CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Ella took a quick inventory as she and Ripley stalked towards the half-finished skeleton that was the Brossette Contracting construction yard.
Trucks and excavators scattered around like Tonka toys discarded by a giant toddler.
There were mounds of dirt and rubble and shriek of a circular saw biting into metal.
And everywhere, hard-hatted workers were scurrying back and forth. Controlled chaos, but chaos all the same.
Ripley said, ‘Hell of a haystack to find our needle in.’
It was certainly an understatement. They couldn’t charge in flashing badges and shouting Croon’s name.
If he saw them coming, he’d have a hundred places to disappear into and they’d spend the rest of the afternoon searching behind pallets of breeze blocks.
So Ella put on the face she used when she didn’t want to look like a cop and walked towards the nearest person who seemed to be in charge: a bald foreman.
He didn’t seem too happy to see them marching towards him.
‘Can I help you folks with something?’ he asked as he tucked a clipboard under his arm.
Ella flipped open her badge and watched his eyebrows climb towards his nonexistent hairline. ‘Agents Dark and Ripley, FBI. We’re looking for one of your employees.’
The foreman shot accusing looks between Ella and Mia. ‘Is this an official inquiry? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, we run a tight ship here. All our guys are stand-up, on the level.’
Ripley stepped forward. ‘The man we’re after is Darryl Croon. Is he on your crew?’
A flash of recognition, and the foreman's shoulders slumped. He knew something that was for damn sure.
Croon? Yeah, he's here. He works the jacks.' The foreman jerked his chin towards the bowels of the site. 'Probably over by the south foundation. But listen, whatever he did, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding.
Ella was already moving. She heard Ripley mutter a hurried thanks to the foreman before her footsteps thudded after her, but she couldn’t spare the brainpower for niceties. Not when every second they wasted was another second for Croon to catch their scent and flee.
‘The foreman said we need hard hats and goggles,’ Ripley said when she caught up.
‘We need a lot more than that. Where’s the south foundation?’
‘South.’
‘There’s a time and place for sarcasm.’ Ella’s geographical instinct drew her towards a distant maze of materials and machinery, and her arrival drew curious glances from the workers as she and Ripley passed by.
Ella scanned every worker for the man she’d seen in the mugshot, but all she found were everyday faces, tired as they were. Not a monster amongst them.
‘There,’ Ripley said. ‘I never forget a face.’
Ella followed the direction of her partner’s nod. Then she saw him too.
Darryl Croon. In the flesh and by God, it was like seeing a ghost. He had the same buzzed hair and flinty eyes from the dossier mugshot.
He was bent over a makeshift workbench and fiddling with something she couldn’t see, but every cell in her body screamed that it was him.
A man who might just have three people’s blood on his hands.
Time dilated as Ella crossed the distance. Croon still hadn’t noticed them, too engrossed in whatever he was tinkering with at that bench. She unsnapped the catch on her holster.
Five feet. Croon’s head came up and they exchanged a glance. She watched the reality of the situation crash over him, watched his pupils blow wide and his skin turn white. She watched him see his own destruction barreling towards him and know it in his bones.
And then she saw his jittery lower-half commit to the wrong choice.
And then Darryl Croon became a blur of yellow.
‘Croon!’ Ella roared. ‘FBI, stop!’
But the suspect was already gone, vanished into the labyrinth of steel and concrete.
Without a second thought, Ella hurtled after him.
Croon had a head start and the homefield advantage, but Ella had a die-hard compulsion for justice in her blood, and nothing could outrun that.
She could hear startled shouts and jangling equipment as workers scrambled to get out of their way but she paid them no mind.
Croon was fast, she’d give him that. He had the speed of an animal that knew his game was up, and he juked and weaved in an attempt to shake her off his tail.
They careened around a corner, past a knot of gawking hard hats, and Ella nearly lost him as he feinted left then barreled right at the last second.
She skidded on loose gravel but righted herself and surged forward, gaining inches with every step.
The circular saw was still screaming somewhere up ahead and she had a sudden, horrible vision of Croon snatching it up and turning it on her.
She had no doubt he’d do it, because a monster like him wouldn’t flinch at adding one more body to the pile, especially if this was his final showdown.
So she put on a fresh burst of speed and lunged.
Almost, but not quite.
But he slithered out of her grip. Ella stumbled and nearly face-planted a stack of rebar that was jutting up like rusty spikes. Croon screamed a rough sound up ahead and then darted towards a hulking piece of machinery sitting at the edge of the site.
An excavator, she realized as she sprinted after him.
Ten tons of steel and hydraulics, with tank treads as tall as a man.
If he managed to scramble up into that cab they’d never get him out, not without spraying bullets into the air, and she didn’t want to fire off any rounds here.
There were too many people and such variables that could result in tragedy.
But as she skidded around the side of the behemoth, she found the way ahead mercifully clear. Croon hadn’t made it to high ground after all. Instead he was trapped in a dead-end with nothing but a sheer concrete wall boxing him in on three sides. He whirled to face her.
‘Nowhere left to run, Darryl.’ She trained her Glock on him. Her lungs burned, legs ached, and head throbbed with the rush of unexpected cardio. ‘Get on your knees, hands behind your head.’
Croon grinned. A rusty spike had materialized in his hand, probably off the same pile Ella had nearly landed on.
‘You think I’m going down that easy?’ he spat. ‘Think I’m gonna just roll over?’
‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.’
Croon was breathing heavy breath. He was starting to flag; she could see it in the stumble of his gait. His burst of manic energy was burning out. She just had to wait him out and run him to ground like a dog after a rabbit. Soon, he’d realize his game was up.
Ella stepped closer. Croon backed further against the wall, and five more steps later, Ella was within grabbing distance. Croon frantically looked left and right for an escape or a weakness to exploit.
‘Don’t even think about-’
But before she could finish the threat, Croon moved again. He feinted to the left and suddenly he was hurtling past her. He slipped through the gap between her and the excavator with the agility of a snake.
Ella pivoted but Croon was already gone. She gave chase, cursing herself for underestimating him, for thinking even for a second that he’d go quietly.
But as she skidded around the excavator, Ella caught sight of a streak of wavy hair speeding towards the fleeing suspect.
It happened almost too fast for her brain to process.
One moment Croon was sprinting full-tilt towards freedom, the next he was clotheslined by an arm like a steel cable.
His feet flew out under him, and Ella was certain that Croon somehow managed to flip backwards before smashing into the concrete.
A part of her had to wince at the sound.
Ella was on him before he could move. Knee in his back, cuffs out, one wrist and then the other. The metal clicked twice. Croon’s face was pressed into the ground and he was making a noise that was half groan and half laugh, which was a combination Ella had never liked hearing from anyone.
Ripley stood over them both, breathing hard but not as hard as Croon. She shook out the arm she’d used to flatten him and flexed her fingers experimentally.
‘That’s going to bruise,’ she said, though it wasn’t clear whether she meant herself or Croon.
Ella hauled Croon to a sitting position against the excavator’s tread. Blood was running from a scrape above his eyebrow where the concrete had taken a layer off.
Then he said, ‘Alright detective, you got me. You got me fair and square.’
And damn if he didn’t sound amused about it.