He stopped, waiting for his breath to come back and the dizziness to right itself in his brain, then stepped silently from the trees. He was in the hibernating gardens around the memorial tower. The stone monolith loomed sixty feet above his head, and the moon glowed on the mottled stone and dark window squares like a checkerboard. Where the slope fell away, he could see the city encircling the black lake. He turned all the way around, studying the emptiness of the park. Naked trees, picnic benches, snow-capped grills, fire pits, deer tracks and footprints. Brandt and Lassiter were nowhere to be seen. He listened for their movements and heard nothing. Lassiter wasn't screaming now. She was hiding, or silenced by Brandt's hand clapped over her mouth, or dead.
In his memory, he saw the Enger Park Girl again. Limbless and anonymous. She was silent, too.
"Don't be a fool, Brandt," he called. His voice was picked up by the wind and whisked away. He edged closer to the base of the tower. His fingers brushed the stone. He switched off his flashlight and let his eyes adjust to the night, and then he began a slow march around the circumference, his back protected, his Ruger pointed at the trees. At each bend in the octagonal shape, he paused before taking the next quiet step.
Far below him, sirens were drawing near. Brandt had to hear them, too.
He almost tripped over Kathy Lassiter's body slumped against the rock on the north side of the tower. Her brown hair spilled messily over her face, and a dark stain of blood trickled in three streaks over her ear and along her cheek.
Stride bent down and pressed two fingers against the warm skin of her neck. She was semiconscious and alive. As he turned her over on her back, she moaned and stirred. Her limbs flailed, and her eyes fluttered open. She couldn't see him clearly, and she screamed as she saw his shadow over her and beat her fists against his chest. He clutched for her wrists, trying to calm her.
"It's okay, it's okay."
"No!"
Too late, he realized she wasn't looking at him but over his shoulder.
A cold strap wrapped itself around his neck and choked off his air. He felt himself being dragged backward, the leather biting into his skin and tightening around his windpipe. His gun dropped nose-down into the snow. When he took a breath, his lungs found nothing there, and his body seized with panic. He clutched for his neck, trying to squeeze his fingers under the edge of the belt, but Brandt had him in a death grip. His fingernails drew blood on his own throat. Part of his mind felt detached, like a spectator at his own funeral, and there was no pain at all. He found that odd. No pain.
His foot found a solid piece of ground, and he launched himself backward, colliding with Brandt's chest and tumbling them both off their heels. They landed heavily, body on top of body. He felt the grip on his neck loosen as Brandt's wrist lost its hold on the strap. When he breathed in, his chest swelled, and he clawed at the belt and ripped it away, sending it twirling like a piece of ribbon. Below him, Brandt cursed and rolled him off with a violent shove. He got to his feet, but Stride hooked his ankle as he ran and spilled him onto his face.
Brandt was fast. Stride reached for his cuffs and Brandt's right hand at the same time, but before he could reach either one, Brandt spun and knocked him sideways. The force of the blow dizzied Stride. He grabbed a fistful of Brandt's coat and hung on as the man pushed himself to his knees.
A flash of light and sound blinded and deafened both of them. Nearby, way too close, a bullet buried itself in the earth and stirred up a cloud of wet snow. Stride and Brandt both ducked and flattened themselves into the ground. When Stride glanced back, he saw Kathy Lassiter, standing and swaying, his own gun bobbling in her unsteady hands. He followed the dancing path of the barrel with horror, and as he watched, fire burst from the gun again, and the sound wave cracked through his ears, and he could feel the heat of the next bullet as it streaked past his cheek and sparked off the metal leg of a picnic bench. A couple inches more, and it would have drilled through his eye.
"Stop shooting!" he screamed at her.
He thought she was aiming for Brandt, but he realized she might have been aiming for both of them.
She fired again. This time her aim was wild, off into the sky. She staggered two steps, and her eyes closed, and the gun slipped out of her fingers. She went down to her knees and then pitched forward. The wound on her head was bleeding profusely.
Brandt rose up, running and slipping in the slush. Stride leaped for him but missed and wound up with a cold mouthful of snow. He spit it out and gave chase, but Brandt had ten yards and ten years on him, and he watched the distance widen between them. Brandt shot into the trees and down the hill, picking up speed. The sirens were almost on top of them now, and Stride saw the lights of two patrol cars fighting through the impacted snow on the access road, winding up toward the tower. Brandt saw them, too, and changed direction, veering across the hillside, away from the cars parked below. The trees thickened. Stride held his arms ahead of him, blocking the branches that scraped at his skin, and tried to keep Brandt in view.
When Brandt broke from the woods onto a narrow trail and accelerated, Stride thought he had lost him, but suddenly, he saw Brandt become airborne, his legs cartwheeling and his body twisting and landing in the snow. Stride saw the glacial rock that had tripped Brandt and leapt it smoothly, and in another second, he closed the gap and threw himself at Brandt, who was struggling to get up. He connected solidly on the square of Brandt's back, and the man gave way underneath him, his limbs splaying. With the heel of his hand, Stride slapped Brandt's skull hard, harder than he really needed to, and then found the man's wet hands and scissored his cuffs tightly around Brandt's wrists. He slid his belt out of his jeans and secured Brandt's ankles, too.
Stride took hold of Brandt's shoulder and turned him over and saw Brandt's face twisted like a mask, so caught up with fury that he was almost unrecognizable. Stride realized that everyone in this case was wearing masks.
44
Stride climbed into the rear of the patrol car. His willpower to stop smoking had evaporated by the time he reached the bottom of the hill, and he rolled the window halfway down, lit up, and blew a cloud of smoke outside. He was wet and cold, and his body hurt. He fingered the burnt skin on his neck, which looked like a red tattoo where Brandt's belt had strangled him. Brandt sat next to him in the backseat, handcuffed, saying nothing and gazing through the glass at the outside world.
First-timers always did that as the reality dawned on them. Freedom was gone.
The circling red lights of an ambulance flashed like a strobe through the interior of the car. There were police cars and cops everywhere. Stride took another drag, then blew smoke inside the car this time, and Brandt coughed.
"Lassiter's going to be fine," Stride said.
Brandt's mouth twitched, but he was silent.
"Here's what I don't understand, Mitch. You're a hotshot broker, pulling down, what, a couple hundred thousand a year? That's a fortune in this city. Why throw it away?"
No response.
Stride sighed and leaned back into the seat. "Lassiter told me it's hard to get rich by the hour, and she was probably making twice what you were making. I guess it's never enough, is that it?"
He looked for a signal in Brandt's face, but the young broker was sullen and withdrawn.
"Or was it the thrill of the chase?" Stride asked. "Were you doing it to see if you could get away with it?" When Brandt still didn't reply, he went on. "That's okay, you don't need to tell me anything. Get lawyered up and start negotiating a plea. We already have you on assault and attempted murder, so that's at least the next six to nine years of your life gone. We'll have to jockey with the feds, of course, because they're going to want you in federal prison for the Infloron Medical deal."