I headed toward the alley opposite where the cars had entered, but Luanda stopped me. “Wait, take off your hoodie.” I wasn’t sure what she wanted it for, but I obliged as she opened the driver's door to the Charger and reached inside. As I unzipped my hoodie, she exited the car, holding a large, red emergency medical kit. She had left Jacob’s pistol inside the vehicle, and as she emerged, she started reaching towards my hoodie to take it from me and said, “Lose the vest and the Glock.”

  My face tightened, and I demanded, “You want me to get rid of my gun, why?”

  She took the hoodie from my hand and started walking briskly towards the same alley I had been moving towards, the large red emergency kit swinging by her side. “Well, unless you were planning on shooting more cops, what do you need it for? The gun and vest stand out like a road flare.”

  What she said made sense, so I tossed the Glock onto Jacob’s lifeless body and transferred my phone from the vest to my pants pocket. I started pursuing Luanda down the narrow alley as I unstrapped my vest. She moved fast, and I felt tired from the previous intense action.

  Whisper’s voice came in again. “You two lovebirds need to get a move on. I see six patrol cars acknowledged the shots 911, and that’s just SPD.” I wasn’t sure how much of our conversation he could pick up from my one earbud, but I didn’t want to lose it, so I pushed it deeper in my ear, securing it.

  Twenty yards up the alley was a dumpster, secured to a three-foot-high bollard by a chain. Luanda had dropped the emergency kit on it and removed a pair of EMT shears, the kind used to cut people’s clothes or seatbelts off in an emergency. As I arrived, she tossed my hoodie next to the open kit and slid off the gray canvas shoes the jail had given her. “Grab some wipes and see how much of that blood you can get off my shoes.”

  I felt like I was still forming a plan, and she was mentally a step ahead of me. While I bent over to grab her shoes, she unceremoniously removed her baggy, blue prison-issued pants. The unexpected disrobing took me aback, but I dutifully started using the wipes to try to clean the large amounts of blood off her gray canvas sneakers.

  Using the shears, she cut most of the legs off of the pants. She left one side longer than the other. On the longer side she cut a long v-shaped slit. When she put them back on, the effect was ridiculous but in a sexy and deliberate way. The leg on one side was dangerously high. On the other side, it was mid-thigh with a V that exposed additional leg. The edges of the pants frayed, and the fit was stupidly loose. If the waist didn’t look like prison pants, it might qualify as a failed attempt at fashion. The oversized white cotton prison panties were visible in a few places, making her whole appearance almost comical.

  I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure that didn’t help things.” Despite the situation, I had to smirk while continuing to rub her canvas sneakers.

  Her confidence didn’t ebb. “I’m not done yet.” Her blue, boldly-labeled prison scrubs came off next, exposing an ill-fitting bra, built wire-free like a shapeless sports bra with wide, utilitarian shoulder straps. The institutional-white highlighted her dark skin despite its utter lack of style. She put the oversized grey hoodie over it, zipping the zipper to just above her naval and letting the length cover the tops of the prison pants. Only the longer leg showed below the bottom edge of the hoodie. She left the hood down and rolled the sleeves crisply to mid forearm.

  She spread her arms, inviting comment. I had to admit, the whole look was crazy, but not more so than what a runway model might have to wear, and she pulled it off. “I still say this won’t get us any less attention.”

  “Yes, but if they are staring at my legs, they aren’t staring at my prison uniform.”

  I handed her the gray shoes, now free of blood. She took them and put them on. “Not exactly Jimmy Choo, but at least you can almost run in them.”

  We dumped everything into the dumpster. I spotted a pizza box, grabbed it, and emptied it. I started down the alleyway, holding it like it was full. I started to formulate a plan. “We need to make some distance, but sooner rather than later. Once the police see the police car and dead bodies, all hello will break loose.”

  “Agreed,” she confirmed.

  Whisper came on the comms, adding, “Wish I could help with that last bit, but I’m twelve thousand kilometers away right now. Let me know your exact location, and I’ll do my best to track the SPD in the area. Just don’t count on it being exact.”

  Luanda was a step in front of me as I continued talking to Whisper. “We’re just exiting the alleyway at Vine. Try to find a decent-sized class B or C office space at least five more blocks from the crash. Look for ones with offices for rent.”

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  Even though I was talking to Whisper, Luanda answered. “Do they have those kinds of buildings near here? I don’t know this area at all. I’ve only been in Seattle a couple of months.”

  Whisper answered as well, their voices overlapping. “On it, mate.”

  “Sorry, Luanda, I was actually asking my overwatch.”

  “Overwatch. Nice. I hope he can get us a Limo. These flat shoes are murder on the arches.”

  Our pace was fast but not fast enough to appear obvious. Luanda stayed in front, and I called out directions as Whisper relayed them to me. I hoped our demeanor screamed, “Just a wayward fashion model and her pizza-carrying boyfriend, nothing to see here.”

  We were about four blocks away when BlueWhisper came on with an update, “Just got a dispatch. They’re reporting a cop down, DOA. There’s also another bloke in serious condition. They're calling code 3.”

  “What’s code 3?”

  “Yes, sorry, that’s lights and sirens, maximum speed.”

  “Got it.”

  After a second, Luanda called over her shoulder, “Care to share, or no room at the big boy table?”

  The call-out was justified, and I bit back my retort. “Right. I’ll make sure I relay things to you going forward. They are on the scene reporting an officer DOA and another man in serious condition. They’re asking for lights and sirens on the ambulance.”

  Luanda’s only response was an understated “fuck.”

  Three blocks later, as we approached an intersection at the exit to a narrow one-way street, I had a moment of internal dread and a flash of pain behind my eyes. I called out, “Stop! Come back this way.” Luanda and I moved back into the one-way and got close to the wall. Ten seconds later, a county sheriff SUV blew past the alley—lights but no siren.

  After it passed, Luanda whistled quietly and whispered, “Your overwatch is good.”

  We waited for another 20 seconds before I peaked around the corner and, seeing no visible police, crossed the street.

  A light misty rain started to fall, but the streets were still busy. We caught a decent number of looks. A white-haired man in a blue rain jacket going the other way was particularly keen to examine Luanda. I don’t think he even saw me.

  I couldn’t see her face, but her gait and pace never slowed or sped up, and she kept her head pointed forward.

  Whisper came back on, “They’ve identified Wellington as the dead man and our boy Nicholas Renner as someone they are calling a suspect. Seems he has multiple priors for domestic violence. Nice chap that.”

  A helicopter approached in the distance as I relayed it to Luands, and when she heard about the domestic violence charges, her response was “so Hollywood man of the year then, seems legit.”

  We were starting to get a bit wet even though the rain wasn’t much. Two more blocks brought us to a large office building with first-story parking and double glass doors inside the parking lot. I told Luanda, “Follow me,” and got in front of her, leading her towards the building.

  When we got close, I started to break down the pizza box, pulling apart the flaps and making it one large flat sheet. We walked past the card reader designed to provide access, and I slid the pizza box through the wide gap between the two doors. When it was almost all the way in, I started to wave it up and down. There was a loud clunk as the motion sensors on the inside unlocked the magnetic door lock.

  We immediately pushed in and Luanda said, “there is no fucking way that worked.”

  “You’d think that, but the gap on these double glass doors is generally wide, and they almost always put the REX sensor too close because it’s easier to put them right by the door than to run the power through the ceiling.” I pointed at the open interior stairway. “Let’s go up at least a flight. We walked up a flight, and I looked down the hallway. I didn’t see what I was looking for, so I took us up another flight.

  “What are you looking for?” Luanda asked, her tone curious.

  “A rental lock box, preferably a button one, but I can probably open a dial one depending on the brand.” On the next floor, she spotted what I wanted.

  We walked down the quiet interior hall. Most of the offices were dark. “A lot of people never came back to the office after the lockdowns, so there’s a ton of available office space,” I commented. We walked up to the unmarked door, and I reset it, then pushed down on the opening mechanism and felt the first row buttons. Only the “1” felt loose, so I reset it again, pressed “1” and pulled down again. After four attempts, the lockbox was open, and I removed the key and let us inside.

  The interior was empty except for cubicles. It smelled like paint and new carpet. We sat behind a cubicle, hidden from view for anyone looking in the full-height window next to the door.

  As we sat, the energy visibly drained from Luanda, and she let her head press back into the cubicle wall. She sighed. “How cooked are we?”

  I leaned my head back and breathed deeply. “I don’t know, but less cooked than when Jacob and Nick had you.”

  She tilted her head my way and gave an upward nod with her chin, her thick brows raising slightly. “Thanks for that, but next time you break someone out of police custody, make sure to bring them a change of clothes.” Her tone was gentle in its proding.

  “Well, I guess I’m not very good at the rushing-in-guns-blazing thing. I’ll get right on it.”

  Outside, the blare of police sirens had become ubiquitous.

  I thought, “Maybe not perfect, but today, at the very least, you were good enough.”