The Ridge

Hall.

And the cats.

“Audrey,” he said again, and the threat in his voice was clearer now, his stride widening. “Come down here now.”

“You shot Kino,” she said. The thought had just entered her mind, and with it some shred of hope that she was making a mistake, that he was not really menacing, because Dustin would never have killed one of the cats.

“To be fair,” he said, “I was aiming at Wes.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to kill someone, and he was handy. Just like you are.”

Now she did run.

As soon as she turned her back and began to flee, she heard his boots slapping off the planks of the trestle and then a rattle as he pushed through the fencing and she knew that he was pursuing—fast.

She was faster, though. She’d run cross-country in high school, had pounded out many road miles in the days before David’s death, the days when there was time for such things, and she knew she could stay ahead of him, could keep going until she made the trailer, and then she could lock herself inside and find a knife and…

But she wasn’t faster than he was. When she glanced back over her shoulder she was astonished and terrified to see how quickly he was closing the gap, and how craftily. Instead of running directly after her, he was angling to his left, understanding exactly where she was headed and determined to head her off.

He could, too. He could beat her to the trailer.

With her first option removed, she did what panicked quarry generally does and redirected without purpose, simply heading in the opposite direction.

She reached the fences, heard a roar from one of the lions—fast-moving animals excited the cats, always, they incited the predatory response—and kept angling to the right.

Behind her, Dustin called, “Stop running, Audrey. Stop it, now.”

He was nearing the trailer, and once he saw that he’d succeeded in flushing her away from it, he would begin direct pursuit. Understanding that she could neither find protection nor outrun him, she made the final decision of panicked quarry: she had to hide.

She stumbled along between the enclosures, ducking and moving slower now, watching as Dustin turned away from the trailer and followed. For the first time she paused, knowing that the next choice would be critical, critical in the way a choice can be only when it might be your last.

Where to hide?

She dropped to all fours and began to crawl, but he was upright and moving quickly and would find her easily enough. Wherever she picked had to be close. She could not make the road, and to push deeper in the woods seemed hopeless, because she knew of no hiding spot and would make noise searching for one.

Dustin had paused, too. He looked in her direction but clearly could not see her, and then he walked to the trailer, opened the door, and stepped inside. For a moment she just crouched in the darkness and took deep, gasping breaths, watching him and thinking that perhaps the chase was done, perhaps he had other things on his mind.

Then the door opened again, and she saw the beam of the powerful flashlight, and she knew that the chase was hardly done.

To her right was one of the largest enclosures, home to three male lions. It was wide open and exposed space. To her left…

She saw Jafar’s golden eyes, the leopard pacing, unsettled, and then she saw the shadowed shape of his house. He’d emerged from it, straw stuck to his paws, to see what the chaos was about, and the shelter was empty now. Empty and dark and within reach.

“Audrey!” Dustin’s voice was a shout, furious, and she took one look at the flashlight beam—it was pointed the wrong way, he was expecting she’d moved toward the road when he had gone inside—and then she knew that she was out of options.

She crawled to the gate and worked the combination lock. She had two numbers in when the beam swung her way, and she dropped and pressed flat, knowing that it would find her. Jafar came to the fence, curious, and the beam passed over him instead and moved on. She lay in the snow and watched the path of the light and realized that Dustin was looking everywhere but in the cages.

Because Audrey wouldn’t go in the cages. She never had before, and he knew that. Everyone at the preserve did. It was the unspoken but shared understanding they all had as to why she could never manage the place on her own: she didn’t trust the cats.

She lifted her head, looked at Jafar’s eyes, and whispered, “Let me in, please. I love you, buddy. Now don’t hurt me.”

The cat gave a low growl and flattened his ears.

Tension, she told herself, he senses your tension and doesn’t like it. That’s all, Audrey. That’s all.

The flashlight beam passed close again, and she could wait no longer. When it was gone and she was in darkness, she lifted her hand and finished the combination. She did not need to fear the noise of the chain rattling; the lions behind her were roaring at full volume, and when that was happening, you could do about anything short of shooting off a cannon and not be heard. She pulled the gate open and crawled inside, and Jafar came trotting up with three loping bounds, then stopped with his back arched and tail stiff.

She almost tried to open the gate and run again, thinking that Dustin was surely going to be no worse a fate than this, but then memory whispered at her.

Playing, she thought, watching his stance, the way he was exposing his side, inviting her to chase. He’s trying to play with you.

Audrey pulled the gate shut and clicked the lock back in place and then crawled for the animal’s house. The cat stalked alongside her, and she felt the tears sliding down her cheeks. She was shaking now and would not look at him, could not, as if to meet his eyes would be to engage him in hostility.

The opening to his house was tight and narrow. She crawled in, cold straw bristling against her palms, and behind her the leopard gave a growl.

It was his territory, and she was invading it.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please, please, please.”

He did not strike at her as she entered. She banged her head on the plywood ceiling and then ducked lower and crawled on through the straw, crawled until she reached the bend in the wall that indicated it was making the L-turn, and then she could see the opening on the other side. There, farthest away from either end and impossible to spot unless you were inside the enclosure, she stopped moving. Her breath was coming in sobs now, and she tried to quiet them. It was a good hiding place, as long as she was quiet. A good hiding place, as long as the cat allowed it to be.

Out in the preserve, Dustin was still shouting her name, but that was good. That meant Dustin didn’t know where she was.

She heard another growl, turned back to her left, and saw a pair of golden eyes at the entrance to the shelter.

Jafar.

He knew where she was.

46

JACQUELINE HADN’T BEEN WRONG in her recollection—the only thing Kimble registered about the fall was that it was far too fast.

Then he registered the pain, and all else was gone.

He struck the surface of the frigid water awkwardly and plunged deeply into it, but not deep enough. An upright, jagged stone caught him in the ribs and drove the breath from his lungs, and then another drilled into his shoulder and the side of his neck, radiant pain spreading through him as he scrambled wildly at the frigid blackness, sure now that he was dying and that it would be just as he’d always feared death would be: dark and alone.