Page 77 of To Die For
That seemed impossible but then he saw a door on the other side of the alley that was open about a foot.
He hustled across the alley, gripped the door, and tugged it fully open. He found himself in a dusty hall with minimal lighting. He heard nothing up ahead of him, which didn’t mean much if his prey was moving with stealth. He pulled his weapon, and pointing it in front of him, Devine advanced down the hall.
He quickly found that the building was being renovated. Construction materials were stacked neatly along the corridor. He could smell fresh paint and sawdust and he spied a makeshift locker room that housed work clothes, filter masks, and heavy boots. He made sure no one was lurking in there before heading down the hall once more.
He pushed open a set of makeshift double doors and found himself in the main space of the structure. It had been gutted, but sections of wooden studs had been set up on the concrete slab, carving out where demising walls would later be. There were no workers around and Devine assumed, at this hour, they had already finished for the day.
Devine found the front door but it was securely padlocked. He ran back down the hall, then out into the alley and around to the front of the building.
Plywood had been set up over the street-front plate glass windows. Construction permits and warning signs were stapled to the wood.
So, she followed us to the bookstore, then took the time to set this place up for her escape, then returned to the bookstore and took up her surveillance. Then when she saw I had made her, she sent the elevator up without her in it. Followed me up the escalator, and while I was spinning my wheels waiting for the car to open, she commenced her escape and I gave chase.
But there was a problem with that theory, namely, where had she gone? The front doors were padlocked. If she came in the open rear door, how had she gotten out? There were no other exit doors.
Making no sense of this, another thought occurred to Devine. She might have made a mistake, based on something that Devine had noted at the bookstore.
He hurried back over there, found a manager, flashed his badge and ID, and made his demand about the woman he was seeking. He was led into a back, cluttered room where a computer monitor was set up on a metal desk piled with books.
The manager, a woman in her forties with sandy hair and an excited expression, said, “The security cameras’ footage is fed into here, Agent Devine.”
“I want to see the last half hour in the café and then ten minutes ago down on the first floor by the elevator in particular,” said Devine.
The woman sat down and began clicking keys while Devine pulled up a chair and studied the screen.
“There,” he said when the woman came up on the screen. “You can follow her on the feed.”
The manager let the recorded footage run and Devine silently watched the woman, who kept her face downward and shuffled around, giving off the image of feebleness. However, Devine knew what she was really doing was avoiding looking into the cameras.
She bought a coffee and a banana from the café and he noted that she paid in cash, probably the only person to do that here all day.
She sat at the table for a while. Devine knew that was when she had been watching him and Odom at their table.
“Okay, take me to the first floor, elevator.”
She did so and he watched as, just as he had predicted, she stepped into the elevator car, pushed a key, and then got off. She moved behind a shelf. The next moment Devine ran up, paused, and then hustled for the escalator. The woman emerged from hiding and followed him up the escalator.
While Devine broke for the elevator, she went to the exit door and left that way. She was now moving far more swiftly and without a hint of any physical impediment.
“I’ll need a copy of what we just saw.”
She downloaded one onto a USB stick and handed it to him.
“You got plastic, scissors, tape, and some paper?” he asked the woman.
“Yes.”
“Go get them, please.”
She brought the items back, and Devine used the plastic and tape to cover the elevator button on the first floor and the exit door handle on the second. He made signs stating that both the elevator and the door were out of order.
He then called Walker. She didn’t answer. She was probably still working away on the 4Runner. He left her a message to get a print lift team over to the bookstore. He gave her the manager’s name and contact info along with exactly what he wanted done. Then he told the manager to expect them.
He walked up to the second floor and taped off the table where the woman had sat, for Walker to later process. He next questioned the employee who had rung up the purchase of the coffee and banana, getting a description of the woman that he figured was of negligible value at best, since she was clearly in disguise. But any bit of information was more than what he’d had previously.
Devine noted that she had left neither the cup nor the banana peel behind.
Okay, you’ve been all action up till now. Slow it down, and think it through.
