purpose.
“What about the DVD?” Nick yelled up into the blackness. “You don’t have my copy.”
“Yes, it’s a shame your death will make it harder to find. But I know it’s not far from where your friends Siliski and Mollender are napping. The good news is you’ll be dead so I won’t have to send you my medical bills for the hand and foot you impaled with that fucking nail gun.”
“I hope they really hurt.”
Nick’s right foot hungrily sought out a new hold. The tips of his fingers began to burn from fatigue. Koller dropped another rock, missing by no more than a foot. The overhang was too far away for Nick to reach in time to get cover. Another rock clattered down, then another-this one glancing off his left shoulder.
“Once you fall and hit bottom, I’ll amble down myself and make sure if you’re still alive that you die slowly. You stuck there?”
The next rock, a foot or more around, smashed just above Nick’s head, spraying a cloud of loose stone and dust into his face. The river continued to churn some fifty feet below, and he began peering down, searching for a pool. There was one. He felt certain of it. But there was no way of guessing its depth. Even if it ran deeper than six feet, a drop from this height could still be fatal, or at least leg-breaking, which would be the same thing.
Still, his options had all but vanished.
Koller’s next drop hit Nick squarely on the shoulder. Startled, he lost his footing and for several seconds his body swung out over the river like a hinged door, with only the fingers of his left hand sustaining him. Teeth clenched, he held on and waited to swing back.
Staying there was suicide, he decided. He had to jump.
“And Doc,” Koller’s voice rang out, “I’m going to do your girl before I kill her.”
Driven by the demon’s words, Nick found the grip he needed. His footing felt solid enough. The handholds were in long fissures of the rock, which provided him with surprisingly good leverage. He visualized the move he was about to perform. There was no time to work up the needed courage. No matter what, he was going to jump. He flattened against the rock, feeling the cool moisture on his skin. Then, with every bit of power he could generate, he pushed himself away from the crag, and flew.
His arms and legs flailed against the rushing air as he plummeted downward.
Nick hit the water with the force of a thunderclap. Air exploded from his lungs. His head snapped forward. His legs hit bottom, then gave way. Immediately, the current pulled him under, grinding his body against rocks and sand before spitting him back to the surface again. Nick choked and sputtered on the musty-tasting water.
A bullet slapped into the river mere feet from where he was being carried downstream. It was followed by another shot, but there was no sound of impact. Nick took one stroke, but again was pulled under. His lungs burned. His strength was all but gone. Panic had replaced fear, and he was desperately hungry for air. Back on the surface, Nick gagged and coughed out the water threatening to fill his lungs. His arms windmilled wildly, searching for anything that would hold him on the surface. Each time he submerged he felt it would be his last. The sense of dying one moment, living the next was a cruel joke. Finally, the churning water slowed, and the turbulent river became a placid stream once more. Nick floated on the surface, completely spent.
Everything went black.
NICK HAD no idea how long he’d been out. He was faceup in the stream, and he was still alive. His shirt had caught on a branch that was jutting out over the water, and might have been what had saved him. He was chilled to the core, and unable to stop shaking. The first sound he heard besides the rippling water was Koller, calling his name. The killer was somewhere upstream, but moving in Nick’s direction.
It wouldn’t be long.
“I know you’re out there. I hope you’re suffering. I hope I don’t find you dead. I owe you. I owe you for the holes in my hand and my foot. And I owe you because I’m getting cold. Please don’t be dead.”
Nick freed himself from the branch and sank to eye level in the chilly water, which was only two or three feet deep at this spot. Bit by bit, details of his flight from the killer came into focus.
Hesitant to leave the water despite his chill, he pushed himself downstream. The rain had stopped, and moonlight had broken through the clouds in places. Thirty or forty feet ahead were the roots of a huge fallen tree.
He let go of his hold and guided his body toward it. The tree was hollow. The opening was barely big enough for him to fit through, but Nick managed to squeeze his body inside. No sooner had his feet disappeared into the moss-lined opening than he heard Koller pass by, at most five feet from him.
“I’ll find you, Doctor. And I’m going to make you watch what I do to your pretty girlfriend. You hear me? I’m going to make you watch!”
Nick breathed fresh air using a rotted-out hole in the trunk. He could hide out inside the log, but hypothermia was now a serious concern. Nick closed his eyes. He listened. Then he waited.
Thirty minutes was probably too long to survive in this cold. There had been no sign of Koller for at least the last ten. Nick shivered violently. He had to move soon, before his body began to shut down permanently. Another five minutes and he slipped out the other end of the log. He floated with the current, praying that Koller had abandoned the search. The water slowed considerably. After another ten minutes, virtually helpless and barely conscious, he saw the lights of passing traffic.
It took every bit of his will and remaining strength to crawl toward them.
Waving his arms on the side of the road, he watched with growing dismay as car after car zoomed past.
His teeth continued snapping together like a jackhammer.
Every muscle in his body ached. He no longer had the strength to stand. Suddenly a Ford pickup truck slowed and then pulled to a stop in front of him. Responding to a burst of adrenaline, Nick rose and ran over to the truck. The old man behind the wheel sized him up.
“You okay, son?” the man asked.
“I… could use a blanket and a ride,” Nick said, through chattering teeth. “But first, do you have a phone I can borrow? It’s very urgent.”
The man considered the request, then tossed Nick a blanket he fished out from behind his seat, and handed Nick a cell phone.
Jillian was probably in Koller’s control. But he could still reach Junie. With his hands shaking, he could barely dial her number. On the third ring, he gratefully heard his call being answered.
“Thank God you’re there,” he said, not even waiting for her to say hello. “Junie, we’ve got big trouble.”
“That we do,” Koller’s voice responded over Junie’s phone. “Big trouble indeed.”
CHAPTER 47
“Goddamn you, Koller! If you’ve hurt Junie, I swear…”
“Zip it, Doc. I’m nowhere near the woman. But obviously, I had calls to her cell forwarded to me, so I do know where she is. She’s unharmed… for the moment at least.”
“The RV has scheduled stops all over Baltimore and D.C. Police will be looking for her when it doesn’t show.”
“Actually, the whole evening’s been canceled already. Dr. Saunders, that’s who’s listed for tonight in the log book, knows all about the mechanical problems you’re having with the RV. In fact, you yourself told her-at least she thinks it was you. As we speak, that woman is visiting each stop to break the bad news to your patients.”
“This isn’t over, Koller. Not by a long shot.”
