She circled him just out of reach, holding the knife at arm’s length, letting the full moon glint off the blade, keeping her prey’s eyes on the steel instead of her face.
She lunged just an inch or two, and he quickly juked left. To an observer, it might have looked like she was toying with him, but she was testing him. Again she lunged, and again he juked left.
Good.
Abby charged forward. When Bryce went left, she hit the ground and used his own momentum to sweep his feet out from under him with her legs. He hit the ground with a thud, and Abby jumped on his back. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she raised his head up off the ground as she brought her knife to his throat.
She leaned forward, clenching her fist tightly, tearing a fistful of hair from his scalp. As he groaned, she seethed, “Any last words?”
He mumbled something, incoherently.
“What? Speak up!”
Just clearly enough, he mumbled again, “I’m sorry.”
The words shocked Abby like a hit from a Taser. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” he said a bit more clearly.
In her shock, Abby eased her grip ever so slightly, just for a second. Bryce used this to his advantage, he grabbed her knife hand and pushed it away from his throat as he bucked her off and flipped her onto her back.
“I’m sorry I didn’t kill you the first time,” he spat as he punched her square in the face just as she began to sit up.
It’s like getting hit with a sledgehammer, maybe worse, she thought as she fell and smacked the back of her head on the ground. As he went to land a kick to her midsection, Abby caught his foot, quickly twisting it and pulling him toward her in the direction of his kick, throwing him off-balance and sending him tumbling.
She sprang up as he hit the ground and quickly searched the area around her feet for her knife. Where did it fall?
The glint of steel flashed in the corner of her eye just in time for her to leave her feet and jump over his hand as the blade slashed toward her mid-thigh. She wasn’t fast enough, and the blade sliced open her pants and blood trickled down her leg.
She felt nothing as she landed. Her adrenaline was pumping too hard for pain to phase her. She used his off-balance position on the ground to kick him in the jaw, knocking him to the ground again. Their fight had taken them nearly the length of the yard, and the knife flew from his hand and landed on the edge of the dock twenty feet away. She jumped on his back, wrapping her arm around his neck in a chokehold and squeezing tightly.
He tried to shake her off, but Abby was a woman possessed. She held fast as he thrashed about, trying fruitlessly to loosen her grip. As he sunk to his knees, choking for air, Abby’s heart raced. Just another minute, and he’ll black out. She was surprised he was already on his knees, but he had probably been breathing hard to begin with.
At the last second, as his hand came up to the side of her head, she saw the snub-nosed barrel of a tiny revolver he had pulled from his ankle holster. She jerked her head to the side as the gun fired three rounds right next to her ear, missing her, but leaving her eardrum ringing.
Off balance, she fell to the side and hit the ground with a thud.
“Get up,” Bryce commanded.
Abby turned and looked up, the small revolver pointed at her only a few feet away. “Fuck you.”
Bryce aimed the gun a bit lower, “Stand. Up.”
“Fuck. You.”
He squeezed the trigger and the white-hot, searing pain of flesh being torn by lead flashed through her body as the bullet ripped through her boot.
Abby screamed in pain as he grabbed her by the arm and stood her up, thrusting her forward.
“Get on the boat!” he said. “Walk!”
She stood with her back to him, staring at the steps of the dock just a few feet away, the boat and the endless expanse of water shimmering in the moonlight just beyond. She took a step forward, testing her foot. It hurt, but to her surprise, she could grit her teeth and bear weight on it just fine.
I’ve been through worse.
“Get on the boat,” he said again from behind her.
“No.”
Bryce sighed. “What do you think is going to happen here, Abby? Get on the fuckin’ boat.”
“No,” she said, staring out at the water, calming her breath. “If you want to shoot me, you’re going to have to shoot me in the back like the coward you are.”
* * *
“I don’t think I can do this, sir,” Matt whispered to Vines. “I can’t sit back and watch that monster kill an unarmed woman.”
Vines grabbed him by the collar and turned to get in front of his face. “Listen to me, and listen good. The Rosso case that I spent the last decade of my life on is over. That unarmed woman singlehandedly destroyed everything I worked for. I have nothing else. Bryce is it. Do you know how embarrassed I was after the bank heist? Do you know what it’s like to be forced into retirement by a director who wasn’t even born when I joined the Bureau? Bryce is the last one standing in this family, and a murder rap puts him away for life. I’m the hero who found him and took him down. That’s how this is going to go down, got it?”
“I got it. She ruined your case, you want her dead. But this is wrong.”
Vines shook his head. “Talk to me in thirty-five years when your life has gone to shit. Tell me what you think then.”
Matt nodded his head thoughtfully, looking over Vines’ shoulder at the shoreline in the distance. “What the...?”
As two more shots sounded, Vines turned and gasped, “What the fuck just happened?”
Both men turned toward the fight out in the middle of the lawn, but couldn’t put their eyes on Bryce and Abby for a good twenty seconds.
Finally Matt saw they were down near the dock, but couldn’t make out what was going on. “Look, there.”
He raised his night-vision goggles to figure it out, not believing what he saw. “Oh, shit.”
* * *
Moments before the gunshots, Bryce took a step toward Abby, “So you got out of the fire. How about Ava, our little sweetie? Did she get out?”
Abby offered no reaction.
“I bet she did. Don’t worry, I’ll find her. I’ll take care of her, too, but you’re first. Now get on the boat or I’ll shoot you where you stand and put you on it myself.” He pressed the snubbed-nose gun into her back.
When the gun touched her back, it set Abby off like a spring-loaded trap. She reached up and back, grabbing the back of his head and swinging herself behind him, locking her forearm across his throat. As she hung there, feet dangling about a foot above the ground, she squeezed his neck with every fiber in her body.
In shock, Bryce raised the gun to shoot her. She thrashed him back and forth until the two remaining shots fired harmlessly into the air. Abby then applied every ounce of strength she had left against his neck. His fists pounded uselessly on her arms, but she would not let go for anything.
As he wavered and stumbled, she knew his vision would soon go as black as the water in front of them. He teetered forward toward the dock, trying to pry himself from her grip. Weakening, he stopped fighting and fell forward, crashing to the dock as Abby jumped up, watching him, waiting for him to move.
Nothing.
Wait... is that?
The faint sound of sirens called in the distance. No doubt the gunfire had raised the ire of the neighbors. Even though the nearby houses could not be seen, they no doubt heard the shots fired.
Abby quickly collected her knife and rolled the unconscious Bryce next to the boat. She could not roll him in, as the edge of the boat was about eighteen inches above dock level. She leaned him against the side, jumped into the boat herself, grabbed him under the arms and heaved with everything she had, flopping him into the boat, his body crashing to the deck.
The sirens were louder, maybe even on the street by now. She quickly released the tie line on the front of the boat and ran to the back. As she unraveled the back line, she heard thr
ee men yelling as they charged down the lawn in the moonlight, bright flashlights bouncing as they ran.
She could hear them shouting.
“Stop! FBI!”
She turned toward the steering wheel and saw the key in the ignition. The men were making short work of the distance, guns drawn as the oldest of the three arrived at the shoreline.
“Stop, Abby! You’re under arrest!”
How does he know my name?
“Who are you?”
“I’m Agent Vines. I know what you did at Rosso’s. Now get off the boat and surrender, and we’ll go easy on you. They were scum.”
Abby stared at the three of them. They had their guns and flashlights trained on her, but Agent Vines was closest.
“I know the man at your feet is Bryce Haydenson,” Vines continued, “and trust me, he’ll pay for his crimes, too.”
Abby let that sink in. He’ll pay for his crimes too? Where were the authorities ten years ago when she was getting regular beatings from the heap of garbage currently at her feet? Where were they when she went to bed every night fearing for her life? They were on the family payroll. On the take, with their hands in their pockets. Where were they when Ava was taken from her bedroom just a few days ago? Where were they when Ava was trapped inside a burning building about to die?
No, I haven’t come this far to turn him over to the police.
Abby turned her body and hit the deck, grabbing the key and twisting it in the ignition. She jumped as shots were fired in her direction. As the engine caught, she pegged the throttle all the way forward and launched the boat away from the dock while staying low. Glancing back, she could see the flashing of red and blue strobes lighting up the neighborhood in front of the house.
She could also see the three agents, or at least their flashlights, bouncing along the shoreline as they raced toward a neighboring dock where a sleek fishing boat bobbed in the waves Abby created.
25
BRYCE’S NEIGHBORS were not as cavalier about their boat keys, but FBI agents pounding on their door in the middle of the night quickly convinced them to turn them over.
The three agents piled into the boat and took off from the dock, telling the local officers to stay behind in case Abby returned. Vines turned to Jeff, who had been watching the front. “Did you call for back up? I specifically told you not to. We can take her ourselves!”
“No, sir, I did not,” he said, looking back at the strobe lights flooding the neighborhood. “I’m guessing the neighbors did that once they heard shots being fired.”
Vines stared at him a moment before turning back to the water and reprimanding him, “Don’t be a smart-ass.”
“She’s just about ten o’clock, sir,” Matt called out from the front of the boat, pointing to the left.
Vines squinted. There she is. He picked out Abby’s boat in the bright moonlight and adjusted course to put her right in his sights before feeding full power to the engine and closing in.
He estimated her to be at least half a mile, if not more, ahead. Being the only boat on the calm water, however, made her easy to pick out. He could already tell they were gaining on her, albeit incrementally, but they would catch her. Their boat was bigger and faster.
“We’re going to catch her,” he announced. “It’ll be about ten minutes before we overtake her boat. I want you boys to be ready to board the moment I pull up alongside. Got it?”
“Sir,” Matt said, “don’t you think we should coordinate with local law enforcement? I’m sure they’ve got at least one boat in the water, if not more.”
“No, this is my collar boys. This is the big one, and I’m not sharing the spotlight, got it?”
The two junior agents nodded, but also glanced at each other, unsure what to make of Vines’ insistence on going it alone.
The water and the boat became decidedly darker as thick clouds moved in, obscuring the bright moon. Vines looked ahead, unable to make out Abby’s boat. He checked his pocket for his small binoculars but realized he dropped them earlier when they started running. “Who’s got night vision?”
Jeff pulled a small pair of binoculars from his belt and handed them over. Vines had him hold the wheel while he cranked up the brightness to accommodate for the sudden darkness. “There she is, clear as a bell.” He smiled, moving in for the kill.
* * *
A light drizzle began to fall as Abby watched the agents’ boat fade into the darkness behind her. Thank you! She allowed herself to feel a small bit of relief—luck was on her side, at least for the time being.
With the nose of the boat pointed toward hundreds of miles of open water, and the throttle open, Abby rummaged around in a bin looking for a rope or something to keep the wheel straight. She settled on a short bungee cord that she looped through the wheel and hooked to a cup holder directly under it. Satisfied that it would keep the boat pointed relatively forward, Abby turned her attention to her leg and foot.
The cut on her thigh didn’t go too deep, and actually appeared to have stopped bleeding. She thought about tearing away some of the material around the wound to better clean it, but then figured the compression of the tight pants that surrounded the cut was probably helping, so she decided to leave it alone for now.
Instead, she turned to the pain in her foot, and after carefully taking off her boot, she was pleased to find only a flesh wound. The bullet had grazed the inside of her foot and drawn some blood, but otherwise, she was all right.
Abby next went through the glove box and found an emergency first aid kit. The alcohol stung and both of her wounds bled just a bit more as she cleansed them, but she was over it by the time she packed them with gauze and medical tape.
As she put the kit back, there was a tremendous thud as something slammed into the boat and the watercraft rocked to the side. Abby stumbled to her left, but her quick hands grabbed the wheel and she kept her balance. She immediately cut the power and looked around to see a buoy floating twenty feet behind the vessel as the increasingly steady rain made thousands of mini-splashes around it.
I must have hit it.
She realized that she should probably slow down at this point, looking back and seeing just a few twinkling lights on the shore. Then she heard something. At first she assumed it was just the gentle white noise made by millions of raindrops plunking into the massive lake, but then she realized it was something else. Something more powerful. Something man-made. The sound of another engine. Close by.
Ripping her night-vision monocular from her belt, she looked back to see the agents in their fishing boat gaining on her, and fast.
Abby turned over the key and gave the engine the full throttle as she looked back to see the boat barreling down on her. As the front of the boat pitched up, Bryce’s body rolled backward on the deck and thumped into the row of cinderblocks lined up near the engine.
She wiped the rain from her eyes and looked down at the speedometer to see she was going sixty knots. She wasn’t exactly sure how fast a knot was, but figured it was probably something like miles per hour. The rain was pelting her forehead hard enough, so she’d believe that.
About a mile a minute... she thought about this as she looked back again through her monocular and saw the boat even closer, continuing to close distance.
The senior agent was at the helm, looking through his own night-vision binoculars and waving.
She looked back at Bryce, face down by the cinderblocks. She was far enough out that she could dump him here, but not with a boatload of FBI agents one hundred and fifty feet behind her. She figured going a mile a minute, if she could disable the agents for just a couple of minutes, she could dash away and hide in the darkness.
Looking out at the lake, rain pouring down around her, she couldn’t see more than twenty feet without her night vision. If the agents didn’t have theirs, she would be fine, but she couldn’t exactly jump in their boat, grab them, and chuck them in the water.
Think... think... think...
Abby was suddenly struck with an idea. She looked into her pouch and found her last flash-bang grenade. She pulled it out and realized it would do her no good. It had been crushed, probably during the fight, and was just a bag of powder and duct tape now.
Damn.
After securing the bungee cord to the steering wheel again, she ripped open the glove box. She tossed the first aid kit aside to look through the other contents. After chucking a couple of old compact discs, a book of matches, and some maps behind her, she realized she wasn’t going to find what she had hoped for in there.
Her eyes darted around the boat until they settled on the bench seat at the rear of the boat, where Bryce lay face down next to the cinder blocks. She ran to the back of the boat and lifted the seat to reveal a storage compartment underneath. Her eyes quickly took stock: rope, half a dozen life preservers, oars, inflatable raft... aha!
Suddenly a large hand clamped around her ankle. “Bitch!” Bryce shouted as he ripped her leg out from under her, knocking her to the deck.
Despite being caught off-guard, Abby sprung up as soon as she hit the wet deck, whereas it took Bryce a moment to get to his feet. He was moving slowly and purposefully, having just regained consciousness.
He swung a big, lazy fist toward Abby, but she ducked and jabbed him in one of his cracked ribs. Bryce winced in pain, and like a wounded animal with a crazed look in his eye, jumped toward Abby screaming, trying to wrap his arms around her.
Twisting her body and throwing all of her weight behind her shoulder, she landed the first hit to his midsection, causing him to gasp as the air rushed from his lungs. Rotating her shoulders with each blow, she landed shot after shot to his body. Screaming and filled with rage, Abby unleashed a fury of blows to his body to his stomach and ribs, until he struggled to breathe, each gasp as painful as another punch.
As Abby ran out of air herself, her screaming stopped. She looked up at his rain-soaked face. Bryce wavered on his feet with the movement of the boat. Time stood still for a second as she took in the face of the monster she once saw as her ticket out of a horrible life.
Escape, the Complete Trilogy Page 66
