Cold Read online

  That left the long road to my right, down which we’d parked, down which there was a clear view of the library for some six blocks, ending on my side of the road in a block or so due to my building being in the way, and on the other side of the road in six blocks thanks to that A-frame roof jutting up like Holloway’s trousers last night. This direction was where I was spending the lion’s share of my time scanning.

  The farther out you got from the library, the higher our potential assassin would need to be in order to get a clear shot at Warrington. Fourth floor or higher, I figured, three blocks out, and it just climbed after that. I was scanning those windows, taking in those rooftops, almost all of which had Louisiana State Police posted on them. Double checking, you might say. Or triple. Quadruple, maybe.

  If Warrington was going to die, I didn’t want it to be because of my negligence. I wanted it to be because after I left, he stumbled down the stairs while eating a crawfish, and the damned thing accidentally burst out of the back of his head like some sort of alien. Whoops. It’d be a fitting end for that scuzzbucket. But I wanted no part of it.

  I just wanted to do my job, get to the bottom of this case, chalk up a win for the system, and go back to New York. I’d say “go home,” but New York was not home, and it seemed unlikely I’d be visiting Minnesota anytime soon.

  “Clear,” I said, for about the thousandth time, into the police radio. I started my quick sweep of the right-hand road again. It took less than five seconds to scan the windows, the rooftops.

  Nothing.

  I brought the binoculars back around to the long road on the right. What was it called? Hell if I could remember. I started at that A-frame rooftop, started moving them down to the next—

  Wait.

  I stopped. Moved the binoculars back to the A-frame—

  Froze.

  “GUN!” I shouted into the mic as I snatched up my rifle. It was in my hands in less than a second, the safety snapped off in a breath.

  I honed in on my target and didn’t even bother with the scope. I looked straight down the side of the barrel and eyeballed it as the crowd exploded to murmurs behind me. With a careful squeeze of the trigger, the gun barked as fire exploded out the edge of the barrel and leapt in my hand from the shot.

  47.

  Brianna

  The bullet snapped into the roof some six inches below her, making an awful noise as it crashed into the tin and ripped out the other side about an inch to the left of her hip.

  Brianna dropped immediately behind the cover of the rooftop, ears ringing from the distant thunderclap that was now echoing down the street toward her.

  Someone had shot at her.

  She blinked, looking at the hole in the roof. And they’d almost hit her, too.

  Her breath surged back into her lungs as though it had been forced in by a strong gust, and her eyes went wide. She lunged to the side, realizing she hadn’t moved nearly far enough from the site of the last bullet’s impact.

  The roof exploded behind her, another hole opening up as a bullet ripped through into the spot where she’d been squatting only a moment before.

  Brianna cursed. Now the shooter was putting pressure on her. Hell if Brianna was going to stick her head up now. She cursed again; they’d have moved Warrington inside at the first report of gunfire.

  Her blood was surging through her veins, but Brianna was still cool enough to know that this round was a failure.

  Again.

  But there was nothing to be done, and so she slipped the rifle onto her back, leaving the case behind. It was generic, and would tell them nothing. She leapt off the side of the roof, pulling moisture out of the air to make an ice slide that would carry her away to safety.

  48.

  Sienna

  “Warrington is in the library!” Burkitt’s breathless voice piped into my ear. “Repeat, Warrington is safe and locked down!”

  “Unless the assassin placed a bomb in there,” I said, rifle in hands. I hurtled over the divide between my building and the next, eyes fixed on the A-frame roof line where I’d seen the gun—and a familiar sparkle of blond hair.

  “This is Boudreaux.” The Captain’s voice cut into the transmission. “Starting a sweep of the library now. Move the governor to the southern exit. We’ll have transit waiting.”

  I could hear the distant squeal of tires as I peered over the barrel of the gun, leaping the short gap to the next rooftop. I’d started moving after I’d fired the second time, putting a bullet hole into the roof where I’d seen the assassin huddling. Now I was moving forward, ready to put pressure on her by firing as many times as necessary. I doubted it would be necessary, though, which was a key reason I was heading toward her position.

  “Pelican is moving!” a state trooper’s voice cut in with what I could only assume was Warrington’s code name. Dirtbag was so much more fitting, though. “Headed to southern exit.”

  “Transport standing by.”

  “I am in pursuit of the shooter,” I said into the radio. The rifle was weighty in my hands as I leaped another alley, coming to a brisk landing on the next roof. “Last sighted position was on top of that A-frame roof on—hell if I remember the street name. It’s the one that leads straight out from the library’s colonnade.”

  I was having to advance slower than I would have preferred due to the rifle in my hands. It’s not easy to run when you have a long gun tucked against your shoulder. Any second, I felt like I was going to trip on something and go down, barrel-first, and shellack my face against the scope.

  Now I was only two rooftops away from being even with the A-frame rooftop, and if the assassin was still there, I’d have a clear shot.

  “This is Hagman!” a shout cut through my ear. “We’ve got two troopers down but still alive on the rooftop beyond where the shooter was positioned!”

  “Do you have eyes on the shooter?” I asked, bracing the rifle harder against my shoulder. I was already sweating before I’d started running and jumping buildings; now I was positively drenched, the clothing under my jacket as wet as if I’d taken a sauna bath.

  “Negative,” Hagman’s voice came after a second. “No sign of the shooter on the rooftop. But…” There was a pause as the trooper drew a breath. “There’s an ice trail leading off down the side!”

  “Shit!” I safetied the rifle and slung it over my back as I looked for my exit. Running to the edge of the roof that overlooked the street provided it; just like all over this town, ten feet below me, there was a balcony.

  I leapt down, bouncing off the balcony and catching myself on one of the railings. Swinging with my momentum, I dropped to the second layer of the balcony, this one some ten feet below the first. With only enough time for a quick turnaround, I charged the balcony edge and hurled myself down to the street below, where I narrowly missed landing on a woman screaming about the world ending.

  Needless to say, my near collision with her didn’t quiet her down at all. I didn’t waste time apologizing, I just sprinted across the wide street, keeping my eyes on that A-frame rooftop.

  “I am in the street, in pursuit of the shooter,” I said, hitting the radio mic button as I kicked it up into a dead run. The assassin had a very good lead, and might even be gliding through the air practically like she was flying, but dammit, I was Sienna Nealon, and I could run faster than almost anyone on the planet.

  I applied that skill now, hitting the alley that led behind the A-frame building seconds later and plunging into the relative darkness of the shaded alleyway, unzipping my jacket as I did so. Running with the rifle in my hands wasn’t an option, so I pulled my Glock as I sped along the dripping brick alley. I dodged a dumpster, and caught a glimpse of the already-melting ice trail that hung overhead.

  It was solid, a few inches thick, and suspended in air off the side of the building. I couldn’t tell whether it was attached or not, but my understanding of these ice powers hinged on the idea that this assassin could essentially control the movement of
ice in the world, even keeping it levitating in midair via a kind of telekinesis that was limited to ice and ice alone.

  “Nice of her to leave me a trail,” I muttered, beginning to huff a little as I poured on the speed, turning a corner.

  The ice trail snaked off around the corner to the left, heading north. At the next block it hung a right, heading east, and I frowned. It looked like it was descending a little, but the height of the buildings was doing the same.

  “The shooter has breached the perimeter!” one of the troopers bellowed into the earpiece. I thought I was going to experience sudden explosive decompression of the eardrum he was so loud. “She’s crossing Magazine Street now! Just north of the World War II museum!”

  “Where the hell is that in relation to me?” I muttered, still sprinting underneath the ice trail. I’d lost all track of where I was, geographically, and was now consigned to dodging the occasional trash can or cardboard box in this snaking web of alleyways as I followed the ice trail, blurring by a block every few seconds.

  I got my answer as I took the next corner, following the ice trail as it reached, suddenly, over Magazine Street. I paused as the alley spilled out onto the booming street, the architecture of this block like a strange tableau out of a bygone era. I’d entered a space of preserved architecture and it took me aback for a second, like I’d run so fast I’d gone back in time. Uh, again. The modern cars were the only giveaway.

  That and the guy on the modern bike pedaling by, lackadaisically pedaling, his jaw slightly open in a vague smile, bald head shining in the sunlight. “You look lost, Slay Queen,” he said, going slower than I could jog.

  I blinked at him a couple times. “I need your bike.”

  He skidded to a stop, smile vanishing as he put his feet down to catch him. “You serious?”

  “I am an FBI agent in pursuit of a suspected assassin,” I said, breathing heavy. I readjusted the rifle on my shoulder so he couldn’t miss it, holstered the Glock rather obviously, then pointed at the ice trail overhead. “I need your bike to catch her.”

  He blinked a couple times as he thought about it, looked like he wanted to argue, then thought the better of it, almost leaping clear of it. “Hey, yeah, take it. Just, maybe mention my name if you catch her using my bike? On TV?”

  “Sure,” I said, grabbing the handle bars as he surrendered them. “What’s your name?”

  “Richard Dixson,” he said, thin smile spreading back over his face.

  I tried not to guffaw, but failed. “Thanks for not being a penis about this, Dick Dixson.”

  His smile melted immediately. “You just had to go there, didn’t you?”

  “They don’t call me Slay Queen because I pass up the obvious—but still funny—jokes,” I said, mounting the bike and speeding up over twenty, thirty miles an hour immediately. Someone honked as I blew across Magazine Street into the opposite alley, gaining speed all the while. “I am heading…east, I think? In pursuit of the suspect. Just crossed Magazine Street.”

  “The Mississippi and the cruise terminals are a few blocks ahead,” Burkitt cut in. I thought I could hear a car engine revving in the background, but the air was whipping around me as I blew down the alley and onto the next street so quickly, I could barely hear anything on my side of the conversation. The ice trail turned north and crossed a major avenue in a slow diagonal. It seemed to go on for a couple blocks, then cut to the right again, disappearing down a side street.

  “Understood,” I said. “Where’s she heading? Speculatively?”

  “The river, generally,” Burkitt said. “Based on her direction.”

  “Shit,” I said. “She hits the river, we lose her. She can cross at will, land anywhere on the other side. The likelihood we pick her up after that…”

  I didn’t have to say it. We all knew.

  If she made it to the river…she’d get away.

  49.

  Brianna

  All she needed to do was make it to the river.

  Brianna had a good lead, no sign of pursuit, and she was cranking along on an ice slide at top speed. No cops in sight since she’d blown through their perimeter back at Magazine Street. There was plenty of humidity in the air even before she reached the Mississippi, enough that she could have built ice structures almost indefinitely.

  And no one was shooting at her.

  The attempt might not have gone as planned, but she’d made it out alive. She might need to give it a rest after this, let the heat die down, but she was walking away from this.

  Warrington would wait. He wasn’t going anywhere, after all.

  All she had to do was make it to the river. She had a car parked on the other side in Algiers. Just shake this trouble and find her way to it, and off she’d go, back to the planning stages again, but safe and sound.

  And Ivan Warrington would still die.

  It’d just take her a little longer than she wanted.

  50.

  Sienna

  I couldn’t let her get away. Everything hinged on this.

  If she got away, she could dive into a deep hole and pull the ground up over her. Which was a practical way of saying she could hide out for months or years if she was disciplined enough, leave town and put some distance between her and her crimes, then come back when she was ready to try again, after the Louisiana State Police had relaxed their increased security precautions. They couldn’t watch Warrington every minute of the day forever, after all.

  So, I had to catch her now, because if I didn’t…who knew how long she’d be out there, hanging like a guillotine over Warrington’s head?

  The ice trail was about twenty feet off the ground on a slow decline over the street, like an icy, alternate lane built for some crazy Evil Knievel type who just couldn’t help but be eco-friendly but also suicidally dangerous at the same time. For all I knew, it was now a permanent feature and some dumbass would be using it for just that in the weeks to come.

  I was going forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour on the bike, acutely aware that I did not have a helmet on. Any sudden crash would send me flying, headfirst, into a crushing impact with either the street or something else, and potentially splattering my brains all over the place. I really, really wanted to avoid that particular fate because I was really attached to my brains.

  “Out of the way!” I shouted, bumping the bike as I leapt over the curb on the cross street. I swerved in front of a Mercedes and bounced back up onto the curb across the street. The pedestrians in front of me responded to my shout by bailing out of the way, and I sped along the sidewalk at motorcycle speeds. Fortunately, there weren’t many people out at midday. Maybe they were all tied up at the must-attend event of the season, the library dedication. Or running from it, I suppose, several blocks back.

  I took the corner into the alley at about thirty miles per hour, veering to avoid a dumpster. The ice trail extended a couple blocks ahead, a sparking spray of white forming at its head—

  There she was. I caught a flash of blond hair and the glint of blued metal extending over her shoulder, her rifle slung there like mine, her hands free for building her ice slide.

  “Shooter in sight,” I called in. “She’s a block and a half ahead of me, and I’m closing fast.”

  “How?” Holloway came back in a burst of fuzzy static. “Are you flying?”

  The alley walls were blurring around me. I was pretty sure I was going over sixty miles an hour now, my legs pumping hard and taking advantage of all my cardio training of the last few years. The New York Post had caught a video of me running in Central Park, something I did at least every other day as part of my rather exhaustive training regimen, though I tried to vary the route so photographic evidence didn’t appear again. It had caused people to call me the Flash for a day or two. Whether that was better or worse than Slay Queen, I couldn’t decide.

  The bike only magnified my speed, allowing me to take it up to a crazy level of zipping past buildings and pedestrians at lethal velocity. For them and
me, possibly.

  “Stop!” I shouted, figuring I’d at least give that a try. Shooting an armed suspect in the back as she was fleeing was maybe permissible, but pretty on the line, in my opinion. And being the only FBI agent presently in pursuit, my opinion counted for a lot. Especially since I was the one who’d have to do the shooting.

  Also, shooting someone in the back as they were running away wouldn’t exactly fit the new “Violence Lite” ethos I was trying to embrace. Putting a few rounds in them as they were taking aim at a state governor? Totes fine. Busting caps in them as they fled? Muy bad-o, or however you said “terrible” in Spanish. “La Coldplay,” perhaps?

  The ice queen didn’t slow, and I wasn’t entirely sure she heard me since I said it right as I was blowing through a cross street, and I nearly sideswiped a Ford Fusion whose driver laid on the horn in a bid to scare the hell out of me. Fortunately, I was made of sterner stuff and also benefited from meta reflexes, swerving and only barely thumping their bumper. My back tire skidded and I dodged around, maintaining control and all the hell in my soul. I did flip them a bird, though, and for the first time, felt a little pang of sympathy for all the bicyclists out there trying to ride the roads. Not much, because they were taking a lightweight implement into the same lanes where the big boys drove their two thousand pound plus cars, but still some.

  “Elsa, stop or I’ll put you on ice!” I shouted as the shooter glided around the next corner. She turned her head to look at me, and we made eye contact, now only a block apart as she turned north once more. It really was impressive how she moved on those ice bridges, and I wondered how long they’d survive in this heat once she’d left them behind.