Fueled by adrenaline, Joanna took off after Dysart. She stopped at the corner of the building long enough to reconnoiter. Peering carefully around the stuccoed wall, she caught sight of him and knew that his back was toward her before she stepped into the clear. Instead of waiting for her in ambush, Larry Dysart was still running.
Joanna ran, too. Past the back of the kitchen where a cook and a dishwasher stood having a companionable smoke; past the open door of the overheated laundry with its heavy, damp air warmed with the homey smell of freshly drying
linens. Halfway down that side of the building, Dysart veered sharply to the left and headed for Grand Avenue. Half a second later, Joanna saw why
Realizing she was on her own, Joanna despaired. Dysart was headed for the street. She was running flat out behind him. Even so, she was still losing ground.
This way, Joanna wanted to shout to the invisible cops in the lobby. Come out and look this way.
But there wasn’t yet enough air in her tortured lungs to permit yelling and running at the same time. And there was no one to hear her if she had. Instead, straining every muscle, she raced after him.
Dysart burst through a small landscaped area that bordered on Grand Avenue and then paused uncertainly on the shoulder of the road. A moment later, he darted out into traffic. Horns honked. Brakes squealed. Somehow he dodged several lanes of oncoming traffic. Making it safely to the other side, he disappeared down an embankment.
Joanna, too, paused at the side of the road. She looked both ways, across six lanes of traffic. Then, taking advantage of a momentary lull in vehicles, she too plunged across Grand. Halfway to the other side, she heard the unmistakable rumble of an approaching train.
Her heart sank. By then, Dysart had gained so much ground that if he managed to cross the tracks just ahead of the train, he might be able to disappear behind the seventy-five or so freight cars the train before Joanna or anyone else would able to come after him.
When she finally reached the far shoulder of Grand Avenue, Joanna looked down in time to see Larry Dysart climbing over the barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence that separated railroad right-of way from highway right-of-way.
“Stop or I’ll shoot.” She screamed the warning over the roar of the approaching train. And he must have heard her, because he turned to look. But he kept on climbing. And when he hit the ground, he kept on running, straight toward the tracks, less than fifty yards ahead of the rumbling southbound train.
He was out in the open now, with nothing but open air between him and Joanna’s Colt 2000. She dropped to her knees and held the semiautomatic with both hands. A body shot would have been far easier. His broad back would have offered a far larger target, but she didn’t want to risk a body shot. That might kill him. Instead, she aimed for his legs, for the pumping knees that were carrying him closer and closer to the track.
Joanna’s first shot exploded in a cloud of dirt just ahead of him. It had no visible effect on Dysart other than making him run even faster. Gritting her teeth, Joanna squeezed off a second round and then a third. The fourth shot found its mark. Larry Dysart rose slightly in the air, like a runner clearing a curb. When he came back down, his shattered leg crumpled under him. He pitched forward on his face.
Giddy with relief and triumph, Joanna stumbled down the rocky incline from the roadway. By then the train was bearing down on the injured man. She had him. All she had to do now was wait for help. With a broken leg, he’d never be able to cross the tracks before the train reached him. And even if he did, the leg would slow him down enough that someone would be able to catch up with him.
“Hold it!” she yelled, running toward the fence with her Colt still raised. “Hold it right there!”
He must have heard that, too. He raised up on both elbows long enough to look back at her, then he started crawling toward the track, dragging the damaged leg behind him. By the time Joanna realized his
