eyes darted once toward the back door and then stayed firmly away from it, fixed on the glass. Two wipes across the same spot, three, four, five.
Zoe knew. In her gut, she knew something was off. Pitsis’s daughter had been quick to tell them the name of the bar, even though she clearly didn’t trust law enforcement or believe that her father needed to be brought to justice for what he did while drunk. Now they were here, and it had taken them time to arrive—a short time, but still time enough.
And this bartender looked so nervous, Zoe would have suspected that he had a stash of illegal drugs under the counter or an underage drinker hiding in the toilets if she hadn’t been there investigating a case.
“Head around back through the alley,” Zoe said quickly, turning and pushing Flynn toward the door so that he could cut off any exit path there. She didn’t bother to explain, and for once, thankfully, Flynn didn’t argue. He rushed out, breaking into a run as soon as he was through the front door, and Zoe made her own dash toward the back of the building.
She could see it all, the numbers laid out in front of her like a path. She could calculate the amount of time it would have taken for the daughter to shut the door behind them, dash to her phone, call her father. The time it might have taken for him to get the idea, especially if he was drunk. There was still a possibility that there was time. He couldn’t have just walked down the road—he knew that they were out there looking for him, and that they probably knew what he looked like.
No, he would have hesitated. Just long enough to explain everything to the bartender, who was probably loyal given the amount of time and therefore money Pitsis spent there. The bartender would have watched out the grimy window in the front of the bar and seen their car pulling up, and two very obvious FBI agents in their suits emerging, and at the same time Pitsis would have made his getaway.
And where? Right out the back door, into the alleyway, around the front of the building and away, while Zoe and Flynn were still caught up in talking to the bartender and trying to get information out of him.
But not this time. Zoe wasn’t going to let him escape. There was too much at stake.
She hit the emergency exit bar on the back door at full speed, taking the impact to her body without caring or slowing down. She spilled out into a small, enclosed area, storage for bins, with a wooden fence and a gate at one side keeping this part of the property private from the alleyway.
And a man, halfway over the fence, turning a white and panicked face in her direction at the noise of the door crashing open, before he suddenly dropped down to the other side and was gone.
Zoe cursed, throwing herself toward the fence. She would have to hope that Flynn was in place, that he was quick enough and strong enough to intercept Pitsis before he could vanish into the side streets and dilapidated buildings of this part of town. It was his stomping ground, his territory. He might be able to lose them easily on foot.
She could see the right path over the fence clearly, the angles and trajectories as plain to her as line drawings. She needed to climb up onto the top of the nearest bin, a metal skip with a domed lid, tall enough to cut the height of the fence in half. Then she would be able to grasp hold of the top of the fence, use her arm strength, and kick off to hook her feet onto a cross-bar on the gate by swinging sideways. A simple push up there and she would be over the top, and the fall was slight enough that she should be able to use proper form to avoid injury when landing.
Zoe executed it without pausing, trusting the numbers to keep her safe. A vault onto the bin, grasp, swing, gasp at the weight of her body and how much harder it was to lift herself after two months of poor self-care, hook anyway, push up, check the distance to the ground just in case of unpleasant surprises—and she was down, looking up to see Flynn already apprehending Pitsis about halfway down the alley.
“You’re under arrest