—
She swallowed hard and called her daughter. Ellie didn’t pick up. KT opened her text app and, doing her best to keep her voice steady, sent a voice message. “Eleanor, I need you to do something for me. Something weird has happened with work. I need you to stay inside the school, someplace safe, until I call you. Okay? This is serious. Text me back, please.”
She hung up. Peter looked at her. “Does she usually ignore your calls?”
KT sighed. “She’s a teenage girl. She ignores me every chance she gets.”
“Will she listen to the message?”
KT raised her hands helplessly. “No idea. She’s thirteen going on thirty, and she keeps turning off the tracking app.”
“You mind if I borrow your phone?”
“Why?”
“To call the police.”
“The note said if I talked to the police, they’d hurt Ellie.”
“I think that genie is out of the bottle. That guy was ready to kill you. Getting the police to the school is your best chance to protect your daughter.”
She looked him up and down, this rawboned and rough-looking man in the immaculate old truck, the pistol on the seat between them. “Don’t you have a phone?”
“I do,” he said. “But if I use yours, the police will have your number. So they can track you if things go badly.”
She didn’t want to ask what he might mean about things going badly. She woke her phone and held it out. He punched in three numbers.
“Are you recording? Great. My name is Peter Ash, and I’m driving a dark green 1968 Chevy pickup with a wooden cargo box on the back.” He spoke slowly and clearly. “I’m with Katelyn Thorsen, the journalist. This morning, she received a death threat at her home in Queen Anne. A few minutes ago, on Western Avenue down by Pike Place Market, somebody waiting by her parked car pulled a gun on her. I managed to scare him away, but the threat included her daughter, Eleanor, thirteen years old. We’re on our way to McClure Middle School to pick her up now. Can you send a couple of cars, in case he decides to try again?”
He listened for a moment. “I appreciate it, ma’am. Also, the guy was driving a gray hatchback, I think a Ford.” He rattled off the plate number. “In case you run into him.” He listened again. “Yes, please, send the detectives, we’re happy to cooperate. Thank you.”
He handed her back the phone, tucked the pistol’s butt under his thigh, then gunned the big engine and began to weave through traffic. “We’ll talk about why somebody might want to kill you after we get your daughter somewhere safe.”
4
Peter
Peter Ash pushed hard up First Ave with the Space Needle on his right, leaning on his horn as he rolled through a series of red lights. He thought he might have seen the gray hatchback a block back, but it was hard to tell. The rain was heavy, and his side mirrors were small. The old truck’s wipers did their best.
He hadn’t been back to Seattle since he’d first met June, who’d lived in a garage apartment up on Capitol Hill. But he still had the city map in his head. It was a gift that he had first discovered in Officer Candidate School, the ability to study a map and retain it. In combat, it had saved him and his guys more times than he could count.
At West Roy, he ducked right for a block, then turned left and powered up Queen Anne Avenue, downshifting for the steep grade. Apartment buildings lined the road on both sides. Because of the hill, he could see more of the vehicles behind him, and the hatchback wasn’t one of them. Ahead, a slow line of cars crept up the incline, blocking the road. He goosed the gas and slid into the oncoming lane, ignoring the horns and raised middle fingers.
KT was curled into herself, one hand grabbing the oh-shit handle and the other braced on the dashboard. But she didn’t scream and she didn’t complain, which let Peter focus on getting where they needed to go.
She’d almost lost it earlier. But she’d managed to collect herself when he mentioned her daughter. That was better than many people would be able to do after some asshole in a clown mask pointed a gun at them. June had told Peter that Katelyn Thorsen was the toughest reporter she’d ever met. Coming from June Cassidy, a very tough reporter herself, that was a major compliment.
At the top of the hill, Queen Anne Avenue became the neighborhood’s main commercial strip. The south end was still sleepy and relatively undeveloped, although Peter felt strongly that the 5 Spot café should be a national landmark.
McClure Middle School was a few blocks down and one block west. Peter stopped at the corner by the park and looked north toward the school. With cars parked on both sides of the street, it was only wide enough for a single lane, and that was filled with a long line of idling cars, he assumed drivers waiting to pick up their kids. But he didn’t see any police cruisers. Surely there’d been one cop on Queen Anne when he’d called.
She said, “What are you waiting for?” Her fists were clenched on her thighs.
“Too many cars,” Peter said. “I don’t want to get stuck in there.” Thinking the guy in the clown mask could walk up the sidewalk behind the line of parked cars and Peter wouldn’t see him until it was too late.
“Let me out here.” She unbuckled her seat belt. “I’ll find Ellie, and you can pick us up on the other side of the park.”
“No.” He turned left, away from the school. “Let me find a spot for the truck and we’ll both go.”
