Perfect Touch

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She heard the sound of him falling and smiled. But she didn’t count on him staying down.

  Moments later she reached the end of the alley, turned left, ran down one block, and then another and another, sensing her pursuer every step of the way. The buildings around her were dark. She had run to a part of Jackson where tourists rarely came and the businesses closed at five. There was no place to hide.

  And Barton was still behind her.

  He wasn’t cursing anymore, but his shoes made plenty of noise. They had an odd metallic sound now that they hadn’t had in the gallery.

  He must have put on some skid-proof grippers after he fell.

  She wished she had some for herself. Her boots were better than heels, but they didn’t have metal teeth. Skidding on a glaze of ice halfway through another block, she ran by a doorway with a single yellow security light above it. Her shadow went crazy and long in it.

  Everything glittered with fresh snow.

  The next block across the street was dark except for a few powerful construction lights at the center, slicing night into crazy pieces. The half-formed skeleton of a building loomed ahead. Piles of materials—or dirt-covered snow—were heaped randomly, along with construction debris and sheets of ice where shallow puddles had been. Trenches for plumbing and drainage ditches to protect the worksite cut through the construction area, making a weird kind of obstacle course.

  Maybe I can hide somewhere.

  And freeze to death.

  She had no illusions about how long she would last when she stopped moving and sweat froze on her skin, leaching heat from her body.

  Beyond the construction site rose a new three-story apartment structure. The lights surrounding it were silent cries of welcome. The building couldn’t be more than a block or two away.

  Somebody will be there.

  The sound of Barton’s hoarse breaths coming closer told Sara that she didn’t have time to skirt the construction zone. The cold was already working on her body. Her breath came out in bursts of white warmth and came in with searing cold. She ignored that and the burning in her neck where the stitches were stabbing in protest of her fall.

  Ignoring the numbing cold eating her alive was harder, but she didn’t have a choice.

  She ran toward the apartment building like it was home. She managed to avoid most of the obstacles in the construction zone until she came to a dark area where dirt and snow were heaped up on either side of a large drainage ditch.

  Can’t jump it, she realized. Can’t trust the moonlight for judging distance.

  The sound of Barton’s breathing was closer.

  Why haven’t his damn grips come off? she thought in despair. In Chicago, they fell off my shoes all the time.

  Sara scrambled up the berm and over the top. Keeping her footing on the downward slope was impossible. She half slid, half rolled into the ditch. What looked like snow at the bottom was a thin skim of ice over running water. She fell hard on her left side into the ditch. The running water was only a few inches deep and it was the coldest thing she had ever felt.

  Wherever she was wet, her skin registered the flash chill for only an instant before going numb. At the edge of numbness, she felt burning where cold mixed with the warmth of life. The cold was winning. Above her was only a patch of darkness lit with the Cheshire grin of the quarter moon.

  Snow spun down from the sky in graceful silence.

  “Shit!” Barton screamed.

  His curse and the sound of his fall focused Sara. Awkwardly she forced herself to her feet. Her left ankle was numb, but it reluctantly responded to her demands. The only warm part of her body was a spot on her neck.

  The stitches. Bleeding again.

  It means I’m still alive. Move!

  Scrambling, clawing, she pulled herself out of the ditch and over the heaped-up dirt and snow. Now the gold lights of the apartment seemed too far away, impossible to reach with her half-numb body.

  But there was nowhere else to go.

  “She left about twenty minutes ago,” the waitress said.

  Jay looked at the almost empty restaurant and then at the swinging door leading to the kitchen. Without a word he went toward that door, his long legs eating up the distance.

  “Sir, you can’t—”

  He was already through the door. Ignoring the startled looks, he strode through the kitchen and out the back door into the alley. The first thing he noticed was that the gallery door was partly open. He started to call out to Sara, but hard-learned lessons ordered him to go across the alley fast and silent, gun in hand.

  He went through the gallery the same way, quick and hard. The upended tables and chairs turned his mouth into a grim line. No one was here now, but she had been here earlier.

  The only good news was that he didn’t see any blood or spent shells.

  She couldn’t leave Muse alone, he thought savagely, and I couldn’t give her five minutes with the damn painting before I hustled her into the café so I could talk to Liza.

  If he could have done it again, he would have given Sara as much time as she wanted. But Afghanistan had taught him that do-overs were a fool’s wish.

  The claw hammer and sheet tangled on the floor made him pause. But it was Muse that made him stop. The eyes watched him in mute condemnation.

  Jay went out into the alley and called Sara’s name.

  Nothing answered but an echo.

  He really hadn’t expected anything else. He grabbed his belt flashlight and switched it on. He moved the hard, surprisingly bright beam around the alley, looking for signs of a struggle or blood or anything other than emptiness.

  A rectangular gleam caught his eye.

  He bent down and picked up a cell phone and recognized the case.

  Sara.

  He thumbed to recent calls and his heart staggered when he saw 911. He pocketed her phone and reached for his own. A single number speed-dialed Sheriff Cooke. As the phone rang, Jay swept the flashlight’s beam methodically over the alley, searching for tracks in the fall of fresh snow. The temperature and icy flakes of snow bit into exposed skin.

  “Cooke,” the sheriff said.

  “This is Jay. Do you have Barton yet?”

  “No. His place was empty and his car was gone. Black BMW coupe according to his registration. I put out a BOLO.”

  Jay pushed aside his emotions and spoke in clipped phrases. “Sara’s missing. I’m in back of Susie’s Kitchen, which is right across the alley from an empty gallery where we’re storing Custer’s paintings. Sara wasn’t in the café and she isn’t in the gallery. I found her phone in the alley. The last number she called was 911.”

  “Hold.”

  While Jay waited, he carefully went over the alley, searching for tracks that were recent enough to break the newly fallen snow and sleet. He saw a place farther away from the gallery where someone had skidded and fallen, and before that a print in the snow left by a leather-soled shoe that could have belonged to a woman or a small man.

  Barton?

  Wearing leather soles in this weather is the kind of damn-fool thing he would do. But it’s good news for me.

  The end of the alley closest to the gallery had a small parking area across the street. The only car in the lot was a black BMW.

  He trotted across the street and put his hand on the hood of the car.

  Warm.

  “Jay?” Cooke asked.

  “Here,” he said curtly, staring into every shadow for a sign of Barton.

  Nothing moved but the wind.

  “A woman called 911 about five, six minutes ago. The message is indistinct, but it’s Sara’s voice and something about a gallery, a gun, and a name that sounded like Barton.”

  Jay said something savage. Then, “I found a black BMW coupe parked across the street from the alley. Hood was warm.”

  “Did Sara drive to the restaurant?”

  “No. Both of them have to be on foot. I’m going out the other end of the alley, away from the BMW. I
f Barton had been able to get to his car, he would have.”

  “You think Sara got away from him?”

  “Yes. No blood in the gallery and the route to the alley door is littered with chairs and an upended table. I think Sara’s out there, running for her life.”

  “I’ll put every man I have on it.”

  “Tell them I’m out there and I’m armed.”

  “No. Just stay—”

  Jay cut off the call and ran in earnest. When he reached the end of the alley, he hesitated, then his flashlight picked out a fresh boot print in the crunchy slush next to a building on the left. He went left and tracked at a run, his flashlight easily picking out the prints on a sidewalk few people had used since the last snow shower.

  He had gone almost three blocks when he saw the construction zone. Two sets of prints headed into the area. One of them now showed metal teeth.

  Must be Barton. Sara doesn’t have any grip-treads.

  Jay snapped off the light and stood in the deep shadows surrounding the open street. Letting out his breath, he listened.

  Nothing came to him but the wind at his back and his own heartbeat, deep, rhythmic, alert, his body responding to commands from a man who for too many years had hunted and been hunted by other men.

  Working only by the thin light of the moon shining between fraying clouds, he followed the two trails of tracks, one nearly on top of the other. The prints were punched through the crust of frozen ice and snow in the construction area, leaving shadows that were easy to follow.

  He loped alongside them like a wolf, silent and intent.

  Around him, the night glittered beneath the moon. He saw where the grips on the second trail tripped, skidded, and fell, leaving an ungainly snow angel behind. Thirty feet away there was another ragged angel, its fresh edges sparkling beneath the quarter moon.

  Good for you, Sara. Even without metal teeth, you’re staying on your feet better than Barton.

  The moonlight dimmed, and snow began swirling down as the wind pushed a new storm cell overhead.

  The fading light revealed a small berm of snow-covered dirt, a place where even good boots and better reflexes lost traction. Jay could see the signs of her slipping, falling, flailing her arms to slow her descent.

  He skidded down the side of the ditch. Shielding his flashlight with his fingers across the lens, he searched the bottom. The first thing he saw was the black streak where someone had broken a thin crust of ice and gone into the water. The second thing he saw was that there were two sets of tracks leading out and over the far side of the ditch.

  The third thing he saw was bright drops of blood frozen between the tracks.

  “Sara!”

  He didn’t know he had shouted her name aloud until he heard his voice echoing emptily through the night.

  Then a sound came back on the wind, a man’s voice promising death.

  CHAPTER 28

  SARA SKATED OVER a hidden puddle, jumped a stack of boards, and skidded wildly on landing. Finally she was free of the construction area. The yellow lights around the apartment building made everything look flat, almost one-dimensional, fooling human eyes. Her boot treads were packed with snow and ice from the construction zone, turning the sidewalk into a skating rink for her.

  Breath sawing in and out, she went spinning, no traction, nothing to keep her upright. Her hands slammed into the icy sidewalk. She rolled with the momentum and smacked into a snowbank. At least the footing was better in the snow. She was on her feet and running.

  Then her head snapped back and she went down again.

  “Got you,” Barton panted, his bare hand buried in her hair, twisting as he yanked her back to her feet. “Told you not to run or I—”

  Her elbow missed his diaphragm but hit him hard in the ribs. Then her foot came down on the top of his knee, raking the shin through his slacks and slamming into the arch of his foot.

  He snarled in surprise and pain as he reeled backward. He tripped over one of the wires holding up a newly planted, barren tree. The buttons on his long overcoat ripped open as he fell, but he kept a grip on her hair.

  Barton might have been shorter than she was, but he was stronger simply because he was male. Sara twisted around, using the momentum of his yank to propel herself even faster toward him, remembering the dirty tricks her brothers had taught her.

  “What the—” Barton began.

  She slammed her fist up and between his legs.

  His grip went weak as he gave a strangled cry.

  Using his torso and legs for traction, she scrambled to her feet, delivering a few hard kicks along the way.

  Then she ran. Vaguely she realized that the moon had gone and the sky had turned to wet snow. Despite her pace, her body was too cold to feel snow on her skin.

  Breathing hard and fast and still not getting enough air, she bolted toward the building wreathed in yellow lights. She risked one quick glance over her shoulder and saw that Barton was slowly getting to his feet, cradling his crotch in his hand. His coat flapped in the wind like it was trying to get away from him.

  “I’ll kill you!” he screamed.

  The wind ripped apart his words, but she didn’t need them to know that he was crazy mad. Or just plain crazy.

  It didn’t matter to her. She was both burning and freezing, her back rigid and her lungs filled with fire stoked by her every tearing breath. Her neck bled slowly, a stubborn weeping. She pressed her fingers there, trying to stop the flow, but her skin was too cold for her to know if she was succeeding.

  Something scraped behind her, not shoes, but something metallic.

  Barton’s grip-tracks, she thought wearily.

  She felt like she didn’t have skin or muscles any longer, that it had all cracked off and been replaced with plastic that was stiff and unresponsive. Only the fingers touching her neck wound could actually feel anything now—the sticky cold of freeze-dried blood.

  In her mind she was running, but in reality her feet were clumsy, slow. The world was getting darker. She couldn’t get enough air. She looked at the yellow lights around the apartment entrance, the lights that had become her talisman.

  It’s not that far.

  Only a million miles.

  Stop whining and run!

  Then for the first time she noticed that it was snowing in earnest. The fat wet flakes were piling up on the cars and running down her cheeks like cold tears. Everything looked like frozen Halloween, all yellow lit and black with the eerie hush of snow drifting down.

  How much snow does it take to track someone over a sidewalk? Or to cover tracks? And how quickly?

  Her life depended on answers she didn’t have.

  The wind gusted, clawing over her face, bringing tears and tugging some of her wet hair free. Through squinted eyes, she saw Barton claw at his wildly flapping coat as he pursued her.

  Cold, she realized, as she ran. I’m freezing to death out here.

  Clumsily she ran toward the apartment entrance.

  Following the blue-white cone of his flashlight, Jay left the construction zone at a run. He no longer cared if Barton saw him coming.

  Better me than Sara.

  He scanned the asphalt of the street, but found nothing. Snow hadn’t built up enough to show tracks. It was different on the sidewalk and in the small heaps of snow both old and new that the wind had piled up against any barrier. There he easily could see tracks.

  Sara’s boot treads no longer showed. Instead, there was just a rumpled area in the occasional wind-piled snow.

  Barton’s grip-tracks showed up with deadly clarity.

  So did frequent drops of frozen blood.

  Jay tracked at a run while the snow intensified, ice-toothed wind raking over his face. Squinting against it, he looked at the newly planted trees and occasional streetlights.

  Ahead and off to his right, a coat snapped in the wind, looking like a loose sail.

  Barton, Jay thought, grinning savagely.

  He ran harder t
oward the awkward figure, until his left foot hit a patch of ice that even grip-tracks couldn’t defeat. The world tumbled around him as he landed hard on his shoulder, then rolled and came back to his feet. In the crazy, reeling illumination of his flashlight, he had seen more blood, bright proof of life.

  He ran toward the streetlight again, then saw its yellow circle was empty.

  A woman’s scream shredded the night.

  Sara didn’t even know that she had screamed when she discovered Barton was only steps away from her now. Laughing. He could have caught her if he wanted to. He was enjoying watching her run.

  The yellow lights of the apartment entrance were finally close enough for her to make out the intercom waiting on the outside of the freshly landscaped entrance.

  “Give it up,” Barton panted. “I’ve got—you now.”

  His breaths sounded like they were right in her ear. Her left foot landed hard. The ankle buckled, but she stayed upright. Snow raked her eyes as she ran, stinging like needles. She felt the swipe of his fingers grasping at the hair she had tucked beneath her collar.

  Her whole being focused on the call box in front of the apartment. She could see a handset like an old-fashioned phone booth hanging up. She threw herself at it. Her numb fingers fumbled, but she got the receiver into her hand.

  “Hello? Hello?” she gasped into the speaker. “Help me!”

  Then she saw the banner across the recessed front doors.

  OPENING THIS MAY—WINDSOR LOFTS

  AT JACKSON

  LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS MINUTES FROM

  THE ARTS DISTRICT

  She dropped the phone and bolted toward the nearest patch of darkness, not knowing or caring where it would take her.

  Barton moved to cut her off, but he was too winded to do more than keep her in sight. Holding his hand against the stitch in his side, he followed her around the empty apartment building. Sara angled across a vacant lot and into the inky darkness that surrounded the construction zone’s core of security lights.

  He thought of the icy ditches that would cross her path and smiled. Wrapping his warm coat around his body, he trotted after her. The farther she ran, the less distance he would have to drag her.