Little Girl Gone

11

There was only about a ten-foot section of sidewalk blocked off on Logan’s side of the street. He moved over to the tape, then checked the man again. The guy was focused on the emergency crews, and had apparently still not noticed him. As soon as Logan was sure no cops or firemen were looking in his direction, he ducked under the tape.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be in there,” a woman in the crowd said.

Logan ignored her, and moved with purpose across the short bit of no man’s land to the tape on the other side, then ducked under and joined the handful of people standing there. He then checked to make sure Tooney’s assailant was still in the same place.

Only he wasn’t.

Logan stepped off the curb, searching the crowd where the man had been standing. Suddenly the assailant emerged from the back of the crowd, took a quick look at Logan, then sprinted away down the sidewalk. Logan swept around an older couple watching the action from the middle of the road, then rushed after the man.

It was immediately apparent the guy had not chosen the best escape route. There were no cross streets or driveways on the east side Pacific Avenue in that area, so he and Logan were hemmed in between homes and apartments on the right, and a near solid line of parked cars on the left. And while the man may have been in pretty good shape, it was doubtful he was a runner like Logan. With every stride the distance between them shrank.

Forty feet, thirty-five, thirty.

Then, just a little ahead of them, a pickup truck pulled out from the curb, creating an opening in the wall of parked cars. The man seized the opportunity, and shot through it into the street, crossing at a diagonal to the other side where there were plenty of cross streets to chose from.

As Logan neared the opening, the gate of one of the properties opened, and a woman emerged, stepping directly into his path. He twisted to his left, grazing a parked sedan at the curb, to get around her.

“Hey, watch it!” she yelled.

Having lost some of the ground he’d gained, Logan raced through the opening as fast as he could. Crossing the street, he noticed a police car speeding down Pacific, its lights flashing. The job at Aaron’s place apparently done, some other crisis in the city was in need of the cops’ presence.

Ahead, Tooney’s attacker ducked off Pacific onto what turned out to be a block-long pedestrian street with houses lining either side. Logan dug deep, attempting to once more close the gap, but was only halfway down the wide walking path when the man turned to the right at the end of the block, and moved out of sight.

He turned just barely in time to see the man veer onto a narrow walkway between two of the houses on the left, and disappear again.

Logan followed right behind him, closing the distance between them to twenty feet as he burst out onto the concrete pathway of the Venice Boardwalk that ran along the front of the houses. On the other side of the path was a strip of grass, then the wide sandy beach.

The man had gone to the right, so Logan did the same. Unlike the roads they’d run on to this point, there were others around now—joggers and walkers and people with dogs. Logan weaved in and out, anticipating those in front of him, and trying not to get tangled up in any leashes.

To Logan’s left, the grassy strip that separated the path from the sand gave way to a mostly empty parking lot. Ahead, he could see the road that led into the lot, and thought there was at least a fifty percent chance the man would turn down it and head away from the beach. But when the guy got there, he kept going straight.

That was fine by Logan. The fewer turns they took, the quicker he would catch him.

As he swung around a middle-aged man walking a border collie, intending to cross the street and continue down the concrete boardwalk, a police car pulled across his path, and slammed on its brakes.

Logan cut to the right to run behind it as the doors flew opened on both sides, and two officers jumped out.

“Stop right there!” one of them yelled.

Logan continued around the back of the car, not interested in whoever they were after.

“You! Stop now!”

Just as he realized the words seemed to be meant for him, the officer from the passenger side rushed forward and tackled him to the ground.

“Don’t know how to listen, do you?” he said in Logan’s ear.

Logan had to fight the instinct to struggle to get free. As much as he wanted to catch the guy who’d hurt Tooney, he knew enough not to mess with the cops.

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” he said.

“Really? So you weren’t the one running away from the crime scene?”

Are you kidding me? Logan thought. But he didn’t respond to the question, knowing it would be better to keep his mouth shut.

The officer pulled Logan’s arms behind his back. “Sorry, can’t hear you.” When Logan still didn’t say anything, he snickered.

After Logan was cuffed, the cop and his partner got him to his feet, and guided him into the back of their squad car. Once the door was shut, he looked out the window in the direction the other man had run, but wherever the son of a bitch was, Logan couldn’t see him anymore.

So damn close.

As they rode away, Logan still had no idea why the cops had stopped him. It was hard to believe they would have come after him just because they’d seen him running. He could easily just have been someone late for work, or out for a jog.

They turned down Pacific and took him all the way back to the taped off area in front of Aaron’s house. Without a word, the cops got out and headed onto the property, leaving him sitting there alone.

As he waited, his thoughts turned to the man he’d been chasing. One thing he knew for sure now was that what had happened in the back of Tooney’s restaurant, and whatever was going on with his granddaughter were related. There was no other explanation for why Tooney’s attacker had shown up at the home of Elyse’s boyfriend—or friend or acquaintance or whatever Aaron was.

Just as Logan was beginning to wonder how long his new police buddies were going to leave him by himself, they reemerged through the gate of the damaged property with two other officers, and a man in a suit walking next to a woman in jeans and a red turtleneck sweater.

As they neared the car, Logan recognized the woman before. The last time she’d been wearing sweats and a baseball cap, but she still had the sleepy look on her face that she’d had when she’d found him in Aaron’s bungalow the night before.

One of the cops opened the door and hauled Logan out.

“Is this the man?” the guy in the suit asked her.

She looked Logan, then nodded. “Definitely.”