Page 44 of The Accomplice
Bloch looked at the man in the yellow jacket.
The crosswalk gave the signal to walk. Almost instantly, it began the digital countdown on the crossing display. That’s when Lake’s head snapped toward the man in the yellow coat.
Bloch felt a tingle of adrenaline making her fingertips prickly. She was already sweating from the run and breathing harder. Yet just looking at the man in the yellow jacket put her on edge. She had holstered her gun when she left the apartment, now she found herself putting her hand inside her jacket.
The man in the yellow coat reached up with his left hand, started pulling down the zipper of his coat.
She didn’t know why, but her breath caught in her throat when she saw him reach for the baby carriage.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE SANDMAN
While Lake’s gaze did not linger, there was another set of eyes on the Sandman. He felt them. Their heat and intensity. An innate, primal instinct. Something left over from when the human race lived in caves, hunted for food, and were in turn prey for larger predators. The instinct was to look up, and lock eyes with the watcher.
He resisted. Instead, he allowed a quick glance by tilting his head upwards.
The woman who had been with Lake – the investigator, Bloch.
13 …
He put his right hand on the baby carriage.
The mother tightened her grip. Her knuckles white, fingers burying into the soft rubber sleeve of the steering handle.
10 …
Josh giggled and kicked the blanket right off his feet. His little round legs bicycling the air, his impossibly small, perfect toes stretched to meet the heavens.
He could feel Lake and Bloch looking at him now. He couldn’t risk exposing his face and kept his head down letting the cap hide him. The hairs on his arms stood up and a prickle of fear caressed the back of his neck. He brought the zipper down further, past the grip on the pistol hidden in his jacket.
8 …
He heard the rumble of a Semi truck coming behind him and to his right. He glanced over his shoulder. Splashes of brown mud were on the side walls of the tires and the rims. The tire itself weighed around one hundred and ten pounds. The truck, with the trailer attached, weighed between thirty-five thousand and fifty thousand pounds.
Josh had that thin gossamer golden hair. His skull as fragile as fine china. He imagined the carriage hitting the front of the truck and then flipping over. The child suddenly airborne, then landing under the wheels …
6…
He took one step closer to the mother, ready to push her out of the way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BLOCH
Bloch hesitated when she saw the man in the yellow jacket talking to the mother pushing the carriage. Maybe they were friends. Not close friends. The way the man acted, putting his hand on the carriage, it was proprietary. Even though the mother tensed. If a stranger did that, wouldn’t she react ?
She wanted to see his face beneath that baseball cap.
Bloch shook her head.
The man they had seen was wearing black.
This instinctual response to the man crossing the street was a distraction. He wasn’t the Sandman.
‘I can’t get my partner on comms. Julian was with the witness,’ said Miggs.
‘Shit,’ said Lake, and then bounded into a sprint, across the street, the feds behind him. Bloch increased her pace, but stayed with the older agent, Miggs. He was breathing hard now, but it wasn’t from the physical exertion. They made it to the other side of the street, and he stopped, knelt down, breath ragged, clutching his left arm.
