Then I saw the ambulance about a quarter mile ahead of me, but it was swerving back and forth like the driver had lost control.
What’s going on?
I accelerated.
The adrenaline was wearing off. I was feeling nauseous again, sleepy. My vision grew blurry. I couldn’t trust my senses. I needed to get to her fast.
I was only about a hundred meters behind them when it happened.
The ambulance spun sideways, glided along the icy road, smashed through the guardrail, and then disappeared off the edge of the cliff.
No, that couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t be real. I was seeing things. Hallucinating.
I crushed the accelerator to the floor, slicing through the snow, through a dream, through a new reality I was trying to construct around myself, and by the time I reached the spot where they’d gone over I’d almost convinced myself it hadn’t happened, that I was only seeing things.
Almost.
But when I jumped out of the car and staggered to the edge of the precipice, I saw that it was real after all.
Headlights stared up at me from three meters below. My daughter and the killer were caught on a ledge. “Tessa!” I couldn’t keep the terror out of my voice. “Are you OK?”
Sevren’s voice came back to me, like poison blackening the day. “Patrick, is that you? I should have known you’d find-” But before he could finish his sentence the ambulance tipped back over the outcropping and dropped into the heart of the gorge, encased in the screams of my daughter.
86
“No!” I howled.
I listened for the sickening crunch of metal on rock or the roaring screech of the vehicle tumbling down the cliff, but it didn’t come.
I leaned forward but couldn’t see much. I scrambled a few meters down the cliff, toed out onto a ledge using stray roots for handholds, bent over, and then I saw them. The ambulance was caught in the branches of a towering fir tree that jutted out about twenty meters farther down the cliff. Beyond the tree, the gorge dropped off a hundred meters straight down into the valley carved by a hopeless Cherokee girl’s tears.
“Tessa!”
“Patrick,” she called. “Help me, Patrick!”
Something powerful and deep stirred within me. Something bright and wild and right. Nothing else matters. You have to save her.
“Throw down a rope,” yelled the Illusionist.
“He’s hurt, Patrick. His leg!”
“Shut up!” And then a smacking sound and a feeble cry.
“Keep your hands off her!” Fire rose inside of me. The beast of anger roared, broke loose, ran wild.
Even though the snow had let up a little, I couldn’t scramble down the cliff to help her-it was too steep and icy for anyone to free climb. No time to drive around looking for help.
“Drop a rope,” Sevren yelled. “You have gear in your car. I saw it when you were at Abrams’s house.”
I tried to think. Everything was becoming fuzzy again. “She comes up first,” I yelled.
Laughter, dark and vicious. “I go first, or I start to play with her while I wait.” I thought of what he’d done to the other women before killing them. “I have a knife,” he said. “I’m good with a knife.”
“Help me!”
“All right!” I heaved myself up and over the ledge. “Don’t touch her. I’m getting a rope!”
I hurried to the car and pulled out my climbing gear. His voice found me. It was calmer now, full of dark desire. I imagined him eyeing Tessa as he spoke: “Hurry, Patrick. I’m not a patient man.”
A river of emotion churned through me. Anger. Fear. Love. Hatred. I had no idea which would win. Somewhere behind me I heard the tree creak and a branch snap off and crash into the gorge.
Hurry!
I took off my gun and laid it on the hood, pulled on my harness, grabbed some webbing, and scanned the area for something to tie into. Some kind of an anchor. Anything. There were no trees close by. I had to hurry.
The only thing available was the guardrail, but a long section of it lay crumpled from the ambulance’s impact. No other choice. I tied the webbing around a section of the railing that still appeared to be intact, threw a carabiner through it, and clipped the rope into that. It was dicey, but it would hold our body weight. At least I hoped it would. No time to wonder. Just time to trust.
I pushed the pack with my other rope and the rest of my gear out of the way, and then attached a couple of prussiks and ascenders to my harness’s gear loops.
“Hurry!” Sevren yelled. “Or I start giving her lessons. Drop a rope and some ascenders.”
I wasn’t about to back down. Tessa was the only reason I was willing to help him, and he knew it. If he killed her, there was nothing to motivate me. “I’m coming down for her, Sevren. Or you get nothing.”
A short silence and then a blinding shriek that sliced all the way through me. “Patrick!” It was a cry of acute pain and final terror. “I just cut her, Patrick. Cut her good. The brachial artery, right there on the inside of the arm. Oh, it looks deep. It’s spurting. Based on my medical training, I’d say she has about four minutes before she bleeds out. I’m pretty good at estimating time of death. Trust me.”
Dear God, please. No, no, no.
Tears of white-hot anger blurred my eyes. “Press your hand against it, Tessa,” I yelled. “Listen to me! You have to stop the bleeding!”
Hurry, hurry, no time.
No time.
I grabbed two extra harnesses and clipped them to my harness. Then I sprinted toward the edge of the cliff and launched myself away from the ridge and into the gorge. The rope sailed through my brake hand. I was on the brink of losing control and freefalling into the valley when I managed to catch myself, and control my descent. I tapped my feet off the rock face, hopped over a rocky overhang, and zoomed headfirst toward the ambulance.
“Tessa, I’m coming. Hold your hand against the cut!”
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A moment later I arrived at the ambulance and locked off, so I could hang in place. I stepped gingerly onto the hood, trying to use my weight to steady the vehicle. It was tilted but still horizontal enough for me to stand on the hood. Only then did I realize I’d left my gun sitting on the roof of my car at the top of the cliff.
The windshield stared at me like a giant splintered eye. A web of spidery cracks withered across it, emanating from the place on the driver’s side where Sevren’s head had smashed into it. He stared through the glass at me like a snake eyeing a mouse on the other side of the aquarium. A smear of blood oozed down his forehead, making his face look wild, primal. Beside him I saw Tessa, pale, crying softly, her left arm awash in blood. Her right hand pressing against the wound.
“Give me a harness,” said Sevren.
“I’m taking her up.”
“OK, let’s discuss it then.” He looked at his watch and then at Tessa’s arm. “A couple minutes from now, it won’t really matter, will it?”
Anger boiling. Boiling.
“All right. All right.”
Tessa groaned softly.
