She had to go for the gun.
The man kept sneaking glances at her. There was no opening. She thought about it. Wait until he stopped the car? She had tried that before-it hadn’t worked. Just go for it? Just pull it out and take her chances? A possibility but she really did not think she’d be fast enough. Pulling up the leg cuff, unsnapping that safety strap, getting her hand around the gun, withdrawing it… all before he reacted?
No way.
She debated the slow approach. Lower her hands a little to the side. Try to work her cuff up a bit at a time. Pretend like she had an itch.
Grace shifted in her seat and looked down at her leg. And that was when she felt her heart slam into her throat…
Her cuff had ridden up.
The ankle holster. It was visible now.
Panic spread through her. She cut a glance at her captor, hoping that he hadn’t seen it. But he had. His eyes suddenly widened. He was looking right at her leg.
Now or never.
But even as she reached, Grace could see that she had no chance. There was simply no way to get there in time. Her captor put his hand on her knee again and squeezed. Pain blasted violently through her, nearly knocking her unconscious. She screamed. Her body went rigid. Her hands dropped, useless now.
He had her.
She turned toward him, looked into his eyes, saw nothing. Then, without warning, there was movement coming from behind him. Grace gasped.
It was Jack.
Somehow he had risen up from the backseat like an apparition. The man turned, more curious than concerned. After all, Jack’s hands and legs were bound. He was totally spent. What harm could he do?
Wild-eyed and looking something like an animal, Jack reared back his head and whipped it forward. The surprise caught the man off guard. Jack’s forehead connected with the man’s right cheek. The sound was a deep, hollow clunk. The car shrieked to a stop. The man let go of Grace’s knee.
“Run, Grace!”
It was Jack’s voice. Grace fumbled for the gun. She unsnapped the safety strap. But the man was back up again. He used one hand to grab Jack’s neck. With the other he went after her knee again. She pulled away. He tried again.
Grace knew that there was no time to get the gun. Jack could no longer help. He had used up everything, sacrificed himself, for that one blow.
It would all be for nothing.
The man punched Grace in the ribs again. Hot knives blasted through her. Nausea swam through her stomach and head. She felt consciousness start ebbing away.
She couldn’t hang on…
Jack tried to thrash away, but he was little more than a nuisance. The man squeezed Jack’s neck. Jack made a sound and went still.
The man reached for her again. Grace grabbed the door handle.
His hand clasped her arm.
She could not move.
Jack’s lifeless head slid down the man’s shoulder. It stopped on the forearm. And there, with his eyes closed, Jack opened his mouth and bit down hard.
The man howled and released his grip. He started shaking his arm, trying to get Jack off. Jack clenched his jaw and hung on like a bulldog. The man slammed his free palm into Jack’s head. Jack slumped off.
Grace pulled the door handle, leaned her body against it.
She fell out of the car and landed on the pavement. She rolled away, anything to get farther away from her captor. She actually rolled into the other lane of the highway. A car swerved past her.
Get the gun!
She reached down again. The safety strap was off. She turned toward the car. The man was getting out. He pulled up his shirt. Grace saw his gun. She saw him reaching for it. Grace’s own gun came loose.
There was no question now. There was no ethical dilemma. There was no thought about maybe yelling out a warning, telling him to freeze, asking him to put his hands on his head. There was no moral outrage. There was no culture, no humanity, no years of civilization or breeding.
Grace pulled the trigger. The gun went off. She pulled it again. And again. The man staggered. She pulled it again. The sound of sirens grew. And Grace fired again.
chapter 49
Two ambulances arrived. One whisked Jack away before Grace could even see him. Two paramedics worked on her. They were in constant motion, asking questions as they worked, but their words did not register. She was strapped to a stretcher and wheeled toward the ambulance. Perlmutter was there now.
“Where are Emma and Max?” she asked.
“At the station. They’re safe.”
An hour later Jack was in surgery. That was all they would tell her. He was in surgery.
The young doctor ran a battery of tests on Grace. The ribs were indeed cracked, but there was nothing you could really do for cracked ribs. The doctor wrapped them with an Ace bandage and gave her a shot. The pain began to subside. An orthopedic surgeon checked out her knee and just shook his head.
Perlmutter came into her room and asked a lot of questions. For the most part Grace answered. On some subjects she was intentionally vague. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep anything from the police. Or maybe, well, maybe she did.
Perlmutter was pretty vague too. Her dead captor’s name was Eric Wu. He had been in prison. In Walden. That did not surprise Grace. Wade Larue had been in Walden too. It was all linked. That old photograph. Jack’s group, Allaw. The Jimmy X Band. Wade Larue. And yes, even Eric Wu.
Perlmutter deflected most of her questions. She did not push it. Scott Duncan was in the room too. He stayed in the corner and did not speak.
Grace asked, “How did you know I was with this Eric Wu?”
Perlmutter clearly did not mind answering this one. “Do you know Charlaine Swain?”
“No.”
“Her son Clay goes to Willard.”
“Okay, right. I’ve met her.”
Perlmutter filled her in on Charlaine Swain’s own ordeal at the hands of Eric Wu. He was expansive on the subject, purposefully, Grace thought, so that he could keep mum about the rest of it. Perlmutter’s cell phone rang. He excused himself and headed into the corridor. Grace was alone with Scott Duncan.
“What are they thinking?” she asked.
Scott came closer. “The popular theory is that Eric Wu was working for Wade Larue.”
“How do they figure?”
“They know you went to Larue’s press conference today, so that’s link one. Wu and Larue were not only in Walden at the same time, but they were cellmates for three months.”
“Link two,” she said. “So what do they think Larue was after?”
“Revenge.”
“On?”
“On you, for starters. You testified against him.”
“I testified at his trial, but not really against him. I don’t even remember the stampede.”
“Still. There is a solid link between Eric Wu and Wade Larue-we checked the prison phone records, they’ve been in touch-and there is a solid link between Larue and you.”
“But even if Wade Larue was out for vengeance, why not take me? Why take Jack?”
“They think maybe Larue was trying to hurt you by hurting your family. Make you suffer.”
She shook her head. “And that weird photograph arriving? How do they figure that into the mix? Or your sister’s murder? Or Shane Alworth or Sheila Lambert? Or Bob Dodd getting killed in New Hampshire?”
“It is a theory,” Duncan said, “with lots of holes. But remember-and this plugs most of them-they don’t see all these connections the way we do. My sister may have been murdered fifteen years ago, but that doesn’t have anything to do with now. Neither does Bob Dodd, a reporter who was shot gangland style. For now they’re keeping it simple: Wu gets out of jail. He grabs your husband. Maybe he would have grabbed others, who knows?”
“And the reason he didn’t just kill Jack?”
