Mortal Pursuit

21

A young girl skipping rope.

She was nine years old, in a summer dress of blue polka dots, her laughter high and thin and echoey like the keening of birds.

Marta.

The cry, so plaintive, so urgent, was Trish’s own.

Marta, do you hear me

Sweeps of the jump rope, bounce of blonde bangs. The girl was laughing, laughing. She didn’t hear. She never heard.

Marta-don’t!

A blur, a lens slipping out of focus, and the girl was gone, just gone.

Only her laughter persisted, mysterious and haunting-disembodied laughter in a horizonless field of white.

Are you there, Marta … Answer me!

Eyes.

Huge eyes, filling the world, staring blindly. A roach crept among a forest of stiff lashes, antennae twitching.

The eyes were bloodshot and unblinking. Marta lay in the weeds, limp, twisted, the jump rope knotted around her neck in a python’s caress.

Oh, God, Marta. Trish heard suppressed sobs in her voice. I told you not to. I told you.

No response, no flicker of life in those staring eyes, save for the jerky progress of the roach, balanced on a glassy iris like a skater on a pond.

Trish shivered, suddenly cold, cold all over.

Wet and cold.

Wet …

She jerked awake.

For a disoriented moment she blinked, looking around. Vaguely she expected to see the porch light glowing through her curtains, the dark shapes of the scattered shipping cartons she still hadn’t unpacked, the luminous dial of the alarm clock resting near the foam pad where she slept.

Nothing. There was nothing.

And she was not lying on the pad, and this was not her new apartment, not any place she’d ever been.

The darkness was impenetrable, absolute. Her arms were twisted awkwardly behind her. She was soaked in chilly water, pants and shirt glued to her buttocks and back.

Pants, shirt-her uniform. She’d been on duty.

A groan escaped her lips as she remembered.

The prowler call. The Kents and their dinner guests. The cartridge case on the tablecloth. Ambush. Wald dead. A stinging blow behind her right ear.

They’d knocked her out and put her here, in this lightless, freezing, watery place.

Fear squeezed her heart. Impulsively she tried to bring her arms forward. Pain ripped her wrists as metal teeth bit down. Handcuffed-she was still handcuffed-and there was no air in here, no air, and she couldn’t breathe.

Come on, stop it, she was hyperventilating, that’s all. She had to breathe through her nose, through her nose …

Lips pursed, inhaling slowly, she convinced herself she wouldn’t suffocate. She was all right. Yes. She could get air in her lungs and she wasn’t going to die and she was all right.

The burning dampness in her eyes was a splash of tears.

What was this place What had those bastards done with her

She lay on her back, wrists pinned under her, knees partially bent in a semi-fetal pose. Immobility was bad, but the utter absence of light was worse.

No blindfold on her face. She was sure of that. So why was it so dark, so completely dark, without even the dim ambient light that bled into nearly any locked room

Had they-oh, God, had they done something to her eyes Blindness was her worst fear. That and paralysis. And now she couldn’t see and she couldn’t move, and the tears came faster.

She was so damn scared. Even when the gray-eyed man had held his gun on her, she hadn’t been this scared. She had known what was happening, it had made some sort of sense, but this was a nightmare, a parallel universe, insanity.

A wave of shudders rippled through her body. Both legs straightened reflexively, her shoes banging against a hard stop.

A wall.

She kicked it-again-again.

Hollow metallic thuds.

Metal wall Some sort of bulkhead

Her terror escalated, though she didn’t know quite why. She made little mewling, grunting noises as she probed further.

Intersecting walls on either side. Maybe a yard apart.

Bigger than a coffin, but not much.

“Where am I” she whispered, her voice hoarse and faraway.

The water pooling under her seemed colder than before. No, not colder, just more pervasive, spreading to parts of her body that had been dry only moments ago.

Spreading …

She stiffened. Breath held, she listened tensely. Heard a soft, continuous gurgle from behind her and below.

Water seeping in through fissures and seams.

Water that was rising steadily and would keep on rising until she was fully immersed.

Her heart pounded harder. Sightlessly she sat up, and her forehead struck a ceiling, metal also and impossibly low.

That can’t-breathe sensation was toying with her again. She knew it was psychological. There was still enough air.

But for how long Two minutes Three

“Let me out!” she screamed, hoping they would hear her and show mercy. “Please let me out, let me out!”

The echoes of her cry clanged against the metal walls and floor and ceiling, and died unanswered.

She bit her lip to keep from screaming again. Waste of strength, of breath. Wherever she was, whatever kind of fix she was in, no one could hear her, and there was no escape.

She was trapped in this place, this room-not even a room-a sealed compartment-locker, maybe, or steamer trunk—

Trunk.

Car trunk.

The Caprice.

It rushed in on her, full comprehension, vivid and terrible.

They’d locked her in the trunk of the squad car, and dumped the car-Jesus, they’d dumped the car …

“In the lake,” she whispered.

The words were squeezed past the strangling tightness in her throat.

They would have wanted to conceal the cruiser. The lake Wald had mentioned was an obvious place to do it. And the water trickling in, cold and powdered with fine grit-it was lake water, thick with silt from the murky bottom.

“Help me,” she moaned, speaking to nobody and nothing. “Help me, please help.”

But help would not come. She was alone, more alone than ever before in her life, and if she wanted to have any chance, she would have to help herself.

Yes. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it

No medals for quitters. That was what Mrs. Wilkes used to say, Mrs. Wilkes who’d been her Girl Scout leader a million years ago.

Good words. She tested them aloud. “No medals for quitters.” Again, more firmly: “No medals for quitters.”

Her tortured breathing went on, as did the reckless pounding of her heart, but her thoughts calmed.

It was a locked trunk. Perhaps it could be opened. If she could find the latch …

To do anything she would need the use of her hands.

She groped behind her, fumbling for her gun belt, where she kept her handcuff key.

No belt. It was gone. They’d taken it from her, the sons of bitches, and she couldn’t get the cuffs off, couldn’t break out, and the water murmured louder, the level climbing.

Irrationally she stamped her feet on the wall, as if she could punch a hole in the car, puncture welded steel like tissue paper. The banging of hard-soled shoes on metal reverberated in the trunk, a second heartbeat, grotesquely amplified.

“No medals for quitters.” The motto was her mantra. “No medals for quitters, no medals for quitters …”

Couldn’t shed the cuffs. But did she have to

Even manacled, she could manipulate objects with reasonable dexterity-if her hands were in front of her, not behind her back.

She worked out daily, alternating between upper body and lower body routines. Each session began and ended with stretching exercises. She was limber. She was young.

Maybe she could do it. Maybe. God, please.

She twisted sideways, head lifted to keep her mouth and nostrils above water, then arched her back and bent both legs under her.

Her hands were level with her pelvis. To succeed, she had to get them past her buttocks and behind her thighs.

It wasn’t going to be easy.

Teeth clenched, she folded her legs at a still more acute angle, curving her spine to its full extension. Her knees banged the license-plate wall. Impossible to make any move in here without hitting something. It was like trying to do gymnastics in a bathtub.

Pain speared her triceps and shoulders as she forced her hands lower. She separated her wrists as far as possible, drawing the chain taut. The cuffs rode her thumb joints, friction rubbing the skin raw.

“Hell,” she gasped, “this really hurts.”

Coughing seized her. Even with her chin lifted, she’d swallowed water. The level was higher.

No medals for quitters. She had to do this. No medals for quitters. Do it or die.

With a shout of agony she dragged the handcuff chain over the twin obstructions of her buttocks. Simultaneously she snapped forward at the waist, tucking her hands under her legs.

Her hands sizzled where the steel bracelets had bitten deep. She was bleeding from the knuckles of both thumbs.

Pain and blood didn’t matter. She’d done the hard part.

Now she just had to step over the chain.

Fighting to hold her head above water, she doubled up in a fetal pose. Quickly she passed her right elbow over her right knee, then pulled her right foot toward her and lifted the handcuff chain around her shoe.

Next, the left leg.

Same procedure, same result.

Abruptly her hands were in front of her. In startled wonder she raised her arms fully and touched her own face.

She’d gotten this far. At least she had a chance.

Water filled half the trunk now. The height of the compartment was only about twenty inches, leaving her less than a foot of clearance above the waterline.

She searched in the dark for the trunk latch, having no idea if it could be operated from inside. Her fingers read the grooves and contours and machine-stamped indentations on the lid as if they were inscriptions in Braille.

After several desperate seconds she found what had to be the latch, a recessed boltlike mechanism engaged by a metal claw. For the lid to open, the bolt and claw had to be separated. Her scrabbling fingers, numb with cold, slipped on the smooth metal parts, finding no purchase.

She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t open the lid from the inside.

But maybe she could smash the latch. With a blunt instrument.

She rolled onto her stomach. Folded back the floor mat to expose the rectangular cover of the spare-tire well. It was secured by a wing nut, the shape distinctive to her touch.

Her shaking hands, joined at the wrists, turned the nut counterclockwise till it spun free.

The air pocket was shrinking fast. Six inches, at most, separated the waterline from the underside of the trunk lid. She had to tilt her head sideways to breathe without inhaling water.

It cost her valued seconds to wrest the cover off the tire well, then still more time to shove the unwieldy board into a corner, out of her way.

Come on, come on.

Beneath the spare tire her groping hands found the jack, fastened to the side of the well.

God, the water was getting really high. Four inches of clearance left.

Frantically she pried at the jack. Blocked by the tire, it refused to come loose. She couldn’t get it out-damn, why couldn’t anything be easy, even the simplest thing

Another tool, smaller and more accessible, lay beside the jack. She felt a hexagonal socket at one end.

The lug wrench.

Gripping the wrench, she guided it out of the tire well.

Two inches now. To breathe she turned on her back, her nose brushing the lid at its highest point. She swallowed a deep gulp of air, puffing up her cheeks to hold it in.

Then she submerged, hunting again for the latch.

The water was cold, the pressure like the gentle squeeze exerted on a swimmer at the bottom of a pool. Silt drifted everywhere. Her eyes closed instinctively in protection against the floating grit.

There. The latch. She’d found it.

The wrench lashed out, each impact clanking dully, the noises muted as if in a dream.

Five blows. Six.

The latch wouldn’t yield, and her lungs were draining fast. Better get another breath while she could.

She arched her neck, not yet breaking the waterline, and cold metal kissed her mouth.

The air was gone, the trunk completely flooded.

Had to get the trunk open. Now, right now.

Savagely she pounded the latch, blows chiming in her ears, discordant music.

She wasn’t going to make it. She was going to die in here, and sometime tomorrow her body would be found, stiff and frozen, the useless wrench still gripped in her two hands …

Something nicked her forehead-a sharp chink of metal floating free-part of the latch, broken off.

The lid was ajar.

Done it. Thank God, she’d done it.

Out.

Wriggling, squirming, she emerged from the trunk.

Faint luminescence overhead, starlight on the surface of the lake. Nearer to her in the gloom, dark columnar shapes-the pilings of a dock or pier, rising into the light.

Needed air. God, she needed air, and the surface was still so far away.

Her pant leg snagged on a corner of the trunk lid. She kicked wildly until she pulled free. Then she was swimming clear of the car, legs bicycling as she arrowed her body upward.

Her unclipped hair coiled around her like tendrils of kelp, wrapping her face in wet strands. Through the waving net she caught a glimpse of the Caprice, abandoned and forlorn, its blue-and-white markings rendered a dull monochrome in the chancy light.

A moment later the dim ghostly shape was obscured by clouds of silt stirred up by her beating legs. She frog-kicked for the surface.

Her eyes bulged. Fire seared her chest. At any moment she would yield to instinct and take the fatal breath her body demanded.

Her lips parted …

And she burst through the roof of the lake, water shattering like glass, and drew air in a great shuddering whoop.

She’d made it. She was alive.

No medals for quitters. She wanted to shout the words. No medals—

Something plopped in the water a yard away, raising a splash.

She looked toward shore, and her exhilaration died.

Yards away, a dark-clad figure. Sentry on patrol. One of them.

It wasn’t fair, it was too cruel, but she had no time to lodge her protest with the universe.

A second shot landed, closer than the first, and Trish dived back into the dark.