Running as quickly as possible, I charged across the park toward the road that separated me from the stadium. When no bullets came my way I realized that the shooter had probably abandoned his position and was making his getaway. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who could hear the approaching sirens.

My car and that of the dead detectives were way off on my left, but apart from them there were no other vehicles on the road. The ice stadium was a huge edifice looming over me. I was in the open, but no bullets were fired at me. Whoever was trying to set me up had many options for escape. If the stadium had been filled with Tampa Bay Lightning fans the shooter could simply melt in amongst the crowds, but this was a day when the hockey team wasn’t playing. At most, the only people around would be a skeleton crew of staff. But that meant that the gunman could slip out unnoticed by any number of exits from the public areas or via service doors around the back.

I looked for a getaway vehicle.

There was nothing unusual among the few cars I’d noted in the car park—and anyway, it was too exposed to be the parking location of choice for a fleeing murderer. More likely the killer had left his getaway car around the back among the staff’s vehicles. I started to angle that way, hoping to cut him off. I’d only got a few paces when I heard the roar of an engine. Reversing direction, I sprinted back toward the front of the building. I couldn’t see anything moving on the road that ran parallel with the stadium, and there was nothing in the public car park. Coming to a standstill I listened, trying to pinpoint the noise. Beyond the stadium’s official parking lot was a second open space, which I guessed was used for overspill parking on busy game days. There was still nothing moving. But then I saw a dark blue Ford erupt like a cork from a bottle from a ramp in the second lot. The ramp must have exited from a vehicle park underground, or maybe it was from a loading dock where deliveries were made to the stadium. It didn’t really matter, not when the car was over a hundred yards distant and speeding away from me.

Futile as it seemed, I ran after it. It would have been a waste of ammunition to fire, so I concentrated on getting as good a look as possible at the car and its driver. The Ford sped off the lot, took a left on the service road, then a right on Jefferson Street. Then it was gone.