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Hagen lifted his foot from the gas. “You sure this is the place?”

Stella checked the map on her phone. “Uh-huh. This is what Mac sent us. This is the last place Patrick Marrion searched for in his browser history.”

Hagen peered out the window. “If this is where he’d come to see his friend, his friend wasn’t living well.” There were no student dorms here and no apartment buildings. Each stretch by the river featured one abandoned warehouse after another.

One day, some development firm would no doubt gussy up this part of the city and turn all these warehouses into art galleries and cafés and the kind of apartments tech bros and famous country singers vied for. Until then, they stood derelict.

A pigeon flew through a broken window. A roof of rusty corrugated iron flapped in the wind. Weeds grew in the cracks in the asphalt and bent like grass. Behind them, a freight train trundled south over the bridge.

No other car was on the road, and no one walked down the empty sidewalk.

Hagen pressed the gas. “You know what he was looking for?”

“I’m not sure he knew what he was looking for. There.”

Stella pointed at the entrance to what appeared to be an underground parking lot. Hagen drove toward it. The lot sat under a two-story office building and warehouse that might once have managed portside logistics, but which now couldn’t manage to keep the plastic sheeting in the empty window frames from tearing away.

There was no gate. They drove in.

The light fittings in the underground lot were without bulbs, and the midday sun, hidden by thick clouds, reached little farther than the bottom of the entrance ramp, where water dripped on the Explorer from an overhead pipe. An old Honda Ridgeline was parked just inside the entrance, and that was the only vehicle they saw.

“What are the chances this is Patrick Marrion’s truck?”

“Pretty high.”

Hagen pulled in next to the once-sporty truck. Stella was out of the SUV before he turned off the engine. By the time he joined her, she already held her phone next to her ear as she read off the license plate to Mac.

The Ridgeline was filthy. The bed contained a scattering of dead leaves and some old rainwater that had failed to find a way out. The sides were rusted and dented, and the boxy front told Hagen it was an older model. He looked through the grime on the side window, peering through the eyes of a smiley face drawn in the thick layer of filth.

There was little to see. An empty phone mount on the dashboard. A tear in the side of the driver’s seat that revealed the yellow foam inside. A jumbo cup stuck in the holder.

Stella lowered her phone. “It’s Patrick’s. Forensics is on the way.”

Hagen stepped away from the truck. There was no sign of blood inside the cab, no indication that anything had happened to Patrick Marrion in the parking garage. But this truck was now evidence, a link to his last moments.

A door stood open on the wall of the garage. A sign hanging from a single nail indicated that the stairs led up to the rest of the building.

They were getting closer. “We should check the place out.”

Stella put away her phone. Her face was serious. She joined him.

“Yeah, we should. But there’s no other car or sign of anyone here. Patrick could’ve come, met someone, and moved on with them to another location.”

“Maybe. Or maybe the unsub bugged out afterward. But we should still check it out.”

They reached the stairway door. Dirt had built up on the edges of the steps, but recent footprints smudged the area in the middle.

Stella stopped in the doorway. “Or maybe he’s still here and just headed out to load up on coffee.”

Tires squealed on pavement, and the daylight at the garage’s entrance flickered, swallowed by the shadow of a battered white Toyota Tacoma as it lurched halfway down the ramp before screeching to a stop.

Hagen reached for his gun.

Stella shouted, “FBI. Stay where you are!”

The Toyota’s engine clunked and the wheels screamed as the truck shot up the ramp in reverse.

Hagen and Stella raced to their Explorer. He leaped inside, gunned the engine, slammed the gear into reverse, and floored the gas. Stella was still pulling on her seat belt and shouting into her phone as the SUV spun around. Hagen stomped on the gas again.

The wheels spun. Black smoke rose in the rearview mirror, and the smell of burning rubber leaked through the air vent as they raced up the ramp.

For a second, as the Ford Explorer reached the top and flew out onto the street, the four-thousand-plus-pound vehicle was airborne. Hagen drifted up and out of the seat. Conversely, Stella’s seat belt strapped her down hard, but her phone floated away from her ear. Hagen held the wheel steady even as he saw, away to his left, the white Tacoma speeding away.

Their vehicle smacked the ground, and Hagen jerked the wheel. The tires screamed again, and Stella shifted despite her restraint, her shoulder colliding with the passenger door. The Toyota reached the end of the road. Its back end spun, and their quarry raced around the corner and out of sight.

Hagen willed the SUV on. His foot flattened the pedal. The engine roared. The RPMs bounced into the red, and the needle on the speedometer climbed past the vertical.

They had to gain on him. They had to catch him before he joined the highway, or they’d have a high-speed chase amid civilian vehicles in midday traffic.

In this moment, he wished very much to be driving his Corvette.

Hagen reached the end of the road. He kept his foot down and pulled the wheel hard in the direction the back end was swerving. His tires slid across the pavement. The steering wheel vibrated under his fingers, but the SUV straightened out.

There, twenty yards ahead of him—and approaching the bridge above the railway, where a freight train rolled slowly east—was the Toyota.

A boom echoed down the empty street just as the Tacoma’s back window shattered. A short whistle pitched a high tone over the roof of the SUV. The freight train running parallel to them hooted back.

The damn guy was shooting at them.

Stella drew her weapon and pulled on the slide. Leaving just one hand on top of the steering wheel, Hagen hit the button on the door and lowered Stella’s window.

A second shot boomed.

The side window next to Hagen’s hand shattered, spraying pieces of black plastic and glass. Stella unclipped her seat belt, stretched her body out of the cab, and fired.

A small tower of dust exploded from the surface of the road just behind the Tacoma. Stella shouted, “Keep it straight.”

Hagen gripped the steering wheel tight with both hands. His foot was still hard on the gas. Past the shattered rear window of the Toyota, the hooded figure reached behind him and stretched out his arm.

He was going to fire again. And Stella was half out of the vehicle, completely exposed.

But before he took a shot, the truck’s back tire blew out. Rubber shredded, flinging debris across the pavement. The vehicle lurched violently, fishtailing as the driver fought for control.

Too late.

The truck veered hard, swiping the curb before slamming into the embankment. It shuddered to a stop, nose angled toward the bridge.

Hagen yanked the wheel, skidding the Explorer to a halt. He was already moving before the brakes fully engaged, feet pounding the pavement as he bolted toward the railway line. Stella was ahead of him.

“FBI! Stop!”

The hooded figure was already running, hitting the grassy incline with a thud.

They had him. They just had to cuff him, and it would all be over.

Hagen had his weapon out but kept his finger off the trigger as he sprinted, closing the distance.

But the guy scrambled, blood streaking the back of his hand. He headed for the bridge, stumbling but fast. The train rumbled past in front of him.

Stella shouted, “Stop! Stay where you are!”

He didn’t.

At the top of the bridge, he lunged forward, grabbing on to the last wagon of the passing train. Momentum yanked him off his feet, carrying him away down the track.