Deadly Pursuit

34

Standing at the window of the radio room, blood pasting his pants leg to his thigh, Jack Dance smiled.

This was what he lived for. Con jobs were lucrative, and ordinary seductions could be briefly satisfying, but nothing could compare with the twitch and jerk of a woman’s body, her chortling death rattle, the blank amazement that invariably lingered in her unseeing eyes.

A few yards from the house, thickets of underbrush rustled frantically. Kirstie was somewhere in that tangle of shadows.

Even without his flashlight he could pick up her trail. Soon he would pay her back for the red hole in his leg.

Still grinning, he gripped the edges of the window frame and began to hoist himself onto the sill.

“Jack!”

He froze. The voice was Steve’s, and it came from inside the house.

“Goddammit, Jack, don’t you touch her!”

Hell. Little Stevie had been fading fast on the trail; Jack had assumed the sedative had put him under by now. But apparently adrenaline, triggered by concern for his wife, had restored his flagging energy.

Jack lowered his feet to the floor and moved away from the window. Kirstie would have to wait. As long as Steve had the gun and remained alert and active, he took top priority.

Steve’s footsteps pounded for the front door. No doubt he was expecting to find Kirstie on the dock. When he saw she wasn’t there, he would search the house.

Jack had to move fast.

He crept into the kitchen. From the scatter of silverware on the floor he retrieved his Swiss Army knife.

In the foyer, the front door banged open.

“Kirstie! Jack!”

Steve must be standing on the porch, peering at the dock in the strong starlight. There was a new quality to his voice, a blend of desperation, anguish, and escalating hysteria.

He would shoot Jack when he saw him. Shoot to kill. Jack had no doubt of that.

Got to take you out first, old buddy. And I think I know the way.

He switched off the lights in the kitchen and dining room.

The front door thudded shut. Fast footsteps retreated down the loggia. Having failed to spot Kirstie on the dock, Steve was exploring the house’s east wing.

Jack entered the living room. He grabbed the remote-control device for the color TV, stuck it in his shirt pocket.

The room was lit by two table lamps and a torchiere. He unplugged all three lights and cut the cords.

Darkness. The only remaining illumination, a faint glow from the loggia.

He crouched behind the sofa, the knife in one hand, the remote-control in the other. Waited, heart beating hard and steady in a rapid metronomic rhythm.

Never before had he gone up against armed prey.

Danger added a new, electrifying dimension to the sport.

One thrust of the knife. That was all the chance he would have.

And all he would need.

Steve needed every bit of his energy to keep his legs moving, his eyes open, his head clear.

He understood now. Understood what Jack had done to him. The sleeping pills. Jack had tricked him into drugging himself.

On the trail he’d been close to collapse when Kirstie blundered into view. The shock of seeing her-the spurt of terror at the prospect of what Jack would do when he caught her-had been enough to rouse him to one last effort.

He had to find Jack. Not to talk with him, not to bide time until morning. All of that was over. It should never have begun.

Once, years ago, Steve had read an article about dogs crossbred with wolves to produce half-breed pets. The domesticated wolves were friendly, loyal, capable of learning commands. In most respects they seemed indistinguishable from normal dogs.

But at any moment, unpredictably, the wild wolf in the animal’s makeup could tear through the semi-civilized veneer to slash and kill. There had been ugly, horrific incidents.

Jack was like that. An untamed thing, wearing the gloss of civilized urbanity. Because he spoke well and dressed nicely, because he smiled and laughed, he disguised the snarling predator within.

On the boat at the reef, it had been almost possible to forget that this man killed for pleasure, cheated women of their lives for a fleeting sexual thrill.

But when he cut Anastasia’s throat, he had been truly himself. Steve had seen his face then.

He had glimpsed the same look-the same savage appetite-as Jack took off after Kirstie on the forest trail.

Steve would not play the role of partner to a wild beast. To do so would be to surrender his humanity to the bestial side of himself.

There would be no more rationalizations, no more compromises, no more bargains. He would find Jack and march him out to the generator shed and lock him inside.

Then take Kirstie to Islamorada and confess everything to the authorities.

He would go to prison. For years. Maybe for life. But he would survive. And through it all, he would hold clear title to his own soul.

The bedroom doorway expanded before him. Sudden vivid imagery crowded his brain-Kirstie cornered in the room, flung supine on the bed, beaten and molested by Jack. Nightmarish scenes, distorted and terrifying. He pushed them away. The sedative was playing with his head, blurring the borderline between sensory input and hallucination.

The pistol in his hand felt reassuringly real. Tightening his grip on the handle, he slipped into the bedroom.

Empty.

He checked out the bathroom next. Foam from the fire extinguisher still slimed the walls. An acrid odor, a memory of smoke, hung in the air like a dissipating ghost.

No one in here, either. The west wing of the house, then. The kitchen, the radio room. That was where he’d find them.

He doubled back, fighting the looseness of his knees, the icy numbness in his hands.

He wasn’t sure he even had the strength to lead Jack to the shed.

“Then I’ll shoot the son of a bitch,” he muttered as a strange, savage hatred-Jack’s kind of hate-swelled within him.

He could do it if he had to.

And if Jack had hurt Kirstie… or killed her…

Steve would empty the pistol into the motherfucker’s loveless heart.

He reached the west end of the loggia, slowed his steps.

Ahead, the doorway to the living room was dark.

All the lights had been left on. Now they were extinguished.

Jack was in there.

Lying in wait? Preparing an ambush?

Careful. Careful.

With the gun, Steve had a decisive advantage, if he was alert enough to use it.

That was the problem. His reactions were sluggish, his thoughts increasingly confused.

At least he was still sufficiently self-aware to perceive the degree of his impairment. He was not walking with eyes closed into whatever snare Jack had laid.

Warily he entered the room, blinking to adjust his vision to the dark. Near him stood a lamp on an end table. He clicked the switch. Nothing.

Unplugged? He risked groping for the cord. It had been slashed.

Jack must have similarly sabotaged the other two lamps. The dining-room chandelier probably could be turned on, but to get to the wall switch Steve would have to cross yards of dangerous territory.

The room offered many hiding places. Armchairs, potted plants, TV set, sofa. Shadows everywhere.

He advanced deeper into the darkness. The gun led him, its barrel swinging restlessly from side to side like the snout of a stalking animal.

Now he was halfway across the room. One of the big arched windows loomed on his right; he saw no one hidden behind the drapes. To his left lay the armchair where he’d sat watching Jack for long, slow hours. A dark shape, lumpy and vague, distorted the back of the chair.

He hesitated. Jack? Hunkered down behind it?

No. Only his own nylon jacket, draped limply over the chair.

From the dining room, a soft banging noise. The patio doors. Still open, swinging in the breeze.

He was passing the sofa now. A good place for Jack to conceal himself. Almost imperceptibly, he increased the pressure of his index finger on the trigger.

The dining room was less than five feet away. If he could get through the doorway, he could slap the wall switch, light the chandelier, then flush Jack out of hiding.

Only a few more steps…

Behind him, a burst of white light. A female voice.

“-never wash my car again?”

The television. Sound blaring. Phosphorescent picture tube throwing a pale, inconstant glow over the room.

He spun toward the set. Jack must be hiding there, must have hit the on-off switch by accident, given himself away.

But where was he? Where the hell was he?

On the margin of his vision, a flicker of steel.

He lurched sideways, and the knife ripped past him, the blade coruscating in the light as it tore hungrily at his sleeve.

Steve pivoted to face Jack, pointed the gun.

“That’s right.” A male voice now. “With the patented Dirt Eater-”

His forefinger flexed.

The Beretta bucked in his hand.

A crash of sound.

Jack, twisting forward.

I shot him, Steve thought as his ears rang and the room changed color from blue to red to magenta in the television’s glow.

No. Wrong. Jack wasn’t collapsing on the floor. He was lunging over the sofa, the knife stabbing wildly.

“-you can say good-bye to expensive visits to the car wash-”

Steve seized Jack’s knife hand, held the blade at bay. He tried to shoot again, but powerful fingers were already clutching his wrist in a death grip. Jack’s face filled his field of vision, surreal in the stroboscopic light.

“-and wet, sloppy do-it-yourself jobs in the driveway!”

Jack stretched his mouth in a voiceless roar. He fought to free his knife hand from Steve’s grasp. Steve held on, the Beretta rendered useless, pointed at the ceiling. The two men danced a ragged, stumbling waltz.

“Thanks to Dirt Eater’s miracle technology-”

Jack slammed Steve up against the wall. His glasses flew free, and the world lost focus.

“-you’ll keep your car looking showroom clean-”

Jack drove Steve’s gun hand into the wall-again-again-shocking his knuckles with jolts of pain.

“-and it takes less than ten minutes a week!”

The Beretta was slipping from Steve’s slick fingers.

Jack rammed his arm against the wall, and a blaze of heat burst from his elbow to his wrist.

“Dirt Eater works great on all kinds of finishes-”

Helplessly, Steve let the pistol fall.

Jack released him, grabbed at it.

“-and on fiberglass bodies, too!”

Steve’s foot blurred. He kicked the Beretta across the room. It skated noisily on the tiles.

Jack socked him hard in the gut, driving breath and strength out of him, then jerked his knife hand free.

The blade arrowed forward. Steve flung himself sideways, out of its reach, and dived to the floor.

Too late he realized he’d moved in the wrong direction, away from the gun.

“So if you want to give your car that fresh-from-the-dealer shine-”

Jack saw his mistake, scrambled for the Beretta on the other side of the room.

Steve grabbed the TV stand, pulled himself to his feet. Backlit by the picture tube, he made a perfect target.

“-try the new Dirt Eater-”

Jack picked up the gun.

“-the best thing to happen to the automobile-”

Steve spun behind the television.

“-since gasoline!”

Jack fired.

The TV set exploded in a cascade of pinwheeling glitter.

Jack shielded his eyes as sparks swarmed over him like angry fireflies.

Steve darted into the dining room. Here darkness was total. The breeze on his face told him the direction of the patio doorway.

He ran outside into a mist of starlight filtering through the latticed roof of the pergola. Without his glasses he perceived most objects as watery smears. The wash of bone white before him was the upended lounge chair; he remembered skirting past it on his way into the house.

He’d had the gun then. He’d still had a chance against Jack. Now he was disarmed, and he and Kirstie were doomed.

Clambering over the chair, he risked a backward look. Jack wasn’t following, not yet.

The garden gate was still locked; he’d climbed the low wall to get inside. Now he lost a handful of seconds groping blindly for the latch.

He was sure Jack was behind him. Probably had him in the Beretta’s sights.

Again he glanced over his shoulder. Still nothing. No movement, no footsteps, no sign of pursuit.

Then he was sprinting down the trail, while around him the tropical night rustled and buzzed and shrilled, jungle-movie noises, the soundtrack of a nightmare, and suppose all of this was only a nightmare-yes-and soon he would wake, Kirstie beside him, Anastasia curled on the floor near the bed, everything fine and normal. He rises from bed, he turns on the morning news-Mister Twister has been nabbed by the FBI in Salt Lake City, and he’s not Jack Dance, he’s a different man entirely, Steve’s fears were unfounded, silly-how could Jack have murdered Meredith or anyone else? Good old Jack? Ridiculous. He’s no killer, and Steve hasn’t been concealing a homicide all these years, and so there’ll be no more awful dreams like the one had last night, the one where Jack was loose on Pelican Key and Steve was running, running…

Falling.

The dirt path tore the tender skin of his palms as he sprawled on hands and knees. Pain shocked him back to reality.

His mind had drifted off again, anchorless, rudderless. Drifted into fantasy and hallucination.

A new wave of the sedative was spreading through him. The capsules were the time-release variety; some of the granules had been absorbed immediately into his bloodstream, but others were still in his digestive tract, where they would be broken down in successive phases over the next several hours.

If he could prevent any further absorption of the sedative, the dose he’d already assimilated would wear off quickly enough.

He looked around him. Jack was nowhere in sight. For the moment, then, he was safe.

With a final effort he lurched to his feet and staggered down the trail, toward the beach.

He knew what he was looking for. He only hoped he could find it in a world of darkness and fog.

Steve was gone by the time Jack reopened his eyes and blinked away the blue retinal afterimages spotting his vision.

Must have left via the French doors in the dining room. No time to hunt him down now. Without the gun, he was no longer a serious threat or an urgent priority.

Kirstie was Jack’s main concern at the moment.

She would almost certainly be making her way around the house, toward the dock. When she reached it, she could take the motorboat to Islamorada.

Fortunately, the dense brush would slow her progress. Jack still had time to intercept her.

Still, she would be wary about approaching the dock. Somehow he would have to get close enough to squeeze off a clean shot.

Or perhaps-he smiled with the beginning of a thought-perhaps he could make her come to him.