Face of Death

Zoe stopped and unholstered her gun. For a single moment there was nothing but the dwindling noises from the fair behind her, and silence all around, and the man leaning in to fiddle with something in the engine. He was completely unaware that she was there.

It wouldn’t stay that way for long.

“Turn around and put your hands in the air,” Zoe called out, raising her gun and dropping into the correct stance to aim it. “Slowly.”

The man froze, his hand still within the hood of the car somewhere. Did he think she was talking to someone else?

“FBI! Turn around and put your hands in the air!”

This time, the message seemed to go through. He slowly and stiffly moved, raising his hands a little—only a little—and starting to turn. His right hand was clenched around something, something that glinted in the light coming from the fair as he turned, holding it at chest height. Not high enough. Not safe enough. What was that, glinting like metal? That thin object—could it be a garrote looped in his hand?

“Drop what you’re holding!” Zoe shouted, her heart pounding a mile a minute in her ears. Her hands were shaking, and she willed herself to find that calm center and hold steady. Now was no time for nerves.

He flinched at her voice but finished turning, the item still clutched in his hands. The way the light fell, the shadow of the hood cut across his face. She couldn’t make out his expression, his eyes.

“Drop it!” she yelled again, loud enough that there could be no mistaking it.

The man seemed to consider it for a single second. His hand moved, as if he were about to drop the item onto the floor.

Or to throw it at her, lunge forward, go on the attack. Zoe’s finger tightened on the trigger, ready for him to make his move. Everything slowed, stilled, millennia going by in a single breath as she reacted to his sudden change of posture. Muscles bunched, tensed, kicked, and he was springing away from her, not toward.

The split second of relief was tempered with alarm as Zoe recognized that he was running—making his escape.

He could not be allowed to escape.

She squeezed down on the trigger, trusting her aim, hoping she had guessed the trajectory of his body correctly. There was a flash of light and noise from the gun, and a recoil that snapped her hands back briefly even though she was used to it. Zoe trained her sights on him again, just as she practiced every time she needed to brush up at the gun range, bring the weapon back to aim before she could react to anything else.

He was on the ground, crying out, clutching at his leg. Her aim was true.

Behind her, Zoe could hear the clatter of running footsteps as the troopers moved in. She approached her target cautiously, keeping the gun trained on him, ensuring that the angle and trajectory were always correct even as she stepped closer.

“You are under arrest for suspicion of murder,” Zoe said, reading him his rights as she waited for Shelley to step past her and snap a pair of handcuffs onto his wrists. He made no more attempt to move or run, though he gasped in pain and tried to keep his hands clutched on the wound.

And as Shelley finished closing the cuffs, Zoe looked to the ground and saw the object he had been holding, that had caught the light and her attention.

It was the oil dipstick from his car.

No.

Zoe whirled around immediately, dropping the angle of her gun to point it at the ground as she stared helplessly in all directions. Her eyes took in the crowds that were quickly amassing, keeping a respectful distance from the source of the gunfire but wanting to see what it was all the same. Curious faces of families and couples, teenage kids with their friends, grandparents. All attention was on their corner of the parking lot.

Their cover was blown. If Zoe had taken down the wrong guy, they would never find the right one now. He would be long gone.

The arrest was made, and it was all they could do here and now. Zoe returned her attention to the suspect as Shelley helped him into the back of a patrol car that had come flying up the road at the sound of the shot. They had him in custody. She just had to pray that she had made the right call—and that this man was not as harmless as he seemed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

He sat in his car, waiting for an opportunity.

The Kansas Giant Dinosaur Fair was busy, busier than he could have hoped for. Some kind of special event bringing plenty of people his way. Just another example of the pattern making everything easy for him, clearing his way.

He had to be cautious, however. Night had fallen, and hours had passed while he sat in the driver’s seat, occasionally shifting his back to prevent getting too stiff. When the fair was at its busiest, it was too risky to attempt an attack. He would be seen.

Besides that, the lights from the fair were bright, and even cast some of their glow this way. He would be better off hunting in the shadows, finding someone who would not be seen until passersby were right on top of them.