possum, running away, running horn him, he knew.
No footfalls, no one was near. How much farther?
He heard some fresh gunshots coming from Gillette and Rachael, but no return fire.
They were gone.
He ran straight out toward the edge of the forest until he saw the front of the house. He had to be close to their last position. They could still be nearby, see what he was going to do, kill him if he showed himself. Jack didn’t want to get shot. He nearly ran over their former position—saw the flattened leaves, the shells.
They were gone.
He ran all the way back to the road. When he burst out of the woods, he saw two figures in a late-model black Ford Expedition burning rubber down the road.
They’d had to leave their companions. Not a good idea—but they didn’t have a choice.
He ran back as fast as he could, yelled before he broke through the woods in front of Gillette’s house, “It’s Jack! They’re gone. Don’t shoot! I’m coming out!”
Rachael flew out the splintered front door. “Jack! Are you all right? They ran?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“Some glass in my arm and neck, nothing bad. Gillette’s okay, too. He went to check out back.”
“One of the guys is alive. I left him on the kitchen floor. Let’s get in the house,” he said, and grabbed her arm and pulled her inside.
Gillette came running out of the kitchen. “There’s blood on the floor, Jack, but the guy’s gone.”
He was a moron. He should have shot the goon in the leg. “He won’t get far,” Jack said. “There were two of them, actually. One’s dead at the back of the yard, right at the tree line. I took both their wallets. I’ll bet you these guys are in the system.”
Rachael said, “I’ll call Sheriff Hollyfield, tell him what happened and get him out here.”
“I’m going to look outside.”
When Jack walked into the kitchen five minutes later, he said, “The body’s gone. Our wounded guy carried him out. They must have another vehicle.”
“The sheriff will be here in thirty minutes, tops,” Rachael said.
“I forgot, I’ve got some critical information for him,” Jack said, and dialed him up, managed to catch him on the point of leaving his office. Jack gave Sheriff Hollyfield the license plate of the Ford Expedition.
Rachael ignored the objections of the men and went with Jack to track the shooters through the woods, the rifle pointed down at her side. Jack wasn’t happy, even though he knew she was a good shot. “There’s got to be blood,” he whispered. “Keep as quiet as you can.”
They found the blood trail quickly enough. “Look,” Jack said, going down on his knees. “He’s carrying his dead buddy. They can’t be too far ahead.”
The blood trail led back to the road, some thirty feet farther beyond where the Ford Expedition had peeled out.
Jack said, “They were careful enough to have two vehicles. The guy I shot in the shoulder, he needs major help fast.”
When they returned to the house, Jack called the nearest hospital. They’d already been alerted, he was told, by Sheriff Hollyfield.
“Gillette, are there any physicians close by that our wounded guy could find easily?”
Gillette shook his head. “No, unless he knows of one personally. Or has a phone book. Parlow’s the closest town. Everything’s so spread out around here, someone not familiar with the area couldn’t find his elbow.”
Jack phoned Dr. Post at the clinic, just in case. Nurse Harmon agreed to alert all the hospitals in the area. Then he called Savich.
Rachael listened to him with half an ear as she swept up the glass from the shattered front windows.
“We’re beyond lucky,” Jack was saying to Savich. “Without that perimeter alarm the shooters tripped when they came in, we’d have been in bad trouble since Rachael and I were out in the open.
“They didn’t know I was here, probably didn’t know Gillette was a marine, or that Rachael can shoot a quarter out of the air. Sheriff Hollyfield should be here soon, so everything seems covered.” He listened, then said, “I got wallets out of both guys I shot, but it’s like the shooter at Roy Bob’s garage—they removed all ID, credit cards, likely left everything in their vehicles. I can get some blood from the kitchen floor and from some leaves in the forest, get us some DNA. Yeah, all right.” Jack hung up. “Savich says enough is enough, said he never liked the idea of third time’s a charm. He wants Rachael back in Washington. And he wants you, Gillette, to take a vacation.”
“Yeah, like that’ll happen,” Gillette said. He sighed and looked around. He bent down, picked up a large hunk of glass. “I guess I’m not through with my house.”
“They’re going to put me in the same hospital room as Dr. MacLean, are they?” Rachael wondered aloud. “Well, forget that. I’ve got to call my mom. If they didn’t do a pretty good search to find out about Slipper Hollow, then they could have gotten to her.”
Gillette said, “I called while you and Jack were tracking blood in the woods. Everyone’s fine. I didn’t tell your mother about any of your trouble.”
Rachael said, “But shouldn’t we warn them? Shouldn’t they take a vacation?”
Jack shook his head. “Whoever ordered this hit doesn’t want more collateral damage than absolutely necessary. Parlow must have scared them but good. Limit the risks, limit the exposure. They knew it’d be beyond stupid to go after your mom and her family. And so they did something else.”
Rachael said, “Fine, aren’t you brilliant. Just what did they do? I didn’t think anyone knew about Slipper Hollow.”
Gillette sighed. “It wouldn’t be hard, Rachael, think about it.”
Jack said, “Gillette’s right. Not hard at all. They researched you, Rachael, found out about Gillette and where he lives. After the failure in Parlow, they must have looked for another destination, and found it.”
Gillette said, “I guess I wanted this place to be off the map. Nothing’s off the map in this day and age. I’m an idiot.” He shook his head. “Oh yeah, there would be FedEx records, property records, asking at the local post office where my P.O. box is, any number of ways to track me down.”
Jack said to Rachael, “I should have hauled your butt to the Arizona desert.”
Gillette looked over at his bullet-riddled front door, at all the beautiful windows, now shot to pieces, the gouges in the walls, the shattered hall mirror.
Jack said, “While we’re waiting for Sheriff Hollyfield, let’s start fixing that door and boarding up the windows. You gonna use FedEx to deliver new windows?”
“Probably, but I might take myself off their database,” Gillette said.
“I’m so sorry, Uncle Gillette,” Rachael said. “It’s all my fault.”
“Don’t piss me off, Rachael,” Gillette said, and tugged her braid.
It wasn’t until that evening, right before dark, that Jack discovered the gunmen had found and disabled Rachael’s Charger.
TWENTY-ONE
Dr. MacLean’s eyes weren’t drug-bright anymore; he was alert and laughing with a nurse when Savich and Sherlock came into his room.
He looked over at them, smiled. “I remember you two from yesterday. You’re the FBI agents who work with Jackson.” He shrugged. “Jackson told me the young lady with him—Rachael, I believe her name is—saved our hides after he brought the plane down. They left ten minutes ago, said you were on your way.”
The nurse, Louise Conver, gave Dr. MacLean a smile and left. “Yes,” Savich said, “we saw them in the lobby. They told us you’re feeling much better this morning.”
The neurologist had told them the disease was unpredictable and everyone was different. Savich prayed Dr. MacLean would remember enough of their conversation the day before so they wouldn’t have to begin all over.
MacLean said thoughtfully, “I always told his daddy I never liked the shortened version of his name, so he’ll stay Jackson to me. Fact is, I threw footballs with him, taught him how to pitch a curveball, gave him pointers on how to psychoanalyze his sister’s lemonade customers. He set up a stand right next to hers. Unlike Charlie Brown’s
