Mortal Pursuit

63

Harried by lightheadedness, Trish reached a dirt trail at the edge of the woods.

On the far side lay a eucalyptus grove, scattered with long wooden tables, lacquered and gleaming in the starlight. Beyond the tables wavered the suggestion of a building, white and small.

The snack shop If so, the phones waited there.

And maybe an ambush.

Wet with sweat, leaning on her crutch, she unholstered the Glock. Holding the gun felt good. Its weight and solidity were as reassuring as a handshake.

But she knew whatever comfort the gun provided was increasingly illusory. She couldn’t steady her hand, couldn’t aim, couldn’t hope to hit anything except by luck-and she had already pressed her luck to the breaking point tonight.

A high, tuneless buzz filled the space between her ears. Pure will held her upright.

No medals for …

Oh, to hell with it.

Swallowing fear, she hobbled into the grove. Behind the nearest eucalyptus, she sank to the ground.

The crutch would only slow her down now. She left the pine branch propped against the tree, where she could retrieve it later.

If there was a later.

Barefoot, the Glock gripped in two hands, Ally crept through the woods.

She had waited only long enough to fasten the FireStar’s mooring line to a willow tree before heading away from shore. Trish had been moving fast, but Ally thought she could catch up.

No way Trish was going into danger alone. Suppose she felt faint again. Suppose she collapsed and couldn’t get up.

She needed help, and that was that, and if she didn’t like it, well, too damn bad.

The darkness was thick and heavy on all sides, a blanket of night. Though there was no trail to follow. Ally was fairly sure she knew the way. Another twenty yards or so, and she-Pain punched like a hot needle through the sole of her right foot. Bramble, twig, something sharp.

She hissed a curse, then dropped instantly into a defensive crouch, aware that her voice must have carried in the stillness.

“Ally”

The whisper reached her from a nest of shrubs and shadows fifty feet away.

Seal-walking on her belly, Trish advanced to the next eucalyptus and the next, until the trees thinned.

Then she wriggled alongside a garbage can-Don’t Trash Our Park, it warned-and from there to an adjacent picnic table. She took cover under the built-in bench, her breath coming in explosive gasps.

On her elbows she struggled to the end of the table, then peered out from under the bench.

The building was now less than ten feet from her. A plywood hut, white-painted, the awning emblazoned Bobby’s Snack Shack.

A closed sign was wedged in a window near the door. At the corner of the shop stood twin kiosks.

Pay phones.

Between herself and the phones-no more tables, no trash cans, no trees, only a bare span of lawn.

Her heart racketed in her ears. She crawled forward, aware of her terrible vulnerability.

On the margin of her sight, a blur of motion.

Gun

No. A bat, a little brown bat, flitting among the eucalyptus branches.

Bats just like that one had fluttered over the field near the old farmhouse while she and Marta sat together on the porch in the summer twilight.

The memory was vivid, achingly real.

She kept going. Reached the front wall of the shop. Crouched against it, strips of peeled paint flapping in her hair.

Motionless against a white background, she could have been a target on a shooting range.

Her enemies never would have a better chance than this.

Eyes wide, head pounding, she waited for the fatal shot.