The End Of Desire: A Rowan Gant Investigation (40 page)

“Acknowledged. Okay, I see her,” a male voice
replied. “Tamm?”

“Ten-four. I see her,” another woman said,
her voice low against a backdrop of the calliope-like music from
the carousel.

Fifteen or so seconds passed and the radio
burped again.

“Heads up. We have a possible target
approaching from the south,” came Frye’s voice. “Red hair… Black,
full-length leather coat at my three o’clock.”

“Right on time,” Constance said, her voice
also now underscored by the bright tune of the amusement ride.

“I see her,” Tamm acknowledged.

The announcement served to instantly ratchet
up the level of tension in the van. Knowing how I was feeling at
this moment, I didn’t even want to imagine what it was like for
Constance and the rest of the agents.

“I’m on her,” Frye announced after a
desperately long thirty seconds.

“Make sure you give her some room,” Book’s
voice came across. “If it’s her, we don’t want her spooked.”

“Got it.”

Another half minute crept past at what seemed
like greatly reduced speed. The hammering inside my skull was
starting to make me feel nauseous, and I found myself wishing for
an economy-sized bottle of aspirin. I waited, my ears straining to
hear anything at all, as if some quiet transmission might escape my
notice. I knew I was holding my breath, but I didn’t care.

“False alarm,” Constance’s voice suddenly
blipped from the speaker. “Not her.”

“Dammit,” I muttered, as I allowed the
oxygen-depleted air to sigh from my lungs.

I looked at my watch and saw that it was
8:04.

“The real adrenalin doesn’t kick in quite
yet,” Ben offered. “Believe me.”

According to my watch, it was 8:15 before the
radio crackled back to life.

“Male subject approaching Mandalay,” Frye
announced. “Brown hair, blue over white jacket.”

“Acknowledged.”

“Probably some fuck gonna hit on ‘er,” Ben
grumbled.

Three minutes later, the radio burped with
Constance’s voice, “Subject handed me a note. He said a woman paid
him fifty dollars to deliver it. He said she told him to look for
someone who looked just like her waiting at the carousel at
eight-fifteen and that her name would be Felicity. Sounds like our
girl. I guess she wanted to size me up.”

“Did he give you a location for her?” a male
voice asked over the air.

“He pointed toward the storyteller’s area
back down the path, but he said that was about forty-five minutes
ago. I’m looking but I can’t see her. Too many people. But, it’s a
good bet she’s watching from somewhere nearby to make sure the note
got delivered.”

“Frye?”

“Nothing. I’m moving that way now.”

“What does the note say?”

“It’s one of the map handouts,” she replied,
her voice still muddied by the carousel music. “Display number
eight has been circled.”

“Eight is the Glacier motion simulator. It’s
closed for maintenance,” the male voice said.

“I guess she wants some privacy after all,”
Constance replied.

“We’ll need time to move into position,” the
voice came back.

“She’s sure to be watching,” Constance said.
“I don’t want her to get cold feet, so I’m going to start that way
now.”

The radio hissed for a moment, then the voice
answered, “Don’t get in a hurry… We need to reposition. Book, you
tail Mandalay.”

“Already moving,” he replied.

“Tamm, you fall in behind Book.”

“It’s not going to look right if we have too
many people moving into a closed area,” Constance announced. “Keep
some distance.”

“Acknowledged,” Tamm said. “Hanging
back.”

A minute passed then Constance’s voice came
across in a low tone, “There’s a huge crowd at the forest exhibit,
and they’re blocking the path. It’s going to take me a minute to
get through.”

Book’s voice burped in behind hers, but it
was partially drowned out by the sound of the aforementioned crowd.
All that really came through was, “Dam-t, -st Man-lay.”

“Say again?”

“The crowd,” he repeated, the transmission
somewhat clearer. “I’ve lost Mandalay. She was…”

Before he finished the sentence, the muffled
report of something that sounded far too much like gunshots popped
loudly from the speaker followed immediately by panicked
screaming.

“Shots fired!” his frantic voice fell in
behind.

“Everybody move!” the other voice ordered.
“Now!”

Seconds later Book’s voice was shouting
across the radio again, devoid of all composure, “SHOTS FIRED!
MANDALAY’S HIT! OFFICER DOWN! OFFICER DOWN!”

If adrenalin hadn’t been dumping into Ben’s
system before, it definitely was now. He came fully upright in his
seat as the frantic chatter continued to burst from the radio.

The device hissed for a second, then we heard
Book exclaim, “JESUS CHRIST… JESUS CHRIST… ONE GOT PAST HER VEST!
SHE’S BLEEDING BAD! WE NEED PARAMEDICS RIGHT NOW!”

“G
ODFUCKINDAMMIT!” Ben
yelped the curse as a single word before launching into, “GODDAMN
FEEBS CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT! SONOFABITCH!”

I was so dumbstruck that I couldn’t make any
words of my own come out of my mouth. I simply looked at him with a
horrified expression as the radio continued to belch frantic
chatter.

“Book! What is your exact location?!”

“Just outside the forest exhibit! Right
before the path splits! Hurry!”

“Found the gun,” Frye’s voice blipped over
the air. “But no shooter. The area is clear. She must have
dispersed with the crowd.”

“Washburn, cover southeast,” a voice ordered.
“If she didn’t go past Book and Frye, then she has to be heading
that way. I’m on the main path coming in toward you.”

“Acknowledged.”

“We’re locking down the park,” another voice
added. “SWAT will be here in two.”

The device continued to burp and hiss with
various voices for a moment, all of them reporting that there was
no sign of Annalise. There was a quick burst of silence, then one
of the agents came across the speaker, “I’ve got something. Red wig
in a trashcan outside the restrooms near the stuffed animal
workshop… Be advised the subject may have changed her
appearance.”

“WHERE ARE THOSE PARAMEDICS?!” Book’s
frenzied words bled through on the heels of the announcement

“Mutherfuck,” Ben muttered, a jumbled mix of
fear, anger, and desperation wrapped tightly into his voice. He was
already half out of the van as he shouted at us, “Stay here!”

He didn’t waste time closing the door, and
the alarm chime was dinging incessantly to warn of the keys in the
ignition, adding its irritating insistence to the already chaotic
swirl of voices issuing from the radio. The crash I had felt coming
was now exploding around me, and the outcome was as bad as I
feared, if not worse.

Sirens were filling the night air as they
closed in on the park. Their urgent wails were bold punctuation for
the overwhelming despair that was starting to tighten its grip
around me.

My heart was clogging my throat as I watched
my friend take off across the street at a dead run toward the zoo
entrance. I still couldn’t manage to form anything resembling
coherent sentences out of the distressed thoughts rushing through
my already tortured grey matter. I turned in my seat and looked at
my wife.

“Gods…” I whispered. “Felicity…”

Instead of finding a similar grief stricken
expression on her face as I had expected, what greeted me was a
thin smile as she slowly shook her head. She looked into my eyes,
then cocked her head to the side and clucked her tongue.

“Chienne
damnée
,” she said with a fluid Southern accent. “I
knew she was going to do that.”

A fresh dose of panic was injected into
my veins as the haunting echo in her voice hit my ears. It dawned
on me that I should have seen this coming, and that I now knew the
reason Felicity had been keeping so quiet. Her body was here,
but
she
wasn’t even
present—and hadn’t been for several minutes. Miranda had seen to
that. I can only imagine what my expression must have been as the
realization washed over me, but whatever it was, it seemed to amuse
her.

“Surprised, little man?” she asked.

Next to me the radio crackled. “This is Frye.
I’ve got an open maintenance gate on the southeast corner.
Washington drive, just north of Concourse.”

“Lawson, your team has the parking area. Did
you copy that?”

“Ten-four. There are maybe twenty to thirty
civilians on the lot. Parker, Bates, stay with the lot…”

The rest of the broadcast faded into the
background as I made a grab for my wife. I wasn’t sure what was
going to happen when I got hold of her, but I knew if I didn’t,
things could only get worse than they already were. As I twisted in
her direction, she jumped back, shifting to the left and out of my
reach. My seatbelt snapped tight as it achieved the end of its
tether with a jarring stop, biting into the side of my neck and
preventing me from moving any farther.

Whipping back around, I fumbled with the
latch, trying to pop it loose so that I could pull free of the
restraint. But, I wasn’t fast enough. My wife seized the
opportunity to scramble to the right, moving directly behind me
toward the side door. At the same moment the catch released and I
started swinging around again, the sound of the sliding door
wrenching open with a heavy thud added itself to the insane concert
of noises.

I twisted back around and grabbed for the
door handle, but the door didn’t budge. Reaching quickly, I pulled
up the lock post, mentally cursing the older van and my penchant
for habitually locking doors. The door popped open as I shouldered
my way out of the vehicle and stumbled onto the lot. My wife now
had a substantial head start, and she was gaining speed.

I took off after her, pushing as hard as I
could to catch up. My heart was already racing, but my earlier
horror was now replaced by determination as my adrenal gland
finally elected to dump its payload into my system.

Felicity was darting across the asphalt,
weaving between parked cars with the nimbleness of her petite
stature. She didn’t seem to be running from me as much as she
seemed to be running toward something.

I heard shouting voices coming from various
positions around the lot and the street in front of it combined
with a sudden rush of heavy footsteps in the distance. I suspected
the FBI team had spotted her and were responding.

My wife swivel-hipped around the end of an
SUV, aiming herself toward a petite, dark-haired figure that was
walking briskly up the aisle just beyond. I tried to follow but
misjudged the gap, catching my shoulder hard against a truck’s
mirror bracket. I stumbled, slamming sideways against another car.
In that instant I lost sight of my wife, but I could now hear the
angry screams of two women engaged in what could only be a fight. I
pushed off and continued between the parked vehicles, hooking
around the end of the SUV in the direction of the commotion, and
launched myself into the aisle.

As I ran out I could see the source of the
screams. My wife and the other woman were rolling on the pavement
several yards away. I ran toward them as I heard more shouts and
pounding footsteps.

I covered the distance as quickly as I
could, reaching out as I ran. When I made it to them, Felicity was
on top of the other woman with her hands clasped around her neck. A
stream of French was spewing from her mouth, and the only word I
could recognize was
chienne
.

Grabbing beneath her arm, I slipped my own in
up around her chest and latched onto her opposite shoulder. Using
my other hand, I dug my thumb into one of her wrists and wrenched
her hand free as I pulled her back.

Annalise coughed hard as I struggled to pull
my wife off her. Felicity continued to scream in a mix of French
and English, kicking as we fell back. With her free hand, she
reached around and took hold of my hair, wresting my head roughly
to the side. We both tumbled onto the asphalt, her on top of me
squirming and still kicking.

I fought to hold on to her, but the air was
suddenly forced from my lungs as added weight forced down on my
chest. Annalise landed on top of us, screaming her own barrage of
French-peppered verbiage. I heard Felicity begin to gag as the
tables were now turned. She released my hair and swung her arm up,
digging her nails into Annalise’s cheek. I heard her shriek as the
claws dug in, but the struggle continued. The shouting voices were
now right on top of us, and the footsteps were now shuffling nearby
instead of pounding in the distance.

A half second later, I heard Annalise
scream, “That’s mine,
chienne
!”

My unbearable headache instantly became even
worse, and I tasted blood in my mouth. An unearthly scream echoed
inside my skull. It was just like the wail I had heard the day I
cut the binding in our back yard. I didn’t know what Annalise was
claiming as her own, but I knew it had something to do with the
connection between her and Felicity.

My wife went limp then shuddered and began to
yelp as Annalise continued on the offensive. The disorientation of
Miranda’s sudden exit had taken hold, and Felicity was no longer
fighting back. I loosened my grip on her and, in a panic, I twisted
against the cold asphalt in an attempt to pull myself out from
under them before Annalise could do any damage to her. Just as I
managed to kick my legs around and started to extricate myself, I
felt both their combined weights pulled from my chest. In the same
moment, I was unceremoniously rolled onto my stomach, and my hands
were being pulled behind my back as handcuffs were applied.