Critical Pursuit (21 page)

NIGEL KNEW
his plan was perfect. Outside the home of the twin Special Girls, he’d watched enough of their routine that he knew exactly when he’d go in. The anticipation and excitement were unlike any rush he’d ever experienced. Just one more day and he would strike.

In his mind’s eye he pictured the girls, and then he visualized the headlines. The dog cop would be dumbfounded. And he’d be gone.

Nigel smiled. As quickly as he’d shown up in her life to celebrate their twentieth anniversary, he’d disappear like smoke. No one would ever catch him; he was a ghost. They just don’t hunt for dead men or ghosts.

He giggled like a lunatic.

BRINNA LEFT
her dad’s hospital room feeling as if she’d just worked four back-to-back shifts. But some of the tightness in her chest had eased.

My dad really does care. He’s proud of me. And he always has been.
Realizing how wrong she’d been about her father put a lightness in her step.

She thought about her mother’s comment, about how her dad had lived in a bottle for all those years the same way Brinna lived in her work. Both of them trying to avoid the issues and people around them, emotionally unavailable to everyone.

Maybe Mom was right. Dad blamed himself for my abduction; I blame myself every time I can’t save a missing kid. I guess I can see how I hide in my work sometimes. Just like he hid in a drunken haze.

Yawning every couple of minutes, she walked slowly through the hospital toward the exit, taking the stairs down to the main floor. The morning’s events had taken her by
surprise, sapped her strength, and left her wondering why she’d spent so many years angry.

Shortly after she and her father finished reconciling, her mother and brother had returned. She’d sat and listened while Mom and Brian chattered. Apparently her father had done what her mother had prayed for all these years, and he was “saved,” whatever that meant. It made Mom and Brian very happy.

Brinna listened. This God thing apparently led her father to do what he’d done, admit how he’d really felt for so many years. It had also given her father the courage to face his fate, unlike Milo. Dad claimed not to fear death; he said he had peace. He believed he would end up in that better place Jack had talked to Mr. Bailey about. Milo had written that he had peace, but he couldn’t face the cancer. Was he in a better place?

Now, standing in the hospital parking lot next to her truck in the early afternoon sun, Brinna wondered about peace.
I’ve never felt lacking,
she thought.
I have a mission, and it keeps me going.
The only time she didn’t feel peace was when some maggot got away with something. Like the dirtbag who killed Heather. She still didn’t see how believing in a God you couldn’t see and who let some pretty awful things happen could give you peace.

But so many questions nagged.
How do I stop hiding in my work? Saving kids is my mission. It’s not destructive like alcohol can be. But if I let it consume me, am I oblivious to life like my drunk father always was? Maggie thinks I’m missing out on life
 
—am I?
Shaking her head, she shrugged, too tired to think about it anymore.

She hopped in the truck and headed home, finally feeling like she could sleep. The journal could wait until tonight. Maybe she’d ask Jack later about this idea of Christian peace.

When she got home, she fell into bed fully clothed and was instantly asleep.

* * *

Jack scanned the street in front of the coffee shop and then checked his watch. Half an hour before squad. He rubbed his face. On one hand, he hoped Ben would show, while on the other hand, he berated himself for even calling his old partner.

“Sorry I’m late.” Ben walked up behind Jack and slapped a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks for meeting me. Especially after our last meeting, I didn’t think you’d show.” Jack extended his hand and smiled.

Ben returned the smile. “What’s past is past. I’m just happy to have the old Jack back. You are back, aren’t you?”

“Getting there.”

“Great. What’s on your mind? Pearce?”

“No, this isn’t about him. I actually wanted to talk to you about God.”

Surprise flashed across Ben’s face.

Jack directed him to a table, where they both took a seat. “I don’t think I or anyone else will ever be able to explain why God took Vicki from me.” Jack took a deep breath. “But I can’t deny God anymore either. All my life I was raised to believe the Bible was truth. It’s as much a part of me as Vicki
was. Though I haven’t picked up a Bible in a year, verses keep running through my head.”

“Which verses?”

“Ones about trusting God . . . about how his thoughts toward us are for good, not evil.” Jack paused and studied his hands, rubbing a callus with his thumb. “Bottom line, I can’t deny him any longer because the only hope I have left is that Vicki is with him, and one day I want to be with both of them.”

Jack wiped his eyes and cleared his throat before going on. “I’m angry, Ben. Angrier than I’ve ever been. God let me and Vicki down in a big way.”

“Well, last time I checked, angry is allowed. How can I help?”

“I guess I want you to keep praying. Pray that somehow, someway, I’ll be able to see some good in this. Maybe someday I’ll understand. And pray for Brinna. She’s got a lot on her mind right now, and I get the feeling she’ll be coming to me with questions. Pray I’ll have the right answers.”

“I’ll keep praying for you both, buddy. I promise. And it’s good to have you back.”

* * *

“How’s your dad?” Maggie asked breathlessly as she rushed past Brinna to her locker.

Brinna was just buckling her belt keepers. “Same. I saw him again today.”

“That’s good. Did you make up over what happened the other day?”

“Yeah, we did. And we talked for a while.” She checked her image in the mirror. “He actually apologized for being an absent father all my life.”

“Great.” Maggie patted her shoulder. “I knew he wasn’t as bad as you thought all those years.”

Brinna shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. But I wish he’d opened up to me a long time ago, not now, just as he’s dying.”

“Sometimes it takes a crisis for people to reveal their true feelings.”

Nodding, Brinna leaned against a locker. “Question: Am I really like my dad? I mean, Mom says he hid in a bottle all these years and I hide in my work the same way.”

Maggie latched her gun belt. “Your mom is a smart woman. What have I been telling you for years? Your life is the kids and Hero. Most of the time you shut everything and everyone else out.”

“What about you? I never shut you out.”

“That’s because I don’t let you. I’m a pushy broad. And I always figured something would crack your shell eventually. I wish it hadn’t been Milo’s suicide and your father’s cancer that opened your eyes.” She closed her locker and faced Brinna.

“How do I stop? The kids are so important to me.”

Maggie smiled. “Look around you. There are a ton of blue suits who do the same job you do. The fight is not only yours. Let some of that burden roll off to the rest of us.”

Brinna rolled her eyes. “I’ll give it a shot; thanks. And thanks for hanging in there with me.”

“That’s what friends are for. Let’s get to squad.”

AS SOON AS BRINNA
stepped in the squad room and saw Ben with Sergeant Klein, she knew something was up. “To what do we owe the honor?” she asked.

Ben grinned and held up a wanted poster. There, four computer-enhanced photos of Nigel Pearce
 
—tweaked for various hairstyles, glasses or no, facial hair or no
 
—stared back at her.

“Wow, you got him.” Brinna took the poster and read it with Maggie peering over her shoulder.

“We got his likeness,” Ben agreed, “and some solid ties to Heather and another little girl. It was like putting a puzzle together. We had some pieces; other agencies had pieces. Once we got together, everything started to fit. He’s been using the name Paul Norton. A drifter with that name matching Nigel’s description was questioned in two different abductions in two different states, hundreds of miles apart. In one case DNA had been recovered. Chuck rushed
it through the lab and compared it to a blood sample taken from Pearce ten years ago. It matched.”

Brinna looked up from the image of the monster. She didn’t recognize him today any more than she had ten years ago, but her instincts told her this was the guy. His face was now burned into her mind, and she vowed to catch him.

“This is great. I assume you have a trail to follow now.”

Ben nodded. “I’m giving everyone the information at the squad meeting.”

Brinna and Maggie sat down as Jack rushed into the room very nearly late.

“You seem rested today,” Jack whispered as he slid into the chair next to hers.

Brinna nodded and handed him the poster. Jack whistled low as Klein started the meeting.

When it was Ben’s turn to speak, he explained about the Pearce investigation and handed out bulletins. He didn’t mention Brinna’s possible connection but emphasized that Pearce was a suspect in the Heather Bailey slaying. He also said that Pearce’s wanted poster had been given to the press and would be all over the Internet and on the airwaves on the five o’clock news. A tip line was in operation and would be manned twenty-four hours a day for the time being.

Brinna glanced around at her coworkers. Everyone studied the poster. It made her smile. Pearce didn’t have a chance. And it didn’t depend entirely on her.

“I’m ready to go tonight.” Brinna clapped her hands when the meeting ended and she and Jack were heading to their
car. “It’ll just be a matter of time before someone sees his picture and calls with information.”

“This is outstanding,” Jack agreed as he took the passenger seat.

Brinna was up to drive first, and she hummed as they rolled along. She’d reconciled with her father, watched a vicious, inaccurate campaign against her start to falter, and now was certain she’d eventually put a monster out of commission. Life was good.

Except for Milo. She frowned. She was no closer now to understanding his suicide than she was the day she’d heard.

“You remember the journal I talked about last night?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Jack said.

“I had a talk with my dad today. He said a lot of the same things about God and peace that I read in the journal.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, he’s a changed man. A couple days ago I would have said that the change was only because he’s in the hospital and he can’t drink. But it’s more than that. He now believes all the stuff my mom is always preaching about God. He’s at peace.”

“Reconciling with God is a life-changing experience.”

“Is it?” She glanced across the car at Jack. “Sounds like your attitude has changed as well.”

“It’s changing; let’s just say that.”

“My mom would take me and Brian to church when we were kids, but my dad never went.” Brinna chewed on her lower lip and looked away from her partner, remembering
the family unit back then. Brian enjoyed church like her mother did, but Dad was always indifferent.
Do I take after my dad?
The question made her frown, but she didn’t have time to think any more about it.

Just then the computer beeped with an incoming message. Jack pushed the button and read the message. “It’s from Chuck. He’s got something. He wants to meet us at the convention center parking lot.”

“Hope he’s got something for us to check out,” Brinna said as she made a U-turn and headed for the convention center.

* * *

“Great news,” Chuck exclaimed as Brinna pulled her black-and-white up to his plain car. “We got him.”

“Someone turned him in?” Brinna tried hard to keep her voice neutral.

“Not quite. But as soon as the photo aired, someone called in. Until two days ago Paul Norton, aka Nigel Pearce, was employed by the city of Long Beach.”

“What?” Brinna and Jack exclaimed simultaneously.

“Yep. We didn’t find it right away because of the Social Security number he used. He’s been working a part-time seasonal position in beach maintenance. Makes sense considering his transient lifestyle. Anyway, SWAT is staging as we speak. Norton/Pearce gave an address out on the west side of town as his home. Want to join us?”

“Lead the way.” Brinna gave a wave of her hand as adrenaline surged. “Let’s go catch a killer.”

NIGEL CHOKED
on his dinner and bolted from his chair. Coughing and gagging, he stepped close to the TV and stared in disbelief at his face on the screen. Or what they thought was his face now, ten years from the last time he’d been photographed.

It was close enough. He ran a hand over his head, then jerked a drawer open, grasping for scissors. When he found some, he raced into the bathroom and began cutting in a frenzy. After a few minutes he stopped and took a deep breath, slowly exhaling. “Don’t panic; don’t panic,” he told himself. “You can’t think if you panic.”

It was then he realized he’d been living on borrowed time for ten years. Whatever mistake had set him free in the mountains had just been rectified.

“I’m still free,” he declared, putting the scissors down. “And I will not go to prison.”

He tossed the hair he’d cut into the toilet and flushed. Wiping his hands and face on a towel, he studied his
reflection in the mirror. He saw a sun-bronzed man with a spiky haircut.
Stylishly spiky,
he thought.

Calmer now, he went back into the living room and shut the TV off.
I have to move on. To stay here would be foolish.
But on the kitchen table sat his favorite pictures of the two Special Girls. Picking one up, he ran a hand over their faces.

He didn’t want to leave without them. He knew it would be best just to run now
 
—to go far, far away and disappear in some remote area. Peeking out the window at his neighborhood, he thought it inevitable that even though he’d made no effort to be friendly to anyone, sooner or later someone would put two and two together and call the tip line.

Grabbing his photos off the table, he tossed them in a travel bag. He’d run, he decided. But he wouldn’t be running alone.