Criss Cross

Chapter 19

He was big and outweighed Marlene Rogers by a solid hundred pounds at least, maybe more. He clamped a gloved hand over her mouth and wrapped his other arm around her neck.

He started dragging the waitress as we bolted from the squad car and ran down the street toward them. He’d taken her through the hedge by the time we reached her car.

We went through the hedge, guns drawn, and found ourselves on a lawn behind the parking lot of another, larger apartment complex.

He was maybe fifty yards away, dressed in black from his boots to his face mask and hood. Rogers had stopped squirming, and he was hustling her toward the open side door of a beige panel van. We sprinted at him, me slower and more off balance than Sampson but refusing to stop.

Still not seeing us, he turned, keeping the waitress in front of him, and tried to pull her back into the van. But when he did, she dug in her heels and drove herself backward, going with his momentum. It threw him off balance, and he let go of her mouth long enough for her to scream and strike at his ribs with her elbow.

He grunted, swore, reached behind.

“Police!” Sampson shouted, gun up, coming between two parked cars about thirty yards away from them. “Let her go!”

The man put a Glock to Marlene’s head. In a flat voice, he said, “If you want her to live, you let me go.”

“Let her go now!” I said, coming at him from a slightly different angle.

“Stay where you are, or I’ll kill her,” he said. “I’ve got nothing to lose. I swear I’ll kill the bitch out of spite.”

Before we could say anything in response, a shot rang out, then another.

Sampson and I dived for cover.

But we needn’t have.

The big guy wasn’t the one who’d fired the gun. One bullet went through his right shoulder, which caused his arm to buckle and sag, and the second round struck him four inches higher, entering the side of his neck.

He went limp as a rag doll and let go of the gun and Marlene Rogers. Then he fell backward and landed half in and half out of the panel van.

The waitress let out a shriek and ran. I tried to grab at her from my knees as she passed. “You’re okay!”

“No, I’m not!” she screamed. “I have to make sure Eddie’s safe!”

She got by me and tore toward the cedar hedge, sobbing hysterically.

Sampson and I lurched up and got into combat shooting crouches, still on high alert, guns aimed toward the darkness where the two shots had come from.

FBI special agent Kyle Craig stepped from the shadows, right hand and service weapon hanging at his side, his open left palm raised in salute and surrender.