Lone Creek

35

After Gary's cruiser and the tow truck disappeared into the woods toward my cabin, I swung the Victor around and started pushing it back downhill through the trees. They were probably out of hearing range by now, but the bike made a pretty good growl starting up, and Gary might even have a lookout posted. The grade steepened in another fifty yards-I could hop on and coast, then kick it into gear when I was ready and let gravity turn the engine over quietly.

But just as I was about to jump on, I heard the drone of another motor behind me.

The bare-wire nerves I'd been running on took over. I shoved the bike a few steps into some brush, laid it down, and dropped flat beside it. Even as I hit the ground, I realized that trying to hide was idiotic. The sheriffs had spotted me, and this was one more nail in the lockbox of guilt that was forming around me, a nail I'd driven myself.

But no lights showed-no flasher, no searchlight, not even headlights. Still, the engine's sound got louder.

I sighted the vehicle a few seconds later-an unlit silvery shape on the road, at first barely visible in the darkness, then coming more into focus as it neared. Confusion overlaid my panic. It wasn't a sheriff's car or anything else that registered with me. As it passed, I made it out as some kind of SUV, a fairly new model. I started thinking it must belong to an off-duty deputy or maybe a volunteer.

But the pale blur of the driver's face seemed to be fixed straight ahead, not scanning to the sides. And something-not details I could see clearly, but the posture and the way the hands gripped the wheel at ten and three-gave me the strong sense of a woman.

A connection clicked in my mind, one that was so absurd I dismissed it as fast as it appeared. But as I stared after the fading silvery shape, it came back and stayed.

Laurie Balcomb in her new Mercedes toy.

I heaved the bike upright and stomped on the kick-starter-the hell with caution, although part of my brain screamed that there was no way it could be Laurie, it was a sheriff, and not only was I about to throw myself in jail, I was going batshit.

The SUV was creeping along with an occasional brief flash of brake lights, feeling the way down the tricky, night-bound gravel road. I came in behind it close and fast, hunched low over the handlebars, hoping I could identify the make without being seen. If it wasn't a Mercedes, I'd fade again. I had to wait for the brakes to give the taillights their next red glow before I could get a glimpse.

Sure as hell, the emblem on the rear door was that trisected circle. I'd never seen another vehicle like that around here. Certainly no cop could afford one.

What with the darkness and the high seat headrests, I couldn't get a good look inside. But I couldn't let it go. I swung around to the left, goosed the bike's throttle, and pulled up beside the driver's window.

For just a second, like when I'd seen Laurie on horseback yesterday, I got that prickly sense that I was looking at Celia.

Laurie swiveled toward me, her mouth opening. She looked scared to death-I must have seemed like a disembodied head appearing out of nowhere.

I called out, "Pull over." But the window was closed and she didn't seem to hear me-just kept staring.

"Stop, goddammit, you're going to crash," I yelled, and thumped the window with the heel of my hand. She jerked away as if that snapped her out of her daze, and she braked so hard I had to drag my left foot to stop along with her.

Her window slid down. If she recognized me, it hadn't calmed her any. Her eyes were huge, and she seemed to be trying to say something that wouldn't get past her lips.

"Take it easy, it's Hugh," I said. "What the hell are you-"

I shut up. She wasn't just stuttering, she was mouthing a word. Like, maybe, run.

The edge of my vision caught a movement on the backseat floor, like a restless black dog squirming around.

I thought it was just a shadow until a man came lunging up out of there. He jammed a rifle barrel through the window behind Laurie's head, pointed at my face.

I stared into it, with my body and brain both locked.

Then Laurie screamed, a sound so piercing and charged with rage that it was like a spike through my ears. The other man flinched, and he raised his right fist like he was going to club her. But before he could, she ripped the key out of the ignition, whirled around in her seat, and stabbed it at his eyes, a movement as quick and vicious as a viper's strike. He reared back away, dropping the rifle and clapping his hands to his face.

Laurie seemed frozen, like she couldn't believe what she'd done. But her scream started my blood moving again. I yanked open the SUV's door and managed to get hold of her arm and drag her toward me, shouting at her to climb on. There came a few wild seconds of thrashing around while she squeezed outside and onto the bike behind me, and I fought to keep the son of a bitch from dumping and make sure she was still hanging on.

The opening door had tripped on an interior light. This time it was easy to see the man in the backseat, swinging the rifle toward us again. I popped the clutch so hard the front wheel came off the ground, and cut the handlebars hard to the right, passing in front of the SUV so the gun's muzzle couldn't follow us. We jumped over the road-edge hump into the woods.

I yelled at Laurie over my shoulder, "Hide your face!" She pressed hard against my back with her arms wrapped around me like I was a spar in a shipwreck. I ducked my head low and powered on through the trees, whipped by low-hanging branches and raked by stumps.

I couldn't even guess how any of this had happened and I didn't give a rat's ass. The only thought in my head was to get out of there as fast and far as I could.