Mortal Prey

dropping, heading back west, slowing…
    “We got some cops coming in…. See that group of cars, that group right there? She’s in there, I think, four or five cars, the cops are a mile out, we got her, we got her…”
     
    RINKER WAS IN the Benz, had been talking with Treena Ross, who was weeping, grieving for her late husband, when she heard the chopper. Rinker had lived in bad parts of St. Louis long enough, in her younger years, to know what it was: a kind of strange flapping sound, as if somebody were beating his chest with open palms. She said, “Cops!” and hung up and rolled along for a moment, despair creeping into her heart, hoping that Treena knew enough to get rid of the phone, thinking quickly of Davenport …and then she saw the lights of a shopping center up ahead, a thin glimmer, just a possibility, of hope, and she suddenly floored the accelerator and cut through traffic and let it run out, the car gaining momentum at a ferocious rate toward the gaping mouth of what Rinker hoped was a parking ramp. Had to be a parking ramp, or a tunnel, or something; she said, aloud, “Parking ramp, please God, parking ramp.”
    She was no more than a minute away….
     
    LUCAS SAW HER take off, moving through traffic like a broken-field runner, shouted, “She’s onto us. Get on top of her, get on top of her.”
    A pilot gave him a thumbs-up and took the chopper into a screaming drive, but they gained ground only slowly and then actually seemed to lose some, and Lucas realized that Rinker must be pushing the black car into the hundreds, like a black comet surging along the street as though to catch the dead-white light of its high beams.
    The tech was talking into his microphone, describing the car, describing the action, giving updates on the map as they finally started closing. Then they saw the tunnel, or whatever it was, up ahead, and Lucas said, “She’s heading for that tunnel thing.”
    “Parking structure,” the copilot shouted. “It’s the parking structure for the shopping center.”
    “Get us down, get us down, right in the mouth of it, she’s gonna beat us there, get me out and then get back up and look for her running.”
    And to Sally, as they dropped: “Annie, get your gun.”
     
    RINKER SAW THE chopper at the last minute, right above her, almost ahead of her, at the entrance to the tunnel, but she squirted past it, jammed on the brakes, was thrown into the steering wheel, got the speed down enough that she could cut right into a parking bay and saw, at the far end, three people walking along with shopping bags, one of them a man, jingling his car keys. She went that way, laying on the gas again.
    The family had seen her coming and knew she was moving too fast and instinctively flattened themselves against a minivan and she jammed the brakes again and hopped out and started toward them and then something hit her in the butt. Something like a baseball bat, and she went down.
     
    LUCAS WAS OUT and running into the tunnel, saw the Benz cut right and ran harder, Sally dropping behind, came around a pillar into a parking bay and saw the Benz down at the end and Rinker climbing out. Without thinking, he tracked her with the .45 and fired a single shot and amazed himself when she went down, rolled, and then she was crawling and back up and she was standing next to three civilians, two adults and what seemed to be a child, a ten-year-old girl, maybe, and Rinker was screaming at him, “Go the other way. Run the other way.”
    Lucas shouted, “Give it up, give it up.”
    Rinker shouted back, “Run the other way, Davenport, run back down the tunnel or I swear to God I’ll kill these people, I’ll kill all three of them right in front of your eyes.”
    Lucas slowed, still moving up, and shouted, “Clara, you’re hurt, give it up, Clara…”
    And Sally closed up and shouted, “Rinker…”
    Then, horrified, they saw Rinker point a pistol at the head of the largest of the adults and pull the trigger, the man twisting and bouncing off a car, going down, as the shot echoed through the parking garage, and Rinker pointed the gun at the woman, and she screamed, “Mom goes next, Davenport, and then the kid. Mom goes next, run now or I’ll pop her.”
    She pointed the gun at the mother, who lifted her arms to her face and shrank away, screaming herself; she backed up and tripped over her fallen husband and half fell, and Rinker screamed, “Here she goes….”
    Lucas shouted, “We’re