“Help me, please! For God’s sake! I need help!”
Moss returned and shook his head.
Roberts frowned. He’d been hoping the suspects were hiding in back. Now he was beginning to wonder if he and Moss had just stumbled onto some weird sex thing. He took a loud step into the room.
The man whipped his head around. “Oh, thank God! Please untie me!”
Roberts didn’t move. “What’s going on here?”
“These people, they burst into my apartment. They had a gun and—”
“How many?”
“Uh, uh, three.”
“Two men and a woman?”
“Yes. The white guy tied me up, and—”
“They weren’t all white?”
“The girl was. The other guy, I think he was maybe Asian? I don’t know. Please, can you let me loose?”
“Where’d they go?”
The man grunted in frustration. “I don’t know. Come on. Come on. Untie me!”
Still not moving, Roberts said, “They didn’t go back out the front door, so where are they?”
“The fire escape, I think. What does it matter? Help me out!”
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“The fire escape. Where is it?”
Looking exasperated, the man said, “Bedroom.”
As Moss moved back into the hall to check, Roberts touched his radio. “Suspects are out of the building, probably around the back. Girardi, go check. Cruz, reposition to the lobby.”
“Yes, sir,” Girardi replied.
“Heading down now,” Cruz said.
A few seconds later, Moss reappeared and said, “The fire escape’s there, but nobody’s on it.”
Roberts nodded to a window at the far end of the living room. “Check there.”
When Moss ran past the guy in the chair, the man said, “Hey, this isn’t funny. Untie me. I gotta cold. My nose is running!”
Roberts walked over and leaned in front of the man. “I don’t care. Now shut up.”
The man turned away, unable to hold Roberts’s gaze. Under his breath, he mumbled, “He was right.”
“Who was right?” Roberts said.
“What? Nothing. Just do whatever you want to do. I won’t say another word.”
Roberts brought up his pistol and pointed it at the man’s chest. “Who was right?”
“The guy from before,” the man sputtered. “The one who tied me up. He…he said you guys would be a lot worse than them.”
Roberts leaned back. Whoever these people were, they knew Roberts’s team would be looking for them. No question at all now. These were the people who’d broken into the apartment.
“I see one of them,” Moss said. “He’s crossing the alley.”
“Take him out.”
CHAPTER 7
Quinn jumped the final few feet from the fire escape to the ground and whipped around, looking for Daeng and Misty, but they were nowhere in sight. Since they could have gone only one of two ways, and the first — heading to the main road — was out of the question, Quinn turned toward the back of the building, and weaved his way around several trash bins before reaching a narrow alley.
A little darkness would have been nice, but the summer sun was still a few hours from setting. Quinn checked both directions, looking for his friends, but the alley was deserted.
Directly across from him was a twelve-foot-high brick wall that extended for a dozen yards in either direction. To the left, it butted up against another building, but on the right there seemed to be an opening to a passageway.
Quinn eased down the alley, keeping as tight to the structures on his side as possible. Reaching the point opposite the end of the wall, he confirmed there was indeed a path that went clear through to the next street over.
He checked both ways again, saw that the alley was still empty, and raced across. Just as he entered the passageway, one of the bricks at the corner exploded from the impact of a bullet. He turned on the speed.
Ahead at the next street, he could see a sidewalk and cars parked along a curb, but between him and them was a tall, wrought-iron gate — chained closed.
Knowing the path behind him would not remain empty for long, he could neither turn and go back nor stop and pick the lock.
Without slowing his pace, he assessed the gate. At the top, the vertical bars ended in pointed spears that could not be ignored. Other than that, all Quinn had to worry about was the cracked, uneven cement on the other side, waiting to twist his ankle or break his leg.
He was fifteen feet from the gate when he heard a bullet whiz by his head and strike the side of the building to his right. What he hadn’t heard was the gunshot itself.
Suppressors. Not surprising, but it did confirm that the men shooting at him weren’t part of some average, everyday security team.
He angled toward where the fence met the wall, and leaped, grabbing the gate as he planted his right foot against it. Using his momentum, he scrambled up the V-shaped junction.
A second bullet hit the fence where his foot had been seconds before, then a third smacked into the wall, sending shards of brick onto his back.
He reached the top and flung his legs over, barely clearing the tips of the deadly spears. He dropped onto the broken pathway, and rolled as he hit the ground to avoid injury.
A double clang as more bullets hit the gate.
Getting to his feet, he could see one of the suited men preparing to take another shot. Quinn raced down the remaining few steps of the pathway and turned down the main sidewalk. Thankfully, there was more traffic on this street than there had been on Peter’s. He moved onto the road and shot through a gap between the cars to the other side, and then sprinted down the block.
As he turned onto the new street, he glanced over his shoulder. The suits were nowhere in sight. He knew it would be a mistake to stop, so he ran for two more blocks before allowing himself to slow down.
Not much farther on, the residential area gave way to businesses fronting sidewalks peppered with pedestrians. Just ahead, he spotted a bar and grill with a substantial happy-hour crowd both inside and around tables out front. He took a spot behind a group of twentysomethings, and used them to shield his presence as he watched the street.
“What can I get you?”
The waitress was a tall brunette dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt that was too small for her.
He donned an easy smile. “What do you have on tap?”
As she went through the list, he returned his gaze to the street.
“…also, um, Speakeasy Big Daddy, Blue Moon, uh, Rolling—”
“Speakeasy? That’s a West Coast beer.”
“Is it?” She didn’t really seem to care.
“I’ll take that,” he said.
“You got it.”
Quinn watched the road for another few minutes before finally pulling out his phone and sending Daeng a text.
Think I’m clear. You?
Ten seconds later, Daeng called.
“We’re okay,” Daeng said.
“Where are you?”
“In the basement of a building a few blocks from Peter’s place. You?”
“I’m in a bar.” Quinn looked around. “I didn’t catch the name. They chased me down an alley, but I seemed to have lost them.”
“A bar? I should have thought of that. Has to be a lot more comfortable than here.” Daeng paused. “So what would you like us to do? Stay put? Go to the townhouse?”
“No,” Quinn said quickly. “The townhouse is out. If Peter’s apartment was being monitored, then I’m sure the townhouse is, too. Just stay there for now and let me know if you have any problems. I’ll call you in a little while.”