurched as Jeff hit the brakes.
Handprints. The faint outline of small handprints that somehow… shimmered in the light from his spotlight. What the hell? “Handprints.” And streaks, made from fingers clawing at the window, trying to escape. “Somebody’s in there. We have to go in.”
“Hunter?” Captain Tyson Casey’s voice cut through the static. “Do you see a body?”
Using the controls mounted in the bucket, David edged closer until the platform bumped the wall. Straining to see through the smoke, his racing heart sank. “I see arms.” Thin, bare arms and a slim back. Long blond hair. Not the missing guard, a man in his fifties. “It’s a woman. Appears unconscious. Window is impact-resistant.”
“Hold your position,” Casey told him. “ Sheridan, cut the nozzle. Zell’s on his way up with the saw.”
David felt the pressure in the line lessen as firefighter Gabe Sheridan closed off the valve from the ground. He looked down to see Jeff steadily climbing the ladder. Hurry, he wanted to hiss, but knew Jeff was doing it right. Doing it safe. For a moment he considered taking his own ax to the window, but knew the power saw would do the job on the impact-resistant glass a lot faster than he could, so he conserved his energy.
He glanced back through the window at the woman inside. She hadn’t moved.
She was probably dead. Don’t be dead. He peered through the glass, wondering if anyone else was in the room. Wondering if she could have set the fire.
Jeff climbed into the bucket, power saw in hand. David pointed to the far edge of the glass, away from the victim and her handprints, blocking out the mental picture of how terrified she must have been as she pounded and clawed, trying to escape. She might have set this fire. They needed to preserve her prints on the glass for the cops.
His air can was almost empty so he switched it while Jeff forced the saw through the nearly impenetrable glass until the hole was big enough for David to push through.
Jeff grabbed his shoulder. “She could have done this,” he shouted. “Be careful.”
“I will,” he shouted back. He climbed through, landing as close to the wall as possible in case the floor was weak. He crouched low and searched the room for anyone else.
But there was no one. Go. Get her out and go. She was light, her weight barely registering when he hefted her over his shoulder. He handed her to Jeff, then climbed back through the window and radioed Gabe Sheridan to take them down.
The platform backed away from the building, away from the flames that were still licking at the second floor. The paramedic was waiting on the ground to take the victim.
David pulled off his mask the moment his feet hit the dirt, Jeff doing the same. For a moment David closed his eyes, letting the air cool his face. The night air that would have been otherwise brisk was still hot all around them, but compared to wearing that damn mask it was like stepping into A/C. Medic Scotty Schooner looked up, grim.
David knew. “She’s dead?”
Scotty nodded. “Yeah.”
Jeff’s hand clasped his shoulder. “Sorry, buddy.”
“Me too.” David remembered the handprints on the window. “Check her hands.”
Scotty knelt next to the gurney holding the body of a girl David could now see was no more than a teenager wearing ratty jeans and a thin T-shirt. What a waste.
Scotty was frowning at the girl’s hands. “They’re covered in some kind of gel.”
David’s captain and two uniformed cops joined them, the three of them bending over the gurney to see her hands.
“What is this shit on her hands?” one of the cops asked.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it reflects light. I saw her handprints on the window,” David told him. “My light hit the glass and the prints shone. Fire investigator’s going to want to sample it. If she set this fire, she got stuck up there and panicked. There were lots of fist-sized prints, like she pounded, trying to get out.”