Operation: Midnight Rendezvous Read Online Free PDF Page A

here?”
    “I had some…problems. I needed a place to stay.”
    “What kind of problems?”
    She broke eye contact. “A divorce.”
    He nodded. “Go on.”
    “I received a call at about midnight. It was Nicolas. He was keening and terrified.”
    “He’s noncommunicative?” Madrid asked.
    She nodded. “He’s autistic. Even though he’s five years old, he doesn’t speak. He does communicate in other ways, though, with his voice and body language.”
    Madrid grimaced. “What happened next?”
    Gooseflesh slinked down her arms as the memory rushed back. “I threw on my clothes and ran down the steps. The garage is detached, so it took me a minute or so to reach the house. When I came through the front door, I could hear Nicolas crying. I called out, but no one answered, so I went farther inside.”
    Images of the way Angela had looked lying on thefloor in a pool of blood flashed in her mind’s eye. “I found her in the kitchen. She was alive, but barely. Nicolas was hysterical and screaming. I called 911, then went to her. She kept trying to talk, but she was so weak. I didn’t know how to help her.”
    “I want you to tell me exactly what she said. Word for word. It could be important.”
    Jess closed her eyes. The part of her that didn’t want to remember the horror of the moment rebelled. But the part of her that knew she had to get to the bottom of her friend’s death took her back.
    She repeated, slowly and precisely, everything she’d already told the man. “The last thing she did was give me the photo.”
    “Then what happened?”
    “The police arrived.”
    “Who, specifically?” he snapped.
    “The chief,” she snapped back. “Norm Mummert. And two officers.”
    “They arrested you on the spot?”
    She shook her head. “It didn’t even cross my mind that I could be a suspect. They questioned me for a few minutes. I told them exactly what had happened, and everything seemed fine. The chief asked the officer to drive Nicolas and me to the station so we could make a formal statement.” The memory made her mouth go dry. “Midway to town, the cop turned on to a dirt road.”
    “Which cop?”
    “Finks is his name, I think. Tall guy. Crew cut.”
    “Go on.”
    A tremor went through her as she recalled the drivedown the isolated dirt road. “I asked him what he was doing, but he ignored me. Just kept driving. About a mile down the road he stopped and told me to get out of the car. It was incredibly dark and deserted. When I got out of the car, he drew his gun. He tried to handcuff me, but I fought him and somehow managed to break free. I grabbed Nicolas and ran.”
    The memory of the wild jaunt through the dark woods made her shudder. “Nicolas was exhausted and upset. He was keening and crying for Angela.” She shook her head. “After a while we stopped to rest. I was scared, but I kept thinking if we could get back to the main road we could flag down a motorist and everything would be okay.” She closed her eyes. “But it wasn’t.”
    Madrid waited, his dark eyes expectant and hard.
    “I thought what Finks had done was an isolated thing. A bad cop taking advantage of his position. I would have stopped and talked to the cops to straighten things out. But they never gave me the chance. They never stopped shooting.”
    Their eyes met, and for an instant neither of them spoke. The only sound came from the rain beating against the windows.
    Jess broke the silence. “A bullet grazed my arm. I thought we were both going to die. I was bleeding, afraid I was going to end up like Angela. But I kept thinking about Nicolas, about my promise to Angela that I would keep him safe. So we kept running.” She blew out a pent-up breath. “The woods were thick. The terrain had become rough. I must have stumbled overa rock or tree trunk, because the next thing I knew I was tumbling into a ravine. At first, I’d managed to hold on to Nicolas. But by the time we hit the water below I’d lost his