Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ve got to do it this way.” An absurd but genuine apology. “But I’ll be fast. I know what I’m doing. You won’t feel much.”
“Our Father . . .”
He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn’t. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.
“Who art in heaven. Hallowed be—”
And then a tree fell.
Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.
Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.
Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.
Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.
Except once . . .
Daniel slashed at her with the knife but she was too fast for him. He grabbed for the gun, which had fallen to the trail. But the rough branch connected hard again and again, bouncing off his head, tearing his ear. He wailed in pain. “Goddamn.” He struggled to his feet. Lashing out with his fist, he caught her in the knee with a solid blow and she dropped hard.
Daniel dove for the gun, grabbed it. He scrabbled back, rose to his feet once more and swung the pistol muzzle her way. But Samantha rolled to her feet and struck with the branch again, two-handed. It connected with his shoulder. He stepped back, flinching.
Two words from the past came back to Linda, seeing Sam fight. What Daniel used to say when he was proud of someone in the Family: “You held fast, lovely.”
Hold fast . . .
Samantha lunged again, swinging the branch.
But now Daniel had a solid stance. He managed to catch the branch with his left hand. For a moment they stared at each other, three feet apart, the wooden stick connecting them like a live wire. Daniel gave a sad smile and lifted the gun.
“No,” Linda croaked.
Samantha gave a smile too. And she pushed toward him, hard, and let go of the branch. Daniel stepped backward—into the air. He’d been standing on the edge of a cliff, twenty feet above another nature trail.
He cried out, fell backward and tumbled down the rough rock face.
Whether he survived or not, Linda didn’t know. Not at first. But then she supposed he must have. Samantha glanced down with a grimace, helped Linda to her feet. “We’ve got to go. Now.” And led her into the dense woods.
• • •
Exhausted, in agony, Samantha McCoy struggled to keep Linda upright.
The woman was pale, but the bleeding wasn’t bad. The wound would be excruciating but she could at least walk.
A whisper.
“What?”
“Thought you left me.”
“No way. But he had the gun—I had to trick him.”
“He’s going to kill us.” Linda still sounded amazed.
“No, he’s not. Don’t talk. We have to hide.”
“I can’t go on.”
“Down by the water, the beach, there’re caves. We can hide in one. Until the police get here. Kathryn’s on her way. They’ll come after us.”
“No, I can’t. It’s miles.”
“It’s not that far. We can make it.”
They continued for another fifty feet, then Sam felt Linda start to falter.
“No, no . . . I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Sam found some reserve of strength and managed to get Linda another twenty feet. But then she collapsed—at the worst possible place, a clearing visible for a hundred yards from all around. She expected Pell to appear at any moment. He could easily pick them off.
A shallow trough in the rocks was nearby; it would hide them well enough.
Whispers floating from Linda’s mouth.
“What?” Sam asked.
She leaned closer. Linda was speaking to Jesus, not her.
“Come on, we’ve got to go.”
“No, no, you go on. Please. I mean it. . . . You don’t need to make up for what happened. You just saved my life a minute ago. We’re even. I forgive you for what happened back in Seaside. I—”
“Not now, Linda!” Sam snapped.
The wounded woman tried to rise but then collapsed. “I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“Jesus’ll take care of me. You go on.”
“Come on!”
Linda closed her eyes and began to whisper a prayer.
“You are not going to die here! Stand up!”
She took a deep breath, nodded and, with Sam’s help, climbed to her feet. Together they staggered off the path, stumbling through brush and over roots as they made their way to the shallow ravine.
They were on a promontory about fifty feet above the ocean. The crashing of the surf was nearly constant, a jet engine, not a pulse. Deafening too.
The low sunlight hit them full on in a blinding, orange wash. Sam squinted and made out the ravine, very close now. They’d lie down in it, pull brush and leaves over themselves.
“You’re doing fine. A few more feet.”
Well, twenty.
But then they closed the distance to ten.
And finally they reached their sanctuary. It was deeper than Sam had thought and would be perfect cover.
She began to ease Linda into it.
Suddenly, with the sound of crackling underbrush, a figure pushed out of the woods, coming right at them.
“No,” Sam cried. Letting Linda slump toward the ground, she grabbed a small rock, a pathetic weapon.
Then, gasping, she barked a hysterical laugh.
Kathryn Dance, crouching, whispered, “Where is he?”
Her heart slamming, Sam mouthed, “I don’t know.” Then repeated the words louder. “We saw him about fifty yards back that way. He’s hurt. But I saw him walking.”
“He’s armed?”
A nod. “A gun. And a knife.”
Dance scanned the area around them, squinting into the sun. She then assessed Linda’s condition. “Get her down there.” Nodding at the ravine. “Press something on the wound.”
Together they eased the woman into the depression.
“Please, stay with us,” Sam whispered.
“Don’t worry,” Dance said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter 55
Winston Kellogg was somewhere to the south of them.
After they’d left the Point Lobos Inn, they’d lost track of the footprints and blood near a fork in the nature trails. Arbitrarily Dance had gone right, Kellogg left.
She’d moved silently through the brush—staying off the trail—until she saw motion by the edge of a cliff. She’d identified the women and approached them quickly.
Now, she called the FBI agent from her mobile phone.
“Win, I’ve got Sam and Linda.”
“Where are you?”
“We’re about a hundred yards from where we split up. I went due west. We’re almost to the cliff. There’s a round rock near us, about twenty feet high.”
“Do they know where Pell is?”
“He was near here. Below us and to our left about fifty yards. And he’s still armed. Pistol and knife.”
Then she tensed, looking down, saw a man’s form on the sand. “Win, where are you? Are you on the beach?”
“No. I’m on a path. The beach is below me, maybe two, three hundred feet away.”
“Okay, he’s there! You see that small island? Seals all over it. And gulls.”
“Got it.”
“The beach in front of that.”
“I can’t see it from here. But I’m moving that way.”
“No, Win. There’s no cover for your approach. We need t
actical. Wait.”
“We don’t have time. He’s gotten away too many times already. I’m not letting it happen again.”
The gunslinger attitude . . .
It bothered her a lot. Suddenly she really didn’t want anything to happen to Winston Kellogg.
. . . afterward. How does that sound? . . .
“Just . . . be careful. I lost sight of him. He was on the beach, but he’s in the rocks now. There’d be perfect firing positions from there. He can cover all the approaches.”
Dance stood up, shielding her eyes as she scanned the beach. Where is he?
She found out a second later.
A bullet slammed into the rocks not far from her, and then she heard the crack of Pell’s pistol.
Samantha screamed and Dance dropped to cover in the recess, nicking her skin, furious that she’d presented a target.
“Kathryn,” Kellogg called on the radio, “are you firing?”
“No, that was Pell.”
“You okay?”
“We’re fine.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I couldn’t see. Had to be the rocks near the beach.”
“You stay down. He’s got your position now.”
She asked Samantha, “Does he know the park?”
“The Family spent a lot of time here. He knows it pretty good, I’d guess.”
“Win, Pell knows Point Lobos. You could walk right into a trap. Really, why don’t you wait?
“Hold on.” Kellogg’s voice was a quiet rasp. “I think I see something. I’ll call you back.”
“Wait. . . . Win. Are you there?”
She changed position, moving some distance away so Pell wouldn’t be looking for her. She glanced out fast between two rocks. Couldn’t see a thing. Then she noticed Winston Kellogg making his way toward the beach. Against the massive rocks, gnarled trees, the expanse of ocean, he seemed so fragile.
Please . . . Dance sent him a silent message to stop, to wait.
But, of course, he kept on moving, her tacit plea as ineffectual as, she reflected, his would have been with her.
• • •
Daniel Pell knew more cops were on their way.
But he was confident. He knew this area perfectly. He’d robbed plenty of tourists in Point Lobos—many of them stupid to the point of being co-conspirators. They’d leave their valuables in their cars and at the picnic grounds, never thinking that anybody would conceive of robbing fellow humans in such a spiritual setting.
He and the Family had also spent plenty of time just relaxing here, camping out on the way back from Big Sur when they didn’t feel like making the drive up to Seaside. He knew routes that would get him to the highway, or to the private residences nearby, invisible routes. He’d steal another car, head east into the back roads of the Central Valley, through Hollister, and work his way north.
To the mountaintop.
But now he had to deal with the immediate pursuers. There were just two or three, he believed. He hadn’t seen them clearly. They must’ve stopped at the cabin, seen the dead deputies, then pursued him on their own. And it seemed that only one was actually nearby.
He closed his eyes momentarily against the pain. He pressed the stab wound, which had opened in the fall down the rocks. His ear was throbbing from Sam’s blow.
Mouse . . .
He rested his head and shoulder against a cold, wet rock. It seemed to lessen the agony.
He wondered if one of the pursuers was Kathryn Dance. If so, he suspected that, no, it wasn’t a coincidence she’d shown up at the cabin. She’d have guessed that he had stolen the Infiniti not to go north but to head here.
Well, one way or the other, she wasn’t going to be a threat much longer.
But how to handle the immediate situation?
The cop pursuing him was getting close. There were only two approaches to where he was at the moment. Whoever came after him would either have to climb down a twenty-foot-high rock face, completely exposed to Pell below, or—taking the path—would turn a sharp corner from the beach and be a perfect target.
Pell knew that only a tactical officer would try the rock face and that his pursuer probably wouldn’t be decked out in rappelling gear. They’d have to come from the beach. He hunkered down behind a cluster of rocks, hidden from above and from the beach, and waited for the officer to get close, resting the gun on a boulder.
Hewouldn’t shoot to kill. He’d wound. Maybe in the knee. And then, when he was down, Pell would blind him with the knife. He’d leave the radio nearby so the cop, racked by agony, would call for help, screaming and distracting the other officers. Pell could escape into a deserted area of the park.
He now heard someone approaching, trying to be quiet. But Pell had hearing like a wild animal’s. He curled his hand around his gun.
The emotion was gone. Rebecca and Jennie and even the hateful Kathryn Dance were far, far from his thoughts.
Daniel Pell was in perfect control.
• • •
Dance, in yet another spot on the ridge, hidden by thick pines, looked out fast.
Winston Kellogg was on the beach now, close to where Pell must have been when he’d fired at her. The agent was moving slowly, looking around him, gun in both hands. He looked up at a cliff and seemed to be debating climbing it. But the walls were steep and Kellogg was in street shoes, impractical for the slippery stone. Besides, he’d undoubtedly be an easy target climbing down the other side.
Looking back to the path in front of him he seemed to notice marks in the sand, where she’d seen Pell. He crouched and moved closer to them. He paused at an outcropping.
“What’s going on?” Samantha asked.
Dance shook her head.
She looked down at Linda. The woman was half-conscious and paler than before. She’d lost a lot of blood. She’d need emergency treatment soon.
Dance called MCSO central and asked for the status of the troops.
“First tac responders in five minutes, boats in fifteen.”
Dance sighed. Why was it taking the cavalry so damn long? She gave them her approximate position and explained how the med techs should approach, to stay out of the line of fire. Dance glanced out again and saw Winston Kellogg ease around the rock, glistening burgundy in the low sun. The agent was heading directly toward the spot where she’d seen Pell vanish a few minutes earlier.
A long minute passed. Two.
Where was he? What—
The boom of an explosion.
What the hell was that?
Then a series of gunshots from behind the outcropping, a pause, then several more pistol cracks.
“What happened?” Samantha called.
“I don’t know.” Dance pulled her radio out. “Win. Win! Are you there? Over.”
But the only sounds she heard over the rush of the waves were the edgy cries of the frightened, fleeing gulls.
Chapter 56
Kathryn Dance hurried along the beach, her Aldo shoes, among her favorites, ruined by the salt water.
She didn’t care.
Behind her, back on the ridge, medical technicians were trundling Linda to the ambulance parked at the Point Lobos Inn, Samantha with her. She nodded to two MCSO officers ringing yellow tape from rock to rock, though the only intruder to trouble the crime scene would be the rising tide. Dance ducked under the plastic tape and turned the corner, continuing to the scene of the death.
Dance paused. Then walked straight up to Winston Kellogg and hugged him. He seemed shaken and kept staring at what lay in front of them: the body of Daniel Pell.
He was on his back, his sand-stained knees in the air, arms out to the sides. His pistol lay nearby where it had flown from his hand. Pell’s eyes were partly open, intensely blue no longer, but hazy in death.
Dance realized that her hand remained on Kellogg’s back. She dropped it and stepped aside. “What happened?” she asked.
“I nearly walked right into him. He was hiding there.�
�� He pointed out a stand of rocks. “But I saw him just in time. I got under cover. I had one of the flash-bangs left from the motel. I pitched it his way and it stunned him. He started shooting. But I was lucky. The sun was behind me. Blinded him, I guess. I returned fire. And . . .” He shrugged.
“You’re okay?”
“Oh, sure. Little scraped up from the rocks. Not used to mountain climbing.”
Her phone rang. She answered, glancing at the screen. It was TJ.
“Linda’s going to be fine. Lost some blood, but the slug missed the important stuff. Oh, and Samantha’s not hurt bad.”
“Samantha?” Dance hadn’t noticed the woman was injured. “What happened?”
“Cuts and bruises is all. Had a boxing match with the deceased, prior to his deceasing, of course. She’s hurting but she’ll be peachy.”
She’d fought with Pell?
Mouse . . .
Monterey County Sheriff’s crime scene officers arrived and began working the site. Michael O’Neil, she noticed, wasn’t here.
One of the CS officers said to Kellogg, “Hey, congrats.” He nodded at the body.
The FBI agent smiled noncommitally.
A smile, kinesics experts know, is the most elusive signal that the human face generates. A frown, a perplexed gaze or an amorous glance means only one thing. A smile, though, can telegraph hate, indifference, humor or love.
Dance wasn’t sure exactly what this smile meant. But she noticed that an instant later, as he stared at the man he’d just killed, the expression vanished, as if it had never existed.
• • •
Kathryn Dance and Samantha McCoy stopped by Monterey Bay Hospital to see Linda Whitfield, who was conscious and doing well. She’d spend the night in the hospital but the doctors said she could go home tomorrow.
Samantha was chauffeured by Rey Carraneo back to a new cabin in the Point Lobos Inn, where she’d decided to spend the night, rather than returning home. Dance asked Samantha to join her for dinner, but the woman said she wanted some “downtime.”
And who could blame her?
Dance left the hospital and returned to CBI, where she saw Theresa and her aunt, standing by their car, apparently awaiting her return to say good-bye. The girl’s face brightened when she saw Dance. They greeted each other warmly.
Kathryn Dance Ebook Boxed Set : Roadside Crosses, Sleeping Doll, Cold Moon (9781451674217) Page 83
