No, she must have gotten out by herself.
He felt for the keys in his pocket. He had locked the door, thinking that was enough. He should have chained her. Damn devil’s spawn. He should have chained her to the arm rail like he’d done with her mother, though that stupid bitch had broken her own wrist to slip out of the handcuffs and make her escape.
Stop. Regroup. Think. Look.
He scanned the sidewalks. Estimated in his head, used the geometry that flowed through his brain like a second nature. If she’d gone half a mile in twenty minutes, a mile in thirty...
How could a little girl walk away unnoticed on the busy streets of Boulder? Especially one with fire-red hair?
He needed to start looking inside the businesses, then he’d be forced to ask about her. It couldn’t be helped. Decision made, he opened the door of the nearest shop and stuck his head in.
Nothing. He ran to the next, and the next. A wail built behind him. The fire trucks. First responders. Coming to see why the alarms were blaring at the baby-killing business.
Oh, no. His bombs. His beautiful, precious bombs. They’d comb the building and might find the devices. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Two more businesses empty, devoid of his daughter.
He ran back onto the street. There was a flash of red, in his peripheral vision.
There she was. One hundred yards away, talking to a grandmotherly woman. He would be able to make it, to grab her, to get her back to the truck, to hit the Send key. It would all be okay. She must have wandered off, trying to find him. Lost without him. He knew she was a good girl.
His breathing evened, and his strides grew long, eating up the distance between them.
He watched them turn. The old woman took Ruth by the hand and led her through a small blue wooden door.
He didn’t want to run, didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
One hundred feet.
Fifty.
As he put his hand on the door to follow after them, the ground began to shake. The roar of the explosion hit him a moment later. A million years of instinct took over and he hit the deck.
His ears were ringing. And a single sentence kept flowing through his brain, competing with the noise.
My daughter triggered the bombs.
He froze facedown on the concrete sidewalk. Wails grew, and shouting, and the alarms on the cars nearby began to sing, their very cores shaken.
My daughter triggered the bombs.
A clock started counting down in his head, and his mind began measuring wind speed and distance. He had to get out of there.
He got to his feet. Didn’t look back. There would be no way to trace this back to him. Ruth was gone to him now, in the hands of the devil. She had committed the ultimate sin—was dirty with it. It was too late for her. She wouldn’t have any idea how to find him; they had no address or phone number or driveway. She was lost in a world that he devised for her, an innocent. She couldn’t lead them back to him.
And in ten minutes or so, none of that would matter. She was beyond his help now.
He couldn’t worry about her anymore. He needed to save himself. The abrin would be floating in the air, and everyone in the vicinity would be affected. Those who hadn’t made it out of the building would be pulverized, those who did were breathing deep the venom, molecules of death that coated their souls. He had to get out of there, he didn’t have his mask on.
Get out, get out, get out.
How could this happen?
His daughter had triggered the bombs.
He was back at the truck now. Fumbled with the keys, realized he was only half upset. She’d become a handful anyway, always needing attention, always wanting him to read to her, tuck her in, feed her, protect her. He was better off alone. He could always snatch her again, should he want to. If she survived. But for now, he just needed to get the hell out of there, back to his camp, to the soothing trees, the warm summer sun catching the rumps of the deer and squirrels, the flowers, the field of columbines he’d planted, glowing blue and yellow.
Leave now, and live to fight another day.
The sirens were shrieking now, close and vivid, but he ignored them. Got in the truck, turned over the engine and slammed it into gear.
He was gone.
Chapter 47
Washington, D.C.
Detective Darren Fletcher