Page 54 of Intangible
“Wait, I think that’s him.” Memphis stiffened as he pushed Thayer behind him. He already knew they had guns, he wasn’t risking her getting hit if they decided to use them.
“What? What’s wrong?” Knox asked, jogging up. He must have been shadowing them from a distance. Thayer leaned out from behind Memphis to see where they were looking. Knox looked in the same direction Memphis was looking, as if they were communicating silently.
“That’s him,” Memphis said suddenly. “Jeans, black hoodie, cap pulled down. I swear he was following us.”
“Take Thayer home, I’ll go ask him a couple of questions.” Knox started walking quickly toward a shadowy figure, who was working his way away from them. They watched for a moment as Knox pulled a small radio out of his back pocket before Memphis took her hand, pulling her toward the parking lot.
They were quickly joined by another man as they jogged toward their SUV. When Thayer and Memphis were both secured inside with the engine running, the man ran back toward Beale Street.
Pulling into the parking area of the loft, they found Shaun waiting at the door with several tough-looking men watching the perimeter. Memphis shut off the engine and quickly climbed out of the vehicle. Thayer jumped out, meeting him at the front.
Taking her hand, he hustled her through the men, past Shaun, and up the stairs. It wasn’t until he heard the door close firmly behind them that he took what felt like his first real breath since he had stopped her on the street.
* * *
Knox jogged down the street, trying to keep the man in the black hoodie in his sights. He had sent one of his men to make sure Thayer and Memphis made it to the SUV already. The other one was trying to get ahead of the man so they could flank him, effectively cutting off his escape.
Knox knew Memphis wouldn’t raise an alarm if he didn’t feel there was a reason. If they could grab this guy, they would have someone to question. Best case was they would have finally caught the man in charge.
“Fuck, where did he go?” Knox mumbled, scanning the sidewalk. Fortunately, the area wasn’t packed with tourists like it would be during the summer, but there were still enough milling around to make trailing someone difficult.
“Sir?” One of the men Knox had hired to help with shadowing Thayer said, stopping next to him. Ignoring him for the moment, Knox continued to scan the shoppers around him until he caught sight of a black hood.
“There. Do you see the individual in the black hoodie slipping out of the doorway three stores down?” Knox asked, keeping a close watch on the man. He assumed it was a man anyway, he couldn’t really be certain from this distance.
“You and Jones, when he gets back from securing Thayer, see if you can flank him. I’ll push him toward you. We need to ask him some questions.”
“Yes, sir,” Fisher answered, crossing back over to the other side of the street, talking into his radio. Knox started down the sidewalk toward the black hoodie, lengthening his stride to close the distance between them. It was one of the advantages to his height. Not only could he see over most crowds, but he could also cover twice as much ground in half the time as most men.
He began to catch up when the black hoodie glanced into one of the reflective storefront windows. Obviously catching sight of Knox, he took off like a shot, rounding the corner of a side alley.
“Shit,” Knox said, running after him. Rounding the corner, he slid to a stop, finding no trace of the man. Jogging down the alley, he spied a door that led to one of the unrenovated buildings. Finding the door open, he stepped into the semidarkness.
He stood still for a moment, finding his bearings before moving toward the interior. If the man had run in here, Knox couldn’t tell which direction he had gone. The light wasn’t good enough to check the floor for footprints in the dust and he couldn’t hear anyone running.
A sudden bang vibrated down from somewhere above his head. Knox tore through the rooms looking for a set of stairs leading up.
The building had obviously not been used as a store in a long time based on the graffiti on the walls. There were several layers of old spray paint under newer work in every room he passed. He had no doubt there might even be a squatter or several that made their home here at night, though he saw no sign of them now.
Rounding a corner, he finally spotted what he was looking for, a set of stairs winding toward the upper floors. Picking his way up the stairs, he tried to avoid the ricketier looking steps until he found a door. Pushing against it, he finally managed to burst through onto the roof.
Taking a quick glance around, he spied the man on the next rooftop over. The man ran like a gazelle and Knox had no choice but to take after him at a full run. He just had to trust that his men were somewhere nearby.
Knox had never considered what it took to chase someone across a series of rooftops. It always looked cool in the movies, but reality was a whole other game. He had to skirt the huge air conditioners, exhaust vents, and debris that blocked him.
That was before he made it to the structural wall connecting the two buildings. It stood four feet tall and though not a huge obstacle, it did slow him down. Placing his hands on top of it, he hopped up just in time to see the other man sliding over the next wall.
“Hey,” he yelled. It wasn’t like the guy hadn’t figured out he was being pursued. “I just want to talk.” It didn’t do any good, the man disappeared over the next wall without even looking up.
Knox knew he would have to pick up the pace if he had any chance of catching the man. Where the hell his men were, he had no idea. His earpiece had fallen out somewhere while he’d been racing up the stairwell and was now dangling behind his back. He didn’t have time to stop to fix it and pull the radio out of his back pocket, proving it was still there.
Dropping onto the next roof, Knox began working his way around the large air handler unit. He had played football in college; he knew how to weave. But then, that had been almost twenty years ago. Shit, had it really been twenty years?
He shook his head to clear that depressing thought from his mind and ran across the roof, avoiding the vents and a handful of angry pigeons. No amount of football training had taught him how to dodge pissed-off pigeons.
Hopping up on the next wall, he spotted the man still on the current roof near the other side.
“Fucking stop and I promise not to break you in half when I catch you,” he yelled. Surprisingly, the other man simply picked up his pace. Fine, maybe that wasn’t the thing to say, but this much running was starting to piss him off. At least he was slowly catching back up.
