I was approaching the van at just under a dead run. Even though I couldn’t see them, I could still hear Ben and Felicity bickering on the opposite side of the vehicle.
“Felicity, that’s not much to go on,” I heard Ben say as I reached the front corner and started to hook around.
“It’s better than nothing at all, Ben,” my wife snapped in return, her voice a mix of frustration and urgency, both vying for dominance over her tone.
I whipped around the front of the van and almost slammed directly into her. Her back was to me, and she was holding a scrap of paper up into the light of the streetlamp above, animatedly tracing a route with her painted nail as she spoke, “I’m telling you if we…”
“Whoa!” Ben barked, cutting Felicity off mid-sentence as he grabbed her arm and yanked her to the side. His other arm came up in a flash and brought me to an unceremonious halt as my chest thudded against his outstretched palm. “What the fuck, white man?!”
The impact had knocked the wind from me, and I sputtered as I tried to catch my breath. “Constance… Backup…”
“Do what?” he asked.
I sucked in another breath and pointed back toward the station. “The store’s being robbed,” I blurted. “Constance needs backup.”
“Oh Gods!” Felicity exclaimed, shuffling to look past me. “Is she okay?”
“Jeezus!” my friend rumbled at the same instant, stepping forward and looking over the front slope of the van as he reached for his sidearm. “Is she inside? Forget that, I see ‘er. You got your cell phone?”
“Aye,” Felicity spoke up.
“Stay here outta sight and call nine-one-one,” he instructed. “Tell ‘em what’s goin’ down, and let ‘em know they have two off-duty cops on the scene.”
“What are you going to do?” I queried.
“If we’re lucky, nothin’,” he replied as he drew his sidearm and began scanning the area.
“What do you mean nothing?” Felicity asked, shaking her head.
“Just make the call,” he returned quickly, starting toward the near side of the station, then stopped and muttered, “Awww, goddammit, not now…”
I peered past him and saw a car rolling to a stop in one of the spaces at the front of the store. I could see Constance crouched in a blind spot near the entrance, any view of her from the inside being blocked by a pair of back-to-back payphone pedestals. She was trying to motion to the person in the newly arrived vehicle to stay put but to no avail. Either the woman had yet to see her or simply wasn’t paying attention, because she got out of the car and started toward the front door without a care.
Behind me, Felicity was already speaking to the 9-1-1 operator, quickly reciting the name and location of the gas station. Ben started moving, taking off at a fast clip into the shadows before cutting suddenly to the left and aiming for the side of the station.
Constance was gesticulating with as much fervor as she could while still remaining hidden from the interior of the store. The woman had actually gone several steps along the sidewalk before looking up, and she now noticed the gun-wielding federal agent. Of course, having no idea who Mandalay was, she froze in place and began to scream.
Ben was just hitting the corner of the building and fell to a crouch at the side of an ice machine, arms cocked with his Beretta firmly gripped and aimed in front of him.
As the woman’s first fear-filled cry broke the quiet atmosphere, the old metaphor about ‘hell breaking loose’ was instantly invoked. Her fading wail was punctuated by a muffled pop, and that was followed rapidly by two more. The woman snapped her head to the side, looking in what was apparently the direction of the noise, then stared into the store through the windows. She immediately broke into a second scream. A fleeting second later the metal-framed door flew open, and a young man bolted through. I couldn’t see his expression at this distance, but I could tell simply by the way he moved that he was panicked. In one hand, he had a paper bag and was clutching it in a death grip; in the other, I could see a dark object that I assumed to be a pistol.
He was heading directly for the car that had been parked in front of the store when we first arrived. He had almost made it to the door of the vehicle when he hesitated and looked back toward the screaming woman.
As the young man stood there, I caught my breath and felt my pulse beginning to pound in my temples. I couldn’t have looked away if I had wanted to, so I watched, unblinking, the fate which was about to be revealed.
Constance came immediately up from her crouch, weapon stiff-armed before her as she moved forward, closing the gap. She couldn’t have been any more than twenty feet from the young man, and she kept her pistol aimed at his center mass. Ben was stepping out from the shadows, moving in behind her, but still had quite a bit of distance between him and the situation.
“Stop!” Constance announced in a loud voice. “Federal agent!”
Startled, the young man jumped and spun toward her, throwing his arm up at the same instant, pointing it wildly in her direction. There was a loud pop and burst of fire from the pistol in his hand, and at the same instant, the front window of the store sparkled with an instant spider web crack.
Before the report of his gun had even reached its peak, the first of three bright flashes erupted from the muzzle of Constance’s Sig Sauer. The rest followed in unison with a resounding trio of sharp cracks. The young man jerked backward with each impact and then fell, disappearing from my view behind the vehicle.
The bystander was backed against the windows, crouched down with her hands over her ears as she shook her head violently. She had fallen silent, apparently too frightened to scream any longer. Constance advanced forward carefully but quickly; her sidearm was still in hand, aimed with great purpose at the ground in front of her. Ben was a few feet behind and to her right, circling in with his own pistol stiffly pointed at the downed felon. I watched as they both moved in, Constance all but disappearing from sight on the opposite side of the vehicle while Ben’s head and shoulders remained visible over the line of the roof.
Behind me, Felicity had stopped talking, but I could hear the thin strain of a tinny voice wafting into the air. I looked back to see her staring past me at the now quiet scene. The cell phone was resting against her shoulder and she slowly pushed it back up beneath her hair.
In a calm monotone, she said, “Aye, I’m still here.” Then added simply, “Yes… She shot him.”
A moment later, in the near distance, a siren suddenly began to wail, and I looked over to see flashing red lights barreling down the thoroughfare, heading in our direction. Glancing back to my friends, I saw that they had moved back up onto the sidewalk. Ben holstered his sidearm and then reached into his pocket. A second later, he carefully slipped a cord over his head then unclipped his badge from his belt and attached it to the bottom of the loop.
Constance was now leaning against the payphone pedestal, her head hanging and her doubled fist pressed against her lips. I watched as Ben looked over at her, shot a glance up to the shattered window and then brought his eyes back to her. He reached up and began rubbing the back of his neck. I could see his lips move as he said something to Constance. A moment later, I saw her head slowly bob in the affirmative.
And then, I started breathing again.
Bright white flashes punctuated the flickering red lights that fell across the front of the convenience store. The area was cordoned off with yellow plastic tape, and evidence technicians were snapping photos and setting out numbered tent cards next to shell casings on the ground.
A handful of local officers were now on the scene, from those in uniform, to plainclothes detectives. At present, one of the uniformed officers was directing a white SUV toward a parking place. As it passed us, I could see that it was emblazoned with the words SAINT LOUIS COUNTY CORONER.
Constance was locked in conversation with one of the detectives, occasionally motioning toward the pay phones or the suspect’s vehicle. Felicity and I had been told to wait with the van. Initially, one of the officers had asked us some cursory questions and then said that we would eventually need to give statements since we had been witnesses. That had been a little better than thirty minutes ago, and lag time was not sitting well with Felicity.
The longer we were forced to wait, the more agitated my wife became. So, I wasn’t at all surprised that when Ben finally broke away and walked over to check on us, she greeted him with a hand cocked on her hip and an attitude to match the pose.
“We have to go,” Felicity announced, her words leaving no room for negotiation.
“We ain’t goin’ anywhere for a while,” Ben said, giving his head a quick shake.
“How long is ‘awhile’?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I dunno. As long as it takes.”
She stared back at him with a hard look and then shook her head, speaking tersely. “We simply don’t have time to wait around, Ben.”
He looked back at her, then drew in a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as he closed his eyes. You could almost see him mentally counting to five. He slowly let out the breath and then opened his eyes.
“Let’s try this again,” he announced. “I came over here to tell you two that ya’ should prob’ly get comfortable. ‘Cause we ain’t goin’ anywhere for a while.”
My wife continued glaring at him defiantly. He raised his eyebrows and glared back at her.
“You were here,” he finally said, motioning to the scene behind him. “You saw what happened, right? Or am I just imaginin’ that?”
“Aye, we saw it. And your point?”
“Felicity, there are two dead bodies over there,” he explained, hooking his thumb over his shoulder again. “The clerk and the kid who shot her.”
“I understand that,” she replied, “But what about Kimberly?”
“What do you want me to do?” he asked as he splayed out his hands, palms up in resignation. “I can’t help that we stumbled into a fuckin’ armed robbery. Believe me, I wish we hadn’t just as much as you do.”
“Can’t we just give our statements and get out of here?” I asked, trying to help defuse the tension between them.
“I wish it was that easy,” he replied. “But one of those dead bodies over there has three government-issue, forty-caliber Hydra-Shoks in it, courtesy of Mandalay. There’s no way to just give a statement and walk away from that.”
“What about us?” Felicity pressed. “You didn’t shoot anyone and neither did we.”
“I was backing her up, and you two were witnesses,” he replied.
“Can’t you just get them to hurry up?” She was almost physically shaking from her frustration.
“I’m a city cop, Felicity. This is the county, and I’m not with the MCS so it ain’t my jurisdiction. Besides, you don’t rush this kinda shit. Not when people are dead. You know that.”
“So, how is Constance anyway?” I interjected, trying to change the subject.
“Holdin’ up,” he replied, pursing his lips and casting a glance back her way. “It’s never easy… Especially when it’s a kid.”
“How old was he?”
“Got no ID yet, but he looks like he can’t be more than fourteen.”
“Too young,” I muttered.
“Tell me about it,” he replied and then reached up to his neck.
“Ben,” Felicity appealed again, her voice softer but no less demanding. “We have to go. Kimberly can’t hold out much longer.”
“Felicity…” His voiced trailed off for a moment, obviously tired. “You don’t even know for sure where she is.”
“I showed you on the map,” she replied.
“You showed me the Chain of Rocks Bridge to the other side of the river,” he returned.
“But it has to be somewhere close to there.”
“Yeah, but where?” he asked. “Twenty-five mile arc? Fifty-mile arc? Huh? What are we gonna do, go across the bridge, start yellin’ ‘er name and hope she answers?”
“Dammit, Benjamin!” she snipped. “There’s a way to find her, I know it, but we have to go!”
“What way? How?”
She shot me a furtive glance. “You wouldn’t understand. Just… We need to go!”
“Try me.”
“There’s no time for explaining!” she insisted. “We have to go!”
“Okay! Fine! Whaddaya want me ta’ do?”
“Get us out of here.”
“Okay, how?”
“Tell them about Kimberly.”
“Tell ‘em what?”
“That she’s out of time!” she spat. “That she’s going to die if we don’t do something!”
“So, lemme get this straight. You want me to go to the lead detective and say, ‘hey, the little redheaded Witch over there says we gotta go now, ‘cause she saw a kidnap victim in her crystal ball’ is that it?” he asserted.
“I thought you believed me,” she snarled.
“I do, Felicity,” he shot back. “I’ve always fuckin’ believed you two.”
“Then just trust me!”
“I told you, I do, but right now what I believe doesn’t mean shit to these cops!”
“How do you know if you don’t try?!” my wife demanded.
“You know better than that. You think tellin’ ‘em some Twilight Zone crap is gonna fly? Gimme a break.”
She glared back at him for a moment, then stepped around him and started across the lot. All she said was, “Well if you won’t do it, then I will.”