Dirty Blonde

mixing with a swirl of toxic fumes.

A phosphorescent sign stood in her path. DANGER! GROUND PRONE TO SUDDEN COLLAPSE! DANGEROUS GASES PRESENT! The sign stood at the north end of the old Route 61, now closed off. Cate knew the old route by heart, and it gave her an idea.

She ran past the sign, her breathing labored in the poisonous air. Russo must have been reading her mind, because in the next second, she saw his car, visible by its headlights, driving over the hump placed as a barrier at the head of the old Route 61. The car’s grille bounced as it bounded past the sign, spraying snow from its tires. Russo was going to run her down or get close enough to shoot her. But Cate knew this terrain. She fought to think through her confusion. She could see the stripped tree trunks in front of her, black shadows against the snow. She prayed the ground didn’t collapse beneath her.

She bolted behind the cemetery, her hands hitting stray branches. She fell in the snow, then got up. She climbed higher up the hillside she knew was there. It was the only point on the summit higher than the cemetery. She’d played on it all the time as a kid, since it was so near school. She tried to run fast and lightly, so the ground wouldn’t give way under her. Darkness descended, the higher she climbed. The only illumination came from below, the headlights of the dark car as it swung around. The high beams swept beneath her, cutting a lethal swath through the smoky air.

Go, go, go. It was pitch black, no streetlights or highway lights. No moon. Nothing to delineate the terrain to anybody who didn’t know every inch of it. Her heart hammered. She kept running alongside the hill, not wanting to go too high, because the land fell off behind. She prayed she was remembering right. Fumes filled her nostrils. She couldn’t think.

Russo drove below, going straight, approximating the road she knew curved sharply off to the right. He wouldn’t see that. The road followed the curve of the mountain. He wouldn’t anticipate that. It was her only chance.

Cate watched him slow his speed, looking for her. Smoke surrounded them, obscuring everything. The mine fire raged underneath. Russo stopped at a smoking rent in the road, the asphalt ruptured like an earthquake. Cate prayed he fell in from his car’s weight. She covered her nose to keep her wits about her.

Russo careened around the steaming fissure. Cate bolted along the hillside, bracing herself on dead trees, trying not to breathe too deeply. Russo caught up to her on a parallel track. Almost time to put her plan into action. Soon Russo would get out of the car and hunt her down on foot. She ran harder, panting.

Now!

Cate ran down the hill in the dark, wet and bedraggled, kicking up snow all around her. She cut the mountain at a diagonal toward the car, then half-ran, half-stumbled down onto the unplowed road.

The engine gunned. Russo accelerated toward her. Snow pinwheeled from the tires, and Cate took advantage of her brief head start. She gathered all her strength and bolted across the front of the car. The car burst forward but she was past.

Crak! A gunshot exploded over her shoulder. Cate screamed in terror. A bullet seared her cheek. Now! She threw herself down onto the hill and dove into the snow, grabbing for a tree trunk. She hugged it with all her might and scrambled for purchase with her feet.

In the next second, Russo followed her at top speed. Old Route 61 curved to the right under the snow, but Cate had led him to the left. It had worked. The dark car sailed right over her head. She buried her face in the snow. Heat, dirt, stones, and pebbles rained down on her like a storm from hell.

The car flew over the side of the hill, into thin air. The next sound she heard was Russo’s scream, joining another’s. Hers. Then the hideous crash of his car smashing into the highway below. Debris and broken branches roiled down the hill around her head. In the next minute, everything fell quiet. Russo couldn’t hurt her anymore.

Cate should have felt horror, or relief, but a terrible sleepiness took over. Smoke curled from the wooded embankment. Fog clogged her nostrils. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t muster up a single thought.

She felt distanced from herself. She didn’t know if Russo had survived the crash or if he had died. Her consciousness dissolved into smoke. She told herself to hold on to the tree but her grip began to loosen. Her sopping sneaker lost its foothold.

Her eyes closed drowsily. She was so very tired. It had been a long, long day. If she could only put her head down and rest. On a pillow. On a shoulder. A man’s shoulder. Not Graham’s.

Nesbitt’s.

Don’t touch that

CHAPTER 38

Cate woke up to Nesbitt’s face in soft-focus fog. For a minute, she wasn’t sure if she was dreaming. He looked worried, so it couldn’t be a dream. Nobody worried in dreams. Also, she didn’t dream about Nesbitt. Much.

“Good morning, Judge,” Nesbitt said, and Cate blinked.

“Is it morning?” she said. Her mouth felt dry.

“I’m joking.” Nesbitt checked his watch. “It’s nine at night.”

“Oh.” Cate felt her head begin to clear. The room came into hazy focus. She was lying in a hospital bed with pull-up plastic rails. Light blue walls and a window on the right, its blue-patterned curtains drawn. An oxygen tube was under her nose. A mounted TV played on mute, a basketball game in too-vivid color.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel good.” Cate thought a minute. She didn’t hurt anywhere. She felt really happy. “Why am I so happy?”

“It’s the drugs.”

“I feel so calm.” Cate smiled, and Nesbitt smiled back.

“It makes a nice change.”

“What happened to me? Did I fall off a cliff?”

“No. They found you by the side of the road, passed out from the fumes. You got the full brunt. You were lying near a big crack of steam.”

“At least my pores are clean.”

Then Cate began remembering it all, albeit hazily. The cemetery. The cliff. The dark car. Russo. “Is he dead? He’s not dead, is he?”

“No. He’s upstairs, here. I saw him, and he’s resting. A bunch of broken bones, but the doctors say he’ll be fine.”

“Good. I think.” Cate felt her emotions revive, though buffered. “Now that he’s alive, am I allowed to wish he was dead?”

Nesbitt smiled. “Now that you’re alive, I can say I told you so.”

“So we’re even.”

“Exactly.”

“Is he in pain, at least?”

“I believe so.”

“A lot or a little?”

“Tell you what. As soon as he heals, I’ll beat the crap out of him for you.” Nesbitt’s smile faded. “We got the call almost as soon as it happened. He had his ID on him.”

“And his gun.”

“He took a shot at you?” Nesbitt asked, alarmed. “I hadn’t heard that.”

“I almost caught one, but I missed. Sorry.” Cate remembered the heat on her cheek. It didn’t even bother her. These must be some drugs. She resolved to show more empathy on the next drug case before her, then she remembered she wasn’t a judge anymore.

“He’ll be released into our custody, and we’ll charge him.”

“How does that work exactly? Will you charge him and then beat him up? Or beat him up and then charge