Free Gone Cold by Douglas Corleone Page A

trigger, a pale finger just itching to fire.

 
    Chapter 15
    Fifty feet ahead of me, the SUV passed Gilchrist then swerved to the left, banking onto the sidewalk, blocking his path.
    Gilchrist stopped on a dime. But his friend’s reflexes weren’t quite so cooperative; his momentum carried him well past Gilchrist, nearly to the door of the SUV. And a single blast from the .45 damn near blew his head clean off.
    His corpse struck the wet pavement with a gory splat . Blood immediately began seeping into the paper-thin layer of just-fallen snow, tinging it raven black in the moonlight.
    Gilchrist let out a shriek worthy of a young Jamie Lee Curtis as he spun, slipped, picked himself up, and bolted toward me.
    I scanned the block. Halfway between us was an alley. I had no idea where it led, but it looked like Gilchrist’s only out. So as the dark green SUV started to reverse off the curb, I darted forward and grabbed him by the tracksuit before he could fly past me.
    Sounds of gunfire erupted all around us. Loud. The kind of cannon-like explosions that’ll cause you to wake with tinnitus the next morning. Accompanying the shots, shattered glass, chipped bricks, the cry of metal on metal from doorways.
    I covered Gilchrist with my body, pushing him forward into the alley, which was dark and narrow and— Christ, no —a dead end.
    I surveyed the space. If not a back exit, I’d been hoping to find a ground-floor window to duck into or a doorway to use for cover, but nothing. Not even a few loose bricks we could use for weapons. The alley was empty save for a single scummy gray Dumpster that wouldn’t stop a bullet fired from a BB gun.
    With the SUV turning toward us, I had no choice. I reached for the filthy rubber lid of the Dumpster and flung it open. Over his protests, I hoisted Kinny Gilchrist onto my shoulder and heaved him into the trash. Slammed the lid shut just moments before the SUV’s headlights flooded the alley.
    To throw them off, I turned and made for the opposite end of the alley until I couldn’t. Once I was forced to stop, I stood stock still, trying to catch my breath, staring dejectedly up at the massive brick wall before me as though Gilchrist had gotten over it but I hadn’t. Hopefully the occupants of the vehicle were too dumb to realize that the wall’s elevation made scaling it a physical impossibility for either of us, even working in concert.
    Behind me the SUV idled in the maw of the alley.
    When I wheeled around, two young men were spilling out of its doors, one from the passenger seat, the other from behind the driver.
    Both held weapons but only the latter appeared to be carrying a gun, the .45 caliber Heckler & Koch that had killed Gilchrist’s pal from the booth in the pub.
    As they approached, the one with the gun leveled it at me.
    I thought about the girl who may be Hailey and cursed myself inwardly. I didn’t give a damn about the Gilchrist kid. What was I doing protecting him? I tried to reassure myself that he was my best chance at identifying the man in the photo with my daughter. But it was more than that; I couldn’t deny it. I’d chased the kid out of the pub and now, right or wrong, I felt responsible for him.
    “Where is he?” the gunman shouted.
    The other, who was carrying a metal pipe, cried, “Just give him up, auld man, or we’ll do you too.”
    In the distance the faint hum of another engine caught my attention.
    “Come on, then,” the gunman said. “Dinnae be a tube. You’re naw his minder, are you?”
    I stared hard at the two men. Even in the dim light of the moon, I could tell the gunman had bad skin, a permanent victim of the lethal combination of teenage acne, untrimmed nails, and a lack of discipline. The other one, the one with the pipe, was a good-looking kid. Tall, well-dressed, probably from money. Most important for my purposes, both had distinctive looks I would have remembered. Which meant I could be relatively certain that neither of these two