Wet with sweat, leaning on her crutch, she unholstered the Glock. Holding the gun felt good. Its weight and solidity were as reassuring as a handshake.
But she knew whatever comfort the gun provided was increasingly illusory. She couldn’t steady her hand, couldn’t aim, couldn’t hope to hit anything except by luck-and she had already pressed her luck to the breaking point tonight.
A high, tuneless buzz filled the space between her ears. Pure will held her upright.
No medals for …
Oh, to hell with it.
Swallowing fear, she hobbled into the grove. Behind the nearest eucalyptus, she sank to the ground.
The crutch would only slow her down now. She left the pine branch propped against the tree, where she could retrieve it later.
If there was a later.
Barefoot, the Glock gripped in two hands, Ally crept through the woods.
She had waited only long enough to fasten the FireStar’s mooring line to a willow tree before heading away from shore. Trish had been moving fast, but Ally thought she could catch up.
No way Trish was going into danger alone. Suppose she felt faint again. Suppose she collapsed and couldn’t get up.
She needed help, and that was that, and if she didn’t like it, well, too damn bad.
The darkness was thick and heavy on all sides, a blanket of night. Though there was no trail to follow. Ally was fairly sure she knew the way. Another twenty yards or so, and she-Pain punched like a hot needle through the sole of her right foot. Bramble, twig, something sharp.
She hissed a curse, then dropped instantly into a defensive crouch, aware that her voice must have carried in the stillness.
“Ally”
The whisper reached her from a nest of shrubs and shadows fifty feet away.
Seal-walking on her belly, Trish advanced to the next eucalyptus and the next, until the trees thinned.
Then she wriggled alongside a garbage can-Don’t Trash Our Park, it warned-and from there to an adjacent picnic table. She took cover under the built-in bench, her breath coming in explosive gasps.
On her elbows she struggled to the end of the table, then peered out from under the bench.
The building was now less than ten feet from her. A plywood hut, white-painted, the awning emblazoned Bobby’s Snack Shack.
A closed sign was wedged in a window near the door. At the corner of the shop stood twin kiosks.
Pay phones.
Between herself and the phones-no more tables, no trash cans, no trees, only a bare span of lawn.
Her heart racketed in her ears. She crawled forward, aware of her terrible vulnerability.
On the margin of her sight, a blur of motion.
Gun
No. A bat, a little brown bat, flitting among the eucalyptus branches.
Bats just like that one had fluttered over the field near the old farmhouse while she and Marta sat together on the porch in the summer twilight.
The memory was vivid, achingly real.
She kept going. Reached the front wall of the shop. Crouched against it, strips of peeled paint flapping in her hair.
Motionless against a white background, she could have been a target on a shooting range.
Her enemies never would have a better chance than this.
Eyes wide, head pounding, she waited for the fatal shot.
64
Ally’s heart sped up. She licked her lips and peered into the night. “Trish”
“Yeah. It’s me.” A dark, slender shape, unmistakably female, took substance among the tangled foliage. “You okay”
“I’m fine, just hurt my foot, you’re not mad, are you” Ally knew she was babbling. “I’m sorry, I know I was supposed to stay by the boat, but I couldn’t let you go by yourself, I just couldn’t.”
“It’s all right.”
She blinked, catching her breath. “Is it”
“Get over here.”
Relief lifted her. Quickly she moved forward, limping a little on her bloodied foot.
Trish was just ahead, a kneeling figure in silhouette, wearing a gun belt, a pistol in her hand.
“I’m glad you’re not ticked off or anything,” Ally whispered. “I really thought you’d kill me.”
Very close now, and in the shadows Trish was rising, her gun lifting as she stood.
Stood-without the crutch.
This wasn’t Trish, wasn’t Trish.
Ally threw herself to the ground behind a leafy scrim of manzanita, and a cork popped.
After an endless moment Trish relaxed, breath sighing out of her, and lowered the Glock.
Her gamble had paid off. Cain and his accomplices really had cleared out.
Clinging to the wall, she pulled herself upright, then crabbed to the corner of the shop and faced the first kiosk.
She lifted the handset, blinking back tears of relief.
It would be so good finally to ask for help. So good no longer to carry this weight of responsibility for so many lives.
Her trembling finger stabbed the keypad three times.
Nine-one-one.
She put the phone to her ear.
No ringing.
No dial tone.
Silence.
She stared at the phone. The thought occurred to her that she needed money, had to feed a quarter into the slot, and she didn’t have a quarter—
Stop.
A 911 call didn’t require payment. She knew that. She was just getting hysterical.
She touched the digits again.
The silence continued.
Out of order. Must be.
Well, there was a second phone. Maybe that one would work.
Please, God, please let it work.
She tried replacing the handset, but her shaking hand released it too soon, and it fell.
The handset thumped on the grass, trailing a severed cord.
Sabotaged.
Her gaze shifted to the other kiosk. A cut cord dangled from that handset also.
They were here.
Or had been. Could have left by now. But she didn’t think so.
Creak of hinges.
The shop door.
She started to turn, and powerful arms seized her from behind, crushing her stomach, driving breath from her lungs.
