Driven Read online

  “I’m fine.”

  “Good,” she said. “I was worried. I never know what to believe in the paper.” She eyed him curiously. “It looks like you’ve got your own personal terrorist.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “The paper also said the passenger survived.” Her eyes suddenly filled with the intensity Gavin had first seen at her sister’s bedside.

  He nodded. “She’s stable. I’ll be seeing her soon.”

  “Can I be there?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Hmm, but you’ll let me know…”

  “As soon as I know.”

  “You’d better!” she said strongly, then lightened. “An interesting slant in today’s story. You made the cover.”

  “Really?”

  “‘The brave live as long as the coward allows.’”

  “That’s the headline?”

  “No. It’s an old Japanese saying,” she explained. She folded the paper in half twice, then stood up. She was stunning. “ ‘The brave live as long as the coward allows,’ ” she repeated, walking over and handing him the paper. She was tall enough to look him in the eye. “Nice shorts.” She smiled and walked toward her bike.

  Gavin reflexively looked down. His midsection appeared neglected compared to her rippled abdominals, which were obviously the product of hard and regular exercise. He, on the other hand, hadn’t worked out regularly in six months and suddenly felt ashamed of his laziness.

  He watched her walk to her bike, her thick, braided black hair sweeping her shoulders. Man, she was beautiful. He struggled to refocus on the paper. “GHOST DRIVER TAKES AIM AT INVESTIGATION… 1 DEAD.”

  “The paper quotes you as saying the Ghost Driver is a coward,” Amy said.

  “He is a coward.”

  “For sure, but if I didn’t know better I would think you were trying to get him mad.”

  “Wouldn’t want to do that,” he said sarcastically.

  “Okay, then your genius plan is to get him to come after you for insulting him?”

  Gavin didn’t respond.

  “What if he catches you by surprise like he has everyone else?”

  “I saw him check us out last night just before the crash. Next time I’ll be ready.”

  “Don’t you think he knows that?” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “You idiot,” he said.

  “Excuse me?” Amy said, looking shocked.

  “I was just helping you complete your sentence. Weren’t you really thinking, ‘Don’t you think he knows that, you idiot?’ ”

  “I didn’t… Okay, I guess I did. Sorry.”

  Gavin didn’t like being pushed by anyone, beautiful or not. “Well, to answer your question, I don’t think he really cares all that much. If he’s half as drunk as his passengers are, revenge is probably taking a backseat to sheer recklessness. I don’t know what the odds are. It’s a shot. That’s all. A shot.”

  He was angry. But he wasn’t sure if it was her questions or simply because just talking about the killer made him mad.

  “You better keep your eyes open, that’s all. I don’t want to lose my partner.”

  “Partner?”

  “Yours is in the hospital, remember?”

  Gavin let out a rare, albeit brief, laugh. “Thanks, but I don’t need a partner. Chris will be back soon enough.”

  “I hope so. But like I told you before, you won’t even know I’m around. I just need a little information.”

  “Like what?”

  “The name of the passenger that survived. The paper said her name was being withheld.”

  “The paper was correct.”

  “I’m not going to harass her.”

  “Amy. Leave the police work to the police before you get hurt.”

  “What? You don’t think I can do as good a job as you, Gavin Tremayne Pierce?”

  “How did you…” Gavin hated his middle name. He never even included an initial when signing anything, even official stuff. She must have somehow found out what was on his birth certificate.

  “It’s Welsh—your great-grandfather’s name on your father’s side.”

  “Amy—”

  “You have a ten-thousand-dollar credit line on your Visa, but rarely run up a tab more than a grand and almost always pay in full by the end of the first month.”

  So she’d found out his credit line somehow. You didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to do that.

  “And you don’t have a steady girlfriend—at least not one you like very much.”

  “Now that’s none of your business,” Gavin said, not comfortable with her digging this far into his personal life.

  “Sorry. But am I wrong?”

  “You promised you wouldn’t go snooping around without my permission.”

  “Already bored? I didn’t even get to tell you about the scar underneath those cute shorts.”

  “Stop.”

  “So?” Amy asked, her eyes big and bright.

  “So what?”

  “So what’s her name?”

  “Why not ask your computer?” he said.

  “Look, we both know I can find her name in the police or hospital files easily enough. But the sooner I get it, the better chance we all have of finding the killer. Besides, asking you is more fun,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  Gavin sighed and gave up. “Karianne Stordal. She’s a Norwegian Airlines flight attendant. Anything else?”

  “Your police passcode?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, mounting her bike. “What time is dinner?”

  “What dinner?”

  “All this work is going to make me very hungry. And we need to get to know each other better if we’re working together.”

  “We’re not working together.”

  “Six? Your place?”

  “Here? I don’t have any—”

  “Look, I’ll come by at six and we’ll ride out to the supermarket and get some food. You have a bike?”

  “Uh, yeah. It’s—”

  “Just make sure it has air. See you at six. Have an appetite.”

  Gavin watched her turn out of the driveway with a wave, wondering how he had just been talked into a date. Since the time of the aquarium crash until now, his interest in women—and pretty much everything else—had taken a backseat. Pain and death had a way of dulling the senses. With hatred and vengeance as a salve for his emotional wounds, life and its visual pleasantries had become little more than a big “So what.”

  Why, then, did he continue to watch Amy ride away until she turned out of view?

  17

  When Gavin looked up and saw the lieutenant storming toward him, he knew it had been a mistake to stop at headquarters instead of going straight to the hospital.

  “What the devil do you call this?” Lieutenant Sandel said, dropping a copy of the morning newspaper onto Gavin’s desk.

  “You know Gasman, Lieutenant. He just got a little carried away.”

  “A little carried away? Chris got carried away… and you’ll be next. What’s wrong with that idiot? Doesn’t he know that—”

  Gavin didn’t have to look up from the computer to know the lieutenant’s face was metamorphosing with the revelation that his detective had set up the headline. He knew what was coming, too. Lieutenant Sandel was a reasonable man, but like everyone else he had superiors to answer to and wouldn’t be found sticking his neck out far enough to get it chopped off.

  “You worked out a deal with Gasman, didn’t you? This was your idea,” the lieutenant said angrily, hammering the newspaper with his index finger.

  Gavin didn’t deny it. He sat back from the computer and looked at his supervisor, then nodded.

  Slightly mollified at the instant admission, the lieutenant sat down in the interview chair next to the desk and crossed his leg with a sigh. Gavin swallowed. Here it comes, he thought—the lecture.

  “When Chris first asked that you be teamed
with him in this case, I was reluctant because you were too close to it. I was afraid the death of your grandfather might cloud your judgment. Chris assured me your experience would be valuable and, if anything, you’d be more focused.” The lieutenant’s voice rose. “Now this guy has killed someone else you know and Chris is in the hospital where he can’t keep an eye on you. And you’re going over the edge!”

  He angrily emphasized his point with a finger in Gavin’s face. “And let me tell you something else. I’ve got others pulling your caseload, again at Chris’s request. I can’t say I wouldn’t behave the same way if I were in your shoes, but if I did, someone would have to tell me what I’ve got to tell you now: I’m taking you off the case.”

  Gavin was shocked. This wasn’t how the lecture was supposed to end. He’d been expecting a warning to calm down and be careful or else. But all he’d gotten was the or else.

  “Lieutenant, I know I might have stretched procedures, but this can’t be treated like a normal case. This isn’t a hit-and-run where we find our man by matching pieces of broken light covers to find a vehicle or by following a blood trail to the local hospital. We have the cars. We have fingerprints. We have hair samples. So when we nab this guy the case will be ironclad. But he’s dangerous and he’s still out there. If this paper can get him thinking about how to get me, it might keep him from thinking about crashing into someone else.”

  “Don’t you think he’ll know you’re watching for him?”

  “He won’t care, Lieutenant. My gut tells me he cares more about wreaking havoc than he does about getting caught. We have his accomplice in the hospital and she’s gonna make it. When she fingers him, we’ll get him before he gets anyone else. If you pull me now, you’re going to lose time bringing the next guy up to speed. In that time our psycho might decide to go on another joy ride.” He sighed. “Believe me, I’m not trying to be a hero, but I am the best man for the job and you know it. You need this one caught, Lieutenant, and the sooner the better.”

  The lieutenant stared expressionlessly at Gavin. Then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Gavin wasn’t sure if the long pause was good or not. The lieutenant wasn’t one to say no without an explanation; he could be forming the appropriate reasons for why he couldn’t concede…

  The nose massage stopped and the lieutenant opened his eyes. “No more scary surprises, Pierce. The feds are already nosing around this case. You do anything to embarrass me, you’re not only off the case, you’re outta here. Last chance. Got it?”

  Gavin nodded, but the fire that burned white hot in his heart was less concerned with breaking rules and losing his job than with finding the maniac and making him pay.

  BY THE TIME GAVIN GOT TO THE HOSPITAL it was already two o’clock and he had little to show for his time. He walked straight into Chris’s room without a knock. A nurse was changing a clear fluid bag on an intravenous rack. Chris appeared to be asleep. He had a white bandage around his head, two black eyes, and a cast on his left arm that disappeared under his gown’s sleeve but appeared to continue to his shoulder. As bad as he looked, Gavin was calmed by the fact he was breathing and that, according to the beeping monitor, his heart was strong and stable. Unlike Grampa, Chris had youth and health going for him.

  The nurse turned and gestured for silence, putting her finger to her lips, then walked toward Gavin.

  “He’s just fallen asleep,” she whispered. “His wife went home to rest a bit.” She led him out of the room.

  “I’m his partner. How’s he doing?” he said softly.

  “I think Doctor Fagan is the one you should ask. He’s in the— Oh, there he is now.” She motioned toward a clean-shaven, middle-aged man of medium build. As he approached he greeted the nurse with a pleasant smile.

  “Doctor Fagan,” Gavin said, extending his hand. “I’m Detective Pierce. If you could spare a few minutes, I need to ask you a couple of questions.”

  “Detective Pierce. I read about you in today’s paper. I’m very sorry about Mr. Garrity,” he said. “How can I help?”

  “Well, first, Doc, how’s Detective Grella?” he said, motioning toward Chris’s room.

  “He had a little bleeding in his left lung and a bruised left kidney. His concussion, though, seems to be less serious than we first thought.”

  Gavin grimaced, recalling the positive spin on Grampa’s concussion prognosis. He shook it off, consciously reminding himself this was a different person, time, and place.

  “Fortunately, your friend has a thick skull. He was in a lot of pain earlier, so we increased the Demerol a bit. Just enough for him to rest. As you probably know, the first three days after an accident are the worst painwise. Every cell in his body will ache. Also, that cast will be on for about six weeks. He’ll be in here awhile, but we expect him to heal without any serious reminders of the accident.”

  Gavin nodded. “Maybe later you could put that bit about the thick skull in writing.”

  Fagan quirked his lips. “Of course.”

  “The other thing is that I need to question the woman, Karianne Stordal. It’s urgent I speak to her as soon as possible. Other lives depend on it,” Gavin said as seriously as he could.

  “I suppose you could. She’s not in much better shape than your friend, but she’s in less pain. A fringe benefit of the cocktails. And speaking of the alcohol, she had an alarming amount in her. Point two-eight. I don’t know how she was functioning. Anyway, she’s in 318, just around the corner,” the doctor said as he pointed down the long hall toward where Gavin knew Amber Clayborne had been placed. “You go on down there. I’ve got one more stop to make, then I’ll join you.”

  Gavin thanked him and headed down the hall, thinking that the ICU was filling rapidly with people he knew. Turning the corner, he immediately saw a uniform cop outside Karianne’s door. He nodded to the cop and then spontaneously continued on to Amber’s room. As much as he wanted to question the flight attendant, he also wanted to see Amber. He wasn’t exactly sure why and wondered if it had something to do with Amy. Of course, checking Amber’s status had been on his to-do list. But he had to admit to himself there was more.

  He stepped into Amber’s room. There she was, exactly as she had been the day before. Motionless, peaceful, and residing in an unreachable land. How long was she going to be that way?

  With a sigh, he left the room. He was now well primed to see Miss Karianne Stordal. If it weren’t for her, Chris wouldn’t be in the hospital and John Garrity wouldn’t be dead. It was her vehicle that had caused the damage. Maybe she’d even had something to do with Amber. Ready or not, Karianne was going to tell him everything he wanted to know.

  He entered her room. She looked different than she had when he last saw her. Her face had swelled and her eyes had blackened. Her right leg was in a cast suspended in traction. All compliments of the airbag expanding into her at two hundred miles per hour.

  Gavin was about to try to wake her when Dr. Fagan entered the room.

  “She’s still resting,” Dr. Fagan said. “Maybe a little bit later would be better.”

  “Doc, every minute that goes by is another minute the killer has to do more damage.”

  “Surely the driver must be hurt also.”

  “Not so hurt he couldn’t walk away from the crash… again. He had the protection of a seat belt and the air bag. Besides, apparently this guy can really take a punch.”

  “Still and all, I find it difficult to believe that—”

  “I know, but the fact is he’s consistently been able to escape the scene before we can get there, and show up again—in this case by the next night. His ability to withstand this kind of physical punishment seems incredible, but so does the high levels of alcohol found in the passengers. If there’s a chance we can learn his identity sooner rather than later, I can’t sit back so one of his accomplices gets a little more rest. More rest for her means more rest for him. I must insist we at least try to wake her. If he’s hurt, this would be the perf
ect time to get him.” Gavin was trying to keep control of his anger.

  “Very well,” the doctor said and went to the bedside. “Kari-anne… Karianne,” he said gently.

  Gavin felt like yelling her name and didn’t care if it stunned the entire floor. He imagined himself yanking the doctor out of the way by his collar, breaking an ampule of smelling salts under Karianne’s nose, sticking his gun to her head, and screaming at her until she awoke.

  “Isn’t there some kind of intravenous cup of coffee you could give her? Anything?”

  “Detective Pierce, I understand your urgency and I will try to arouse her, but I must draw the line when… Wait… I think she’s starting to come around.”

  The young woman had begun to frown and then stretch her neck backward slowly. She grimaced slightly and groaned.

  “Karianne,” the doctor repeated.

  Her eyes slowly opened. At first they didn’t move, then they gradually shifted to her suspended leg. She closed her eyes, as if they had seen enough for now.

  “Karianne,” the doctor said softly, like he was waking up his seven-year-old daughter for school.

  Gavin was ready to explode. This woman didn’t deserve to be daintily patted awake. What she needed was a bucket of ice water in the face and her rights read to her. That would wake her up— pronto.

  Again, Karianne opened her eyes, then looked in the direction of the cooing doctor. Dr. Fagan smiled.

  “You’re going to be fine. You’ve been in an accident.”

  “That’s not what I would call it,” Gavin said.

  The doctor shot a glare at Gavin, then turned back. “This is Detective Pierce, Karianne. He needs to ask you some questions.”

  Karianne looked at Gavin. She closed her eyes and frowned, lips quivering, then opened them again. “What happened?” she asked hoarsely, tears welling up. “Is anyone else hurt?”

  “You might say that,” Gavin said. “One man is dead and another, my partner, is just down the hall. He’s feeling good as long as they keep the Demerol pumping. And that’s today’s body count. We’ll just add that to your friend’s rolling tally.” A competent detective would not normally have handled the initial approach with such an attitude, but the last thing on Gavin’s mind was department etiquette.