I step toward him, to get a closer view of his face, but his hoodie and hat combined shelter his features. He’s tall. He’s thin. I can’t say if he’s athletic. What he is for certain is fearless. I’m armed and he doesn’t back away.
He’s definitely taunting me, or maybe he really does want to kill me. “Police,” I call out, though he knows who, and what, I am. We both know he knows. I’m simply proving I’m as predictable as he expects. At least one of us thinks he knows what I’ll do next. I do not. “Put your hands up.” I’m drawing nearer to him, one paced step at a time.
There’s a flash across his face, a smile I think, and then he cuts into the bushes. Damn it. He’s running and I already have his back. I can’t shoot him. So I give him what he wants. I chase. I take off after him, but I can’t just cut into those bushes without risking him grabbing me. I ease in and check my path, losing valuable seconds as I do. Once I’m through the jungle of leaves, I’m in the parking lot of the apartments, parked cars both my shelter and his.
I squat down, out of sight. There’s a building in front of me and another to my right and left. The apartment buildings are smaller structures than most and close together. I stand there, weapon and flashlight still in my hand. I ease around the vehicles, eyeing my surroundings with no human in sight. I listen. I wait, and then there are footsteps. I round an old beat-up car to find my man running toward one of the buildings. I charge after him at full running speed, and well ahead of me, he cuts in between two of the complexes.
Flattening against one of them, I watch him dart toward the opposite building. I remain in the parking lot, but I’m running again, trying to catch up with him and cut him off, and I’m close, when a kid no more than ten darts into my path. I all but run him over before I manage to stop, and the moment he spies my gun, he screams bloody murder. “Mom! Mom!”
“Get in your house!” I order, setting him away from me and cutting around him, but that small delay probably just lost me The Poet.
I’m finally at the next building, and I plant myself on the wall again, when suddenly Jackson is standing in front of me. I jolt with his unexpected appearance, alarm bells ringing in my head. My weapon points at his chest. “How did you get here?”
He holds up his hands. “Whoa. Whoa. Easy. I saw you take off through the bushes. I thought you might need help.”
“Where were you earlier?”
“Dave’s mother showed up,” he quickly explains. “She was freaking out. I’m good with freak-outs.”
“I told you to stay in your position.” My voice quakes with a mix of adrenaline and anger.
“I’m sorry.” He eyes the gun. “Are you going to shoot me for this?”
I don’t like the way he disappeared and reappeared, and I don’t know where that is leading me mentally right now, but it’s no place good. “Not yet,” I say. “Call for backup. Block off the apartment building. Now.”
He does it, and he’s just put away his radio when I hear, “Jazz!”
At Lang’s voice, I call out, “Over here!” And it’s only then that I lower my weapon from where it points at Officer Jackson.
Chapter 41
With my gun lowered, my gaze holds Jackson’s. “Follow instructions. I could have mistaken you for the killer and killed you. Search for a man in a hoodie and baseball cap. Get an army searching.” I rotate away from him, but only because Lang is in view. Something about Jackson at my back is no longer comfortable.
“What the hell is going on?” Lang demands, as I meet him in the middle of the parking lot.
“Aside from a murder? He was here. I stood all but face-to-face with him and then he ran. I wanted to shoot him, Ethan,” I say, one of the rare moments when I use his real name. “I really wanted to kill him.”
“You should have killed him. Why the hell didn’t you call me when you got the dispatch?” he demands.
“It all happened lightning fast.”
“And right here, blocks from your damn apartment. Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”
I hate when he curses at me, but considering all that happened tonight, whatever. “The victim, Lang. Focus on the victim. He’s the barista I talked to this morning after my run. My headphones came out and he heard the poetry I was listening to. He mocked it.”
“Holy hell,” he says, scrubbing his jaw. “And now he’s dead.”
“Yes. Now he’s dead.” A group of four officers exits the bushes, and Jackson is already there, greeting them. They aren’t going to find The Poet, but we’re going to go through the motions. Or they are. I focus on Lang and the bigger picture. “What happened with Roberts’s ex?”