Page 60 of Witness Security Breach

Charlie knocked the gun loose from his hand with the hot pan while he was distracted.

The Beretta clattered to the floor. Aiden grabbed it and leveled the barrel at Devlin, who stood gape-mouthed, manic anger burning in his eyes.

Following Aiden’s hand signal to move toward the door, Charlie backed up and stepped over the unconscious guy sprawled on the floor spread-eagle. She slowed and picked up his suppressed .45 from the corner on the floor.

Devlin glared at them, his upper lip curling over his teeth, his eyes wild and furious. “This isn’t over,” he growled.

“It better be.” Aiden came up beside her and they backed through the door one at a time, her first. “Because if it’s not, I’ll kill you. That’s not a threat. That’s a promise.” He slammed the door shut.

They hustled down the alley behind the restaurant. Aiden scooped up a dirty paper bag from the ground, dumped the contents and stowed the two guns inside.

There was one thing Charlie had to know. “Why didn’t you kill that bast—”

“It’s not who we are and it’s the last thing we need. To kill a cop, even if he’s a dirty one. Every officer will turn this city upside down and inside out looking for us.”

Aiden was right. There were multiple witnesses able to clearly identify them. They didn’t need the extra heat. Things were sweltering as it was.

“Let’s hope we don’t regret leaving him alive.”

DEVLIN WAS SEETHING. His body began to shake with the rage building inside him, overshadowing the pain from his burns. He whipped out his personal phone.

But not to dial 911.

He’d officially report the incident, portraying them as stalkers trying to silence him, and have an all-points bulletin put out on the marshals, but it’d take his brothers-in-blue twenty minutes to get there and start looking for Yazzie and Killinger.

A faster response was required.

He pulled up the French Quarter Task Force app. An enterprise initiated and funded by a billionaire who wanted to make the city safer, using a crowdsourcing approach to crime. The FQTF was a private police patrol that could be summoned via a mobile app. Its monumental success encouraged the Louisiana State Police and surrounding parishes to use it, too.

The screen displayed a digitized map of the Quarter. A grid of seventy-eight city blocks. Green arrows indicated a member of the armed squad—off-duty cops rolling around in matte black smart cars at all hours, with the ability to respond to a crime in progress in under two minutes.

He plugged in the address of the restaurant he was standing in. Prepared for this type of scenario, he next uploaded the photos of Yazzie and Killinger the SDPD had been kind enough to share with him and typed the notification:

Armed and dangerous fugitives wanted for the murder of two law enforcement officers just tried to kill a local cop. They’re on foot. Apprehend with caution. $25,000 REWARD.

He hit Enter.

A red dot appeared on his location. Pictures of the marshals flashed on the screen.

Ten green arrows in the vicinity immediately reacted and began zigzagging through the streets forming a perimeter, searching for them. And every citizen who had the app loaded on their phone would receive the alert and could submit updates on the whereabouts of the fugitives if they spotted them.

The entire city would be on the lookout for Yazzie and Killinger.

Chapter Fourteen

All the pieces on the board shifted with Devlin’s early arrival. They had to adjust accordingly.

“We need to check out of the hotel,” Aiden said. Get back their money for the second night, grab the meager clothing they had, his shirt, her jacket and their weapons. “Find someplace new, off the beaten path.”

There was no doubt in Aiden’s mind that Devlin would put out an all-points bulletin on them and was probably calling it in at that very moment.

Ahead at the corner they approached, two women in their late thirties were chatting and laughing as they looked at something on one of their mobile devices. The phone buzzed and emitted the jarring, high-pitched tone of a public safety alert. Another phone in the vicinity, somewhere behind them, did the same.

The women stopped talking and stared at the phone.

One of them, a redhead, swiped up on her screen.

The other, a black woman with long braids, gasped. “Twenty-five grand.”