Runaway Witness Read online

  The possibility of life without Iris.

  “Hands up! Down on the ground!” A male voice rang with authority behind him. It was strong and deep, and left no doubt that it expected to be obeyed. “Drop your weapons!”

  Well, this was it then. It was too late now for any more debate. Mack’s hands rose. He felt the phone fall from his fingers into the snow and tossed his gun after it. He was finally done hiding.

  “Turn!” the male voice barked. “Nice and slow. Keep your hands where I can see them. Detective Mack Gray, you’re under arrest for kidnapping, destruction of property and conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Interesting grab bag of charges. “It’s my duty to inform you that you have the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay.”

  Mack turned toward the wall of officers approaching behind him, raising his hands high and surrendering his life into God’s hands. Then his eyes rose to the face of the tall, broad-shouldered, uniformed cop, whose fierce, unsmiling gaze was fixed squarely on Mack as he pointed the weapon at him. It was only the threat of the very many other armed men and women around them that kept Mack from bursting out into laughter.

  Instead he dropped to his knees, placed his hands on his head and thanked God under his breath as Detective Liam Bearsmith, one of the best cops he’d ever had the privilege of working with, strode toward him, reciting Mack’s rights.

  “Hey,” Mack murmured under his breath as Liam stepped between him and the onlookers.

  “Good to see you,” Liam said softly. “Where’s Iris?”

  “Kidnapped. Helicopter.”

  Liam breathed a prayer under his breath.

  “Where’s Jess?” Mack asked.

  “Managing transportation.” Liam grabbed Mack’s hands and clasped the handcuffs on.

  “Nice touch,” Mack said. “But are these really necessary?”

  “Yup,” Liam said. “A lot of people want you behind bars. Others want you dead and there are camera phones everywhere. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  He scooped up Mack’s cell phone and weapon. Then he grabbed Mack by the elbow and hauled him to his feet. Liam walked him around the side of the diner and Mack suddenly realized just how large a crowd had gathered.

  There were dozens of cops and patrons, engaged in more than one heated discussion. He saw a few stretchers, but no major injuries or body bags. He counted at least a dozen phones shooting footage. He wondered how long it would take video of his arrest to appear on the news and what his parents would think.

  “Keep your eyes on the ground.” Liam bent Mack’s head down, shielded his face with his elbow and marched him through the crowd. “Look defeated.”

  “Any fatalities?” Mack asked quietly.

  “Nope,” Liam said. “Few minor injuries but nothing major.”

  “I caught one Jackal and handcuffed him to a railing so he wouldn’t escape while I was helping Iris,” Mack said.

  “Hadn’t heard about that,” Liam said. “Jess might. Or he might’ve gotten free before police showed up. There’s talk of robbery, but officially I think it’s going to go down as some kind of a brawl caused by the power outage.”

  “But people saw a masked Jackal demanding wallets.”

  “An owner with a history of breaking the law and a bunch of people who’ve got warrants out for their own arrests isn’t a combo likely to result in a whole lot of positive identifications,” Liam said. “These are the kind of people who avoid helping police because they don’t want their own stuff accidentally slipping out. Do you think the Jackals wanted to cause a diversion to kidnap Iris?”

  “I do now,” Mack said. “There were two Jackals I saw, plus someone got Iris with a tranquilizer dart. Did they at least get the Jackal in the green mask who was robbing the place?”

  “That I can’t tell you,” Liam said. “Again, maybe Jess knows.”

  They reached one cop car among many, Liam opened the back door, shoved him in, did up his seat belt and slammed the door behind him. Mack looked up. Jess was in the driver’s seat. Like Liam, she was also in full uniform. Her eyes met his and the corner of her lips twitched in the subtlest of smiles.

  “They got Iris,” Liam told her, climbing into the passenger seat before Mack could even speak. Liam shut the door behind him and snapped on his seat belt.

  Mack noticed the eyes and cell phones followed every move.

  “I’m sorry,” Jess said. Her eyes cut to the rearview mirror as she put the car in Drive. “Don’t worry, Mack. We’ll figure out where she is and get her back. For now, just try to look like a man who’s just been arrested for his crimes until we get out of here. I guarantee people will be recording us driving off and the car might still be searched.”

  He nodded and slumped back in his seat, his head bowed. The vehicle pulled away through the chaos of people, vehicles and flashing lights.

  “Seth said you went dark,” Mack said.

  “Yeah,” Liam said. “We didn’t want to risk being caught. In fact, he doesn’t yet know we have you.”

  It wouldn’t be the first time witness protection police officers hadn’t kept their civilian computer tech in the loop, but considering how much he complained, they included him whenever they could.

  “We were picked up at a police checkpoint,” Liam went on, “and after that we weren’t alone long enough to risk it. Right now there’s a very senior RCMP officer wandering around the diner crime scene, wondering why the two officers he kindly drove to the diner didn’t tell him before taking his car.”

  Something in Liam’s relaxed tone made Mack think that while he regretted the fact he’d have to apologize to a colleague, he wasn’t worried they’d get in any trouble for it.

  “Risky move,” Mack said. “Want to tell me how you two managed to pull this off?”

  “I have friends in this area,” Liam said. “Ones that were incredibly thankful for the tips a few hours back that led to the major raid at Crow’s Farm. They owed me one for your intel on that, not that I ever expected I’d have to call it in so quickly.”

  “They agreed to let you smuggle me out of here?” Mack asked. Yes, Liam had a stellar reputation and cops across the country owed a lot to his help. But letting someone just dodge arrest was a bridge too far.

  “Of course not.” Liam chuckled. “They agreed to let me be the one to arrest you and bring you in.”

  Yeah, that made more sense.

  “You going to get me out of these handcuffs?” Mack asked. “And call Seth?”

  “Not yet,” Liam said. “Not until we’re out of here.”

  Liam’s somber eyes met Mack’s in the rearview mirror. “And don’t worry, besides getting you out of here, our own priority is finding Iris and getting her back safe. We will find her. I give you my word.”

  A checkpoint loomed ahead. Jess slowed the vehicle and flashed her badge and the warrant for Mack’s arrest. A police officer shone a flashlight through the back window at the vehicle at him. Mack scowled, hung his head and did his best impression of a corrupt and entitled cop whose crimes had finally caught up with him. Then he held his breath and waited as Liam and the cop outside chatted for a moment. They were finally waved through.

  The checkpoint disappeared in the distance. Trees and sky surrounded them on all sides.

  Liam leaned forward and pressed a button on the screen. Seth’s face appeared, looking panicked. The hacker’s mouth opened like he was about to say something, but then his eyes took in the scene. Then he burst out laughing.

  The sound was so spontaneous and freeing that an odd feeling of relief moved through Mack’s limbs, mingling with the anguish in his core. He wasn’t alone anymore. His team was here. They’d find Iris. They had to.

  “I feel like I just looked away from the movie at the wrong moment and missed a whole chunk of the plot,” Seth said.

&nb
sp; “Long story short,” Liam said, “we got caught by a roadblock, went dark, pulled in a favor with the team who raided Crow’s, and then we arrested Mack.”

  “Hang on,” Mack said. “I’m not actually arrested, am I?”

  “Did he read you your rights?” Jess asked, with a slight smile. “Because there’s a very real warrant out for your arrest and he is a cop.”

  “I haven’t filed the paperwork yet,” Liam said. He opened the partition window to the back seat and tossed a pair of handcuff keys into Mack’s fingers.

  “You’re not going to uncuff me?” Mack asked.

  “Not unless you actually need me to,” Liam said, with a grin.

  Mack rolled his eyes and started working on the cuffs, thankful for the distraction of having something to do with his hands. “How’s the security footage coming along?”

  “I have blurry images of a man and a woman helping Iris up and escorting her to the helicopter,” Seth said. “They don’t match anyone in our database.”

  It was a start. But not as much of one as he’d have hoped for.

  “Please tell me that police have arrested the green-and red-masked Jackals,” he said.

  “It’s still a crime scene in progress,” Seth said. “More arrests will be coming. But for right now, there’s no record of anyone being arrested matching their description, unless you guys know something I don’t.”

  Seth glanced to Jess and Liam. Both shook their heads. Mack yanked his hands free from the handcuffs.

  “I handcuffed the red-masked Jackal to a railing inside the diner,” he said. “Someone will have to have a cell phone picture of him at least.”

  “On it.” Seth was typing. “Also, no hit on the helicopter yet. Yes, I know that people are supposed to file flight plans, but...”

  “But someone pulled some strings somewhere,” Mack supplied, “and so far you can’t figure out where all those tugs are coming from.”

  Mack closed his eyes and prayed. Lord, this whole thing just feels like a setup. But whatever it is, I just can’t see it.

  Sometimes it helped to go right back to the start.

  “My father always taught me that everything comes down to connections and networks,” Mack said. The irony finally hit him that for all the “connections” he’d made in his life, only a few, like his team, had been real. And only one, Iris, had gotten through to his core. “For him, it was business networks. For us, it’s criminal networks and the law enforcement community. When I met Iris, it was because the RCMP was investigating whether Oscar Underwood’s criminal activity was being enabled by corruption within the Toronto police or just negligence. The facts pointed to a potential conspiracy, only I found no proof of criminality or corruption. Even the cops wanting to arrest me now are just doing their jobs.”

  Liam nodded.

  “There’s a network of street youth and homeless people, too,” Mack went on. “A lot of the people who live on the streets know each other or the places to go. Iris kept one step ahead of the Jackals using a map of safe places that people at her homeless center had helped her create. But somehow it still led us to a criminal enterprise. And no matter where she ran, the Jackals kept finding her. Which implies she’s being pursued by someone who knows about the map, or at least the locations on it. But none of that seems to connect to anything.”

  More nods.

  “Finally,” he said, “Iris was kidnapped by an expensive and unmarked helicopter. That means she was abducted by either someone with money or someone who has access to very expensive toys. Definitely not law enforcement, too nice to belong to Crow or most criminals I know, and I can’t believe it belongs to a street kid. How are the police, the wealthy and the homeless connected? And what does that have to do with someone sedating and kidnapping Iris?”

  “Is this the guy you were fighting with?” Seth asked.

  Mack looked up at the blurry picture of a man in dark fatigues and a red ski mask pulled up off his thin face. “Yeah, that’s him. Very vaguely familiar, but I can’t really see his face. Got a match?”

  “Not yet.” Seth kept typing.

  “Can I see the picture of the two people who abducted Iris?” Mack asked.

  “Sure, but I haven’t managed to clean it up yet,” Seth said.

  The picture appeared on the screen. He didn’t recognize the figures, but Iris didn’t seem to be fighting them either.

  “There’s something else I’m missing,” Mack said. “These people actually managed to take her. Iris is the most tenacious person I’ve ever met. Even sedated, I can’t imagine her ever just meekly leaving with a stranger.”

  “She wouldn’t have left without you,” Liam said softly, and yet the words seemed to strike Mack somewhere deep inside his core. “You’re talking about a woman who dragged you into a camper when you were sedated and refused to leave Crow’s Farm when you were taken inside. If Jess and I had shown up and tried to take her away without you, she’d have fought tooth and nail to not leave without you. So, whoever took her was able to catch her off guard long enough to kidnap her.”

  “So, she knew them?”

  He closed his eyes. Help me, Lord. None of the pieces fit. Iris lived her life surrounded by a community of people who were poor and in need. They loved her, and she loved them. None were the kind who flew around in expensive helicopters. Words he and Iris had said to each other floated at the corners of his minds.

  There’s more than one way to be rich. And more than one way to be poor.

  “Seth.” Mack opened his eyes. “What about the pictures of street kids from the homeless center? The ones that weren’t found in the raids on Underwood’s properties?”

  “I haven’t managed to get a hit on those yet either,” Seth said. “Why?”

  “Okay, I might have a theory,” Mack said. “There were some kids that saw the Jackals and were terrified of them. In some cases, they had survived an attempted kidnaping already. They told Iris about the Jackals and then disappeared, but they weren’t found when Oscar’s properties were raided. Some might’ve gone off the grid. But what if others didn’t? They were the ones who’d told her about the places on the map, so they’d know where to look for her. They might even have friends or contacts at places she’d visited, like the Emerald Diner or Crow’s Farm. What if some of the same people hunting her had also helped her create her map?”

  Jess glanced back at him. “So you’re saying some of the people Iris helped at the homeless center are now working for the Jackals?”

  “I don’t know,” Mack said. “Because they’re terrified of the Jackals. But how many times in our work have we seen young people forced into working for criminals? If Iris were here, she’d remind us that these people were her friends and people she cared about, and that if any of them were caught up in this, they need our help. I can’t imagine any of them willingly hurting Iris. They loved her. She took care of them.”

  It was a theory, but not a complete one.

  “What are you saying?” Liam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mack said. He could feel the wheels in his head spinning. “Seth, try matching the red-masked Jackal against the photos Iris had up in her camper?”

  Almost immediately he heard a ping.

  Seth gasped. “Well, what do you know?” he said. “We got an overlap. The red-masked Jackal was in one of Iris’s pictures from the homeless center.”

  Mack leaned back against his seat. Okay, he didn’t know what it meant yet, but he had something. “How about the two people who ushered Iris into the helicopter?”

  “Already on it,” Seth said. Moments later his machine pinged again. “Yup, they’re from the homeless center pictures, too. They’re all street youth who weren’t found in the Underwood raids.”

  Mack blew out a hard breath. Okay, so that could explain how the Jackals kept finding Iris and how they’d gotten
her into the helicopter. But not why. Why would they turn against Iris and help criminals kidnap her? Who possibly had that power over them? How did this tie into Oscar’s murder?

  “How do we find out who they are?” Mack asked.

  “First off, a hasty picture you took of a printed photo isn’t the easiest thing for facial recognition software to do much with,” Seth said. “Even for me. Same for these new blurry pictures from the Emerald Diner. But at least we have more data to go on than we did an hour ago. I ran the pictures against missing persons and the crime database. Whoever those people are, they’ve never been arrested or charged with anything, and they’ve never been reported missing. Which in itself is suspicious, considering Iris met them when they were living on the streets and in shelters. So we have young people who ended up homeless and in need without ever having a brush with the law or being reported missing by a loved one. It makes no sense.”

  Unless they were connected to the kind of person who made arrests go away and cared more about avoiding scandal than reporting a missing child.

  Someone like Mack’s father and his wealthy contacts. Maybe the connection between the young people was that they all came from families with money.

  “Try high school yearbooks,” Mack said. “Private ones. The more exclusive and expensive the better.”

  His father had taught him that everything came down to networks. He’d just been searching the wrong ones. Jess pulled off the main road and onto a smaller path, then he saw a yellow rescue helicopter on a concrete square ahead of them.

  “Got it!” Seth slapped the desk in front of him with both hands so hard that he nearly pushed himself up out of his seat. “Joseph Peterson, aged twenty-five, is the red-masked Jackal. Sara Ford, aged eighteen, and Elliot Jones, aged twenty-eight, are the ones who helped Iris into the helicopter.”