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“Pull up,” Sierra said. “Let’s see if these kids saw anything.”
Ace slanted a dubious look her way. “You really think they’ll talk to us?”
With all the emphasis in the news on children avoiding strangers, Ace suspected this gaggle would scatter if approached by adults.
“Not you, most likely, but let me give it a shot in my doctor get-up—unless you have a better idea.”
“Fresh out of those,” he admitted as he pulled to the curb around the corner.
She jumped out and headed directly to the group of about ten, which looked to be anywhere from about eleven to maybe fourteen or fifteen years of age. Though a couple darted suspicious looks in his direction, most ignored him, sitting out of earshot about thirty yards away.
While Sierra talked, the two biggest boys continued tossing the football back and forth, spiraling it aggressively fast and close as if to let her know they didn’t appreciate her barging into their domain uninvited.
That ended when Sierra deftly snatched the pigskin from the air and tucked it close to her white lab coat. After that she gained the whole group’s full attention. But over the course of their brief conversation, Ace saw the crossed arms and hostile faces give way to gestures toward the south and nods before a number of the kids started talking excitedly at once.
A few minutes later she nodded approvingly before tossing back the football to the tallest boy and trotting back toward the car. Several of the younger kids waved after her, big smiles on their faces, and the biggest girl pumped her fist and yelled, loudly enough for Ace to make out, “You go take out that trash, Doc!”
“Down that way,” she said, pointing in the same direction the kids had pointed out. “They saw the Camaro speed past—almost hit the littlest boy there.”
“You’re sure it’s the same guy?”
“Oh, yeah. I told them I was an ER doctor, and my detective friend and I were tracking down this guy who’d beat up his little girl and then skipped out on the hospital bill.” Her seat belt snapped crisply into place.
“I see that once again,” Ace said as he sped off, “I’ve vastly underestimated your skills. You’re not only a genius when it comes to improvising, you’re also not half-bad with kids.”
“Kids are very cool. I’ve done some coaching with my friend Brie down at the gym.” She winced. “I hope they aren’t too upset when they hear that fake news report about my—my so-called murder.”
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “You coach boxing?”
“Sure. Cops’ve got a program in my neighborhood, and it’s been a way to pay them back...for being there for me back when I needed them.”
“After your mom took off? Weren’t there any other relatives, or family friends to help look after you?”
Her face tightened. “Listen, Ace. I promised you, back after Ice Veins, that I’d earn that money that Selina gave me for bringing you in by helping to clear your name. But the personal part of this conversation is over.”
“That’s not what you want. You’re just scared. Scared of getting in too deep. Afraid of being trapped.”
“So let’s just focus on getting your father’s real shooter in custody,” she went on, talking over his objection as if she hadn’t heard it, “so I can be safely on my way.”
Part of him wanted to shout at her, to tell her that she couldn’t go. He’d be damned if he’d let her get herself killed just to prove a point. But right now they had a would-be murderer to track down, and a thick tangle of crucial questions that needed answering—questions of who this vaguely familiar-looking younger man was, why he wanted Payne Colton dead and what, if anything, he knew about the circumstances of the baby switch that had taken place forty years before, along with a mind-boggling string of other crimes.
Which meant, Ace reminded himself, that just as Sierra had reminded him earlier, he needed to keep his temper in check. To tamp down his fury—along with the desire to shoot the worthless piece of trash with his own gun the first chance that he had.
Chapter 14
Five minutes became ten, neither of them daring to speak as the tension coiled in their bellies wound itself up ever tighter and the red needle on the Porsche’s speedometer crept higher.
The longer they drove with no sign of the Camaro, the more worried Sierra grew that this chase had been nothing but a fool’s errand—and even worse, one that was wasting valuable time as the sun slipped out of sight. Had she been working a job on her own, she would’ve known better than to blunder through town like this, rushing around after a high-stakes suspect that she no longer had eyes on.
The moment she’d realized that she didn’t have her cell phone on her, she would’ve pulled over somewhere to alert the authorities, offering a description and her best estimate of speed and direction. Surely, in a case like this one, they’d quickly put a BOLO over the radio and have the whole department looking, giving them a far greater chance of taking the shooter into custody before anyone else could be hurt.
She knew she wasn’t thinking rationally, hadn’t been since Ace had told her the man lurking in his father’s room had intended not only to finish off Payne Colton and Ace himself, but also to plant the gun in Ace’s own dead hand. The moment he had told her that, all her professionalism, her experience and objectivity, went flying out the window. She’d ignited from the inside, burning with the need to bring in this monster, even if it turned out to be her parting gift to a man she knew she’d never forget.
When she looked over at Ace, she saw that he was even further gone, his grip on the sports car’s steering wheel white-knuckled and a muscle in his clenched jaw twitching as his fierce gaze swept the buildings they passed leaving the town center. In hunting mode, he’d lost sight of any possibility other than the outcome he so desperately desired.
She drew in a deep breath, knowing she needed to be the one to reel him in. “We need to turn around, Ace. It’s past time we called for backup.”
“He has to be out this way somewhere. You said yourself that’s what those kids told you—unless you think they might’ve been lying?”
