moved on, I’m not sure.”
Engulfed in darkness, they steadied themselves as the car bounced over the rocky trail. Eventually, the gravelly road gave way to a smoother, narrow dirt path.
Sean wondered if perhaps the minivan had switched off its headlights and was now following them. She couldn’t see a thing back there. Larry and his hunting buddies probably knew every inch of this forest. No doubt, he and his friends could maneuver these trails blindfolded. Meanwhile, she and Nick were totally out of their element here. The deeper they moved into the bowels of these woods, the more doomed she felt.
Ahead, she could only see as far as their headlights pierced the blackness. The path grew more narrow and hazardous with tree roots and rocks. An occasional branch from above scraped against the roof of the car. Twigs snapped under the tires.
She turned to Nick. “As soon as we can,” she whispered. “Let’s swing around and head back to the main road.”
He nodded distractedly. “In a minute.” He tapped Larry’s shoulder with his gun. “Someone in Dayle’s camp has been providing you guys with information. It’s how you know I was here. Who’s the stoolie?”
Larry studied a curve in the path ahead. “It’s a guy who works for her, his name’s Dennis Walsh.”
“Well, well, that fat piece of shit….”
Sean watched Larry casually slide his left hand off the wheel, down to his lap. She wondered why he kept doing that. Nick had already warned him about it four times.
They hit another bump, and she dropped the recorder. It landed between her seat and the car door. She went to reach for it.
“Slow down,” Nick barked.
Sean heard Larry laugh a bit. “Sorry.” He sounded so damn confident. What did he know that they didn’t? Or was he just so self-righteous that he figured no one could hurt him? Why wasn’t he scared? It had become so dark in the car, she couldn’t quite see his expression. But somehow she knew Larry was smiling.
Sean pried the recorder from under her seat, and an image suddenly hit her. She remembered the first time she’d set eyes on Larry Chadwick—in the parking lot of the My-T-Comfort Inn. He’d pulled up in his car, opened the door, then reached under his car seat, and taken out a gun.
“Nick?” she said. She sat up and stared at Larry. For a moment, her heart stopped. He had only one hand on the wheel, and in the other he held a semiautomatic, pointed at her.
“Oh, God, no,” she whispered.
A loud shot rang out. Sean felt as if someone hurled a punch in her shoulder. The force of it took her breath away and sent her slamming against the passenger door. The back of her head hit the window.
Another shot resonated, and the car lurched forward. Sparks exploded from the dashboard. A third blast immediately followed, and Larry let out a howl as the gun flew from his hand. Sean felt a spray of blood hit her in the face. Dazed, she watched Nick club Larry over the head with the butt of his gun. Larry flopped against the driver’s door. A pungent smoke from the singed fuse box began to fill the car as it rolled to a stop.
Sean slouched against the door, not wanting to move. It was as if someone had stuck a hot steel rod into her upper chest—beside her right shoulder. Larry was still half conscious as Nick climbed out and opened the driver’s door. He yanked him out of the car. Larry vaguely grumbled in protest, then fell to the ground.
Nick snatched his gun off the car floor, then stared at Sean. “Where are you hit?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.
“My upper chest,” she murmured. “By the shoulder…can’t feel my arm.”
“Shit, you’re bleeding bad. We have to get you to a hospital, doll.”
“Don’t call me doll,” Sean replied in a shaky voice. “We—we can’t go anywhere. The car’s dead. The fuse box is shot….”
Nick tried and tried to restart Larry’s Honda Accord. The engine made a grinding noise, but refused to turn over. Meanwhile, Larry had managed to sit up on the dirt path. He held on to his bleeding left hand. A trail of blood slid down from the gash on his forehead. Yet he was laughing like a crazy man. “You screwed yourselves!” he called, staggering to his feet. “You’re trapped! You’re not going anywhere….”
He kept laughing and taunting them, until finally Nick jumped out of the car. Half delirious, Larry didn’t even see him coming. Nick coldcocked him. He might as well have been swatting a pesky fly. One expedient, forceful hit, and Larry Chadwick went down.
The last thing Sean heard him say was: “She’ll bleed to death. That cunt’s going to die out here.”
Earlier, when they’d driven up the dirt path, Sean hadn’t noticed all the other forest trails merging into this one. Those few minutes in the car had covered several miles.
They’d been trudging through the woods for close to an hour now—lost, swallowed up in the darkness. Cursing, Nick stumbled over rocks and tree roots while she staggered behind him. With her good hand, Sean clung to his belt at the back of his jeans and faltered along with him.
She tried to ignore the pain in her shoulder. Her arm was in a sling—crudely fashioned by Nick from Larry’s khaki trousers. Her arm and her right side down to the hip were sopping wet with blood that had turned cold. Sean could see her breath in the chilly night air, yet she was burning up inside. Drops of sweat trickled from her forehead. She had a fever—an infection from the bullet, or maybe from all the blood she’d lost. Still, she pressed on.
In addition to relieving Larry of his trousers, Nick had also stripped him of his shirt and undershirt. He tore up the shirt and tied Larry’s hands in back of him with the shreds. After shooting a couple of breathing holes in the Accord’s trunk lid, Nick had dumped the unconscious, underwear-clad Larry inside. Sean weaker protested that he’d freeze to death. Nick said he didn’t give “a frog’s fat ass.” He shut the trunk, then pocketed Larry’s keys.
He found a bottle of water in the glove compartment. With that and Larry’s T-shirt, he tried to clean the bullet wound by Sean’s shoulder. Then he made a sling out of Larry’s pants. As they started down the path, Larry must have regained consciousness. They heard him pounding on the trunk lid, the muffled yelling and cursing.
That had been nearly an hour ago. Now, Sean blindly held on to Nick. For all she knew, they could be heading deeper into the forest, away from the highway. She felt herself growing weaker and dizzier with every step. Suddenly, the ground seemed to drop out from under her. She tripped over a tiny rivulet, almost pulling Nick down too. The fall knocked the wind out of her.
“You okay?” Nick asked, hovering over her. “From what I can see, you don’t look so hot.”
“Flatterer,” Sean murmured. She didn’t think she could stand up again. “How can you even see
“Let’s rest here for a sec, okay?” Nick said.
Sean nodded again. Shivering and sweating, she listened for the sound of a car, a radio, maybe some people talking at a nearby campsite. Nothing. Yet she and Nick weren’t alone. She could hear creatures moving in the shrubs all around, twigs snapping beneath feet—or claws.
“God, listen to that,” Nick whispered. “I’m a city boy. Gentle Ben or Bambi, either way, I don’t like this shit….”
Sean laughed, but she felt herself slipping away. She didn’t think the darkness could become any blacker, yet it was happening. She couldn’t move. Nick was still talking to her, but through a fog.
Sean thought of Danny and Phoebe. She remembered them playing on the beach with their aunt a couple of nights ago. And she felt her body shutting down.
Twenty-five
Tom glanced in his rearview mirror at the white Taurus—his escort to the studio. He wore his blue seersucker—along with his disguise: glasses and a fake mustache. Beside him in the front seat, Hal was reviewing details for Dayle Sutton’s execution one last time. When he started to explain about the “getaway” afterward, Tom told himself not to believe a word.
“In the ambulance,” Hal said, consulting a notepad, “you’ll be furnished with a new passport and all the
