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for only a moment before Spike crouched and slid under it while Terry clambered up and over the top. Spike and Terry were well beyond the fence when Ernie stopped in front of it.
“What’s the word, boss?” he asked. “Do you want to go look for a gate?”
“Are you kidding? Go through the damned thing!” she ordered. “We can always fix the fence later.”
Ernie backed up a few feet. After putting the Blazer in four-wheel drive, he roared forward. For a time the wire seemed to stretch, then it broke, sending fence posts and coils of wire spiraling into the air as the Blazer rushed through.
“Cut the lights,” Joanna ordered when they once again had Terry and the dog in view.
“Now that we’re away from the ballpark, there’s enough moonlight tonight that, once our eyes get accustomed to it, we should be able to see just fine. If we keep our lights on, we’re liable to blind them.”
And let Stella know they’re coming, she thought.
Without a word, Ernie cut the lights. It took only a moment before their eyes adjusted to the dark. Soon, though, the silvery light cast by a wedge of moon was enough to allow them to make out the movements of both the officer and his dog as they traversed a ghostly landscape.
Off to the left lay what looked like a pale layer of white earth. That was a long-abandoned tailings dam-waste left over from the copper-milling process-that covered acres of desert with a relatively flat layer of debris. To the right was the mound of steep hills that formed a backdrop to the neighborhood of Warren. The tops of the hills, tipped with silver, gleamed against the sky with the reflected glow from the ballpark lights where the softball game was still in full swing.
And straight ahead of them, at the base of those hills, 335
crouching in shadow, lay broken hulks of buildings that had once, long ago, been a state-of-the-art ore crusher. Joanna remembered that she and her father had once spent hours exploring the ruin. The machinery and equipment that had been used to grind copper ore to dust had disappeared right along with the men who had once operated it. But Joanna knew that the concrete shells of those long empty buildings would offer shelter for a fleeing Stella Adams-shelter and cover.
“She has to be headed for the old crusher,” Joanna said.
Concentrating on driving, Ernie could only nod in agreement. Joanna reached for the radio mike and barked into it.
“We think Stella Adams is headed for the old crusher on the southwest side of Warren,”
she told Tica. “We need backup officers to come from the west side of town, out past the Juvenile Detention Center, to rendezvous there. The K-9 unit is on the suspect’s trail. Detective Carpenter and I are to the east of the old crusher. I don’t want anybody caught in a cross fire. No weapons are to be fired under any circumstances until we positively locate the suspect and our guys are in the clear. Got that?”
“Got it,” Tica Romero repeated.
“The suspect may be injured, and we believe she may have lost one or more shoes.
But she’s still to be considered armed and dangerous.”
Something cold and wet trickled down Joanna’s neck and into the cleavage of her bra.
The afternoon rainstorm had left the desert surprisingly cool, but the sweat dribbling under Joanna’s clothing had nothing to do with heat and everything to do with fear.
Another fence appeared out of nowhere. Stella Adams wasn’t following a road; neither were Deputy Gregovich and
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Spike. Again, there was no time to go looking for a gate. Once again, Ernie backed off a few feet before gunning the Blazer forward. Around them breaking wires sprang apart with a screeching twang.
“Sounds like God just broke his guitar string,” Joanna said to Ernie. A moment later, although it wasn’t that funny, they were both laughing-laughing and driving and sitting in their own rank, fear-spawned sweat.
That’s when they heard the shot. The single roar of gunfire crackled through the air and echoed off the surrounding hillsides and buildings. Ahead of them, Joanna saw both Terry and Spike dive for cover. At least she hoped they were diving for cover. Hoped that they had fallen of their own volition rather than because Stella Adam’s single, well-aimed shot had found its mark. A moment later Joanna and Ernie, too, were on the ground, scrambling forward.
It probably took them less than a minute to reach the low rise where Terry Gregovich and his dog huddled behind a thick mound of creosote. “Looks like we found her,”
Terry muttered.
“Are you both all right?” Joanna demanded.
“Yes. We’re fine, but this woman is a damned good shot. Watch yourselves.”
“We didn’t see where it came from.” Ernie Carpenter was out of shape and out of breath.
“Did you?”
Terry pointed. “Over there,” he said. “Behind the wall of that first building. What the hell is this place?”
Remembering that the manufacturer called her Kevlar vest “bullet-resistant” rather than “bulletproof,” Joanna managed to utter a one-word answer: “Crusher.” Then she pulled herself
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