Able was shot. She was knocked unconscious. Then she woke up in the backseat of a car. Her vision was blurry. Her head pounded. The engine was idling. She heard and felt the trunk close. “ Run!” Her mind screamed at her, but her body was overcome with dizziness. The man might have fractured her skull. He got back in the car and she lost consciousness.
Next came a harsh whisper. “Get up.” The voice was cold. A powerful hand gripped her shoulder. She started to fake unconsciousness, but the hand slapped her face until her skull ached.
“Okay!” Cawood cried, raising her arms to fend him off. She crawled to a sitting position. The murderer stared at her from the front seat of Able’s car. His eyes were black.
“Pupils weren’t moving,” he said, his voice flat. His arm was draped casually over the seat. “Breathing was normal. No sleep. No coma. Try that again and I’ll kill you.” He shifted his position; the strange light cut dangerous crescents on his cheeks. The man was wounded and tired. “Up here. Over the seat.”
She remembered it was dark. Light came from the dashboard’s neon green glow. Karen straightened her clothes. She patted her hair, couldn’t find her coif.
“You telegraph, Sister,” the man said. “Pregnant pauses.” She saw the cold glint on a gun barrel gesture. “ Over the seat.”
As she climbed over, the man talked. Sweat beaded his brow.
“Fake emotion. None is best.” He grabbed one of her ankles as she climbed to keep her heel away from his face. Did his fingers linger on the inside of her calf? “Blank face is a gun. Don’t know if it’s loaded.” He sneered, “You’re full of guilt.”
Cawood dropped into the seat beside him-head throbbing-her eyes searching for his in the gloom. They were green tinted and wet rimmed. The strain made him harder.
“Where’s Reverend Stoneworthy?” Her words cracked.
“With God.” There was no emotion in his face. “Try to escape or disobey-I will punish you the first time. The second, you’ll die.” His unshaven lips gleamed in the greenish light. “You’re only worth something to me if you’re controllable.” He glanced down at his wounded shoulder and then up. His eyes fixed on something through the window past her head. Sister Cawood turned to look and something hit the back of her head. She dropped into blackness.
Then he was ordering her to get up. Her head hurt worse than before.
She looked across the front seat of the car; saw him behind the wheel. It was still dark, but the sky had lightened to a gloomy gray. They were out of the City parked under a thick stand of pines. He wore a black cotton pullover. Rain dripped on the car.
“Eat,” he ordered. She took the sandwich from his muscular hand.
“Where are we…” she started, but he slapped her on the temple. Light sparked across her vision.
“Shut up.” He bit into his own sandwich. “Now ask,” he growled. The murderer snatched a can of cola from the floor, threw it at her, and opened one for himself.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, handling her sandwich like it was a dead toad.
“To get even,” he hissed. “Want to know why you set me up. And why you’d set up one of your own.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She placed her sandwich on the dashboard. “Able and I were there on business.”
“Wasn’t asking.” He looked away, opened the door. The man climbed out, clutching the remnants of his sandwich. She saw a dark stain at the top of the driver’s seat. The murderer moved around the car and opened the trunk. He started pulling things out of it. Taking that moment of distraction, Cawood visually searched the car. The keys were gone. She tried to open the glove compartment. It was locked. She reached under her seat, and the driver’s-nothing. The nun looked into the back seat-nothing. The only positive note was the growing light. Somewhere behind the perpetual cloud the sun was rising.
He walked to the passenger side of the car and opened the door. “Out.” His voice was heavy with threat. Karen got out.
“Perhaps,” she started, her mind was racing. “You should know my name. I’m Karen Cawood.”
“Don’t care.” He moved to the rear of the car. She saw that he had piled his bloody clothes-her coif was tangled there as well-about ten feet from the bumper. A two-gallon gas tank stood beside them. He had set a dark blue duffel bag, about four feet long, at the rear wheel of the car. The trunk was open. Nausea twisted her stomach when she saw the pool of blood inside. Able!
“These trees are nice.” She looked around at the tall pines. Her heart hammered with terror, fearful she would set him off. The trees were especially ugly against the brooding sky. The smell of their sap was strong. “We had a type of pine near my home. That was South Africa-where I grew up. Menlo Park. I had a pet lizard.”
The murderer watched her. The smell of gasoline was slowly overpowering the pine.
“Not a serial killer.” He lit a match and dropped it on the clothes. They burst into flames. “Worse.” Gouts of black smoke flew across the damp forest floor like ghosts.
He walked over, his face set and grim. Karen retreated toward the car, fear hammering in her chest. The butt of a pistol protruded from his belt. A void filled his bony eye sockets. He stared at her. Sinew bunched at his jaw like he was about to pronounce judgment. Something colored his features. He bent, lifted his duffel bag, and pointed at the forest path.
“Go.” He gestured with the bag.
Karen shifted on the bed-remembering. The light from the barred window was gray. She could remember the next part clearly. She reached for her crucifix, but was glad it was gone.
They had walked to the highway. Its surface was cracked and pitted. He swung the bag over his shoulder and started marching north. In the distance she could see the City gleam. Lights burned on its massive spine and soaked the overcast sky with pale light.
Cawood followed mutely, sorting through her thoughts. She knew this man would kill her. The fact that she remained alive meant something though. Oh Sacred Mother! Was this punishment for her sins?
The murderer would keep her alive if she cooperated. If she could stay alive, she might find a way to bring this man to justice. She’d do anything to atone for the disgrace she’d brought on the church. By now her superiors must have received a copy of the film. Holy Mother! And poor Able was dead.
Why did the murderer think she set him up? She barely believed Able’s reason for going to the house.
So if the murderer was keeping her alive, was it as a hostage? Did he need a bargaining chip if Authority tracked him down? If he believed that there was a conspiracy at work against him, and he saw her as part of it, he might believe he could hide behind her living body or trade it for his freedom. But how could she bargain with him?
A car approached from the north. It moved slowly never wandering more than a few inches from the yellow line.
“Come!” the man ordered, slipping his shirt over the gun in his belt. They crossed the road to the southbound lane. “Wave,” the murderer hissed as he started waving. “Now.”
Cawood waved her arms. Perhaps God had sent the car to tip the odds in her favor. “Holy Mother! Preserve me!” she whispered.
The car slowed. It was old, a Ford with busy chromium grill that was part of a retro-fifties fad decades after Change. It was a light metallic red in color and in good repair. Perhaps the traveler could read her expression. He might go for help.
The murderer walked casually to the passenger window, the driver was rolling it down. “Hello.” He leaned over, a smile on his face.
“Hey there.” The man had homely comical features. His eyes were blue and close set, marked with a serious dark line of eyebrow. “Got trouble?”
The murderer casually pointed down the road with his right hand, while his left came out from under his shirt with a gun.
“Out! Leave the keys,” he growled.
“Damn!” the driver grumbled climbing out. His face shifted to angry surprise. He scanned the highway for help. He looked at Cawood.
“Hands where I can see them!” the murderer spat.
“God damn it!” the driver shouted. “Just take the car. Go on.”
“Move,” the murderer growled, gesturing to the ditch at the side of the road. Beyond that Cawood saw a
