“Cut them off, go back, go back. Up Bedford!”
The back street here was narrow, carved with alleys. The Crown Vic rattled and shook as it sped down the uneven pavement. Nicholas was hanging on, Mike was about to take another corner, hard. He yelled at her when he saw a large lorry pulled in front of them. Mike screeched to a halt, buzzed down her window, and yelled, “Get out of the way, get out of the way!”
The cops behind them skidded to a stop as well.
The driver wasn’t a slouch. He slammed the truck into gear, shot forward, and Mike gunned the Crown Vic past him.
But the Honda was nowhere to be seen.
She said a very bad word, and Nicholas yelled into the radio, “We lost them, someone needs to pick them up.”
They pulled to a stop next to an HSBC bank branch on the corner of Bedford and Third Street, the cops fishtailing to crowd in next to them.
One got out of his vehicle and approached Mike like she was a bomb about to go off. Then she saw the officer’s nametag and laughed, couldn’t help it—P. Friendly.
Nicholas shouted, “Officer Friendly, is NYPD on the car?”
“We were calling in air support when he slipped away, Agent, sir. I’m sorry. We’ve got a BOLO on the Honda, we’ll nail them unless they pull into a garage.”
Nicholas slammed his open palm on the top of the Crown Vic, then called Gray. “We lost them. NYPD has a BOLO out. Okay, okay, let me change gears. Tell me you got something off the license plate of the Suburban Mrs. Antonio told us about.”
“I did indeed. It’s registered to a Meyers Enterprises, in Chelsea. Here’s the address.”
Nicholas punched it into his mobile. “Good. Now back to the Honda. They dirtied up the Honda’s plate so I couldn’t see any numbers or letters, but the background was white and it looked like there were some sort of flowers on a branch—”
Mike knocked on the top of the car to get his attention. “Virginia. Tell him the Honda plates were from Virginia.”
Gray heard her. “Brown Honda Accord, Virginia plates. Doesn’t narrow it down much.”
“It’s all we have, Gray.”
“I’ll see what I can do. We’re pulling CCTV footage from the area as we speak. Give me two minutes, I’ll find them.”
Two minutes. A lifetime.
Mike said, “We’re going to need a crime scene unit sent to Brooklyn. The guy Nicholas shot in the knee was looking for something in the burned debris.” She gave Gray the address, which he already knew.
“So now what?” Nicholas said. “We stand around with our thumbs in our mouths until Gray calls back, waiting for Zachery to come take our guns and put us in front of the review board again?” He watched Mike pull her hair back into a proper ponytail. She was bruised and flushed and out of breath and looked ready to spit nails. Nicholas thought she looked pretty as a picture. He couldn’t wait to meet her mom, the beauty queen.
Then she straightened, her eyes sparkled, and she gave him a sly grin. “Nicholas, we’re not needed in Brooklyn. There’s no way the two men are going back there, not with one of them wounded. This is a legitimate pursuit, and we think they may be headed to Chelsea to meet up with the black Suburban. So let’s get ourselves to the address in Chelsea Gray gave us. We can handle the fallout later.”
“Your mind is an astonishing instrument, Agent Caine. I believe you’re absolutely right. I’ll text Louisa, tell her about the man poking around. She and the team can check everything out, better for us to continue pursuit of the suspects. Chelsea it is.”
Mike turned back onto Sixth Avenue, thinking aloud. “Those two men who loaded up the redheaded woman into that Suburban. Mrs. Antonio said they were all in black? Not COE, no, they sound like professionals of some sort. We need to find her, Nicholas. I wish Gray would call and tell us they’ve identified her from the video at Bayway.”