Vapor Trail

Lymon shook his head, blinking; distracted, still into the drama of the chase, he watched the two cops who’d cuffed the protesting woman walk her toward the street. Then his grin froze when an urgent voice came over the mobile radio mike clipped to a Stillwater cop’s epaulet.

“All units, we have a problem. She’s going east, toward the river. .”

“Say again.”

“We got a boy on a skateboard who saw a woman with a gun her hand running east through Everett and Maple.”

“One hundred. All units copy?”

Aw, shit. They piled into cars and converged on the North Hill. Immediately, it all felt wrong to Broker: the cops were road-bound; the suspect was working through the yards in the dark.

“Lemme out,” he yelled. “We gotta comb through the backyards.” He jumped from the rolling cruiser and jogged into the shadows.

Angel held her breath as the cop car shone its light into the yards on either side. The officer stopped two blocks away, got out of his car, took a handheld flashlight, and shone it into the overgrown ravine that abutted the street. Then his radio squawked. He turned off the light, got back in the car, and drove away.

Shaking, she took a fast inventory. Okay. They’d talked to the skateboard kid, figured out she’d doubled back, and now they would start cordoning these streets.

But the cop had given Angel an idea.

She was a Stillwater girl. It was a hill town, and in between the hills lay wooded ravines. She struggled to get her bearings and realized she was two blocks from a ravine that had a storm sewer running down its length. If she could slip into the intake grate at the bottom of the ravine, she could scurry underground and wiggle out on the bluff overlooking Battle Hollow. She’d come out close to her car, parked downtown.

She rose to a crouch and started maneuvering slow and low from shadow to shadow, feeling her way through the dark yards. But she could see people coming out on the street into patches of light, looking toward the red lights, the activity.

She hunkered along a hedge. There was a driveway partially screened by more lilacs. Then the open space. She looked behind her. A garage was attached to the house. No car in the drive.

Maybe no one was home.

A fence with grapevines ran from the garage to the edge of the ravine. If she could get into the backyard, she could move on the other side of the fence, behind the grapes. No yard lights back there, pitch-black.

She’d have to chance it. She duck-walked up the drive and crouched next to the doorway. Out of sight, hidden. A nice feeling but for how long? Too long. Too long. You have to move.

But it was comforting here in the dark.

She placed her hand against the garage side door. Please be open.

She twisted the knob and the door opened. The garage was empty, no car. She pushed the door open and rushed through, tripping on empty cardboard boxes, squinting in the dark. Found the back door, came out on a deck. The rolling backyard was hemmed in with lilacs, grapevines, and tall arborvitae. The obligatory pile of kid’s plastic junk.

Even better, the flower bed on the other side of the fence was thick with grapevines and eight-foot sunflowers that screened her from the street.

And the light was almost gone. Really getting dark now. She eased in along the lilac hedge and began to cross the yard. That’s when the dog in the wire pen in the next yard started going crazy.

On reflex, Broker moved in a crouch and pulled out the.45 as he tried to adjust his night vision. His shoes slid on the damp grass under his feet; mosquitoes buzzed in close, blowing little pincushion kisses.

Through breaks in the foliage and bushes he caught glimpses of police cars in the distance, people starting to congregate under streetlights.

This was bad. No radio. No coordination. Going mobile in the dark with guns was always bad. He’d operated at night in wartime, before night-vision goggles. Murphy’s Law. Accident waiting to happen. He kept jogging, weaving around shrubs, avoiding fences; she’d be avoiding them too, not hiding, moving fast to get out of the area. He was sure of that.

She?

Was Gloria out there ahead of him running on those strong legs, with a gun in her hand?

He vaulted a low rail fence and heard a dog start to bark in a yard up ahead. Then he heard the animal go frantic, banging its body against kennel mesh. Broker sprinted through some thick shrubs toward the sound. He came out in a broad yard and. .

The shadow darted, low from behind a tall lilac hedge.

“Halt, halt, halt.” Broker yelled as he ran, bringing up the.45. He let go of the reins and let his senses drive, all kinetics now, all reflex. .

The shadow ducked low, twisted, and was illuminated by the twinkle-crack of a muzzle flash. Broker felt a tiny bee buzz past his head.

Shit. She was firing at him. Still moving, he bent forward from the waist to make a smaller target, gripped the pistol in both hands, extended his arms, aimed low at her legs and pulled the trigger.

It was like squeezing a steel rock.

He’d forgotten to reload when they left the casino. Now he was running straight at a shooter who was taking her time to squeeze, not jerk, the trigger.

Like Harry had probably taught her.

Crack-buzz-crack-buzz-crack-buzz. More bees. A window shattered in the house behind him.

Broker dived, rolled sideways, and scrambled on all fours through a kid’s plastic play set and crawled into the nearest cover, a patch of staked tomato plants. He lay absolutely still for a whole minute, during which he distinctly remembered leaving his eight.45 rounds in Mouse’s car when they agreed to unload their guns before confronting Harry. Slowly, he caught his breath facedown in the rich black dirt, the mulch, and the thick chlorophyll fragrance of the tomato plants. He listened. But now all he heard was the onrushing cars, coming to the sound of the shots.

She was long gone.

Broker had other things to worry about. All the car doors slamming, the radios crackling-all the young coppers out there who’d never heard a shot fired in anger, their sweaty, overeager hands gripping their guns.

“Don’t shoot,” he yelled. “Over here, a friendly.”

“Who’s there? Come out with your fuckin’ hands up,” a hypertense young voice yelled back.

“Broker.”

“Broke who?”

“Broker, you know,” a different voice yelled. “Cool it. He’s buddies with the fuckin’ sheriff.”

“Oh,” the first voice said.

“All right everybody, stand down, holster the pieces. We clear? Okay? Come out, come out wherever you are, Sheriff Friend Broker.” It was Mouse, breathing hard, but his voice unmistakable, coming in through the garage, then out onto the deck.

Slowly, Broker rose to his feet, knocking dirt from his chest as Mouse approached, flanked by two Stillwater cops.

“Were those shots you?” Mouse said.

“At me. I ran into her when she came through here. She took four shots-they went high-then she changed direction and headed for the ravine,” Broker said.

Mouse told the two cops to fan out in an area search centered on the ravine. He turned back to Broker and said, “Did you get a look at her? Was it Gloria?”

“Too dark. Just a shape,” Broker said. He shook his head, looked into the darkness, and thought, Goddamn Harry. If he didn’t get you one way, he’d get you another.

She had bolted when she heard someone crash through the hedge behind her; then the loud voice had ordered her to stop. She half turned and picked out his moving broken shadow against the shrubs, saw the shadow’s arms come up, extended. Trying to get off the first shot, she planted her feet, swung the Ruger up in the classic Weaver stance, and pulled the trigger.