It was the strangest thing, but her heart speeded up, and out of her mouth came, “You want to get me alone so you can jump me, right?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What a thing to say. It’d only be our first date.”
Her heart thudded to her feet, and her voice flattened. “Oh, I see. You want to talk to me some more about what I’m—feeling.”
He lifted his hand, touched his fingers to her cheek, then dropped his arm. His eyes roved over her face. “Do you know, I happen to find myself worrying about you at the oddest times—like when I’m shaving or drinking nonfat milk out of the carton or singing in the shower, and wondering how we’d sound in a duet? The thing is, Lucy, I want to get to know you better, and talking isn’t such a bad idea, now, is it?”
She laughed, thrumming with energy. “Okay, then, but all I’ve got to look forward to is talking?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then you might as well think about what you’d like to sing with me in the shower, too.”
He tapped his fingertips to her chin. “I’ll think about that, too, although that’s an awful lot of thinking.”
Lucy tossed him a little wave and got in her car.
Coop was whistling when he followed her onto 95 south and back to Washington. Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” would make a fine duet for the shower.
Lucy wanted very much to have dinner with Coop, Szechuan or not. She had gone to sleep thinking about what he’d said the previous night at the hospital. She knew he cared about her, and that was the rub. Whatever she told him or didn’t tell him about the ring, she wasn’t going to let the blasted thing take over her life, or keep her from being as close as she wished to people she could love. She refused to choose between telling someone about the ring and loving them, or not loving them at all. Besides, how could a girl turn down a Chinese dinner with a hunky guy like Coop?
As she wove through thickening traffic, she felt the pull of fatigue—far too little sleep, and too much excitement. She turned on the radio to a soft-rock station and sang along, hoping to wake up. The traffic on 95 got messy around Peterborough, so she turned off onto 35, a nice two-lane country road that led west, made a couple of turns, and headed back again south, roughly parallel to 95. This lovely country road was her own private find, a road few people knew about, and a straight shot to Chevy Chase. From there she’d follow her usual commute to the Hoover Building. She hadn’t seen Coop turn off. Had he gotten ahead of her?
She rolled down the window and let the chill air blow over her, hoping the blast of cold would get her to full alert. There was not much out there to help her focus, mostly green pastures, some horses and cows, and lots of trees with scattered houses interspersed. An occasional car heading north passed her by.
She glanced back in her rearview mirror, hoping to see Coop’s Corvette, but she saw only a white commercial van about the size of a FedEx truck behind her, and there was only the driver. She noticed the van was holding steady behind her, neither speeding up nor turning off. She slowed down to see if he wanted to pass, but the van kept the same distance between them for several minutes. She wondered if the driver had gotten himself off 95, as she had, and was content to enjoy the quiet ride into Chevy Chase.
The van behind her speeded up, closing to within about twenty yards of her Range Rover. She looked up, saw another white van that looked identical to the one behind her pulling out about a hundred yards ahead. Only thing was, he was driving backward, the driver hanging his head out the window, his dark hair blowing as he looked at her. She felt a spurt of adrenaline as her heartbeat spiked. She drew a breath, kept her own speed steady. She pulled her SIG from her waist clip and put it under her leg.
What on earth was the guy doing? Was he going to smash into her with his rear bumper so he wouldn’t get hurt himself? Then she realized they wanted to smash her between them.
She speed-dialed Coop’s number.
“Yeah? Lucy, what’s up?”
The van behind her was coming closer. She yelled, “Coop, I’m on Country Route Thirty-five, south of the Peterborough exit off Ninety-five. Two white vans have got me between them, and they’re going to try to smash me. I think they want to kill me!”
A bullet slammed into the Range Rover’s back window, shattering the glass.
She heard Coop yelling her name, heard the screech of his tires. She swerved into the oncoming lane, but the van in front swung over with her, keeping her trapped behind him, while the van behind moved closer. There was no one else on the road, not a vehicle in sight except the vans. More shots crashed through the car’s shattered back window, the bullets slamming into the back of the front passenger seat, shredding it. There was no doubt they were trying to kill her.
A bullet whizzed by her head and spiderwebbed the windshield. She ducked automatically.
She looked down at the butt of her SIG tucked under her leg, but she knew it was no good to try for a shot at the driver of the van behind her. She had only seconds.
She jerked the steering wheel sharp left, stomped her foot on the gas. Her passenger-side fender hit the rear of the van in front of her, bounced off as she kept turning hard left, tires screaming, and spun the car into the sharpest U-turn of her life. The van behind her chickened out from hitting her head-on and swerved to the right. The metal screamed as he clipped her front fender, but she was free.
She hit the gas, quickly took the Range Rover to its limit more or less down the center of the road, going the opposite direction.
There was blessed silence.
She looked back and saw that both vans were racing after her, one in each lane, both drivers’ arms out the windows, firing wildly. She prayed they were too far away, but still the bullets flew all around her, hitting the pavement and the metal frame of her car. She knew she couldn’t be lucky forever. How many more bullets would miss her? She heard her own wild breathing, tasted fear dry in her mouth.
Where was Coop? She grabbed her phone and dialed 911—“Officer in trouble”—and gave all the information to the operator.
The operator, bless her heart, didn’t ask for more, said only, “Godspeed, Agent Carlyle. Help’s on the way.”
She couldn’t wait for Coop or the cops; she had to fight back. Lucy grabbed her SIG, reached her arm around herself, and fired back through the shattered rear window first at one van, then the other. One of the vans swerved, then straightened again. At least she’d gotten their attention.
One guy went nuts firing at her, emptying his magazine. It would take him a moment to shove in a new magazine, but the man in the other van kept firing, and she heard pings and smashing glass, then felt a slap of cold against her head that knocked her sideways. She straightened as a bullet struck her windshield, shattering the glass. Shards struck her face, her arms, but without much force. She was thankful she was wearing a jacket.
Her beautiful Range Rover was a wreck, but if any car could save her, it was this one. She was still going more than eighty miles per hour down this country road.
She would die this way, or some innocent driver ahead of her would. She had to act.
Lucy stood on the brakes. Her tires screeched. As she skidded, she leaned out the driver’s window, took careful aim at the closer van, and fired. She saw the gunman’s arm jerk, saw his gun go flying. The van began weaving all over the road, out of control. She thought he’d smash into her, but the van behind rear-ended him first, sending him flying off the road toward a wide ditch. The van twisted and rolled over and over until it flipped and finally came to a stop on its back at the bottom of the ditch.
There was dead silence for a moment; then the other van backed up, screeched into a U-turn, and roared away. She stopped the Ranger Rover, shoved open the driver’s-side door, and jumped out.
The van in the ditch exploded.
A ball of fire shot into the air, hurling her backward, the blast concussion pushing the air from her lungs. She saw black smoke billowing up, smelled the stink
of burning rubber, saw pieces of the white van blasting into the air. A part of a metal door slammed down six feet away, skipping over the asphalt with a loud grinding noise. She staggered to her feet and lunged beneath her car. She sucked in air, but there wasn’t enough. She knew the shooter was dead inside the van, and there was nothing she could do for him.
Coop screeched to a halt behind Lucy’s Range Rover, saw her car was a mess, all the windows shot out, dented beyond redemption.
“Lucy!” He was out of the car in an instant, running to her. He saw her struggling out from beneath the car, grasped her beneath her arms, and pulled her the rest of the way out, then helped her to her feet. “Good God, woman, what happened?”
A siren blasted in the distance.
Two police cruisers pulled up alongside Coop’s Corvette.
They both held up their creds, Lucy shouting, “There’s a shooter in the other white van, headed south!”
But there was no sign of the white van on the road now, nothing except an ancient pickup truck lumbering slowly toward them, strapped-down furniture filling the bed.
Two cops got out of the lead car, guns drawn, while the other headed south, siren blasting. Lucy was still holding up her creds. “I’m a federal agent! The man in that van tried to kill me!” She pointed to the burning van in the ditch. “I guess there’s not going to be anything left of him.”
One of the cops pulled out his radio. “You all right? You need an ambulance?”
“No, no, I’m okay.” The cop nodded to her, looked at her creds again, shook his head, and strode to where the van still sluggishly burned.
“Lucy, dammit, you’re not okay, you’re shot.” Coop grabbed her, pulled her close, examined her head. He pulled out a handkerchief and pressed it on the wound. “All right, okay, it must have bled like mad, but it’s not deep. Good thing, or I’d really be pissed.”
“No, I know it’s not bad, Coop. I’m okay, really.” She touched her hand to her face, and her fingers came away bloody. She stared at them, as if trying to take it in. “This is very odd,” she said, and looked up at him. “I suppose we should have someone look at this.”
Coop spoke to the cops, shoved her into the passenger seat of his Corvette, got behind the wheel, and headed back to 95. He made sure she kept pressing the handkerchief against her head. She felt a bit light-headed now, but who cared? She’d survived, she’d beaten them. She was alive. She heard Coop on his cell. “Yeah, Savich, I’m taking her to the hospital.”
He was speeding, the Corvette hugging the road, as he pushed it hard for the first time. “Coop,” she whispered, “you’re going to get a ticket.”
He laughed. “Hold yourself still, Lucy, and don’t move. Our ETA to the hospital is about ten minutes.”
Lucy touched her head again, lifted away the handkerchief. The cut was still oozing. The blood was red, and it was coming from her. She pressed the handkerchief hard against the wound. It hurt.
“The bullet grazed you. You’ll be okay.” He sounded like he was convincing himself.
“Then why are you racing like I’m bleeding to death?”
“Because I’m scared.” He speeded up.
“I hope the cops get that other van. The guy left his partner to die.”
She sounded strong, she was talking and she was making sense, but it didn’t matter—Coop’s heart was still pounding. “Lucy, tell me what happened.”
“They sandwiched me between them.” She told him about the trap they’d set, about her U-turn, and how she’d finally had the chance to fire and shoot one of the drivers behind her.
She gave him a big grin. “My Range Rover was a hero, getting me out from between those two vans.” Then her face fell. “I didn’t have a chance to name him, though, and now he’s totaled. That’s not fair for a hero, Coop, it’s not fair.”
They heard sirens behind them. They would have an escort to the emergency room. He looked over at Lucy, her bloody face and palms. She could so easily be dead.
CHAPTER 49
Whortleberry, Virginia
Thursday afternoon
Kirsten frantically turned the radio dial of the stolen Silverado to the next station, and heard it again. The male accomplice of Ted Bundy’s daughter, Kirsten Bolger, died after extensive surgery during the early hours of this morning from gunshot wounds in a shoot-out in Baltimore with the FBI. . . .
She smashed her fist against the radio until it went silent, and pulled to the side of the country road. She laid her forehead against the steering wheel, the horrible truth playing over and over in her mind. Bruce was dead, really dead. But he’d managed to save her, and now those fed jerks were chasing their tails again.
She slammed her foot down hard on the gas, and the Silverado shot forward. Soon she was flying, singing Springsteen’s “Born to Run” at the top of her lungs, hooting and hollering, trying to drown out her thoughts.
Who would she talk to now about her daddy and what he did with his lady loves? She remembered how after she’d gotten back to him, she’d dress to look like her own lady love for the evening, and they’d watch lovely raunchy porno and Bruce would grab her and they’d tear the sheets off the bed. No one would ever understand her like Bruce did; no one else would listen to her tell how it felt to jerk the wire one last time and know, know all the way to your soul, that this life was gone, forever. And he’d hold her and tell her how much he loved her as his thumb rubbed away the dried blood on her hands.
How had Bruce missed that setup? How had the cops even known they’d be at that dive? That big-haired waitress, she’d bet on it. She’d seen Big Hair looking at her, but she hadn’t paid her much attention because she was just an old hag with tons of brassy blond hair who worked in a bar. Who cared what she thought about anything? Kirsten wished she’d told Bruce about her, but she hadn’t.
Even that smart-mouthed redheaded girl was a fed. The redhead had played her, played her really good. She got hold of herself. With any luck, the redhead was dead now, like Bruce was dead, a tag hanging off her big toe. Kirsten hoped she’d died in her own vomit. Not that it mattered much. It was the FBI boss guy who’d shot Bruce, the guy on TV Bruce had told her about, whatever his name was. I’ll put him down, Bruce, like I promised you. Wherever you are, you can count on that.
Kirsten heard a sob. It was from her, from deep inside her, and it surprised her.
Bruce was gone. She was alone again, and she couldn’t bear it.
You never had anyone, did you, Daddy? You were always alone, weren’t you? If only you’d known about me, if only we could have been together, you could have told me how clever I was, how right I was, to kill those snotty girls in high school. But like you, I had to learn alone, and practice until I was pleased with what I’d done, until I was ready to take a road trip, just like you.
But I had Bruce. I’ll bet even when you were with my bitch of a mother, you felt alone. You knew she wouldn’t understand, knew you couldn’t ever confide in her, share your plans and triumphs with her, not like I did with Bruce. He loved me, he admired me for what I was, what I did, just as you would have done if only you’d known about me. You could have taken me away from that bitch. What fun we would have had. I bless Aunt Sentra for finally telling me about you. I would never have realized, never have felt what I could share with another person. Most of those ridiculous books I read about you, those writers were idiots, they didn’t understand, didn’t know what it was like to be so full of life, so full of power.
But I understand. And now I’m like you. Alone.
She’d crossed into Virginia on a narrow country road with few cars on it. She’d stolen a big Gold Wing outside Baltimore, but she’d felt way too exposed, so the first chance she got, she revved it off a cliff, watched it bounce into scrubs and trees on its way down to the bottom, smashing itself to pieces. She’d watched the wheels spin in the early dawn light. She’d hot-wired the old Silverado right out of a driveway on a cul-de-sac near Pinkerton, and started driving.
She saw a diner up ahead. What an ugly piece of crap, she thought, plunked down by itself on the edge of a podunk town called Whortleberry, a long name for a dot on a map. There wasn’t a single car parked in front—no surprise there. The diner was long and narrow, old and weather-beaten. It reminded her of that big-haired waitress who’d called in the feds on them. What was her name? Kirsten didn’t know, but she could find out, if she ever wanted to go back to Baltimore and pay her a visit. She looked again at the diner, still didn’t see anything going on.
What a dump. Burgundy vinyl-covered booths lined up along the long window that gave out onto the empty parking lot. It was good nobody was around; it seemed like it was meant to be, a diner here, just for her.
She felt the chill wind against her face when she stepped out of the Silverado and pulled her leather jacket closer. A stupid tinkling bell rang when she pushed open the door. Sure enough, the place was empty except for a single woman sitting at the counter, hunched over, reading a paperback, a cup of coffee at her elbow. She turned to see who’d come in, her long streaked blond hair falling straight to her shoulder. Kirsten realized she wasn’t a woman, she was a girl, real young, and she was wearing a dippy uniform.
Kirsten pulled off her driving gloves. “Get me coffee.”
The girl looked her over, rose, straightened her red uniform with its stupid white handkerchief sticking up out of her single breast pocket, and walked behind the cheap laminate counter to pour some obviously old coffee from a nearly empty carafe into a chipped mug.
Kirsten said, “Bet you don’t get much business here.”
“Enough,” the girl said, and shoved the mug toward her. “But not today. You want anything else?”
You’re rude, little girl. Kirsten shook her head. Five minutes passed, and no one came in. Kirsten timed it. She had to admit, it made her consider the possibilities—that sweet young thing lying at her feet, making her journey to the hereafter, the sullen, rude little bitch. She watched the girl return to her seat and the novel. She ignored Kirsten.
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