Part Four of a chilling five-part serial killer thriller for fans of James Patterson, David Baldacci, Jeffrey Deaver, and Harlan Coban. A madman is on the rampage in the Los Angeles streets. The City of Angels has become The City of Fear. And everyone from the Oval Office down wants a quick result. The heat is on Jake Mottram, head of the FBI's new Spree Killer Unit, and psychological profiler Angie Holmes to find the madman responsible. Until now, they've been great together. Both at work and in bed. But a killer is about to come between them, in ways that could cost them far more than their careers. Will they survive the spree about to come? Spree Life and death in LA - like you've never seen it before.
Release date:
June 17, 2014
Publisher:
Grand Central Publishing
Print pages:
100
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The question came from Januk, the big Polack supervisor. It seemed to those who worked for him that the only sentences he ever formed were questions.
Shooter was out in the parking lot. Walking away from the door of a work van that he’d just slapped shut. There was no point denying he’d used the vehicle. The keys were dangling from one hand, a sports bag from the other.
He was going to have to lie about the reason for breaking a basic company rule.
“I had an errand to run.”
“On company time? You think I pay you to run errands?”
“I’ll work my break.”
“Why you do errands in a company vehicle, using company gas?”
Shooter dipped into his overalls and pulled out a scrunched-up twenty. “Look, I’ll pay for it. It was an emergency.”
Januk slapped the money out of his hand. “This emergency—did it have big tits and a wet pussy?”
“No.”
“What you take me for?” He walked up to Shooter’s face. “You think because you play the hero one day, you can play the cunt the next?”
Shooter wiped spittle from his cheek. “No I don’t. It was an emergency. My mother’s alarm had gone off and she was frightened.” He got out his cellphone. “You want me to call her, so she can tell you what happened?”
Januk stared at him. He could see the lie in his eyes. “This once I forget what happened. Just this time.” He kicked the sports bag. Noticed his foot hit something heavy. “What’s in that?”
Shooter froze.
“Show me.”
That was something that couldn’t happen. It contained the gun he’d shot the Fed with and the camera and recorder he’d filmed it on.
“It’s personal.”
“Then don’t bring to work.” He reached out to snatch the bag.
Shooter swung it away.
“Show me.”
Shooter stepped back and threw him the van keys. “I quit.” He turned and walked.
“You quit, you don’t get paid.”
He kept walking but slid the zipper back on the bag. Januk was crazy. If the big douchebag came rushing him he’d have to shoot the fuck. Part of him wanted it to happen. To see the look on his big moon face as he opened up on him.
“Wait!”
The voice was where he’d left it.
Shooter turned.
Januk scratched stubble on his cheek. “I owe you one. Take your bag of secrets and get back to work. I can’t afford to be a man down.”
Shooter nodded his compliance and Januk threw the keys back. The pitch was short and they fell in the dark. Steel glinted in a pool of security light on the blacktop. The young man bent and picked them up but not for one second did his eyes stray from his supervisor.
Januk watched him with disdain and then disappeared inside.
Shooter counted twenty before he followed. Without hesitation he went straight to his metal locker and stuffed the bag in there. It was a sports holdall but nothing like the one he’d used in the mall. He was a long way from being that stupid. He banged the dented and scratched door several times to make sure it was shut and then he walked away. There was half a shift left to work. That was a long time to stay away from Januk and all the dangers he represented.
UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica
Angie sat on the floor near the surgery doors. Her back was to the wall and her hands pressed to the thin plasterboard that separated her from the man she loved. The only man she’d ever loved.
This was the closest they’d let her get to him.
Through her fingers she could feel the vibrations of the room. The hum of electricity, the friction of medical staff walking the polished floor. As distant as it was, she was still in touch.
Ruis stood bolt upright next to her. Sentry straight. As alert as any soldier. Ready for the enemy when it came. As he knew it would.
Six bullets.
Two bursts of three.
The first set low and debilitating, catching the legs and gut.
The second more tightly grouped. Focused. All on the left side of the torso.
Gut. Ribcage. Heart.
There was no way anyone survived injuries like that.
Angie had insisted on knowing.
The math was stacked against Jake. Any one of those wounds could prove fatal. A combination was undeniably lethal. It was a miracle he was still alive. All that height and mass had probably saved him. Given him a fighting chance.
Angie shut her eyes. She didn’t believe in any particular God, but now she was willing to. She’d believe in one or a thousand if Jake could survive this.
Time moved with funereal slowness and Angie wondered how long he’d lain there outside his apartment before someone had found the courage to go to him. Ruis said neighbors had heard the shots and called it in but had insisted they had not seen anything. No one ever saw anything these days.
Already she blamed herself.
If they hadn’t rowed over that stupid press conference Jake would probably have stayed at her place. In which case, none of this would have happened.
The wall beneath Angie’s fingers vibrated. Someone banged a cart against the other side of the plasterboard. She put her ear to the wall and heard muffled shouts. Clear, loud voices. Earnest, cold, resigned. Machines bleeped. Metal fell against metal. Steel instruments in steel bowls. And the worst sound of all—silence.
The hospital had wanted to put her and Ruis in a private room; they’d said it would be the best place for them to wait until there was news.
But there had been no restraining Angie.
She’d wanted to be right inside the theater. Gowned up. Holding Jake’s hand. Helping him pull through.
Sitting by the doors had been the only compromise she’d accept. The gurney-battered doors and the noisy, drafty corridor was where she and Ruis had been brought almost an hour ago.
The first rays of a new California day rubbed hesitantly against a small window. The morning was still pencil-shade gray and the sun too weak to outshine the insipid blue of the overhead tubes in the hospital.
Angie stared up at the ugly, thin light boxes. They ran like stitches down the endless ceiling. The corridor where she sat, where she clung to hope, was one of the hospital’s main arteries leading to the operating theater, the heart—the building’s ultimate source of life and death. Suddenly the lights went out.
As she watched, the lights flickered, buzzed, then went out with a heavy clunk.
Angie jumped.
“Daylight timer,” explained Ruis. “Everyone’s trying to save a little energy these days.”
She spread her fingers to the plasterboard and searched again for the pulse of the theater.
A steady hum tingled in her palms.
That was good.
Then there was a thump. A loud bang.
The doors swung open.
A woman stepped out. She was in green surgery scrubs. Blonde hair poked through a small, tight hat. A white mas. . .
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