Wicked Game

Chapter Twenty-Three

Becca stood with Hudson outside their car, the wind slapping her hair around her face. They’d started driving toward the tract of land the locals called Siren Song when Becca had suddenly insisted they head away from Deception Bay and to a neighboring town to the south. Hudson hadn’t asked her why at the time, but when she proceeded to waste away half the afternoon in studied silence, hugging her dog, he’d asked her what was wrong. She’d been incapable of telling him that she didn’t want to go. After all this, she-didn’t-want-to-go. It was laughable, really, as much as she’d insisted on learning the truth, an insistence that had sent them barreling toward the coast. But now, now that she was on the brink of real discovery, she was paralyzed with fear and she didn’t know how to explain it.

“What’s going on?” Hudson had finally asked in frustration when they turned the Jetta back toward Deception Bay. Becca shook her head and kept her eyes on the road, unable to verbalize the feelings tight within her. “Maybe I should drive,” Hudson said, for about the fifth time.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not acting fine.”

“I’m just-thinking.”

“Care to include me in that thinking?”

He sounded pissed and she didn’t blame him, but she really didn’t get it herself. She was running on emotion and sensation, and a deep fear for her baby’s life that seemed to have taken control.

He wants to kill you. He wants to kill your baby. She’d repressed her last vision, but after learning from the shopkeeper that Renee had asked about Siren Song, it had come to the fore, frightening her anew. She was desperately afraid for her baby. Afraid for Hudson. Afraid for herself.

Now they were at a lookout, gazing over the darkening ocean, gathering their thoughts. The lighthouse sat on its rocky mound to the south, and the murky island beyond had disappeared behind a fog bank. Night would be upon them very soon.

“Madame Madeline knew I was pregnant,” Becca said aloud. She’d said the same thing several times over the course of the afternoon.

“She seemed more like someone suffering from dementia than a ‘seer,’” Hudson answered. He’d also said the same thing over the course of the afternoon.

“I know you want to go to Siren Song.”

“I don’t have any problem seeing Mad Maddie first, but we need to make some kind of decision soon.” His eyes scanned the horizon.

“You don’t think it’s important,” Becca accused him.

“Renee got spooked by her,” Hudson allowed. “But she didn’t really learn anything from her.”

“Except that she was going to die.”

Hudson shook his head, his jaw tight. “Someone killed my sister by running her off the road. Someone I’m going to find. I don’t believe for a minute that Mad Maddie’s prediction had anything to do with it. This was murder, premeditated, because Renee asked questions and somebody didn’t like it.”

Becca closed her eyes and let the wind throw a shiver of rain at her. It was freezing cold but it felt oddly cleansing. She heard Ringo barking from the car, scolding them for leaving him inside. “I don’t want to go to Siren Song,” she admitted.

“What is it that scares you?”

He’s there, she thought. She wanted to say the words but couldn’t form them.

“When Renee called me,” Hudson said, “I think she’d just been there. Maybe she talked to them.”

“The cult members.”

He inclined his head. “She said something about colonies of people. She was excited. She meant Siren Song.”

“And I look like them,” Becca stated flatly.

“Yeah, well, that could mean next to nothing. I just want to talk to them. See if Renee asked them about Jessie, or maybe something else.”

Becca felt ridiculous, being so stubborn, when she’d been so gung-ho earlier. But it was like Jessie’s warning was playing over and over again in her head, an endless reel. Had that been what Jessie had been trying to tell her? Siren Song? But there were too many syllables in that message. Three, instead of two. So Jessie had to be trying to tell her something else, and Becca was sure it had to do with him.

Hudson pulled her into his arms. “I can go see them by myself.”

She shook her head, unable to explain the depths of her fear. She wanted answers as much as he did, yet now, suddenly, she couldn’t take the last few steps. She was profoundly frightened in a visceral, nonsensical way.

“I don’t want anything to happen to our baby,” she whispered.

“I won’t let anything happen.”

She didn’t say it, but she wasn’t sure he would be able to stop the cataclysm she sensed was coming for her.

Hudson suggested, “Let’s get another night at the B and B. I’ll take you there, then go see the people at Siren Song.”

“No, I’m staying with you. Don’t leave me.”

“Would you feel safer back in Portland, or Laurelton?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She turned toward him, burying her face in his jacket, clutching its leather folds with tense fingers. “I’ll go,” she said in a muffled voice against his chest. “I want to know, too. I’ll go.”

“What is it?” he asked again, holding her close. “Why now?”

“I can’t explain it.” She was torn between laughter and tears. “If I didn’t already know I was pregnant I’d be wondering, because my emotions are all over the place. I just feel something bad is going to happen. Like we’re prodding the beast. And though I want answers as much as you do, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe we should just forget about this for now.”

“No, you need to find out about Renee,” she said, steeling her courage. “And I want to know if Jessie met with them, and if Renee followed her path.”

He pulled back to look into her face, sweeping her wind-tossed hair from her eyes. “You sure?”

She nodded.

“Then we’ll drive over there and see how it goes. If you don’t feel safe, we’ll leave.”

“Okay.”

“Want me to drive?”

“No, I’m okay,” she said, turning toward the car. Ringo was standing on the front seat, his paws on the dashboard. He yipped at her and scratched at the dash.

“Sure?” Hudson asked.

She nodded tautly. “Sure.”

Mac shoved his cell phone into his pocket and made a sound of frustration.

“Still can’t get hold of her?” Levi asked.

Mac had made a half dozen calls to Becca’s cell and home phone numbers, but there was no answer anywhere. Levi only knew that Mac was anxious to connect with the woman he’d been dialing for the past hour because of something that had come up at work. “I was hoping to get an answer before we start heading over the mountains and I lose the signal completely,” Mac muttered.

Levi looked long-suffering. “I’m hungry. Is there anywhere to eat here? They got a Subway?”

“I doubt it.”

“McDonald’s?”

“We’d have to go to a bigger town.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Mac considered. They could drive to Seaside, which had any number of fast-food restaurants, but it would be a good half hour out of their way. Still, it might give him just enough time to connect with Rebecca Sutcliff before he headed over the mountains.

And what was he going to tell her? By the way, Becca, did you know that Jezebel Brentwood was your sister? Either good old Mom and Dad gave her up for adoption and kept you, or you were adopted out, too. Was that the kind of news-the kind that created more questions than answered them-that you delivered over the phone?

“Let’s go to Seaside,” he said gruffly, and they both got into his Jeep.

Becca found the turnoff to Siren Song after passing the entrance twice. It was little more than an opening between hedges of laurel and sturdy grasses that led to two lines of gravel whose center was a tall strip of weeds. Rain drizzled down to be flung in sheets by sharp puffs of wind, making the entry look desolate and cold. Anyone could believe this road hadn’t been driven on for months. Maybe Renee had been the colony’s last visitor.

As soon as they turned off the highway onto its bumpy surface, Becca gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, easing the Jetta along as its tires dipped and swayed through potholes filled with water. It was not an auspicious first impression, though Siren Song itself, the lodge, loomed large and imposing when viewed from Highway 101. This hidden, dreary access did not do the place justice, but maybe that’s just what the secretive inhabitants within its walls wanted.

“This must be it,” Hudson muttered.

“No other way to get to the lodge as far as I can see.”

“They could use some signage.”

They bumped and swayed along for over a quarter mile before the lane widened to provide a view to a tall stone fence that stretched east and west and a high wrought-iron gate with vicious-looking spikes whose double swinging gates provided a view into a grassy field where Siren Song stood. In the fading light its dark, cedar shakes and darker windows seemed to stare back at them.

Becca pulled to a stop in front of the gates, leaving the engine running. Both she and Hudson peered through the wrought-iron gate in silence. The gloom from the storm had deepened the shadows. Faintly, light shone from several windows on both the first and second floor. From a distance they heard the thud of a closing door.

“Someone’s here,” Hudson observed, reaching for the handle.

Becca began to shiver uncontrollably, but Hudson didn’t notice as he climbed from the Jetta and walked to the gate, peering through the bars. Ringo whined from the backseat.

Who are you? Becca silently asked.

There was no answer. Not even a feeling that someone received her message.

Becca saw Hudson straighten. He glanced her way urgently and she slowly got out of the Jetta, hearing the car’s door-ajar bell ding several times. The sounds were muffled by the wind, which was loudly shaking the trees, and something beyond the gate, maybe an unlatched shutter, was banging with surprising ferocity.

She moved in beside Hudson and with a distinct shock saw what had captured his attention. A young woman in a long dress standing beneath an umbrella. She was staring at them.

They stared back at her, and Becca’s mouth opened in a silent scream.

She looked just like Jessie!

Hudson grabbed Becca by one arm as she started to go down. He caught her before she slid into a dark puddle and pulled her quaking body into his arms. Glancing back, he saw the brush of the woman’s skirt as she entered through a side door of the building, heard the distinct plok of a thrown bolt.

“We have to go,” Becca chattered. “We have to go.”

“Wait.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay.”

“We have to go.”

“Fine. Then I’m driving.”

He helped her into the passenger side, alarmed at how white her face had become. Ringo, now in the back, bounced around wildly, scrabbling to reach Becca, but Hudson held up his hand to the dog. “Stay,” he ordered.

“It was Jessie,” Becca whispered. “You saw. It was Jessie, wasn’t it? She’s our age now.” Becca’s eyes fearfully peered through the windshield at the sudden driving rain. The lodge was barely visible. Faint smearings of light.

“It wasn’t Jessie,” Hudson said, though he’d had a moment of shock himself. “She was younger than we are.”

“Who are these people? I don’t look like them.” She threw Hudson a panicked glance. “Do I?”

“Not-like that,” he said.

“Not like Jessie, you mean?”

“We don’t know what Jessie would look like now.”

“She would look like that!” Becca flailed an arm in the girl’s direction. “Please! I want to go. Now.”

Hudson didn’t hesitate further. He jerked on the wheel, turning the Jetta around in a tight space. Branches scratched against the sides of the car.

“Hurry,” Becca said.

Her attitude worried him; he would have liked to stay and try to ask a few questions. But it was clear the woman in the dress had no interest in talking to them. It was not Jessie. He knew it wasn’t.

But she’d been the spitting image.

The Jetta bumped, shimmied, and jostled as Hudson ran it faster than he should back down the rutted track. When they reached 101, Hudson turned the car’s nose north and the wheels zinged along the wet pavement toward the turnoff to Highway 26.

Becca sat tensely for several miles, then said in a voice so low he could scarcely hear her, “In my vision, he was standing behind Jessie with a knife. He was going to stab her and then he looked at me. Hudson, he knows I’m pregnant!”

“Was he at Siren Song?” he asked carefully. He didn’t know how far he believed in her ability to see the man who intended her harm, but her fear had infected him. She believed it, and that’s what counted right now.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I thought so. Before we went. But then we saw the girl…”

“Woman.”

“Yes, woman.” She drew a hard breath. “Jessie was adopted. Are these people…did she come from this cult? If that woman wasn’t her, is she Jessie’s sister?”

“Some kind of relative, maybe.” Hudson didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but Lord, there had been a resemblance.

He shot a glance Becca’s way. In profile, she possessed a striking similarity as well. It had always been there, to some degree, but until he’d seen the Jessie lookalike, he’d never really taken it seriously.

“Jessie came to find them, but then she encountered him,” Becca murmured, watching the rivulets of rain run down her side window.

“Who is he?”

“One of them? I don’t know. But he hates me. I can feel it, and it’s real.”

“We’ll go home,” Hudson said grimly. “Make sure you and the baby are safe.”

Something in his tone cued Becca to his unspoken thoughts. “You’re going to come back here without me!”

“Not tonight. I want to get home. Safe. Have a late dinner. And think about this.”

“I don’t want you to come back here.”

“I need to know what Renee learned.”

“It’s not safe.”

“I don’t believe we’re marked for death,” Hudson told her. “Mad Maddie’s a demented old woman who believes in a psychic ability she doesn’t possess.”

“I know. I know.” But she didn’t sound like she believed it.

“I’ll feel better knowing you’re back in Portland, safe and sound, away from whoever killed my sister.”

Becca didn’t respond. She wanted to get back home and she wanted Hudson and Ringo with her.

They made the turnoff to Highway 26 in relative silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. As they started into the Coast Range, the light drizzle turned into mixed rain and snow.

“Maybe we should call McNally.” Becca broke into the silence, watching the hypnotizing slap-slap-slap of the wipers. “Send him to Siren Song. Let him take it from here.” Without waiting for a response she dug in her purse for her phone and made a sound of annoyance. “I switched it off last night and never switched it back on.”

“You’re not going to get much reception now,” Hudson observed, but Becca pressed the green On button and hoped for the best. The cell phone went through its waking-up routine, but the words “no service” filled the screen.

“When we get over the mountains,” she said and settled in to wait, her cell phone in her hand.

Snow fell in earnest as they reached the summit and started down the other side, causing Hudson to take the Jetta down to a slow creep. Almost immediately over the pass, however, the snow turned to a mix, then the ever-present drizzle. It was dark as pitch out. No illumination other than their own headlights.

Becca realized they were only a few miles from where she’d had her accident, and her right hand squeezed her cell phone hard. Hudson was concentrating on the road. Visibility was less than perfect.

As they hit a longer, straight stretch, the forest dropping off on either side of the blacktop, headlights came up behind them, bright around a last curve. Their illumination scoured the inside of the Jetta, throwing Hudson’s profile into sharp relief.

Becca half glanced around in fear. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t. It was just her irrational terror. “He’s awful close.”

“For these road conditions, he sure is.”

The vehicle pulled closer. A truck.

“Jesus,” Hudson muttered. There was no shoulder. They were driving on a ridge where the asphalt ended abruptly and the land dropped away. Becca knew this section of the highway well, and her heart began a deep, slow tattoo. “Pass, you idiot!”

The truck rumbled loudly, shattering the night. Hudson yanked the wheel, trying to pull over, but there was nowhere to go. Becca’s phone flew from her hand. She scrambled for a hold.

Ram!

The truck hit them from behind, throwing Becca forward. “Shit!” Hudson yelled. The seat belt jerked Becca back. Ringo yelped and his toes scrabbled for purchase as he slammed into the back of the front seats.

“Christ!” Hudson muttered. He twirled the wheel the other way, turning into the spin, keeping the car on the road with everything he had.

“It’s him,” Becca moaned. “It’s him.”

She turned to gaze back, her face caught in the glare of his headlights. She saw the grill on the front of the vehicle. A truck.

Hudson hit the accelerator and the Jetta spurted forward, shimmying across the road, righting itself for a moment in the oncoming lane.

Ram!

The truck caught the Jetta on the driver’s side, spinning it back. Hudson didn’t wait. There was no more trying to stop. No searching for a place to land. He was going to have to outrun the bastard.

He punched the accelerator. The Jetta’s wheels grabbed the pavement and lurched ahead of the truck with a jump. The truck’s driver threw it into reverse, then ground the gears, readying for another assault. Hudson pressed the accelerator further and the Jetta charged forward, shaking like a rattletrap.

“The axle,” Hudson muttered. “Shit.”

“Hudson, he’s coming!”

“Bastard.”

He punched the Jetta. Shivering madly, the compact car ran forward like a runner fighting a limp.

The headlights pinned them. The truck’s horn bellowed a cry of war, then slammed them with enough force to slide the Jetta over the edge. One moment they were following the center line of the highway, the next they were plunging over an embankment into black nothingness.

Becca screamed. In her mind’s eye she saw Hudson cold and bleeding. Eyes closed in death.

Blam! The Jetta hit the ground with force enough to break the axle entirely. Becca’s teeth slammed together. The car surged through underbrush. Ringo yipped. Hudson swore and then suddenly the bole of the tree raced toward them.

The driver’s side hit the tree dead on. Becca jerked into her seat belt again. The windshield shattered. Cold air and glass rained.

“Hudson! Hudson!”

Becca didn’t immediately realize she was calling his name. She surfaced as if from a dream and saw something stuck into the arm of her jacket. A sharp chunk of wood. She reached for it and pulled it out, felt searing pain. It had been jabbed into her bicep. She yanked it out before any of that penetrated her brain and she felt the ooze of blood on her skin.

Hurry, she told herself. Hurry!

Her gaze shot to Hudson. He was slumped over the wheel. The area above his right ear was dark with blood. The steering wheel had pinned him to his seat. “Hudson,” she said brokenly.

Steam sizzled into the cold night. Rain poured in through the half-missing windshield.

“Hudson,” she whispered again. She tried to move forward but the seat belt held her fast. The dog whimpered and she glanced back. Ringo was trapped in the backseat. The car had folded inward on the driver’s side and the dog was blocked from jumping to the front, but he appeared to be unhurt.

Hurry! He’s coming back!

With dull fingers Becca unclasped her seat belt. It zipped back as if the car were in perfect working order. She was having trouble getting her brain to command herself to move with urgency.

She pushed on her door and it groaned open with the sound of grinding metal. A frigid wind slapped her face.

The cell phone.

She glanced at Hudson again. He was pale and his breathing was labored. Was that the effect of being crushed by the steering wheel? Please, God, let him be okay.

Think.

The cell phone, yes.

She reached a hand around the floor of her seat, feeling dull and disconnected. Where was it? She couldn’t find it.

Hudson kept his cell in his jacket.

Gently, she reached a hand in his right pocket, but it was empty. Making mewling sounds of distress, she reached over him, flashing anger at the steering wheel, throwing her shoulder against it as if that could help to release him.

She caught the other side of his jacket and hauled it up, heavy with his phone. She struggled to get it free and when she did, she flipped it open.

No service.

Tears squeezed from her eyes. Ringo was whining and whining and she gazed back at him. “Stay put, boy. It’s okay. It’s all right. We’re okay.” She glanced around and felt a zap of pain jump up her neck. Something twisted there. Muscle pain. Immediately her arms went to her abdomen, but she was fine. Her baby was fine.

Rage ran through her like wildfire, burning through her torpor.

Bastard. Murdering, killing bastard!

With new strength she pulled herself from the car, slipping in mud and fir chips and needles. Glass tinkled against itself and fell off her clothes as she hung on to the car. She could feel the pain in her left arm. The wrench of her neck. And there was something with her left hip-a deep bruise.

But her head was clearing rapidly. The rain was good for that, at least. She blinked against the drizzle and listened hard. No sound but the rain and the whoosh of an impish wind.

No engine. He had moved on. He had driven his truck far away.

Just like last time.

Her teeth started instantly chattering. She felt a headache building. From the accident? No! A vision. For the first time she welcomed it.

Please. Please, Jessie.

And suddenly there she was. Standing precariously on the headland. Alone.

Where was he?

Jessie mouthed the word to her. Two syllables. A warning.

Becca wanted to cry with frustration. “What is it?” she cried aloud.

“Justice,” Jessie answered.

Becca came back to the moment as if someone had turned a switch. She turned her face to the high heavens and shrieked, wanting answers, not riddles.

And Hudson?

She had to get help.

Struggling, she grabbed on to exposed tree roots to help her scale the embankment back to the road above. She was glad for her beach clothes, her sneakers and jeans and jacket, but she still scrambled for purchase against the slippery mud.

Gasping for breath, she finally reached the top, hauling herself up with shaking arms onto the asphalt. She stared down the highway from where they’d come. No sound of an approaching vehicle. She glanced toward the east. The road curved toward the right. Nothing approaching from there, either.

She wanted to lie down and rest her head on the wet road. She needed…rest.

But Hudson needed help.

With an effort, she staggered to her feet. You’re unhurt, she told herself. You’re okay.

She was only a couple of miles from her first accident. Where someone had run her off the road. Where she’d lost her baby. Again, she cradled her abdomen.

Which way to go to find cell service? Toward Portland, or toward the beach?

A toss-up.

Becca chose Portland. She stumbled east. A car would come by soon. A good Samaritan. Hudson was okay. He wasn’t in any immediate danger. He was okay. But tears formed in the corners of her eyes and she silently prayed for him as she trudged along the road.

She reached another curve of the road and trudged around it, looking through the rain ahead. Was that a car stopped on the road? To her shock, headlights suddenly blasted her in their bright glare. She saw the grill guard.

For the briefest of seconds Becca was paralyzed. Then she heard the door slam and a tall figure was backlit in the headlights. He held something in his hands. A knife.

She turned and fled like an Olympic runner, racing down the road away from him.

His footsteps slammed hard behind her.

Not toward Hudson, she thought. She had to lead him away. To the other side of the road.

She crossed the center line and zigzagged toward the opposite cliffside, sliding over the ledge on purpose, brushing a low Douglas fir branch, scratched by stickery limbs.

He was close. Breathing hard. He leapt down after her.

She was surprisingly coolheaded. She had to lead him away. Away. Away. From Hudson and Ringo. From her and her baby.

“Sister,” he called softly. “You cannot hide.”

Sister?

Becca stumbled, nearly fell.

“Spawn of Satan.”

Becca struggled onward, hands outstretched, tearing as fast as she dared through the thick shrubbery and trees. But he was gaining. He was strong.

Who was he?

She came to a clearing. To the left and up was the highway. Straight ahead, an open gully with no protection. To the right, more woods and God knew what.

She had to get back to the highway. Help would come.

Moving more stealthily, Becca crept around the trees and shrubbery, farther into the woods. Her footsteps sounded loud to her ears, but the rain and wind were covers. He’d slowed down, too. He was listening. Struggling to keep track of her.

Then she saw the edge of the highway thirty feet above her. She hesitated, hating to make herself an open target. But there was no time. No time!

With a supreme effort she climbed up the bank, her fingernails scraping the bark on the tree boles, her hands clinging to stubborn vines.

She heard his breathing behind her.

With a sob of effort, she threw herself onto the empty road. Her hand closed over a rock the size of her fist. Snatching it up, she stumbled to her feet and ran west.

“I can smell you!” he roared, reaching the road behind her.

Her lungs burned and her legs were rubber. He ran after her. His breath came in excited gasps. His hands scrabbled for her, tangling in her hair. She yanked free and screamed for all she was worth.

And then Jessie was there. Beckoning her forward. Sobbing, Becca ran toward her. It took her several seconds to realize her attacker had slowed his pursuit.

She glanced back and saw his face. A shudder went through her. The same face she’d seen when she lost her baby. He was staring through dead eyes at-Jessie. Becca jerked her gaze from his back to Jessie, who was fading from sight.

“Justice,” she said again.

Becca fearfully glanced back as her attacker threw back his head and roared. He came at Becca doubly hard. “Jezebel!” he called. “Rebecca!”

The rock felt heavy in her hand. She paused as his big body hurtled toward her, then she heaved her arm back and hurled the stone at him as hard as she could. It smashed into his forehead, knocking him off his stride.

“I am God’s messenger!” he bellowed, staggering.

Becca turned and ran with renewed energy, tearing down the road, her lungs on fire, leg muscles burning.

Faintly, she saw the glow of headlights far ahead, somewhere through the trees. She cried out in desperation, staggering, running, near collapse. She ran toward the approaching vehicle, waving her arms, silently praying this wasn’t some kind of backup for the sick monster chasing her.

The car, a Jeep, slowed to a halt and the driver got out. A man. Becca, muddy, blood-splattered, and sick with fear, shrank away from his stark headlights. When he suddenly ran toward her, her pulse spiked and she stumbled over her feet.

“Becca?” the voice called urgently. “My God, are you all right?”

She knew him. She knew that voice. She turned back, then shot her gaze in the direction of her attacker. The highway steamed in the glow of her savior’s headlights but there was no one chasing her. No one there.

He was beside her now. She recognized him, but not her own shaking voice when she said, “Detective McNally?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you. What happened?”

She broke down, falling limply, but his reactions were swift and he grabbed her before her knees fully cracked against the blacktop. “Levi!” he called over his shoulder. “Get out here!”

The passenger’s side of the Jeep opened and a man stepped out. He half loped, half walked their way, and then hung back. A boy, Becca realized belatedly. She could scarcely think. Her brain was muddled.

“Hudson’s hurt,” she burbled out. “We had an accident.” She pointed behind her to the underbrush. “Down there. Back a ways. He was pushed off the road. The truck with the grill guard. He tried to kill us!”

“Where?” McNally demanded.

He helped Becca to her feet and she pointed in the direction the Jetta had careened off the road. McNally didn’t waste time. He barked to the boy to get a flashlight while he asked Becca if she could stand on her own for a moment. She nodded and he raced back to the Jeep, pulling it farther off the road but leaving the lights on.

Then he came back and helped Becca lead the three of them in the right direction. It was easy to find. The crash through the underbrush had left branches torn, the bark gone, their exposed white interiors ghostly in the flashlight’s beam.

Spying the back of the Jetta, McNally scrambled down the hill, yelling at the boy who was following a tad more slowly to keep the flashlight’s beam ahead of him. Becca slid down the hill on shaking legs, scratching her hands and feeling mud slide into her shoes.

As soon as McNally saw Hudson he attempted to open the driver’s door. It took several tries and a lot of swearing before it wrenched free with a scream of protest that sent Ringo into paroxysms of barking. The front side of the car was sprung sideways and Hudson was wedged firmly. McNally twisted the keys and the engine coughed and sputtered but didn’t catch. He pulled the seat lever and moved the driver’s seat backward a couple of inches. Hudson’s body slipped forward over the wheel. He was free, but still unconscious.

McNally laid fingers against his throat. “Strong pulse.” He checked his cell phone and swore softly. “Someone ran you off the road?”

“Yes.”

“You think it’s the same guy who rammed Renee Trudeau’s car over the cliff?”

“Yes.”

“We need cell service.” He flipped his phone shut and stared hard at the boy Levi, who was talking to Ringo through the window. The little dog was torn between trying to reach Hudson and lick him and wanting to dig through the window. McNally fumbled with a button and the rear window slid downward and Ringo scrambled to get his head through. Levi petted and cooed to him, calming him down.

“Someone’s got to drive back and call 911. We need an ambulance.” McNally was looking at Becca.

“I can’t leave Hudson,” she chattered.

“I’ll stay with them,” Levi said soberly. “You go.”

McNally wanted to protest. Becca could tell it was all he could do to leave them and go for help. But there was no choice. She couldn’t go, and Levi was too young to drive. “As soon as I make contact, I’m driving right back here,” he said tautly. He hesitated a moment, then withdrew a handgun from the inside of his coat. As if choreographed, Levi stepped up and took it from him. McNally looked like he wanted to argue about that, too, but he sent Becca a swift look, said, “Don’t hesitate,” then climbed back up the bank in record speed.

Levi switched off the beam of the flashlight, then removed the keys from the car, quietly petting Ringo’s head, which strained out the window. “No need to advertise where we are,” he said into the sudden dark.

Near exhaustion, Becca settled herself inside the driver’s door next to Hudson. She found his hand and linked her fingers through his.

Spawn of Satan. I am God’s messenger. Sister…

He’d seen Jessie. He’d shared Becca’s vision.

He knew them both.

“He’s still out there,” she said. “He chased me. Through the woods.”

Levi moved closer to Becca. She saw the gun was in his hand. She heard a click and realized he’d removed the safety. “You know about guns?” she asked him.

“No.”

“You’re not-McNally’s son?”

“Yeah. I just don’t know him that much.”

“And you don’t know about guns.”

He was staring into the dark, not at her. “I know video games,” he said, and for some reason that was enough to comfort Becca.

The rain eased up and finally quit. Becca kept feeling Hudson’s pulse but it was strong and steady. Eventually, they heard a car approach and saw it was Mac’s Jeep. He scrambled down the bank and took the gun from his son, resetting the safety. He assured them an ambulance was on its way. They would take Hudson back to Ocean Park Hospital. He felt Becca should be looked at, too, and had told the 911 operator there were two victims.

Ringo, who’d waited patiently till now, started renewed whining and bouncing in the backseat, so Levi pulled the dog from the car and held him while Ringo reached his tongue toward Becca. She leaned forward and let him wash her face, hugging him hard.

“Can I take him home?” Levi asked her. “I’ll take good care of him for you.”

Becca started crying in earnest. She couldn’t stop. She nodded jerkily, and in the distance came the wail of a siren.

She gazed off in the opposite direction and wondered what had become of her assailant. “He had his truck around the corner,” she told McNally.

“I’m going to find him,” the detective told her with certainty.

Becca turned to Hudson. Please be okay, she prayed. Please, please.

And then the ambulance arrived in a blinding flash of red and white strobes and the welcome scream of its horn.