A Killer Plot (A Books by the Bay Mystery)

the least bit gentle as she shoved aside one crazed girl after another in a desperate attempt to see where her dog had gone. When she burst out of the room and into the hallway, she slammed right into Cook.
    “Where is he?” she yelled.
    Cook didn’t pause to talk and Olivia ran with him until they reached an intersecting corridor. “I radioed the chief. Every exit’s covered. This guy’s going nowhere.”
    “I meant Haviland!” Olivia shouted. It was one thing for the poodle to confront the killer in a packed room with armed policemen nearby and quite another for Haviland to assail the man in some darkened room, or worse, outside in the blinding rain. “He could get hurt.”
    Jerking open an office door, Cook stepped inside and swept the room with his flashlight. A voice crackled through his radio. “He’s not running,” Cook declared with a satisfied smirk. “Stupid bastard. We’ve got him now.”
    Olivia ran to the windows overlooking the square and peered outside. She saw nothing but the shadows of tree trunks and the rain-blurred foliage.
    “He won’t run because his agenda isn’t complete,” Olivia said as she pushed by Cook. “His fourth victim is back in that room.” She yanked on the knob of the next door. It was locked. “I think he wanted to make sure none of those little girls got hurt, but he’s not going to leave until he’s done what he came here to do.”
    “But then he’s definitely gonna get caught,” Cook insisted smugly.
    Olivia grabbed the policeman’s arm. “That’s why he’s so dangerous! He doesn’t care ! He’s going to see this thing through no matter what!” She pulled on another door and called, “Haviland! HAVILAND!”
    “Olivia! We’ll help you find him!” Several running feet stopped short behind her. Laurel, Harris, and Millay had arrived.
    “Leave this to the police, folks,” Cook commanded, but the writers ignored him and quickly decided to search for Haviland in pairs. Her lips quivering as she spoke, Laurel bravely volunteered to accompany Olivia.
    Olivia had never wanted to hug another human being as much as she wanted to embrace Laurel at that moment. She could see the stark terror in her friend’s eyes, yet Laurel grabbed Olivia by the hand and started toward the men’s restroom as though she were a warrior preparing to walk into an enemy ambush.
    After a pause, Cook charged ahead of the two women. “The chief will skin me alive if I let anything happen to you, Ms. Limoges,” he remonstrated sharply and ducked into the bathroom.
    By the time they’d checked the bathrooms, the crowd was clearly moving out of the building to the location where Heidi agreed to sign autographs. Ushered down the hallway by their parents and a pair of officers, the actress’s fans milled forward, their unhindered enthusiasm roaring down the hall like the waters of a flash flood.
    Cook shouted a warning into his radio and Olivia couldn’t help but wonder where he’d been hiding the device. Then, despite the fact that she rarely picked up her pace beyond a brisk walk, Olivia ran.
    Laurel easily kept stride with her, and together, the two women burst out the double doors onto the portico a few yards ahead of the first group of fans. A dozen policemen were gathered around the perimeter of the porch, their shoulders taut, jaws clenched, and hands on holsters in preparation to draw their weapons.
    “Did a black poodle come out here?” Olivia asked the nearest officer.
    “No, ma’am,” the man replied, looking past her toward the doors.
    Olivia followed his gaze as the girls began to stream out into the open air. “Then the killer’s still inside!” she shouted at him. Seeing he did not plan to respond, Olivia ran to Cook. “Haviland didn’t come out. That means—”
    “We need to go back in!” Cook immediately parted the crowd, his lips pressed against the radio’s speaker.
    “Stay here!” Olivia told Laurel and followed in Cook’s wake.
    Elbowing through the departing crowd, Cook approached a fellow officer and spoke hurriedly to him. Olivia couldn’t hear their exchange but interrupted anyway. “He’s got to be after Blake or Heidi. We need to get them out of here!”
    The second officer jerked his head toward the meeting room. “Chief said to keep them in the meeting room until these civilians had cleared the building.”
    “Where is Rawlings?” Olivia demanded as the remnants of the audience walked past them.
    The officer shrugged,