just a minute.'
They all stumbled to a halt and just stood there with their heads bowed, chests heaving, breath rasping through dry throats. Finally, they turned and looked back the way they had come. They listened for the sound of crazed men crashing through the woods in hot pursuit, but all they could hear was a faint crackling sound far behind them, and the answering wheeze of their own ragged exhalations.
They stumbled on, running as long as they could, finally slowing to a gasping dog-trot, then to a walk through trees that were starting to thin. The only noises they heard now were the ones they made with their feet and breath.
Around them, the forest floor had begun to open again, the canopy of old pines so thick overhead that there wasn't enough light to support undergrowth and they were able to walk abreast.
'We must be close to the highway now,' Grace said. 'But we'll have to stay out of sight of the road. Some of them might drive out this way, and they still want us dead. More than ever. We're the only ones who know what really happened back there.'
Annie made a disgusted noise with her lips. 'Terrific. So what are we going to do? Hike all the way to the next town through the woods? Do you remember how far that was?'
'We need to check out anyone who comes along before they see us.'
Damnit, damnit, no fair,Annie thought, watching the filthy toes of the purple high-tops as they popped into view in front of her.Left,right, left, right, onward Christian soldiers, marching, still marching, god-damnit, off to war.
'Hold it.' Grace stopped, her eyes fixed straight ahead. 'There it is.' She pointed through a curtain of trunks to a ribbon of asphalt less than a hundred feet away, riding high on the top of the berm, separated from the woods by a ditch full of wild grass.
Less than five minutes after they'd started walking parallel to the highway, just inside the cover of trees, all three women heard the car. A big car, not a jeep, Grace thought, roaring up the other side of the hill they were walking toward.
Sharon was through the trees and into the ditch in an instant, peeking through the dewy grass to catch first sight of the car as it topped the rise. And when it did, she jumped to her feet and walked smack-dab into the middle of the road and started waving like crazy.
She turned toward the woods with a fierce grin and looked straight at where Grace and Annie were standing. 'It's a goddamned fucking police car!' she yelled happily, and turned to face the oncoming car as it slowed, still smiling so hard that her cheeks hurt.
Grace looked at her watch.
Five hours until Armageddon.
GRACE AND ANNIE watched from the trees as Sharon stood patiently in the middle of the road, her gun holstered, her badge held high. She didn't move when the patrol car stopped ten feet from her and idled there for a moment while the man inside checked her out.
Damnit, she should have left her gun with Annie. She was trying to stop a cop car with her holster clearly visible by holding up an FBI badge that probably looked like a Cracker Jack prize at this distance. 'Sharon Mueller, FBI!' she hollered.
Another moment, and the driver's door opened and a man slid out to crouch behind it. She could see his eyes over the window frame and not much more. Good cop, she thought. Careful cop.
'Both hands over your head, ma'am!' he shouted. 'Higher!'
Sharon complied, holding rock-still as he rose slowly and moved toward her. His weapon was drawn and in both hands, pointed straight at her.
'Now step forward, put your weapon on the hood, please, then step well back.'
Sharon did exactly as she was asked, careful to point the gun away from the man.
Back in the trees, Grace had a bead on the man's forehead, hoping like hell this was a seasoned, steady cop who was just taking precautions and not the kind who got nervous, got twitchy, and sometimes made tragic mistakes, like shooting a fellow officer who'd been running for her life all night from other men with guns.
He took a look at Sharon's 9mm, then tucked it into his belt. 'Thank you, ma'am. You can put your hands down now.'
Grace saw Sharon frown for a moment, then lower the hand that held her badge very, very slowly to hook it back on her jacket pocket. Both the cop and Sharon moved around to the driver's side of the car and had a rapid conversation that Grace couldn't quite make out.
Sharon darted around to the side of the car that faced the woods and shouted down, 'Come on, hurry!'
Grace looked at her. She looked a lot different than she had a few minutes ago. Still filthy, still exhausted, still like a woman who'd been through hell, but. . , happy. For Sharon Mueller, a cop carwas the cavalry. One of her own had come to take her home.
Grace stood up slowly, and when the man walked around the front of the car and approached her, she automatically raised the Sig. Sharon scowled down at her. 'Damnit, Grace, put that down. He's one of us.'
No, he's one of you. Not me, not Annie, not us.
'He's a cop, Grace, just like me. Missaqua County Deputy.'
Grace never took her eyes off the man. He'd spotted her almost the second she'd stood up, and stopped dead when he'd seen her weapon, his hands up, palms out. But he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and cowboy boots that looked like they'd seen a lot of wear. He looked
like anybody. Put him in a patrol car, instant cop; put him in camouflage, instant soldier. 'Where's his uniform?'
Sharon actually rolled her eyes. 'He was off duty, at home, when a call came through on the fire.'
Grace kept the gun steady, her lips folded inward.
'Come on, Grace, give me some credit. I asked him all the right questions; he had all the right answers.'
So why is your heart beating so fast, Grace? What are you afraid of? Well, that's pretty simple: Everything. Everyone. Just life always.
Annie remained hunkered down in the bushes, looking up at Grace's face, waiting. She didn't have Grace's instincts about certain people and situations, and she knew it. If Grace was nervous, there was probably a damn good reason.
'Uh, ma'am?' the man called to Sharon. 'Your friend there seems a little nervous. We've got a lot of units on the way. You all want to just sit tight here 'til you're feeling better about things, that's just fine, but I've got to get to the staging area and report for duty.' He took a couple hesitant steps backward, hands still up, harmless, which finally eased Grace's mind a little-that he was willing to drive away without them.
Sharon raised an impatient brow. 'We started a goddamned forest fire, Grace. Get out here and take a look. And for God's sake, holster your weapon. Cops don't like civilians pointing guns at them.'
Grace thought about it. He had his gun holstered, and even if he went for Sharon's, an easier draw from the belt, she could still put him down.
She slipped the Sig back in the holster but didn't fasten the snap, released a long breath, and started forward. Annie rose out of the bushes to follow her, a fat, wild-looking woman in a tattered dress, and the man's eyes widened to see a third.
'Jesus,' he breathed in an aside to Sharon as he watched Grace and Annie approach. 'Your partner looks pretty wired. This must be some case you're working.'
Grace stopped two feet away, enough room to get at her weapon, close enough to use her hands if she had to. 'You don't look like a cop.'
That irritated him. 'Deputy David Diebel. Missaqua County Sheriff's Department. And as far as that goes, you don't look much like arsonists, either. But if you really did start this thing, you've got a lot of explaining to do.'
Grace and Annie looked back toward Four Corners and saw what Sharon already had. Black billows of smoke stained the morning sky, and tongues of orange flame rose above the trees and pixellated into sparks that swirled in a vortex overhead. And now they heard it, faintly-a low, distant roaring sound, like an enormous animal just coming
