And crashed. One after the other, the chassis dropped out from the bottoms of the trucks and crashed skidding onto the pavement, sparks flying.
The crowd, barely dispersed, began to regroup.
“Look!”
“What the-”
“What happened?”
What happened was immediately apparent. During the heated argument, chains had been tied to the rear axles of each of the three trucks. The other ends had been tied to a nearby lamppost. As soon as the trucks shot out of the lot and drove the length of the chain, the chain went taut and jerked the chassis out from under each truck.
Each of the three loggers jumped out of the cabs of their trucks, spewing anger and confusion.
“It was all a distraction!” someone in the crowd yelled. “The blond bitch held our attention while the others chained the pickups!”
“Where are they?” one of the loggers yelled.
“There they are!” a small boy shouted, pointing down Garfield. “They’re getting away!”
“
All at once, every logger in sight gave out a yell and started charging down the street. The Green Rage group heard the noise and started running. Ben only hoped they had the Jeep nearby, but he didn’t see it. The loggers were moving much faster than the Ragers. At that rate, they’d catch up in minutes.
And then Magic Valley would have a full-fledged riot on its hands.
Ben swore silently. He didn’t approve of this Green Rage stunt any more than he had the previous ones. But he didn’t want to see Deirdre and the others massacred, and that’s what would happen if this mob caught up with them.
Ben’s first instinct was to run after them, to try to help. But he knew he couldn’t do much to even the odds. They needed some serious assistance. The law enforcement kind.
Much as it pained him, Ben turned the other direction and raced toward Sheriff Allen’s office at the courthouse. He just hoped someone was in.
And he just hoped they could get back before it was too late.
Chapter 32
“What the hell is that racket?”
Tess pushed the drapes to the side and peered outside. There was a major commotion on the street, but it wasn’t close enough that she could see anything.
Every time Tess heard a noise from the street, she jumped three feet. And in the last few minutes, there had been a lot of noises.
Stay calm, girl, she told herself, as if that might actually do some good. You’ve been in tighter scrapes than this. Did you panic when the police caught you going through Madonna’s luggage? Did you turn to jelly when Sean Penn took a shot at you? Of course not. You’re a grown-up and a journalist-a journalist with a hell of a story to tell.
If she could only live long enough to tell it.
She had retraced all her steps, all her thoughts, all her conversations in her mind. Everything she had seen or heard since she first came to this backwater burg. And she had convinced herself she knew who killed Dwayne Gardiner. The killer had made a fatal error.
The only problem was that she was certain the killer would soon recognize the error, too. And as soon as that happened, the killer would be trying to remedy the mistake.
And the only way to remedy the mistake was to eliminate one Tess O’Connell.
She threw all her clothes and belongings haphazardly into her small suitcase. The clothes would be a mess when she arrived home-if she arrived home-but at the moment, fashion gaffes were the least of her concerns. She grabbed the bag, crossed the room in three giant steps, and flung open the door.
An instant after she opened it, she heard the sound of another door closing. It wasn’t a loud sound. It almost wasn’t there at all; it was more like a whisper, a soft whooshing of air. But she had heard it. At least she thought she had.
Why would someone close his door the instant she opened hers? Unless someone was watching her. Someone who didn’t want to be seen.
She bit down on her knuckle. That was the problem with paranoia-it wasn’t always unjustified. But when you were the paranoid one, it was impossible to know which concerns were ridiculous and which concerns might get your head blown off.
Well, she couldn’t spend the rest of her life in her room-not if she wanted to get this story in print. She didn’t even have a fax machine here. And she wasn’t going to give up this Pulitzer sure-bet.
She took a deep breath and plunged into the hallway. So far, so good-no one jumped out of a hidey-hole with machine guns blazing. She walked rapidly down the corridor, dragging her suitcase behind her. She was glad she’d learned to pack light; she didn’t need anything weighing her down.
She paced the full length of the corridor, then took a right turn and made a beeline for the elevator bank. When she reached the elevators, she slowed. Her footsteps stopped.
But someone else’s didn’t. Not right away, that is. She stopped, and then a heartbeat later, so did someone else. Almost perfectly in step with her. But not quite.
Tess felt an icy grip at the base of her spine. Someone was following her. And there was only one person who would have a motive to do that-
To hell with the elevators. She ducked into the adjoining stairwell and raced down the stairs, baggage bumping every step behind her. A few years before, when she had been determined to lose the unwanted and unneeded extra ten pounds she wore around her waist, she had started walking the stairs every day during lunch hour. Since the LA. skyscraper she worked in had over forty floors, it was pretty strenuous exercise. Once up and down and she was usually bushed.
She just hoped she had retained some of those skills. Magic Valley wasn’t LA.; it was only five flights down. But at the moment, five flights seemed like an endless expanse.
She had almost made it to the fourth floor when she heard a pneumatic release of air. Someone else had opened the door. Someone else was in the stairwell.
She was not alone.
She tossed aside the suitcase. What did she need with a lot of clothes and underarm deodorant anyway? She had her money in her purse. What she needed was to make it to her rental car. Alive.
She was in a full-out run now, no holds barred. She raced down the stairs as fast as she could without falling, taking the steps two at a time whenever possible. She was making good time now-the third floor, the second …
But she could still hear the footsteps behind her, and they were moving just as fast. Whoever was chasing her seemed determined not to let her escape.
Tess hit the ground floor running. She thought about hailing the bell captain, trying to get help. But what if he wasn’t at his station, what if she didn’t make it in time? It all seemed too risky, in her panicked state. She didn’t want to be trapped in this hotel a second longer. She wanted to be in her car, leaving the whole town in her dust.
She crossed the lobby quickly and headed for the parking garage. The hotel had valet parking, but the valet wasn’t there. Just as well-she could do it faster herself. She snatched her keys from the pegboard at the valet station, then barreled into the parking garage scanning for space number twenty-two.
She ran up the nearest slope, checking the numbers painted on the asphalt outside each space. Twenty-two, twenty-two … the numbers she was seeing were in the thirties and getting bigger, not smaller. Where was it, damn it? She couldn’t be sure how much space she’d put between herself and her pursuer, but she knew it wasn’t nearly enough.
