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“He just left. He looked as if he was in a hurry.”
Eve charged outside, scanned in every direction. She caught sight of the two cops she’d assigned to the main doors giving chase. Cursing, she leaped down to the sidewalk, kicking into a full-out sprint as she yanked out her ’link, patched through to Dispatch.
“Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, in foot pursuit of murder suspect heading north on Fifth at Fifty-eighth. White male, twenty-three, slim build, blond hair, wearing black suit, white shirt, black tie.”
She couldn’t see him, not through the wide stream of pedestrians flooding the sidewalk. She dodged, wove, eating up one block, then a second.
Even as she gained ground on the two cops, she knew it was fruitless. When she caught them at the cross street she didn’t need to hear their report. It was clear on their faces.
“We lost him, Lieutenant. He had a solid block on us when we got the alert, and he was moving fast. We barely caught sight of him. He just poofed in the crowd.”
“How’d he get by you?” she demanded. “How the hell did he get by you?”
“Lieutenant, we were on watch for incomings. Wired into the EDD guys keeping us up on any possibles heading in. This guy walked out with a small group of staff. We’d just gotten an alert there was a ruckus upstairs, that we’d taken the suspect down. There was a lag between that and the notification the suspect was posing as staff and on the loose. We pursued as soon as we got it. We were lucky to even catch sight of him before—”
She cut it off with a lift of her hand. “We’ll debrief this clusterfuck at Central. Report back to your unit and await orders.”
She clipped back, furious, her face throbbing, and only shook her head when she saw Roarke moving quickly north toward her.
“We lost him. Goddamn it.”
Roarke took a handkerchief out of his pocket, handed it to her. “Your nose is bleeding.”
“I got clocked twice, maybe more in that riot. Knocked out my com, trampled my communicator. And he walks right out, right under the noses of two cops. He did exactly what he’d come to do, and had the extra benefit of watching us act like morons. What the fuck happened?”
“I don’t know.” He took her elbow to steer her through the Fifth Avenue throng. “I saw you go down, but by the time I was able to get through that mass of panic, you were gone. I came after you when Trueheart said you’d gone in pursuit.”
“A lot of good it did me. He was lost before I hit the sidewalk.”
As she approached the building, arrowing through the people congregating on the sidewalk, Peabody came down the main stairs.
“Gone,” Eve said.
“Damn it.” Peabody hissed out a breath, then winced at Eve’s face. “I thought I took a knock,” she said, tapping ginger fingers to the bruise on her cheek. “You took harder.”
“Let’s go clean this mess up. What do you know?” Eve demanded as they went back in.
“The best I can get is some hair-trigger tackled some kid, and another cop helped him wrestle the kid to the ground and restrain him. Panic ensued. We’ve got all parties in one of the private parlors upstairs. Baxter’s riding herd there. Whitney’s with the MacMasterses, and is to be advised when you’re back on site. We had to call in MTs. People got bruised and bloodied. We’ve got a really big mess, Dallas.”
“Clean up what you can on the periphery, and inform Whitney I’m talking to the officers and the civilian involved. My communicator’s toast.”
“Why don’t I speak to whoever manages this place,” Roarke suggested. “Smooth over what I can.”
“Couldn’t hurt. But I’m going to speak to him later. Son of a bitch.” Eve squared her shoulders and went up to the second level.
The scent of lilies and roses was stronger now, probably because so many of them lay trampled. She skirted around broken glass, puddles of water, to where Trueheart stood outside a door.
“We got the word on the suspect, Lieutenant. Sorry. Ah, Baxter has the two officers involved here, and the kid. We brought in an MT to look at the kid. He’s got some bruises.”
“Perfect. Just perfect.”
She stepped inside, closed the door at her back.
A male of about eighteen sat in a blinding-white chair while a grizzled MT checked his pupils.
“I’m okay,” the boy said. “Mostly just got the shit and the wind knocked out of me. I’m okay.”
“I get called to take a look atcha, I take a look atcha.”
