then a soft click.
She thought of the sound a pistol’s slide might make as it was racked back.
Mobius had never used a gun, but she drew no comfort from that fact.
If he was out there and armed, she would have to face him. To stay in the bathroom was suicide. He could draw a bead on her from the darkness of the hall, and she would have nowhere to hide or run.
Before exiting, she jerked the nightlight out of the wall outlet, darkening the hall. Then she pivoted through the doorway and jumped to the far side of the corridor. She braced herself against the wall and waited.
No shots were fired.
Still, she’d heard someone. She was certain she had.
Slowly she approached what must be the bedroom, the last door in the hall other than the door to the backyard. Mobius could be just inside the doorway, waiting for her to enter.
Her left hand still carried the nightlight. She pitched it into the darkness of the bedroom.
As it dropped with a clatter, she ducked into the room and took cover behind the open door.
Her diversionary tactic hadn’t drawn any fire. Either Mobius was cool under pressure, or he wasn’t here at all.
She sidled along the wall, staying low, and felt a light switch poke her between the shoulder blades. The switch might control an overhead light or a lamp on a bureau or bedside table.
She needed light. Darkness had given her an edge as long as her intrusion had been undetected. Now it worked against her, giving her enemy too many places to hide.
She flicked the switch, then swept the room with her gaze as a lamp on a table came on.
The bed and what was on it registered instantly, but she refused to take it in until she had looked into the closet and behind the bureau.
Then another glance into the hall.
Mobius wasn’t here.
But he had been.
She turned back to the bed where Dodge lay in his cheap suit, fully dressed, wearing even his shoes, his wrists duct-taped to the headboard, mouth sealed against a cry, throat opened in a gout of drying blood.
His eyes stared, empty.
She touched his neck, impelled by her training to check the carotid artery for a pulse, but of course there was no pulse. The blood had stopped flowing. It was already becoming tacky and dark.
But not very tacky. Not yet.
And Dodge’s skin was warm, his eyes moist with their last tears.
He had died only minutes ago.
The noises she’d heard. That third creak, that soft click.
It had been the creak of the back door opening. The click of the latch sliding into place as the door eased shut.
Mobius had escaped out the back while she was searching the bathroom.
He couldn’t have gone far.
She ran out the back door, the gun leading her, and scanned the shadowy trees. A spotlight mounted on the rear wall threw a pale glow over the grass.
Moving through the trees, she found herself at the edge of a steep hillside sloping down into a canyon. She looked down, and there he was, limned in starlight, a tall, masculine figure slip-sliding through the chaparral brush fifty yards away.
She didn’t know if her voice had come back until she heard herself shout, 'Stop, FBI!'
Her cry echoed and reechoed across the canyon, scaring a bevy of birds into reckless flight. The man on the hillside didn’t even slow down.
She pointed her gun at him, but he was far away and there was too much darkness and ground cover and her arm was still shaky from the effects of the VX. She knew she would miss, so she conserved ammunition, slipping the gun into the waistband of her slacks as she scrambled down the slope.
She expected him to continue descending into the canyon, but he surprised her, veering to his right, where a second hillside intersected with the first. He crossed over to that slope and began climbing toward the ridge. His movements were assured, confident, and she realized he must be retracing the route he’d taken when he arrived. He had parked somewhere in the maze of cul-de-sacs off Mulholland, then crossed the hills and sneaked onto Dodge’s property from the rear.
She was yards behind him, hampered by the lingering weakness of her muscles and her unfamiliarity with the terrain. She couldn’t catch up to him, not in time.
But, damn it, he was practically in her sights. She could see him, see Mobius, or at least his faint silhouette, his progress marked on the far hillside by a shifting wake of brush.
She yanked the Sig Sauer free of her waistband and fired off a round, aiming high, leading the target.
Whip-crack of the bullet in the air, thud of impact on sandstone, but the figure didn’t stop moving, wasn’t hit.
From the rising plume of dust, she judged that the shot had been wide of its mark by a yard. She adjusted, fired again.
This time the figure stopped-she thought she’d nailed him-no, he’d only frozen momentarily when the shot landed close.
She’d come within a foot of him. Next time…
A scrub oak beside her swayed as a bullet made a soft thwack in its branches.
He was shooting back.
She threw herself behind the tree, using its slender trunk as cover. Another shot went off, kicking up dirt and gravel near where she’d lain a moment earlier.
The bastard was armed, and a good shot too-better than she was.
When she glanced out from behind the oak, she saw him disappearing into a copse of eucalyptus trees halfway to the ridge.
The trees provided perfect cover. She had no chance of hitting him now. Her best opportunity was to get back to her car, try to cut him off before he could drive away.
She ran uphill, bending almost double at the waist to form a smaller target in case he decided to pick her off from the safety of the trees. She wondered how it would feel to be shot in the back, or if he was a good enough marksman to place the round directly in her skull-no warning, no awareness, no time even to hear the gun’s report- just a shattering impact and lights out.
But she didn’t get shot, and now she was scrambling into Dodge’s backyard, clear of the hillside, safe.
She kept running, her heart working hard, breath coming in explosive gasps. If there was any VX left in her system, she must be sweating it out, purifying herself.
Fast around the side of the house to the front, then down the street to the turnout where she’d parked-brief, frantic fumbling in her purse for her car keys, and then she was at the wheel, cranking the engine, flooring the gas as she slammed the gear selector into reverse and backed into the street. She popped the lever forward, putting the car into drive, and sped east on Mulholland, in the direction Mobius had been going.
Side street ahead. Car pulling out. Blue coupe. Moving fast.
Him.
It had to be him.
He must have made it to his vehicle just when she’d reached hers.
She gunned the motor, the bureau car bouncing on the road, spraying dirt as she swerved into the shoulder on tight curves. She flicked on her high beams. The fleeing car bobbed in and out of the light. Camaro or Firebird, California plate.
Another rough curve, her tires wailing as she fought with the steering wheel to prevent a skid, and then the road straightened out and so did she, and she was closer to Mobius’s car.
The license plate. Read it.
Two-two-three…
He put on a burst of speed, racing out of the range of her high beams, challenging her to keep up. She floored the gas pedal. The sedan shook, bounding over ruts and potholes, each impact nearly banging her head on the
