Laura hooked an arm around Mary's throat and squeezed. Mary let go of the baby to beat at Laura's ribs, and then she swung Laura up and around with fierce strength and both the women crashed together against a wall with David on the floor beneath them.
The rotten wall gave way. They went through the soft insect-eaten boards and onto the floor of another room. As they fought, Mary's knee slammed against Laura's splinted hand, and the pain was like incandescent light, startling in its power. Laura heard herself moan, a bestial sound. She struck out with her right fist, hit Mary's shoulder, struck out again, and got her jaw. A blow from Mary hit Laura in the stomach, and then Mary had her by the hair and was trying to slam her head against the floorboards.
Laura fought back with the raw strength of the doomed. She got her fingers in Mary's eyes and tore at them, and then Mary cried out and was pulling away from her. Blood was spattered all over them from Mary's thigh wound, splattered all over the floor. Laura kicked out, hit Mary in the ribs, and drew a grunt from her. Another kick missed, and Mary Terror was crawling away, blood dripping from the corner of her right eye. Laura staggered to her feet, and suddenly Mary turned on her again and grabbed her legs, lifting her off the floor and throwing her back into another wall. Laura went through it as if it were damp pasteboard, and then Mary burst after her through the rotten timbers and sodden plaster with a strangled bellow of fury.
Blood was in Mary's eyes, her face a crimson mask. She kicked at Laura, who got to her knees and desperately tried to protect her face and head with her arms. She warded off one kick, was struck in the shoulder by another. Freighted with pain, she fought to her feet. And then Mary – half-blinded, her right eye white in its socket – clamped her arms around Laura's body, trapping her arms at her sides. She began to crush the life out of her.
Laura thrashed, couldn't break free. Her vision was fading. When she passed out, Mary would beat her to death. Laura rocked her skull back and brought it forward, smashing her forehead as hard as she could against the woman's mouth and nose.
Bones snapped like twigs. The pressure on Laura's ribs eased, and she slid down to the floor in a heap as Mary staggered across the floor, her hands pressed to her face. She hit a wall, but this one was solid. And then she shook her head, drops of blood flying, and she leaned over and breathed like a bellows as red drooled from her mouth.
Laura was shaking, her nerves and muscles almost used up. She was about to pass out, and when she put her hand to her face it came away smeared with blood.
Mary snorted gore, and came at her dragging her mangled leg.
The big woman reached down for her, grabbed her hair with one hand and her throat with the other.
Laura came up off the floor like an uncoiling spring, her teeth gritted, and she grasped the front of Mary's sweater with her good hand and kicked with her last reserve of power into the woman's bleeding thigh.
A howl of pure agony burst from Mary's mouth. Mary let go of Laura's throat to clutch at her leg, and she toppled backward off balance, her shoulders slamming against a wall five feet behind her.
Laura saw the gray wall break open, rusted nails popping like gunshots, and Mary Terror kept falling.
There was a scream. Mary's bloody hands clawed at the edges of the hole she'd gone through, but more of the rotten wood gave way beneath her fingers. The scream sharpened.
Mary's hands disappeared.
Laura heard a moist-sounding thump.
The scream had stopped.
She could hear sea gulls. Mist, the silent destroyer, drifted through the broken wall.
Laura looked out. Mary Terror had gone through the side of the house and fallen to the ground forty feet below. She lay on her stomach, amid rocks and weeds and broken bottles, the detritus of someone's party. A graffiti artist had been at work on the larger rocks, adorning them with names and dates in Day-Glo orange. Twenty feet from Mary's head was a spray-painted peace symbol.
There was something in Laura's right hand. She opened it, and looked at the Smiley Face button that had been ripped from Mary Terror's sweater. Its pin had pricked her palm.
She shook it out of her hand, and it clattered facedown to the floor.
Laura staggered out of the room, and near the staircase she knelt down on the floor beside her son.
His gaze found her, and he shrieked. She knew she was no beauty. She picked him up – a major effort, but a pleasure she would not be denied – and rocked him, slowly and gently. Gradually, his crying subsided. She felt his heart beating, and that miracle of miracles broke her. She lowered her head and sobbed, mixing blood and tears.
She thought she must've passed out. When she awakened again, her first thought was that Mary Terror was coming after her, and God help her if she got up and looked out and saw that the woman was no longer lying where she'd struck.
She was afraid to find out. But the thought passed, and her eyelids drifted shut again. Her body was a kingdom of pain. Later – and exactly when this was she didn't know – David's crying brought her back to the world. He was hungry. Wanting a bottle. Got to feed a growing boy. My growing boy.
'I love you,' she whispered. 'I love you, David.' She zipped him out of the parka and inspected him: fingers, toes, genitals, everything. He was whole, and he was hers.
Laura held him close against her, and she crooned to him as the ocean spoke outside.
It became time to think about what she was going to do.
She believed she could get the Cutlass out of the bog. If not, maybe the keys were still in the Jeep wagon. No, she couldn't bear to drive that. Couldn't even bear to sit in it, because that woman's smell would be in there. If she couldn't get the Cutlass out, she would have to walk to the rangers' station. Could she do that? She thought so. It might take her a while, but she'd get there eventually.
'Yes we will,' she told her baby. He looked at her and blinked, no longer crying. Her voice was froggish, and she could still feel the pressure of that woman's fingers on her throat. 'All over now,' she said, shunting aside the darkness that kept trying to claim her. 'All over.'
But what if she looked out and Mary Terror's body was not there?
Laura attempted to stand. It was impossible. She had to wait awhile longer. The light seemed brighter. Afternoon light, she thought. Her tongue probed around her mouth and located no missing teeth but some blood dots. Her ribs were killing her, and she couldn't take deep breaths. Her broken hand… well, there was a point in pain where pain no longer registered, and she had passed that. When she got back to civilization, she was going to be a doctor's delight
Getting to the rangers' station was not the real test. The real test involved Doug, and Atlanta, and where her life would go from there. She didn't think Doug was in her future. She had what belonged to her. He could keep the rest
And there was another question, too. The question of a woman who did not want to be forgotten, and who feared strangers might pass her grave and never know her story.
Laura would make sure that didn't happen, and she would make sure Bedelia Morse got home.
She thought Neil Kastle of the FBI might take her calls now, too.
Laura got her legs under her, held David against her, and tried to stand. She almost made it. The next time, she did.
Moving slowly and carefully, she descended the staircase. Downstairs, she had to rest again. 'Your mama's an old lady, kid,' she told David. 'How about that?' He made a gurgling noise. She offered him a finger, and his hand curled around it with a strong grip. They had to get to know each other again, but they had plenty of time. There were scrapes on his face; he wore his own medals. 'You ready to try it?' she asked. He offered no judgment, only a curious blue-eyed stare.
Laura hobbled out of the house into the afternoon light. The mist was still drifting in, the Pacific thundering against the rocks as it had for ages. Some things were steady, like a mother's love for her child.
The road beckoned.
But not yet. Not just yet.
Laura went around the house, her heartbeat rapid in her bruised chest. She had to see. Had to know that she could sleep again without waking up screaming, and that somewhere in the world Mary Terror was not driving the highways of night
She was there.
Her eyes were open, her head crooked. A rock was her pillow, red as love.
