Kill Fee E-Book

Owen Laukkanen

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

In Saint Paul, Minnesota state investigator Kirk Stevens and his sometime colleague FBI special agent Carla Windermere witness the assassination of a local billionaire. The shooter flees the scene, but not before the pair see his face - and the blank expression in his eyes. Stevens and Windermere investigate and are led across the country, down dead ends and into long-forgotten cold cases, until they finally discover a chilling clue: a high tech murder-for-hire website. It's a break in the case but only the beginning. Who is the dead-eyed shooter? Who recruits the assassins? And who profits from the fee? It is a race against the clock, and the killer has his next target in sight...

Leseprobe

A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing Progam, Owen Laukkanen spent three years in the world of professional poker reporting before turning to fiction. He currently lives in Vancouver.

Praise for Owen Laukkanen:

‘Really terrific – characters that live and breathe, a just-right story, and chills aplenty. Highly recommended’ Lee Child

‘A page-turning blend of classic suspense fiction and chillingly postmodern amorality. Ingenious plotting, perfect-pitch characterization and evocative sense of place combine to create an impressive debut’ Jonathan Kellerman

‘The Professionals is a high-octane adrenaline and gunpowder-fueled rocket ride across the country from Seattle to Miami to Detroit and points in-between. What is remarkable about Owen Laukkanen’s debut is how skillfully he makes the reader care for his characters on both sides of the law. An excellent first novel!’ C.J. Box

‘The Professionals grips you on page one and doesn’t let go until the last, satisfying page. Laukkanen provides plenty of twists along the way while developing a well-juggled array of complex and evolving characters’ Alafair Burke

‘Fasten your seat belts, Owen Laukkanen’s The Professionals is one heck of a wild ride. A first-class thriller by a terrific new voice’ John Lescroart

‘Smoothly written, with a slam-bang ending, The Professionals is a brutally beautiful piece of work’ John Sandford

‘A coiling plot, insightful characters, and a tale fraught with danger. What more could any thriller reader want? The Professionals has it all. It’s top-notch entertainment’ Steve Berry

‘A fast-moving debut thriller with enough twists to fill a pretzel bag … The characters are as much fun as the plot … Let’s hope Laukkanen writes more thrillers like this one’ Kirkus Reviews

‘Laukkanen’s clever debut, the first in a new crime thriller series, compares favorably to Scott Smith’s classic caper novel, A Simple Plan … the story’s breakneck pace will carry most readers along’ Publishers Weekly

ALSO BY OWEN LAUKKANEN

The ProfessionalsCriminal Enterprise

First published in the United States in 2014 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of the Penguin Group, part of the Penguin Random House Company.

Published in e-book in 2014 and paperback in 2015 in Great Britain by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Owen Laukkanen, 2014

The moral right of Owen Laukkanen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

Book design by Gretchen Achilles

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

E-book ISBN: 978 1 78239 602 4Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78239 601 7

Printed in Great Britain.

CorvusAn imprint of Atlantic Books LtdOrmond House26–27 Boswell StreetLondonWC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

FOR ANDREW AND TERRY

Contents

Dedication

Kill Fee

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

Chapter 88

Chapter 89

Chapter 90

Chapter 91

Chapter 92

Chapter 93

Chapter 94

Chapter 95

Chapter 96

Chapter 97

Chapter 98

Chapter 99

Chapter 100

Chapter 101

Chapter 102

Chapter 103

Chapter 104

Chapter 105

Chapter 106

Chapter 107

Chapter 108

Chapter 109

Chapter 110

Chapter 111

Chapter 112

Chapter 113

Chapter 114

Chapter 115

Chapter 116

Chapter 117

Chapter 118

Chapter 119

Chapter 120

Chapter 121

Chapter 122

Chapter 123

Chapter 124

Chapter 125

Chapter 126

Chapter 127

Chapter 128

Chapter 129

Chapter 130

Chapter 131

Chapter 132

Chapter 133

Chapter 134

Chapter 135

Chapter 136

Chapter 137

Chapter 138

Chapter 139

Chapter 140

Chapter 141

Chapter 142

Chapter 143

Chapter 144

Chapter 145

Chapter 146

Chapter 147

Chapter 148

Chapter 149

Chapter 150

Chapter 151

Chapter 152

Chapter 153

Chapter 154

Chapter 155

Chapter 156

Chapter 157

Chapter 158

Chapter 159

Chapter 160

Chapter 161

Chapter 162

Chapter 163

Chapter 164

Chapter 165

Chapter 166

Chapter 167

Chapter 168

Chapter 169

Chapter 170

Chapter 171

Chapter 172

Chapter 173

Chapter 174

Chapter 175

Chapter 176

Chapter 177

Chapter 178

Chapter 179

Chapter 180

Chapter 181

Chapter 182

Chapter 183

Chapter 184

Chapter 185

Chapter 186

Chapter 187

Chapter 188

Chapter 189

Chapter 190

Chapter 191

Chapter 192

Chapter 193

Chapter 194

Chapter 195

Chapter 196

Chapter 197

Chapter 198

Chapter 199

Chapter 200

Chapter 201

Chapter 202

Chapter 203

Chapter 204

Chapter 205

Chapter 206

Chapter 207

Chapter 208

Chapter 209

Chapter 210

Chapter 211

Chapter 212

Chapter 213

Chapter 214

Chapter 215

Chapter 216

Chapter 217

Chapter 218

Chapter 219

Acknowledgments

1

The billionaire picked a heck of a day to die.

It was a sunny Saturday in early April, a beautiful afternoon in downtown Saint Paul, the kind of day that seemed to chase away any memory of the long Minnesota winter just passed. It was not the kind of afternoon for a murder.

An hour before the billionaire met his end, a plain-looking man and a beautiful woman met for a greasy lunch at the old dining car on West 7th Street, and when they’d finished, dawdled slowly along St. Peter toward the Mississippi River.

They made an odd couple. He was paunchy and balding, pale and comfortably middle-aged. She was brown-skinned, statuesque, and maybe even a little severe, more than a decade his junior. And though they walked close beside each other, talked easily, and laughed quickly, there was a slight hesitation in their manner, an unresolved tension. They were something more than simply passing friends.

They reached 5th Street and turned west, walked past the stately old Saint Paul Hotel and into Rice Park, an oasis of calm amid the rush of the city. The day was sunny but still crisp, and the park was filled with families and other couples, native Minnesotans and tourists alike. The man and the woman walked aimlessly, took a leisurely tack past the Landmark Center, with its pink granite towers and turrets, and then crossed through the park toward the vast Central Library. They bought coffees inside the Saint Paul Hotel, and then wandered back out and found a bench in Rice Park. It was a Saturday afternoon, and neither Kirk Stevens nor Carla Windermere had anywhere else to be.

In truth, they looked forward to these meetings, Stevens and Windermere both. They weren’t always so languid—work, the Minnesota weather, and the demands of Stevens’s family made routines a fantasy—but they happened, a couple times a month, maybe, and that was almost enough.

Windermere sipped her coffee and tilted her head skyward, basking in the sun’s warmth. “This is what I’m talking about, Stevens,” she said. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. Sunlight. Warmth. Vitamin D.”

Stevens grinned at her. “Summer’s coming,” he said. “You survived another winter. You’re practically a Minnesotan now.”

“Like hell.” Windermere glanced at him sideways. “I’m a warm-weather girl, always will be. No matter how many snowstorms I live through.”

“You like it up here, though,” he said. “Kind of. Admit it.”

“Maybe. It ain’t the weather, though.”

He cocked his head. “Then what is it?”

Windermere shook her head, the hint of a smile on her lips. She took another sip of coffee and set the cup down on the bench between them. Then she looked around the park.

People milled about, enjoying the sunshine, taking pictures of the fountain, the Landmark Center, the hotel, the statues of the characters from the comic strip Peanuts—homage to its creator, Charles Schulz, a Twin Cities native. Windermere watched a family crowd around Charlie Brown, all of them smiling wide, posing for the camera, laughing and jostling one another. She waited until the picture had been taken and the family had wandered off before she turned back to Stevens.

“It ain’t you, either,” she said. “So don’t get any ideas. It’s not the food, or the scenery, or the nightlife. Miami’s got Minnesota beat every time.”

“Then it must be the work,” Stevens said. “Is that it?”

“The work.” Windermere pursed her lips. “Yeah, I guess so, Stevens. It must be the work.”

TWO AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER, Kirk Stevens had driven from Saint Paul to the FBI’s regional headquarters in downtown Minneapolis, where he’d met a woman with bewitching eyes and a slight southern accent who’d sat him down in her cubicle in the Criminal Investigative Division and listened as he outlined a sensational theory about a group of nomadic young kidnappers. The woman was Windermere, and Stevens, a Special Agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, needed her help tracking the kidnappers out of state.

He’d intended to drop the case in Windermere’s lap and forget about it—he was, after all, just a state policeman—but Windermere had insisted he join her, put in a special request, and Stevens had found himself on a plane to Chicago less than a day later. It was the start of the roller-coaster ride of Stevens’s career.

A year or so later, it happened again. Carter Tomlin, a wealthy Saint Paul accountant-turned-bank-robber, an acquaintance of Stevens’s. Windermere sniffed him out. Stevens hadn’t believed her. Neither had her FBI partner, or her superiors, not until Tomlin had started to kill. Not until he’d dragged Stevens and his family into the middle of his murderous spree.

They’d drifted apart after that first kidnapping case. The second time, after Tomlin, they stayed close. Even amid the awful terror and the adrenaline rush, the sickening race against time and Tomlin’s dwindling sanity, Stevens had missed Agent Windermere. And though the FBI agent was about as prickly as a sea urchin, Stevens knew she felt the same.

So now here they were, a year after Carter Tomlin, sharing a park bench in downtown Saint Paul, drinking coffee and enjoying the sun, talking and laughing like lifelong friends. It was, Stevens thought as he looked around at the park, an almost perfect day.

ACROSS THE STREET, a silver Bentley sedan turned in to the driveway in front of the Saint Paul Hotel. Stevens watched it glide to a stop outside the building’s ivy-covered façade. Windermere nudged him. “Check it out,” she said. “Maybe it’s Prince.”

“I get it.” Stevens shook his head. “Because this is Minnesota, right? Everybody in a nice car has to be Prince.”

“Or F. Scott Fitzgerald. But I don’t think he rolls in a Bentley.”

“I don’t think he rolls, period,” said Stevens. “I figure at this point he’s pretty much stationary.”

They watched as the driver climbed out of the Bentley and circled around to open the rear passenger door. A short, white-haired man in an expensive suit stepped out to the pavement.

“Fitzgerald,” said Windermere. “What did I tell you?”

Stevens squinted across the driveway. “He looks old enough, anyway.”

The white-haired man leaned on a cane as he stepped away from the big sedan and started slowly toward the hotel’s front doors. Windermere cast an eye at her companion. “Barely looks older than you, Stevens.”

Stevens arched an eyebrow. Started to reply, but never got the words out. A shot cracked out from somewhere, cutting him off. Someone screamed. A split second later, the white-haired man collapsed to the pavement.

2

Windermere was on her feet before the white-haired man hit the ground. She ran across the cobblestone street and up the hotel driveway, dodging angry taxicabs as horns blared. Someone was still screaming. Bystanders ducked for cover.

The man was dead; Windermere knew it instantly. He’d taken the shot to the back of his head, just behind his right ear, and the results were not pretty. There was blood, lots of it. Bone, too. Gore spattered the driveway. Windermere dashed toward the hotel doors and ducked behind the big Bentley, wishing she’d brought her service Glock. “Everybody stay down,” she said. “And someone call 9-1-1.”

Stevens crashed in beside her, breathing hard. Looked across at the white-haired man. “Shit,” he said. “Where’s the shooter?”

Windermere crouched low and played the scene back in her head. Heard the shot again; watched the white-haired man fall. Pictured the entry wound and tried to map the bullet’s trajectory. “Sniper,” she said.

Stevens got it immediately. He twisted around and peered across the back of the big sedan. Behind them, the Landmark Center loomed, its myriad turrets and towers excellent vantage points for any would-be killer with a rifle and a scope. Stevens nudged her. “Up there.”

3

Lind dropped the rifle as soon as the target fell. He pulled the window closed and walked out of the room and onto the balcony surrounding the inner courtyard.

Already there were sirens outside. Word was spreading. People stood on the balcony, their office doors open, cell phones and paperwork still clutched in their hands. They shot quizzical looks in Lind’s direction. He ignored them and walked along the balcony to the stairs.

The sirens grew louder as he descended to ground level. The stairwell was crowded. Clerks. Secretaries. Librarians and curators from the museums housed inside the center. Lind walked past a tour group and descended quickly to the main level, then crossed the courtyard to the building’s front doors. He slipped around another group of confused workers and hurried out into daylight, passing a man and a woman on the front stairs, a black woman and an older white man, their jaws set, both of them moving quickly. Lind didn’t slow down. He turned right on 5th Street, away from the swarm of police cars outside the hotel, and kept walking.

» » »

STEVENS AND WINDERMERE hurried into the Landmark Center, dodging scared civilians every step of the way. It was chaos inside, people everywhere. Stevens pushed through to the inner courtyard, Windermere right behind him. “The towers,” Stevens said. “How do we get up there?”

Windermere searched the courtyard. Spotted a set of stairs. “Come on.”

A woman flew out of the stairwell just as they approached. Nearly collided with Stevens, her eyes wide and wild. Windermere caught her. “Whoa,” she said. “Slow down. What’s the rush?”

The woman squirmed. Fought Windermere’s grasp. “Let me go,” she said. “I have to find the police.”

“We’re police,” Stevens told her. “BCA. FBI. What’s the story?”

The woman looked at Windermere. Then at Stevens’s badge. “Thank God,” she said, pointing across the courtyard. “He went that way.”

“Who?” said Windermere.

“The shooter. He went that way. I followed him down.”

Windermere swapped glances with Stevens. “Describe him,” she said.

“A smaller guy. Brown hair in a buzz cut. Young. Mid-twenties, maybe.” She looked at them, her expression urgent. “He’s getting away.”

“We passed him,” said Stevens. “On the steps. We walked right past him.”

Windermere was already halfway across the courtyard. “You coming or what, Stevens?”

4

They left the woman in the Landmark Center and burst out onto 5th Street, Windermere in the lead, moving fast. She turned right and kept running. Stevens struggled to follow. He kept himself in decent shape, mostly, but Windermere was a heck of a lot younger. Plus she’d been some kind of track star back home in Mississippi.

Windermere reached the end of the block and slowed to look up and down Washington. Then, just as Stevens caught up, she took off again. Stevens paused, caught his breath. Then he hurried after her.

» » »

LIND WALKED WEST down 5th Street, skirting the high, windowless brick walls of the stadium where the pro hockey team played. He walked quicker now on the empty sidewalks, the sirens and the chaos retreating into the background. He walked quicker, but he didn’t run. Running would attract undue attention.

He circled the arena until he reached 7th Street, and then cut across the busy intersection, toward the bus station. Downtown was behind him now; the land here was vacant—event parking for the hockey arena, mostly. In the distance, he could see the spire of the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Lind cut through a thin copse of trees lining 7th and came out into a half-empty parking lot. He walked across the dusty gravel until he reached his car, and was about to climb in when someone called out behind him.

Lind turned and saw the black woman from outside the Landmark Center hurrying toward him. Her companion followed, about thirty feet back, both of them running hard, their faces determined. Lind watched them approach.

» » »

“STOP!” Windermere called across the parking lot. The kid did as he was told. He straightened. Turned from his little hatchback and looked at her. Windermere met his gaze and felt a chill run through her.

He was a normal-looking guy, just as the woman at the Landmark Center had described. Probably five seven or five eight, he had close-cut brown hair and was dressed like your everyday rube. He looked normal. Except that he didn’t. He didn’t look normal at all.

It was his face. His eyes. It was his slack expression, the way he studied her with no hint of malice, no fear, barely any comprehension at all. Windermere slowed, involuntarily, wishing again that she’d remembered her Glock.

The kid looked at her for a couple seconds. Then he turned around—calm, deliberate. Slid into the car and turned the engine over and drove out of the lot.

5

Stevens caught up to Windermere. “Why’d you slow down?” he said. “You had him.”

Ahead of them, the car reached the end of the parking lot and pulled out onto 7th Street. It drove fast, but not wild. Not out of control.

“Chevy, right?” Stevens said, pulling out his cell phone. “An Aveo, I think. You get the plates?”

“Yeah,” Windermere said. “I got them.”

Stevens had his phone to his ear. “Crowson,” he said. “Get a pen. The shooting downtown, the Saint Paul Hotel. We make the shooter’s ride.”

He handed Windermere the phone. Windermere recited the plate number and handed the phone back to Stevens.

“Get that to Saint Paul PD,” Stevens told Crowson. “It’s a little Chevy hatchback, gray, an Aveo, most likely. Get them looking.” Stevens ended the call and turned back to Windermere. “So what the hell happened?”

Windermere looked out to where the gray car had disappeared into traffic. Didn’t answer a moment. “I just lost it, Stevens,” she said finally. “The kid looked at me and I spooked.”

“Spooked. What the heck do you mean?”

“I just lost it.” She shrugged. “It’s like I was a potted plant, the way he looked at me. A cloud or something, insignificant. Like I wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t a killer.”

“You didn’t show him your badge,” said Stevens, “or your gun. Maybe he didn’t make you for a cop.”

Windermere shook her head. “It was more than that,” she said. “He just murdered somebody. He was making his escape. And he looked at me like he was waiting for a bus.”

She frowned, staring across the parking lot toward 7th Street, where the traffic slipped past, normal, like nothing had happened at all.

THEY WALKED BACK along 5th Street toward Rice Park and the Landmark Center and the Saint Paul Hotel. There were police everywhere now, and ambulances and the rest. TV news trucks. Bystanders. Like a movie scene.

Here we go again. Stevens flashed back to the kidnappers, Arthur Pender and his gang. Carter Tomlin and his team of bank robbers. He felt a brief twinge of excitement, and nursed it as long as he dared. Then he chased it from his mind.

Not your case, he thought. Not Windermere’s, either. This is Saint Paul PD all the way.

They waded back into the mix. Showed their badges to the uniform holding the line outside the hotel’s driveway. Then they walked up to the entrance, where the white-haired man’s body still lay on the pavement.

Uniforms lurked at the margins. Forensic techs combed the body. A couple dour-faced men in rumpled suits stood by the Bentley, sipping coffee, watching the techs. Every now and then one of them would crack a joke and the other would laugh a little, grim. Homicide cops.

Windermere flashed her badge at them. “Windermere, FBI,” she said. “Who’s working point?”

The men glanced at each other. Then the older guy stepped forward. “Parent,” he said. “Remember me?”

“The Tomlin case,” Windermere said, nodding. “You worked that poker game, right? This one yours, too?”

“At least until the FBI takes it off my hands.”

“No such luck. We’re just witnesses, Detective. This one’s yours.” She introduced Stevens.

Parent looked at them both. “Witnesses, huh? The two of you together?”

“Interdepartmental bonding,” said Stevens. “We saw the shooting from that bench over there. Got a look at your suspect and the plates off his car.”

“No shit.” Parent glanced back at the body. Then he pulled out a notepad. “Well, all right, witnesses,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

6

Lind drove the speed limit southwest down 7th Street, trying to blend in with traffic. Trying to ignore the little pinprick of panic that had started to itch in his mind.

The black woman would have memorized his plates. She would have called them in to the police. Right now, the police would be looking for the car.

Remove yourself from the scene without being detected. Don’t attract undue attention. Secondary objective.

Lind checked the road for police cars. Checked his rearview mirror, oncoming traffic, the parking lots that lined the road. He saw a couple cruisers. They didn’t follow him. He kept driving.

He followed 7th Street until it merged with the highway and turned south to cross the Mississippi River, and he drove past the lakes and the grassland and forest until he reached the airport turnoff. He parked in the rental car lot and waited as a man scanned something off the windshield. The man grinned at Lind. “Enjoy your visit?”

Lind didn’t answer. The man frowned and handed Lind a receipt, glanced back at him once before hurrying away. Lind was already walking to the terminal. He found a garbage can and tore up the receipt, just like he’d been taught. Then he rode the concourse tram to the main terminal building and found the Delta line.

The woman at the counter frowned when she read his alias off the computer. Lind felt the little niggle of panic return. “You’re a frequent flier, you know,” the woman said finally. “You could have skipped this whole line.”

Lind relaxed. “Next time,” he said. He took his ticket and walked to the security lineup. The guard waved him through. The metal detector didn’t beep.

He boarded the plane with the frequent fliers and the first-class passengers in the priority lane. Sat in his window seat as the plane slowly filled, as it taxied from the gate, as it careened down the runway and reached a safe cruising altitude. He didn’t look out the window. He didn’t read the in-flight magazine. He sat in his seat and wondered if the black woman and her companion constituted undue attention.

Two and a half hours later, the plane landed in Philadelphia. It was dark outside, and raining. Lind walked off the plane and out through the terminal to the parking garage, where he retrieved his car and drove away from the airport.

He drove along Interstate 95 over the Schuylkill River and into downtown Philadelphia, navigated the busy, rainy streets, and parked in an underground garage and rode the elevator to the apartments above.

He stepped off the elevator to his apartment on the building’s top floor. Kicked off his shoes and then moved from room to room, turning on every light he could find. When the whole place was daytime bright, he went into the living area and turned on the television and turned up the volume. Took a TV dinner from the kitchen freezer and heated it in the microwave, brewed a strong pot of coffee, and brought the dinner and the coffee into the living area.

It was dark out, and rainy. The city’s sounds were muted far below. Lind ate his dinner and drank from his coffee mug, sat on his couch in the middle of his bright living room, watching the television play an endless loop of movie previews. He sat on his couch all night, drinking coffee and watching the TV, praying his phone would ring again soon.

7

The dead man’s name was Spenser Pyatt, and he was very rich.

“Media conglomerations,” Detective Parent told Stevens and Windermere. “Satellite TV. Built an empire from a radio station out in the hinterlands.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Stevens said. “Fergus Falls. That’s where he started.” Windermere looked at him funny, and he shrugged. “Kind of a state treasure, I guess. Made a billion dollars with his own two hands.”

“I get it,” said Windermere. “This guy here’s the state hero.”

“Hero’s a bit strong,” said Parent. “He’s just a good story.”

Windermere looked across the driveway to where the Ramsey County medical examiner was loading Pyatt’s body into the back of the van. “Not so much with the happy ending, though.”

Stevens and Parent followed her gaze. Then Stevens cleared his throat. “You need anything else?” he asked Parent.

“Not unless the BCA wants to take this thing off my hands.”

“Not on your life.” Stevens shook the detective’s hand. Turned to Windermere. “Guess I’ll head home.”

Windermere looked at him. “Really?”

“Told Nancy I’d be home for dinner. And JJ’s got soccer tonight.”

“It’s not even four, Stevens. You don’t want to see how this plays out?”

Stevens glanced back at Parent, at the medical examiner’s van, at the big silver Bentley and the spattered blood on the sidewalk. He pictured the killer, saw the little Chevy slip away into traffic, and, yeah, maybe he wanted to stick around a little. But he shook his head. “Not our case, Carla.”

“Maybe not technically,” she said, “but we saw this guy, Stevens. We know what he looks like. We know who he is. Maybe we can help somehow.” She caught his expression and laughed. “Don’t even try to pretend you’re not feeling this, partner. You’re as pumped up about this whole thing as I am.”

Stevens was trying to think up an answer, something diplomatic that wouldn’t paint him as some boring has-been, when a uniform broke through the line and came running at Parent.

“Detective,” she said, huffing and puffing, cheeks red. “Word from dispatch. They found the shooter’s car.”

Stevens swapped glances with Windermere. Turned to listen.

“A gray Chevy hatchback,” the uniform told them, “as advertised. It’s a rental, Liberty Cars. They found it at the airport.”

Parent frowned. “They get a name off it?”

“Name, flight, everything. Guy took off out of state in a hell of a hurry.”

Windermere grinned at Stevens. “Out of state, partner. You know what that means.” She started back toward Parent, pulling her cell phone from her pocket. “Mathers,” she told the phone. “Hold up one second.”

She turned to Parent. “Maybe the FBI can help, after all, Detective. What’s our shooter’s name?” She raised her phone again before Parent could answer. “Mathers,” she said. “You there? What are the odds we ground every flight at MSP within the next fifteen minutes?”

She listened. “Yeah, well,” she said. “Try it anyway. There’s a killer on the loose.”

She hung up the phone. Turned back to Parent. Parent opened his mouth. Windermere held up one finger. Turned back to Stevens, still grinning. “Sure you don’t want to stick around?”

8

Parkerson took a late-afternoon break to check the news on his computer. He found what he was looking for and read with interest, a satisfied smile growing on his face. When he’d finished the article, he closed his Internet browser and reached for his phone. Then he paused.

He stood and walked to the door of his office, closed and locked it. It was Saturday afternoon; the plant was nearly empty. Still, you couldn’t be too careful.

Satisfied, Parkerson sat down again and reached for the phone. He dialed the number by heart and waited.

A man picked up. “Is this line secure?”

“As it ever was,” Parkerson told him. “The job’s done.”

There was a pause. “You’re sure?”

“Check the news. The job’s done.”

“Okay.” The man exhaled. “Okay.”

“I’ll be expecting payment,” said Parkerson. “You know what to do.”

“He’s dead,” the man said.

Parkerson sighed. “Dead and gone. Your wish came true. Now you pay me.” There was another long pause. “Okay?”

“Okay,” the man said. “Okay. I’ll get you your money.”

Parkerson hung up the phone. Opened a spreadsheet file and settled back in to work—or tried to, anyway. Within five minutes, the phone was ringing again. Parkerson answered. “What?”

“I killed him.” The man moaned like a wounded animal. “Christ, they’ll hang me for this.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Parkerson said. “I told you, you’re clean. No ties to the job whatsoever. You’re safe. Now settle your tab.” He hung up the phone again and sat in the stillness of his office for a minute or two. Stared at the phone, thinking.

An amateur, the guy was. A ticking time bomb. A liability. Parkerson studied the phone a minute longer. Then he picked up the handset again.

9

The visions came back. They always came back.

Lind stayed awake for as long as he could. He sat on the couch with every light on around him, the TV blaring movie previews until the neighbors beat on the walls. The rain drizzled down outside and the night slowly passed, and Lind sat on his couch and drank coffee and didn’t move.

Morning came. The rain didn’t stop. The sky turned light in the east and gradually the day came, a miserable, dripping, tarnished-steel day. Lind hardly noticed the bleak light. He waited for the phone to ring and prayed the visions wouldn’t come back.