The Runaway Reporter (A Police Procedural Mystery Series of Crime and Suspense, Hyder Ali #3) (26 page)

Pascale didn’t like what he saw.  It was too brazen.  A chase would inevitably lead to an arrest.  There was no way the SUV would get away with three cruisers in pursuit.

He had a feeling it was a diversion.

NINETY-SEVEN

Hyder saw the cruisers leave in a hurry.  This was their chance, he thought.

They took the exit and then raced down the trail Dante had told them about.

Lester was laboring even more, but Hyder assured him they were getting closer.

He saw the train tracks up ahead.  He knew they would reach it in a matter of minutes.

When they were almost there, Hyder screeched to a halt.

“Why are you stopping, bro?” Lester said.

“I have to go back.”

“Are you crazy?” Lester said. “The police will be waiting for us.”

“I dropped the file,” Hyder said.  It must have slipped out of his hands when he was helping Lester in the stairwell. “I have to get it.”

“Leave it.”

“I can’t,” Hyder said, looking back the way he just came.  “It has everything Francine had on Munn.  I can’t lose it now.”

Lester came over and put his hands on his shoulder.  “Hyder, you can’t help anyone if you’re in jail.  Let’s get out of here, bro.”

Hyder nodded. They continued down the trail.

They spotted the blue Chevy and quickly got in.  Hyder turned the key and to his relief, the car started.

He put the car in gear and then accelerated.  Up ahead was an opening and he turned into it.  He raced down the narrow road when he saw someone standing in the distance.

He braked hard when he realized it was Pascale.

He was blocking their path and he had a gun aimed at them.

“Come out with your hands up!” he yelled.

Hyder thought about reversing and going back, but it would only lead to a dead end.

There was nowhere else to go.  They were cornered.

“What do we do now, bro?” Lester said.

“It’s time we split up, Lester.”

“What’re you talking about?” Lester was concerned.

“I have to do this on my own.”

“You can’t give up now,” Lester said.

“I’m not giving up.  You will help me get out.”

“How?”

“Find a way to read the messages from the forum.” Hyder then rolled down his window and yelled in Pascale’s direction, “Detective, you are after me, not my friend.  You let him go and I’ll come peacefully.  He had nothing to do with it.”

“No deal!” Pascale yelled back.

“Then I’ll accelerate and you’ll have to shoot us.”

He could tell Pascale was thinking this over.  He didn’t want any bloodshed.

“Fine, it’s a deal.”

Hyder turned to Lester.  “The moment he takes me in, you get out of here as fast as you can.”

There were tears in Lester’s eyes.  “You take care of yourself, bro.”

“Thanks for being my friend, Lester.”

Hyder got out. With his arms above his head, he slowly walked over to Pascale.

NINETY-EIGHT

Lopez followed the courier van as it moved in and out of the city.  She kept at a distance, just enough for her to keep an eye on him, but not far for her to lose him.

She wanted to see which house he dropped the package off to. So far, though, he had not stopped once

She found this odd.  By her calculations, he should’ve made the delivery a long time ago.

What was he doing?

He drove around some more. Then at a traffic stop he suddenly accelerated.  He raced down the road and abruptly turned right.

Lopez kept pace, but when she turned right, he was nowhere to be found.

They were in a residential neighborhood.  Cars of all shapes and sizes lined both sides of the street.

She slowly drove by the parked cars to see if any one of them was the courier van.

When she was at the end of the street, she decided to double-back.  She reversed, and then realized there was a narrow road that cut right through the one she was on.  She kicked herself for missing it before.

She drove into it and found herself staring at the back of the houses.

Did he live in one of them? She quickly shook the thought away.  If he knew he was being followed, he would never bring her here.

If he was trying to lose her, he had succeeded.

She would return to the department, and, after getting his home address, she would assemble a team to go to his house.  She would get him, one way or another.

She exited the narrow road.

She spotted the courier van at a stop sign half a block away.

She didn’t rush up to it. Instead, she vowed she would not lose him again.

For the next half hour, she followed him wherever he went.

He kept a steady pace, one she could easily keep up with.

He then drove up to a building and parked in front of the entrance.

She stayed back and watched as he got out and went inside.

From the outside, the building looked decrepit.  The walls were grimy and stained black.  The windows were cracked or broken and also black.  The doors were barely held up by their hinges, and they too had a shade of black on them.

After waiting for what felt like an eternity, she decided to go and check it out.

She approached the front with her gun drawn and ready. She wasn’t about to take any chances. If this was a trap, she was going to be ready for it.

When she got near she understood what all the black was. It was burnt residue. The building had been through a massive fire.

Using her foot, she slid the door ajar and then peeked inside.  The smell confirmed what she had already deduced.  The burnt stench was thick and pungent, and it hung in the air.

She had control to herself from coughing.  She inhaled some fresh air and went in.

The interior was in worse shape than the exterior.  The walls and everything else inside was either charred or black as coal.

There was still some visibility. She went further in.  The building was open and spacious.  In front of her were machines with conveyor belts on them.  They hadn’t fared well from the fire, but she could still decipher what their purpose was. They were used to move goods all over the building.

She squinted.  It looked like a distribution center.

It then dawned on her. She knew who owned this building before.

It was the same courier company Luiz worked for.  No wonder he brought her here, she realized.

Two years ago, one of the machines had caught on fire.  It spread so fast that by the time the fire trucks arrived, the entire building was up in flames.  When they managed to subdue the flames, the building was no longer in any shape to function for its intended use. The owners decided to move rather than rebuild.

Lopez had read about it in the papers.  Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fire.

She moved passed the machines when she heard something up ahead.

Her senses became alert. With her gun aimed high, she moved deeper into the building.

She felt movement to her left.  She turned.

There was just enough light for her to see that there was nothing there.

She then heard a loud bang as if a door had been shut.

It had come from up ahead.

Had he left through another exit? She thought.  She wasn’t sure how many exits there were, but he would know, having worked here before.

She was in now another section of the building. There was a loading dock before her with several trucks parked next to it.  Like most things in the building, they were stained black.

She noticed a strip of light in the corner.  She moved toward it and found it was an opening for a door.

Her heart suddenly sank. 
Did he leave already?
She thought.

She pushed the door back, found herself almost blinded by sunlight.

She then felt movement behind her.

She turned but couldn’t see anything.  Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness.

The next moment she saw something shiny before her.

It came down and struck her on the arm.

She lost her grip on the gun.  It flew away and hit a wall.

She realized the shiny object was a metal pipe.  It came toward her again, but this time she moved left. It narrowly missed her by an inch.

Her eyes quickly adjusted to the low light and she found herself face to face with Francisco Luiz.

His eyes glinted as he prepared for another attack.

She looked around.  There was nowhere to go.

He growled and swung again.  She ducked and then rolled on the floor until she struck something hard and metallic.

It was one of the charred trucks.

She quickly flattened herself on the floor and then slid her body underneath the truck.  She came out on the other side and peeked.  She spotted Luiz’s feet. They were moving around the truck toward her.

She ran to the other side and got behind another vehicle.

She needed something to defend herself.

She searched behind her, but couldn’t find anything she could use as a weapon.

But then a reflection of light caught her attention.  It was a piece of broken glass.  She didn’t dare to grab it with her bare hands.  It would cut her in an instant.  Instead, she quickly tore a piece from her sleeve and wrapped it around her hand.

She moved toward the glass when she felt a shadow behind her.  Before she could react, a hand came over and circled her neck.

The grip was so tight that she began to lose her breath.

She kicked and thrashed, but she couldn’t release herself from the hold.

She suddenly felt lightheaded. Her eyes felt heavy.  They were slowly rolling to the back of her head.

She was about to black out.

She thought of Nolan and Hyder.  She felt like she had failed them.

NINETY-NINE

Pascale dragged him through the front entrance, up the elevators, and all the way to the detective division.

The moment he walked through the doors with Ali next to him in handcuffs, he received a standing ovation.

The entire division was congratulating him on a job well done.

It was why he had paraded Ali through the building in the first place.  He wanted to show his prize to not only his colleagues but his superiors as well.

One of them had been shot, and he, Angelo Pascale, had captured the person behind it.

The other detectives hollered and whistled.  They cheered and patted him on the back.

“Way to go!” one of them said.

“You da man!” Another chimed in.

Then the entire floor said in unison, “Pascale! Pascale! Pascale!”

Angelo Pascale grinned.  This was his moment and he wanted to soak up every second of it.

He was finally getting his due.  He had not only captured a fugitive, he had done so with zero casualties.

Halton came over and smiled. “Good job, detective.”

“Thank you, sir,” Pascale replied, with his head held high.

“Now take him in,” he said.  “We have a lot of questions for him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pascale pushed Hyder to the interrogation room.

ONE HUNDRED

They sat him down and removed the handcuffs.  His skin was raw and red marks circled his wrists.

He felt embarrassed for being dragged through the department like some criminal.

He knew what they wanted to know. What happened in Nolan’s house? Why did he shoot him?

He would tell them everything he knew.  The only problem was, would they believe him?

He wished Lopez was here to save him.

ONE HUNDRED-ONE

Lopez felt her life seeping out of her.

She knew she didn’t have much time.

The room began to spin around her.

She tried to yell, scream, say something, but the only thing that came out was a low groan from the back of her throat.

Her ears began to ring and her head started to pound.

Her eyes were now slits.  Soon they would be shut for good and she would be no more.

Then she felt something on her fingertips.

It was the piece of glass she had been reaching for all along.

With tears in her eyes, she willed her body forward and grabbed it.

She then swung it behind her.  She hit something soft but robust.

Luiz let out a horrifying cry.