Page 74 of Nightcrawler
“Got you in my sights,” Jarrett’s voice said. It was a comforting thought to me, but when I looked over at Raven, his expression was anything but calm. Instead, he looked pale.
“Are you okay, Raven?”
He turned and frowned at me, nodding rapidly. “I’m fine.”
I nodded back, unable to be anything but nervous for him. He was only now recovering from a gunshot. I thought back to the night before when he rode me in the dark and forced myself to relax. He’d have to be okay. We were finally close to the end of this bullshit.
We walked through the fairgrounds toward the hangars. When we got there, we stepped out of the flow of traffic. There had to be a thousand people or more on the grounds. I’d never stopped to think about how many people in southern California would be bargain basement antique buyers.
“We have to split up,” Raven said.
I hated the idea of leaving his side for even one minute, but I reminded myself we were only here to talk to one guy.How dangerous could that be?Really damned dangerous, if the luckI’d been having recently was anything to go by. Besides, perched on the roofs above us, I knew three more capable men were there to back us up if any trouble happened. I nodded. “Okay then. Let’s each take a front and a back door of one of the pavilions.”
“Okay,” Cassidy said.
We split up. Raven and I walked to the East pavilion and Cassidy and Mike to the West. I watched as Mike disappeared around the building to take up position at the back before glancing at Raven. “I’ll take the rear entrance.”
“See you soon,” he said, smiling at me. His smile seemed forced, but I took a deep breath and walked away from him. It wasn’t easy.
The pavilion was huge, and it took me more than a minute to go to the back of the building. The traffic entering the rear double doors wasn’t as heavy, but people were still holding the doors open for each other as they went inside.
“In position,” Mike said in the earwig.
“In position,” I echoed back.
“I’m ready,” Raven’s voice said in my ear. I felt relief wash over me.
“Let’s find Allcott,” Cassidy said.
I walked through the double doors, nodded at the portly security woman standing at the entrance, and flashed her my best smile.
“Have a good day, sir.”
“Will do.”
I really hoped I would.
Chapter Twenty-Four
RAVEN
Miguel was worried about me, but I couldn’t think about his feelings at the moment. I’d come here to do a job with the most capable men around, so I knew everything would be okay as I walked into the front of the building. It was teeming with people, and I was surprised by how many vendors there were in the place. There had to be three hundred booths set up in five rows front to back on both sides of wide aisles, and along both sides. I’d been in here last summer with Nana in a wheelchair and had forgotten that a lot of these booths were set up the night before. There were always vendors selling things like jewelry who laid their wares out in locked glass cases.
There were no tents like the actual Ventura County Fair in the summer when another five-hundred vendors set up outside to sell everything from keychains to coolers to fried, greasy fair food. The funnel cake vendor was always a big draw for me, and I always spent the next week going hard at the gym to work off the damage I’d done the day before.
I looked down the length of the building in time to see Miguel enter from the other entrance, and I grinned at him. When he waved, I knew I’d been seen. He pointed to the left and I nodded, going left as he went right.
I worked my way through the throngs of patrons, making my way to the far left aisle, checking out each vendor booth, looking for the one selling Grateful Dead memorabilia. I prayed we’dfind Allcott and that it wouldn’t be difficult to get him to give up the location of Howell—if he even knew it. I wondered whether the others had been serious when they’d said Mac McCallahan was CIA. How was it possible to be both FBI and CIA? I supposed Mac could work for the FBI with a CIA background. I had no idea. I was just happy Jarrett and Thayne had brought the big Green Beret with them. He looked deadly. I had to work hard at putting the image of him snapping a neck with his bare hands out of my mind.
“Anything?” Cassidy asked in the earwigs.
“Negative, Cass,” Miguel’s voice came back.
“Not so far,” Mike said.
“Negative,” I parroted, feeling a sense of pride that even as injured as I was, Miguel had included me in the search for Allcott. It wasn’t that I wasn’t capable at a fugitive hunt. I’d tracked down more baddies than I cared to admit, going after everything from a stolen work of art to the Mulberry diamond. But going after a huge biker, with a rap sheet filled with violent crimes, who most likely wouldn’t be anxious to talk to anyone in law enforcement about his old running buddy, wasn’t my idea of a walk in the park, especially with holes in me.
I got to the end of my aisle and turned, dodging a harried woman with a double seater baby carriage. Both blonde toddler girls wore pink bows in their tousled hair, and both were screaming bloody murder. Apparently, they weren’t the least bit interested in antiques.