Page 30 of Shadowed Agenda
Pavlo was tempted to run up a few more flights to burn off his lingering anger, but he wanted to catch Regan as she exited the elevator. He wouldn’t let her slip past him into her suite and avoid sharing her discussion with her ex-husband.
Pavlo flung the stairwell door open. Regan stumbled off the elevator, clutching her stomach. He ran to her, wrapped an arm around her shoulder, and helped her to an armchair in the small alcove off the hall.
“I’ll be okay. I’m just winded and nauseous,” she gasped, masking her pain. She sank into a chair. One arm lay protectively across her stomach, and the other was clenched into a fist. “A crowd entered the elevator just before the doors closed. Someone elbowed me in the stomach. They got off on the fifth floor.”
Pavlo had heard people enter the stairwell below him and descend to the lobby. It must have been the crowd in the elevator. He’d bet the royalties from his next book it was a group of the Senator’s supporters. They’d deliberately hurt Regan.
The thought tore at him as he knelt in front of her. Lost as to how to comfort her, he placed his hands around her balled-up fist.
Regan jerked it out of his reach, her knuckles turning white as she clenched her fist tighter.
Pavlo swore under his breath as his gut clenched. She was hiding something from him. It couldn’t be good.
“Open your fist, Regan,” Pavlo heard himself growl, the gentle voice gone as he grabbed her hand. He didn’t care. He needed to see what she was hiding from him.
She opened her hand. The spent brass casing of a bullet lay in the middle.
“Stay here,” Pavlo ordered as he ran for the stairwell. He flew down the stairs. The people he’d heard were probably long gone, but all he needed was one straggler, one person to answer his questions so he could get a handle on what was happening. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was missing something. The whole situation felt wrong.
Pavlo burst through the metal door at the bottom of the stairwell. The few people milling about in the lobby turned in his direction as the door banged against the doorstop. He ignored their stares and ran through the lobby to the hotel entrance.
The hum of the late-night traffic was broken with the roar of motorcycle engines. There were a dozen of them. Four were retreating in the distance, and four others were merging into the traffic passing the hotel. Judging by the club patch on the back of the drivers’ black leather jackets, it was a homegrown gang.
The remaining people had strapped on their helmets and were hopping onto their ride, except for one man. A guy in a red ball cap was shouting orders. Pavlo couldn’t hear him over the noise of the motorcycles. His helmet dangled from one hand.
The motorcycles left the curb. The guy turned to shout something to the driver a few feet away as he pulled away from the curb to join the others. Pavlo recognized the guy immediately. He was the man dressed as a runner who’d attacked Regan in Central Park.
The guy looked in Pavlo’s direction. Their eyes met. He turned and ran down the sidewalk, away from Pavlo, toward a motorcycle at the end of the block. The helmeted driver gestured to his friend to hurry and revved the engine.
Pavlo chased after him. The guy threw himself on the back of the motorcycle, losing his grip on his helmet. It bounced onto the sidewalk. The motorcycle shot into the traffic as Pavlo closed in on the duo.
He saw the man laugh as he held up his middle finger, rubbing in Pavlo’s second failed attempt at catching him. Pavlo pulled out his cell phone and got a partial picture of the club patch on the driver’s back.
Pavlo watched the motorcycle weave between cars. The sound of its engine gradually faded into nothing.
At least Pavlo wasn’t leaving empty-handed. He grinned and walked over to the sleek black motorcycle helmet lying in the middle of the sidewalk.
The guy wasn’t as smart as he thought he was. He hadn’t been wearing gloves. Pavlo hooked a finger around the helmet’s strap and picked it up. Maybe they could pull a print off the smooth surface.
Pavlo stood beside the hotel building’s wall, out of the way of the passing pedestrians. He gripped the helmet’s strap with one hand and texted with his other. Javier would need to send someone to collect the helmet. Pavlo also forwarded the shot of the driver’s club patch. There was enough of the insignia to identify the motorcycle gang.
Javier texted back that Drake always carried a fingerprinting kit with his gear. He suggested seeing if Drake could lift a print off the helmet. It would be quicker.
It’s worth a shot,Pavlo texted back.
If Drake was successful, they only needed a cell phone shot of the print to run it through the FBI’s Next Generation Identification System.
Even with a hefty payment to the company they regularly used to expedite their request, it could be hours before they knew if they had anything to work with. The Senator’s supporters were escalating their efforts to convince Regan to do the private book signing for Mrs. Aster. The sooner they had someone they could question, the better.
The potential fingerprint matches would need to be verified by a forensic examiner. They could at least check the list of names Drake came up with for connections to the Senator or his supporters. It might turn up something useful.
Pavlo headed back to the hotel. He walked to the bellman beside the small bell stand just inside the hotel entrance. The man, in his early twenties, closed the book he’d been reading. It was a college textbook. He was probably attending a university in the area.
“Could I have one of your hangers?” Pavlo asked, motioning to the rolling rack beside the wall.
“Uh… sure,” the bellman said, passing him one. His eyebrows hitched up as Pavlo slipped the helmet strap over the hanger’s hook, but he said nothing.
Pavlo gave him credit for upholding the hotel’s reputation for customer satisfaction. Every hotel had its share of eccentric guests, but he was sure this was a first.