Page 21 of So Lethal

Before she pressed the button, though, she heard a low rumbling sound. At first, she thought that she must have pressed the button accidentally when she pulled the keys out of her pocket, but when she looked at her car, the lights were still off. She looked around but saw no other cars on the floor of the parking garage.

This must be one of those phantom sounds the doctors warned her about. Even though her eardrums were useless now, she would still “hear” sounds from time to time, especially in the beginning. The brain would sometimes pick up flashes of stimulation from the auditory nerve that it falsely interpreted as sound. Just another reason her life was now a piece of shit.

She walked around her hood and saw the person crouched behind her car. She had just enough time to register the ski mask and the length of rubber in the figure’s hands before it rushed her and twisted her around.

The rubber was around her neck and pulled taut before she could start to fight. The figure pulled her to the ground behind the car, hiding her from the elevators so no one could see her.

In her last moments of life, Sarah Martinez realized that death was far worse than life without hearing. Her last thought was a silent, desperate plea that someone, anyone, would save her.

No one did.

CHAPTER TEN

“We’ve got Highway Patrol watching for his vehicle too,” Ferris told the two federal agents. “Won’t help much if he’s in a friend’s vehicle, but we did confirm he hasn’t rented a vehicle, so he’d have to be in a stolen vehicle or catch a ride.”

Very little of that was helpful, but Faith got the sense Ferris was more comfortable thinking out loud. She didn’t mind so much, but she was very upset about the fact that their suspect was almost certainly in the wind. The San Francisco Bay Area was a major transportation hub on the West Coast. In San Jose alone, there was an international airport, multiple major highways and different rail lines that could take Dr. Crane anywhere he wanted to go.

With the APB forwarded to every agency in the area including the TSA, it was unlikely that Dr. Crane could escape using public transportation if he was still in the area, but like Ferris pointed out, all he needed was to find someone willing to give him a ride, and he’d be in the clear. What truly worried Faith was that he was already gone. If he left straight from his office, then two hours was enough time for him to get to San Jose International Airport, buy a ticket on the first international flight, and be in the air before Faith and Michael even realized he was gone.

She looked out of the window and frowned at the darkening sky. He could even potentially have landed already if his flight was a hop to Tijuana or Vancouver.

Michael handed her a cup of coffee. “Stuff’s actually pretty good. I guess there’s a major coffee chain headquartered in Berkeley that donates coffee to the police departments in the area.”

The three FBI agents were at the San Jose PD South Precinct—Ferris’s home turf. After putting out the APB, there was nothing to do but wait and hope. Dr. Crane had no friends in the area, and he was estranged from his family. Who also weren’t in the area. His now-former employees all said that he was a fair boss but very introverted and difficult to talk to. None of them had spent any time with him outside of work.

A search of his home had been equally unhelpful. He hadn’t emptied the place, but if there was anything incriminating, he’d made sure to take that with him. They found a ransacked room with clothing strewn about and furniture that was of middling quality, none of which had hidden compartments or holes cut into the upholstery were evidence might have been stashed.

Faith sipped her coffee too quickly and snarled through the burn. Turk pricked his ears up and glanced at her. When he confirmed that Faith wasn’t in danger, he closed his eyes and resumed his nap. Faith was rarely upset with her dog, but it bothered her immensely at times like these that Turk couldn’t understand abstract concepts well enough to realize that their damned suspect was gone and had quite possibly gotten away with murder.

Michael’s hands closed around hers. “Why don’t we put the coffee down before we get really mad and throw it at your partner’s face.”

Faith surprised herself by being able to chuckle. She set the cup down and shook her head. “It’s just annoying. I keep going back over our encounter with him, but I can’t see how we missed anything.”

“We didn’t miss anything. We suspected it was him, and it looks like we were right.”

“Yeah, and then we let him get away.”

“What else could we have done? We didn’t have enough to arrest him. We had a barebones suspicion. That wouldn’t hold up in any court of law. You know, I love you, Faith, but you have a bad habit of blaming yourself for things outside of your control.”

Faith’s lips thinned at the callback to her session with Dr. Keraya. “We could have staked out the clinic,” she replied. “We could have waited to see how Dr. Crane would react to our accusation. We could have done further research in the car. If we’d done that, we would have seen him flee.”

Michael lowered his eyes. “Okay. Can’t argue with that. But don’t beat yourself up. Everyone makes mistakes.”

“When we make mistakes, innocent people die, Michael.”

“I doubt like hell he’s going to kill anyone else. He’s going to lay low under an assumed name for the rest of his life, probably not in the United States.”

“Then innocent people don’t receive justice!” Faith snapped. “Stop trying to cheer me up!”

Michael looked like he wanted to say something else, but he thought better of it. Instead, he picked up Faith’s coffee and said, “If I hand this back to you, will you throw it in my face?”

Faith sighed and took the coffee. She sipped more carefully this time, and the warmth of the brew relaxed her slightly. “You know, I really wish you could turn off the schtick every now and then,” she complained. “I like it most of the time, but this is serious.”

“It’s always serious, and you brood more than Batman. You need a lighthearted, wisecracking sidekick to balance you out.”

“I have Turk.”

“Ouch. So I’m chopped liver, I guess.”

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