as he went by.
He slowed down. He wanted her. As he came abreast of her, Nathan tried to slide to a stop. He managed to grab Shahla’s right arm with his left hand, but his momentum carried them both down the hill. Shahla felt the pain of a thousand needles in her back as she fell against the stiff branches of the brush. Nathan fell partially on top of her and then bounced off.
Shahla twisted her body and tried to stand up, but she didn’t have a solid footing and fell forward into the brush. More pain. Nathan was beside her, also struggling to right himself.
She heard him say, “You’re coming with me,” as he raised the knife. “Even if I have to cut you up.”
Shahla was still off-balance, but she was able to shove him in the chest with both hands. As she did this, she lost her grip on the box cutter. It disappeared into the brush. His knife cut across her left shoulder. Then he fell backwards, and so did she. She received more damage from the sharp wooden spines. Now she and Nathan were separated by a few feet. She tried to stand and make a run for it, but the brush was too thick to allow easy movement.
She turned to face him. He was uphill from her. He stood up and towered over her, with the knife raised high, a fearsome apparition. Shahla felt naked without the box cutter. She wondered whether she was going to die. Even in the dark, she could make out a manic expression on his face. He was crazy.
Although they were only a few feet apart, the thickness of the brush kept him from coming straight toward her. He stood, motionless, and seemed to ponder the problem. She started edging away from him, slowly, working her way through the brush. It scratched her bare legs, but she barely noticed. She had put a few more feet between them when Nathan came to life. He yelled something unintelligible and stumbled forward, surprising her.
With his initial rush, he covered most of the distance between them, but his legs became caught in the unyielding branches, and he lost his balance. Shahla tried to duck away from the upraised knife as he fell. His body hit her, but she managed to twist clear of him so he didn’t land on top of her.
Her face went into the brush, and she felt a branch stab her close to her eye. Now she was mad. She pushed herself up. Nathan was sprawled face down beside her. She jumped on his back and shoved his head into the brush. Hard. He screamed. She saw the knife, still in his hand. She lunged and grabbed his hand, twisting it so that the knife fell into the bushes.
He started to get up. Shahla climbed back on top of him and shoved his head into the brush again. He screamed again.
“Don’t move,” she hissed.
She felt his muscles tense for another try. She pushed his head down. He grunted, and his muscles relaxed. This might work. He was lying in the brush, facing downhill at a steep angle. It must be very painful for him to move in this awkward position. As long as Shahla stayed on top of him and could keep him from moving, she had the advantage. She wondered how long she could maintain it.
CHAPTER 40
Tony found the trail that went downhill from the plateau to the picnic area. He couldn’t wait for the police to get their act together and send officers to help him. He started down the trail by himself. He went slowly, being careful of his knee, shining his flashlight to the right and to the left, searching among the bushes and the shadows for signs of life.
If he hadn’t been afraid of what had happened to Shahla, he would be enjoying himself, hiking in the cool of the evening with the lights below, knowing that even though he could see the city where millions of people lived, here he was alone.
He had gone some distance when he heard a cry for help, somewhere below him. He shone his flashlight down the hill. At first he couldn’t see anything except dirt and brush. He moved the light in an arc, covering both sides of the trail. Then he saw somebody, off to the left of the trail.
“Down here,” shouted the urgent voice.
It was Shahla. “I’m coming,” Tony called. She appeared to be sitting in the brush. “Are you all right?” he asked, as he came closer to her.
“I’ve got Nathan,” she said. “But I don’t know how long I can hold him.”
Tony picked out Nathan with the help of the flashlight. Shahla was astride his back, with her hands on his head. He was face downwards, with his feet higher than his head, and he looked about as helpless as a man could be.
“Where is the knife?” Tony asked, working his way through the brush toward them.
“In the bushes.”
Tony climbed onto Nathan’s back, behind Shahla. Nathan groaned as the additional weight pressed him further into the spines.
“Am I happy to see you,” Shahla said. She shifted her position and sighed. “That’s better. You came along just in time. Branches were sticking into my legs, but I was afraid to move.”
Tony saw a mess on her shoulder and said, “You’re bleeding,”
“I am? Just another scratch. I think he got me with his knife. Even though he wanted me unmarked.” She raised her voice. “Is that why you strangled Joy instead of stabbing her? So she would be beautiful for you?” She shoved Nathan’s head into the brush and received a groan in response.
Tony pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it against Shahla’s wound to try and stop the flow of blood. He said, “I think wearing my sweatshirt helped you. It’s loose enough so that the knife didn’t penetrate it very well. But it’s torn.”
“It gave its life to save me.”
“We’ll have it framed. By the way, the police should be down here shortly.”
“Oh yes, the police. They missed all the fun.”
Tony didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t watch emergency room shows on television. The last time he had been admitted to a hospital was when he had suffered a ruptured appendix, at the age of eleven. He didn’t visit other people in hospitals if he could avoid it.
However, he wasn’t going home without making sure that Shahla was all right. He hadn’t realized she had other wounds besides the one on her shoulder until the police arrived and released them from their positions on top of Nathan. Then he saw that she had scratches all over her body, the most dangerous one being close to her eye. A policeman had driven her to a hospital in Culver City, and he was going there now.
Tony had been up all night, and he felt exhausted, now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He had wanted to go to the hospital with Shahla, but she had told him to stay and help in the search for Tina. She had been adamant about it.
So he assisted the police as they combed the level part of the park. He was reminded of the story of the man who searched for his wallet underneath a streetlight, even though he thought he had lost it in a dark alley. However, Tony had to agree that it didn’t make any sense for Tina to go back up the hill after she made it down. And she wasn’t on the trail. So why not search in the easiest place?
There was a small fishing lake near the picnic ground. Tony walked to the lake, with the help of his flashlight. He didn’t spot anybody around the lake, but he did see restrooms. Where would a girl logically hide from a man?
He knocked on the door of the women’s room. He didn’t hear anything so he opened the door. It was dark inside. He shone his flashlight around and called, “Tina. It’s Tony. We got Nathan. You can come out.”
One of the stalls was locked. By standing on his toes he could look over the door. He shone the flashlight around the stall. Huddled in a corner beside the toilet, looking scared, sat Tina.
It took him a couple of minutes to coax her to come out of the stall. Then he escorted her to the picnic ground. When Tina saw the police and realized she was safe, a torrent of words came out of her mouth. She said, among other things, that she and Nathan had entered the park while it was still open, through an entrance from a
