There was one thing Charlie had to know. “Why didn’t you kill that bast—”
“It’s not who we are and it’s the last thing we need. To kill a cop, even if he’s a dirty one. Every officer will turn this city upside down and inside out looking for us.”
Aiden was right. There were multiple witnesses able to clearly identify them. They didn’t need the extra heat. Things were sweltering as it was.
“Let’s hope we don’t regret leaving him alive.”
* * *
DEVLIN WAS SEETHING. His body began to shake with the rage building inside him, overshadowing the pain from his burns. He whipped out his personal phone.
But not to dial 911.
He’d officially report the incident, portraying them as stalkers trying to silence him, and have an all-points bulletin put out on the marshals, but it’d take his brothers-in-blue twenty minutes to get there and start looking for Yazzie and Killinger.
A faster response was required.
He pulled up the French Quarter Task Force app. An enterprise initiated and funded by a billionaire who wanted to make the city safer, using a crowdsourcing approach to crime. The FQTF was a private police patrol that could be summoned via a mobile app. Its monumental success encouraged the Louisiana State Police and surrounding parishes to use it, too.
The screen displayed a digitized map of the Quarter. A grid of seventy-eight city blocks. Green arrows indicated a member of the armed squad—off-duty cops rolling around in matte black smart cars at all hours, with the ability to respond to a crime in progress in under two minutes.
He plugged in the address of the restaurant he was standing in. Prepared for this type of scenario, he next uploaded the photos of Yazzie and Killinger the SDPD had been kind enough to share with him and typed the notification:
Armed and dangerous fugitives wanted for the murder of two law enforcement officers just tried to kill a local cop. They’re on foot. Apprehend with caution. $25,000 REWARD.
He hit Enter.
A red dot appeared on his location. Pictures of the marshals flashed on the screen.
Ten green arrows in the vicinity immediately reacted and began zigzagging through the streets forming a perimeter, searching for them. And every citizen who had the app loaded on their phone would receive the alert and could submit updates on the whereabouts of the fugitives if they spotted them.
The entire city would be on the lookout for Yazzie and Killinger.
Chapter Fourteen
All the pieces on the board shifted with Devlin’s early arrival. They had to adjust accordingly.
“We need to check out of the hotel,” Aiden said. Get back their money for the second night, grab the meager clothing they had, his shirt, her jacket and their weapons. “Find someplace new, off the beaten path.”
There was no doubt in Aiden’s mind that Devlin would put out an all-points bulletin on them and was probably calling it in at that very moment.
Ahead at the corner they approached, two women in their late thirties were chatting and laughing as they looked at something on one of their mobile devices. The phone buzzed and emitted the jarring, high-pitched tone of a public safety alert. Another phone in the vicinity, somewhere behind them, did the same.
The women stopped talking and stared at the phone.
One of them, a redhead, swiped up on her screen.
The other, a black woman with long braids, gasped. “Twenty-five grand.”
Both women frantically looked around, spinning in circles.
The redhead hit her friend and pointed at Aiden and Charlie. “That’s them.”
Aiden’s chest clutched. He and Charlie froze for an instant and exchanged a glance. His mind raced to process what was happening, but there was no time to figure it out.
“That’s them,” the black woman said. “Report it.”
The redhead started typing on her phone.
Charlie gestured to a massive open-air shopping complex that spanned several city blocks. They bolted across the street, skirting around vehicles.
A black smart car raced around the corner, lights flashing on top. Across the hood and side were the emblems of wings, a star and the words FQ Task Force New Orleans Police Dept.
Aiden and Charlie darted underneath the archway of the French Market as a second black task force car came zooming toward them from the other end of the street.
Rows of kiosks with vendors selling goods stretched out before them. They cut through the throng of shoppers, weaving their way around stands, hoping to blend in. Customers were absorbed in browsing and buying. Merchants focused on making sales.
The tawdry flea market was a veritable tourist trap, sitting at the edge of the Mississippi River, jam-packed with out-of-towners who didn’t bat a lash at them.
Charlie spotted something, took his hand and led him to a bank of specialty shops. He didn’t pull away. This was only about survival. Nothing more.
With his head on a swivel, looking for cops or anyone staring at them, he didn’t understand what she was thinking until she pushed through the door of the store.
It was a costume shop.
“I’ll wait out here.” Not only to keep watch, but the store owner would be less likely to recognize or remember Charlie on her own if the proprietor had got the same notification.
Whatever alert the women across the street had received was about the two of them, together. So far, it didn’t seem as if anyone in the market had noticed them. But that might not last much longer.
He glimpsed two cops working their way through the open-air enclave. More flashing lights stopped along the main street adjacent to the colonnade.
The seconds ticked down and his pulse kicked up.
Efficient as always, Charlie came out of the shop a minute later, carrying a bag. They pressed through the shopping colonnade, ducking into the first bathroom they came across—a unisex, single-occupancy room. She slipped on a short brown wig, tucking stray blond strands up inside, and a long-sleeve red shirt that transformed her into a stranger.
“Good work, Killinger,” he said, her surname sliding from his lips before he could stop it.
This wasn’t the time for him to deliberately rile her up by giving her the cold shoulder. To get through this, they had to act like a team, even if they weren’t going to be partners for much longer.
To his surprise, she didn’t roll her eyes or flinch or say anything at all. She dug into the bag and pulled out another hairpiece for him.
Charlie pulled the long black wig on Aiden. Her fingers caressed his forehead and cheeks as she straightened it, pulling errant strands from his face.
She took in a sharp breath, holding his gaze. Her piercing blue eyes were vibrant and inscrutable. It made his heart ache to look at her.