two hours or two minutes when they heard the first rumble of thunder. Keren groaned. “Rain. That’ll make this real pleasant.”
Paul didn’t respond. The wind came first with a few light gusts, then it began whipping up. Lightning danced across the sky. Keren pulled a blanket around herself and handed Paul one.
A bolt of lightning lit up the park. Thunder rolled and the storm drew closer.
While they shifted around, Paul asked, “Do you suppose these bushes are the tallest things around?”
Keren growled at him, “Thanks. I hadn’t considered being struck by lightning.”
“Worrying about it oughta keep you awake anyway.” Paul laughed softly, and, as if to reward his teasing, the lightning became wilder, the thunder exploded around them, and the wind cut through, even with the small copse of trees and bushes to protect them.
Keren was no longer so concerned with their voices carrying thanks to the pounding thunder. “You know, if he were coming, this weather might change his mind.” She watched all the night animals desert the park to seek shelter. Because she was watching them so closely, she was completely focused when, at the top of the rise at the far end of the park, lightning flared and silhouetted a man against the buildings. A man carrying something that looked very much like a body in a loose-fitting white dress.
“That’s him!” She threw off the blanket. “C’mon.” She ran. The lightning flashed again and she saw him. He was setting the bundle down gently, almost reverently. He fell to his knees beside the body as if to pray before the world went dark again. Keren did her best to set a world speed record.
Paul came alongside her. She hissed, “Do you see him?”
“Yes!” Paul passed her.
The thunder and lightning were coming at the same time now. Another bolt of lightning showed the man with his arm reaching high in the air over the body. Until now Keren and Paul had been running silently, hoping to close the distance between them and the killer.
But they were out of time. Paul shouted, “No!”
Keren reached for her gun. She’d have to shoot uphill and run at the same time. And if her bullet went wild, who knew where her shot might land.
The man held his hand high. He looked toward the sound, maybe unsure if he’d heard a voice in the crashing thunder. He saw them, and, when his eyes landed on them, Keren knew it was Pravus. The demonic evil in him washed over her until she wanted to cry out with fear. Instead, she ran straight into the face of evil, prepared to fire if she had to.
The man held his hand aloft. When the next bolt of lightning brandished, Keren felt the palpable cruelty as Pravus laughed over the wicked thunder. LaToya was clearly illuminated, lying motionless at the top of the slope. Pravus looked at them, as if to be sure they were watching, then he slashed his weapon down with brutal force.
Keren cried out, even as she knew it was too late. “No! Please, no! No! No! God!” She fired her weapon, aiming for the ground just off to the side of her target.
As his arm descended, Keren’s shot diverted Pravus’s attention for a split second. Or maybe it was her prayer.
LaToya, who a moment before had seemed as still as death, wrenched herself sideways, and Pravus’s killing blow missed.
Paul shouted, “She’s alive!”
Pravus screamed and grabbed at LaToya. She threw herself sideways until she rolled down the hill from him.
Paul and Keren were closing the distance fast. Pravus screamed in frustration and leaped to his feet. He threw the weapon at LaToya, in one last desperate attempt to be granted the victory of killing her. Keren fired again and Pravus turned and fled. Paul got to LaToya’s side first. Keren slid to her knees beside them. LaToya lay unmoving on her side; a sculptor’s chisel protruded from the center of her back. Blood flowed from the wound. Keren shouted over the storm, “Call an ambulance!”
As she knelt there, scrambling to find a pulse, she felt the ground turn to life under her. LaToya’s body crawled with something living. Keren realized something squirmed under her. The sky lit up and she saw frogs— hundreds of little frogs crawling and hopping over every inch of the ground.
Paul shouted, “I’ve got a heartbeat!”
Their eyes met over LaToya’s battered body. Paul snarled, “Give me your gun.”
“My job, Rev. Call for backup and get an ambulance out here.” Keren jumped to her feet and ran after Pravus.
“Keren!”
Keren shouted over her shoulder, “Don’t let her move. That chisel might have hit her spine.” She ran in the direction Pravus had gone. She could feel him. She knew unerringly which way to go. She shouldn’t go after him alone. It was completely against procedure, but she couldn’t stand to let him go without pursuit. Stopping him was too important.
The park ended in a rundown neighborhood that led to Paul’s mission.
Keren dashed up an alley that vibrated with Pravus’s presence. Normally she would have slowed down and gone into the pitch-black alley carefully, but she heard pounding footsteps ahead, still running. She came out the other end of the alley, ran across a deserted street, and disappeared into another alley. She thought she caught sight of movement ahead of her. She picked up her pace. As she came out of the dark bowels of the back alley, she heard a car roar to life through the next alley. She ran across the street and dived back into the darkness, putting every ounce of strength she had into getting there, getting her hands on him, getting off a shot, at least getting a look or a license plate. She barreled out of the alley, and twin headlights bore down on her.
Unable to stop her forward motion, she hurled herself up. The car hit her feet. She landed with a bone- cracking
With pure willpower, she rolled onto her belly, focused on the disappearing car, and fired at the rapidly disappearing vehicle. No light shined on the license plate. She heard glass break and a taillight went blank. She unloaded her weapon at the car, then it skidded around a corner, and in the streetlight she made out the shape of the lights and the silhouette of the car, a sedan. Dark. Four doors.
They’d said the car Murray was driving was a dark-green Malibu. Keren thought this might be it.
It sped around a corner, and Keren shoved against the pavement, to go after him.
She made it as far as her knees before her head began to spin. She stared at blood dripping onto her hands and had a vague idea that it wasn’t a good sign.
She was only distantly aware of the lightning and thunder as the storm broke and rained down on her collapsing form.
Paul couldn’t leave LaToya’s side. He gave the 911 operator directions with his cell in one hand while he tried to stem the gushing wound in her back and hold her still with the other. An ambulance siren sounded in the distance.
“Hurry,” Paul prayed as he carefully avoided touching the chisel, afraid he’d make it worse. How could it be worse? He laughed harshly. It wasn’t a sound he’d heard come from himself for five years. But he recognized that cynical cop laughter well.
He felt something crawling inside his shirt but he didn’t have a hand to spare for himself. The creeping feeling of the trapped frog seeped into his guts and filled him with loathing.
The blinding lights of the ambulance swept across the park. Following Paul’s careful directions, it drove straight out onto the grass and sped toward them.
LaToya’s pulse was weakening. Her breathing was so shallow he had to lean right next to her mouth to hear it. The rescue squad skidded to a stop. Paramedics raced toward him. He thanked God for the rapid response. They pushed him aside. He yelled instructions about the chisel.
“I’m here with a police detective. She went after him,” Paul shouted at the first responding paramedic. “You have to keep it quiet that she’s alive.” He grabbed her arm and shook the poor woman until she threatened to belt him. Then, knowing he had her attention, he said, “The man who tried to kill her is the serial killer who blew up that
