Active shooter chase ada.., p.1
Active Shooter: Chase Adams Season Two, page 1
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Active Shooter
A Chase Adams FBI Thriller
Book 14
Patrick Logan
Prologue
PART I – Explosion
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
PART II – Mob Mentality
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
PART III — Trigger Warning
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Epilogue
The End
Author’s Note
Other Books by Patrick Logan
Active Shooter
Prologue
My cell phone pings and the glow from the screen penetrates the darkness.
I immediately grab it and hold it up to my face.
One simple text.
One line.
One word.
I’ve been waiting for this moment—waiting for it ever since we had that first conversation more than six months ago.
My fingers suddenly feel alive with a burst of adrenaline. Tiny tingles make it difficult to continue to hold my phone.
It’s late, well past midnight, but like most nights, I’m wide awake.
Because I’ve been waiting for this text.
And it is going to change everything.
Still, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. After all, not only did the text mean the start of something new, something violent, something exciting, but it also marked the end.
The end of everything.
I slowly rise from bed, cell phone in hand, eyes locked on the text, as I make my way to the closet.
I open the door and observe the clothing arranged on hangers. Then my eyes drop to the handful of sets of shoes on the bottom, and the hamper full of dirty laundry behind that.
Slowly, methodically, I remove the shoes and place them off to one side. Then I grab the hamper and pull it out.
My heart is beating quickly in my chest, thrumming, really—I can feel my pulse in my throat and wrists. With my free hand, I reach for the chest at the back, casually swiping away the laundry that had missed the bin and covered the top. It’s heavy, and I’m forced to set my phone down to pull it all the way out.
When it is finally resting in front of me, I stare at it and listen.
My house is silent.
Everyone is sleeping.
Everyone but me.
The key to the chest hangs on a chain around my neck, as it always does.
I’ve never taken it off. Not when I shower, not when I take part in gym class even though the teacher tells everyone that no jewelry is allowed. No bracelets, no rings, no earrings, and definitely no necklaces.
But like everyone else, the teacher doesn’t pay attention to me.
Nobody does.
They will soon.
I use the key to open the box but just before I flip the lid back, I hesitate. This is the moment of truth.
I can still shove the chest to the back, cover it in laundry, and delete the text.
Nobody will know just how close they came.
Nobody but me.
And that, I think, is the true definition of power.
Knowledge of an impending tragedy while others wallow in blissful ignorance.
It’s the word impending that gets me.
Impending implies inevitability.
My eyes drift to the cell phone sitting on the carpet next to me.
The screen is still illuminated, and that single word glares up at me accusingly.
I nod at it, as if accepting my fate, all of their fates, and then I open the box.
Even though I know what’s inside, the sight of gleaming metal still incites a small tremor of terror.
One of the items is bigger than the rest. More intimidating, more fear-inducing.
The others are smaller, handheld, easily hidden in a backpack or the waistband of a pair of dirty jeans.
I grab the largest object, turning it over in my hand as I look down at the metal. There isn’t much light in the closet, but the glow from my cell phone is sufficient to illuminate my face, allowing me to see my reflection.
My face. The one that I’ve lived with my entire life.
It’s ugly.
Boring.
Not special in any way.
And the others… the others have made sure I know this.
Well, that is all about to change.
As I adjust my hand on the butt of the gun, I look down at the text one last time.
One simple word that will change everything.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow, things will be different.
Tomorrow will be anything but normal and boring.
And after tomorrow, people will remember my name.
I sigh and shudder again, this time with pleasure, and then I place the gun back in the box.
Then I crawl back into bed and, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I fall asleep with a smile on my face.
Tomorrow will change everything.
PART I – Explosion
Chapter 1
“He’s gonna run,” FBI Agent Chase Adams muttered under her breath. “He’s going to fucking run!”
“I don’t think—” Tate Abernathy didn’t even get a chance to finish his sentence before the man that they’d been following for the last week or so did exactly that: he started to run.
But not before removing his overcoat, revealing his completely naked body beneath.
“What the hell?” she heard her partner whisper.
Chase wasn’t distracted by the man’s alabaster flesh, or the sight of his bare ass cheeks as he sprinted.
She was already on the move, dropping her binoculars, and hightailing it after him.
Behind her, she heard Tate doing the same, cursing repeatedly, saying something inane about how he still hated running after all this time.
As much as Tate Abernathy hated running, Chase had to admit that the past few years of training every day with him had not only made her a better runner, but Tate was actually good at it.
In fact, he was faster than she was, even though she’d been running her entire life.
As Chase’s shoes crunched across the small layer of snow that blanketed the grass, Tate quickly overtook her.
“FBI! Stop!” Chase shouted.
The man had no intentions of stopping. And wiry as he was, he was fast, too.
Chase was suddenly struck with the idea that if it hadn’t been for Tate, he might’ve gotten away. Although, she wasn’t sure how far he would have gone, being that it was coming on six in the morning, and he was completely nude.
“Stop!”
The man continued to run, and Chase dodged a swing set, a teeter-totter, and a plastic dinosaur.
Tate leaped over the dinosaur and continued to gain on the man. Her partner was yelling now, too, but with the blood roaring in her ears, Chase couldn’t tell if he was instructing the man to stop or if he was just upset at being forced to run.
It didn’t matter.
The man made it partway to the school when Tate caught him.
Chase continued to pump her arms and legs, closing the distance between the three of them, and she saw Tate reach out and drive a flat hand into the man’s left shoulder. It was an unorthodox movement, but it proved effective. Chase would’ve stuck her leg out, clipping the man’s heel, causing his legs to tangle. But Tate’s technique, was better because it allowed him to continue running just in case the blow was ineffective.
The man grunted as he fell face-first into the ground, his hands splaying out in front of him. She heard the sound of something popping or breaking, and the man shrieked in pain.
He was lucky. Had he fallen three feet earlier, he would have collided with the 4x4 piece of wood that framed the sandbox instead of grass-covered snow.
Tate was on the man instantly, jumping onto his back and wrenching his thin arms behind him.
The man screamed. Chase figured at least one, and maybe both, of his shoulders had dislocated from the fall.
“My arm! My arm!” the man whined. “It’s broken.”
It wasn’t broken, Chase knew, but she didn’t feel the need to correct him.
Tate took no mercy on the man, cuffing him roughly, and then yanking him to his feet. In the process, the man’s left arm slipped back into the socket, and he screamed again.
“I didn’t do anything,” the man said after the pain subsided. “I didn’t do nothin’.”
Chase observed him as she caught her breath.
He was incredibly skinny, almost emaciated. She could count each one of his ribs, and his lack of body fat made the dark tuft of hair between his nonexistent chest stand out as if it had been tattooed on.
Same for his thick thatch of public hair.
Chase scowled in disgust.
“You didn’t do nothin’?” she repeated. “You’re completely naked outside of an elementary school, and you didn’t do nothin’?”
“My jacket just fell off!” he argued.
“Yeah right,” Tate said. “Same thing happened last week when you exposed yourself to the kids in this very schoolyard?”
To his credit, despite being caught in such a predicament, the man, who Chase knew to be Dennis Mason, still tried to plead his innocence.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—I’ve never been here before.”
Chase knew differently.
There had been three previous reports in this area of Dennis exposing himself to minors. The first few had been in the evening, and he’d opened his coat to a man and a child who were walking their dog. The last time, Dennis had come during school hours and had tossed his trench coat, the same one he’d been wearing today, to the ground.
The kids, seven of them, trying to enjoy their recess, had been traumatized.
Chase was glad that they’d caught the pervert before he escalated even further.
“You do know what I’m talking about, Dennis,” she said sternly, looking into the man’s eyes.
He didn’t even try to mask the surprise he felt at her knowing his name.
“Let me ask you something,” she said slowly. “How would you feel if somebody exposed themselves in front of your children?”
The man’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
One of the things that Chase had always had a hard time understanding is how these creeps could live such dichotomous lives.
Dennis Mason was a middle-class man who worked as a project specialist for a large consultation firm. He was married to a pretty if thicker woman, and he had twin seven-year-old boys.
Their research revealed that Dennis was actually a decent father. He had only one prior, for a DUI from years ago when he’d been in college.
And yet, the man had a dark secret.
“That’s disgusting,” Dennis spat, and Chase, despite everything, thought the man meant his words.
How he could be horrified by the idea of somebody doing exactly the same thing he did was almost—almost—unbelievable.
Dennis started to shiver, and his teeth clacked together loudly.
On the other side parking lot, a Quantico PD car pulled up, lights flashing.
“You’re pathetic,” Chase said.
They made it back to the man’s jacket, and she picked it up, pinching it between two fingers as if it was contaminated. She loosely draped it over Dennis’ shoulders.
“It’s all just a misunderstanding,” he whined.
Chase and Tate ignored him, and a cop came forward.
“It’s Dennis Mason,” Tate said and the cop nodded.
The officer gave Dennis the old up-down, his lip curling in revulsion.
“Thank you, I’ve got it from here,” he informed them.
Tate removed his cuffs as the officer applied his own. Dennis made no attempt to run.
“Officer, I don’t know what these guys told you but—”
“Shut up,” the cop warned. Chase and Tate watched as Dennis was pulled roughly to the Virginia PD squad car. He pleaded his case the entire time, but the young officer didn’t even humor him with a response.
When he pushed Dennis into the backseat, he didn’t lower the man’s head quite enough, and she heard him cry out as his forehead struck the door frame.
The cop had a hint of a smile on his face as he slammed the door closed. Then he looked back at them and offered a two-fingered salute.
“Well,” Chase said, stretching and arching her back as the car pulled away from the school, “the good news is that we don’t have to go for a run today.”
When Tate didn’t say anything, she glanced at him and was confused by the far-off frown on his lips.
“What’s wrong?”
Take shrugged and Chase pressed.
“No, tell me.”
“I just… this is going to sound weird, but I was hoping for something more.”
Almost everyone else would have questioned this comment, but not Chase.
After taking down Dr. Helen Niccolo and The Path to Eden, by comparison, the CVU’s next few cases had been rather small time. And the flasher Dennis Mason was no exception.
Tate’s feelings were familiar.
It wasn’t unusual for cops or agents coming off a big case to feel that their regular duties were a bit of a letdown.
In a way, this reminded Chase of her own heroin addiction.
You were always chasing your first high, trying different compounds, different administration methods, anything and everything to replicate those initial feelings.
But you never could quite get there.
Yet, no big cases for the CVU were undoubtedly a good thing.
“Dennis Mason is a scumbag,” Chase said matter-of-factly, staring at her partner’s face. “For now, he just exposed himself to children. In a month, however…” She let her sentence trail off. They both knew the psychology and pathology of these individuals. The way they progressed.
It started with flashing but if they weren’t caught, it would progress to touching.
And worse.
“You’re right,” Tate said with a tired smile. “And hell, if it means we don’t have to run today then I’m all for it.”
Chase was about to remark that they’d run less than half a mile, and they usually did five miles a day, when her phone pinged. She took it out and saw that it was an alarm.
“Shit,” she said, noting the time.
“What?” Tate asked, the smile sliding off his face.
“I gotta go—I promised I’d drive Georgina to school.” She glanced over her shoulder at their car, parked more than a mile away. “C’mon, Tate, just a little more running.”
And then Chase took off before her partner could complain.
Chapter 2
“Georgina!” Chase hollered as she entered the house. “Georgina you up? We gotta go!”
Tate entered behind her, and Chase flicked off her shoes.
“Georgina?”
Chase was annoyed at herself when she felt a familiar pang of anxiety. She’d been getting better at giving Georgina her space, of not needing to see her at every moment, of not feeling anxious and uncomfortable if the girl didn’t reply right away. And yet…
Chase hoisted herself upstairs by pulling on the banister. The door to Georgina’s room was closed, and she flung it open.
When she didn’t immediately notice her niece, she felt her anxiety ratchet up a few notches.
Then she saw a familiar outline on the bed and walked over to it. She yanked on the sheet, and Georgina, groggy with sleep, rolled onto her back.
“What are you doing?” Chase asked, her heart rate slowing to normal.
The girl blinked several times, coughed ever so slightly, and said, “Not feeling well.”
Her voice was timid, quiet.
Chase frowned.
Georgina had been under the weather both Monday and Tuesday, and she had taken both days off of school. But last night, she’d been fine at dinner, joking around, and had a healthy appetite.
“Georgina, you have to go to school today,” Chase said. “You’ve already missed two days this week.”
Gina coughed again, but this time it felt forced.
Chase reached out and put the back of her hand on the girl’s forehead.
It was warm, but not overly so.
“I’m still not feeling well,” Georgina said.
Chase took a step back and observed her niece.
She looked fine. Her eyes were bright and clear, and her skin wasn’t clammy.
Chase cocked her head and said, “What’s going on? You’re not sick.”
