by Brian Harper
Instinctively she let go. Rush of metal past her face. Falling forward, she pistoned her arms and slammed both palms against the opposite wall, wedging her upper body horizontally in the sinkhole.
Twenty feet below. Ally jumped clear as the grate impacted the cavern floor. The flashlight threw shapeless curlicues of glare along the shaft.
“Trish” Breathless terror spiked the cry. “You okay”
It was hard to answer. Her mouth wasn’t working right, and there was a choking tightness in her throat.
Finally she forced out words. “Just barely.” She tried for a note of humor. “Got the drain cover off at least.”
With her last reserves of energy she chimneyed up the remaining few feet of the shaft and struggled into the bottom of the well. She knelt, dripping beads of perspiration and trying to remember that ridiculous motto of hers, which suddenly had slipped her mind.
Still on her knees, she looked down at the pale blur of Ally’s face. “Your turn.”
“What do I do with the flash”
Good question. The girl’s dress had no pockets, no belt, nothing that could hold a flashlight.
“Just stand it on the floor. Aim it right up the shaft.”
Ally obeyed, then stood under the sinkhole, the flash setting her dress aglow like a footlight on a stage.
“Good. Now do what I did.”
“You’re kidding.”
Trish smiled. “Without the dramatics, I mean. When you get within reach, I’ll pull you up.”
Ally closed her hands around the same limestone overhang Trish had used when getting started. She struggled to boost herself into the shaft, not quite making it.
Briefly Trish feared the girl lacked the strength to execute a pull-up.
Then with a grunt of effort Ally managed the first stage of the ascent.
“You’re doing fine,” Trish said.
But there was a long way to go, and even now Cain might be planning his next move.
49
Cain paced the cellar, stepping over debris, thinking hard.
“Last time Robinson and the girl were on the loose, they headed straight for the rear gate. Why What’s in that direction”
“The lake.” Tyler narrowed his eyes. “There’s two boats tied up at the dock.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Lilith said. “She was already there. She could’ve taken one of the boats an hour ago.”
Cain had an answer for that. “Not without the ignition key.” He stopped pacing. “The kitchen. That’s why she went in there. The cordless phone was an afterthought. She wanted keys.”
Gage was unconvinced. “Hell, she could just hotwire the ignition. Blair used to do it all the time when him and them Mexicans were swiping boats.”
“Not everybody’s as street smart as your big brother,” Lilith said with a cold smile.
Gage’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean”
“Nothing. Except if he’s such a piece of work, how come Robinson’s got his gun”
“You just shut up about Blair,” Gage said in a tone meant to threaten violence but conveying a greater threat of tears.
“Both of you shut up,” Cain snapped, irritated at the distraction.
Tyler got the conversation back on track. “Lilith is right. Robinson’s a rookie. She’s never even seen a chop shop or a stolen car. Couldn’t hotwire an electric toothbrush.”
“So she comes back here, gets the keys.” Cain saw it now, saw it as clearly as the room around him. “Rescuing the girl is just improvisation. What she intends to do is get away on a boat.”
“And go where” Gage asked, still belligerently skeptical for no good reason.
Cain had studied maps of this area so intensively they were now committed to memory. Other than the Kent estate, there was nothing on the lake’s perimeter but woods and a picnic area, closed to the public at dusk.
He remembered visiting the picnic area on one of his exhaustive reconnoitering trips. He’d stopped by a snack shop, bought a cheeseburger, called Lilith from a kiosk outside-
“Shit. There are phones across the lake. That’s what she’s after. She’s still trying to get through on nine-one-one.”
“How would she know about the phones” Lilith asked.
“She lives as around here, doesn’t she She’s a local. Anyway, that’s where she’s going. She can make it in five minutes-once she gets to the dock.”
Tyler unholstered his Glock, checked the magazine. “Unless we get there first.”
“Do it,” Cain said. “Take the Porsche.” The two younger men were running for the cellar stairs when he added, “Wait.”
They stopped, looking across a waste of rubble.
“If you need to get on the radio, don’t use any of the preset frequencies. She’ll be monitoring.” Cain thought for a moment. The ProCom units transmitted only on the two-meter amateur bands between 140.0 and 148.0. “Set channel one to one-four-five-point-zero. That’ll be our private frequency. She can’t find it on the scan mode.”
“Why would we need the radio” Tyler asked as he and Gage keyed in the digits. “Ain’t you coming to the party”
“Me and Lilith will have to take a rain check. We’re staying here.” He threw her a glance and saw excitement flush her pale cheeks, hectic like fever. “Time to get paid.”
Tyler grinned. “Mrs. Kent”
Cain answered with a nod. “She’s lived too long as it is.”
50
Clasped hands.
Shaking with effort, Trish hauled Ally through the drainage hole, into the bottom of the well.
“Thanks, Trish.” Ally coughed weakly, expelling inhaled dust. Blood measled her palms where the gritty limestone had chewed like rodent teeth. “Thanks.”
The last five feet had been nearly impossible for her. More than once Trish had been sure the girl would lose her hold. She was not an athlete, and the sheer physical exertion expended in chimneying up the sinkhole had left her shivering with fatigue.
“You need to work out more,” Trish said gently.
“No way.” Ally hung her head, a spill of dust-glazed hair overshadowing her face. “After tonight I’m never getting out of bed again.”
Trish couldn’t blame her. She’d had the same thought herself.
She glanced upward at the well head, twelve feet above the drain. The feeble glow of the flashlight, abandoned in the cave, was of no use now. But the stars, bright and clear in the cloudless sky, painted the scene in a pallid wash of light.
Over the well stood a hand-cranked windlass, a bucket dangling on a rope. The rope must have been wound tight on the winch once, but over time it had unspooled, the bucket pulled lower by the weight of collected rainwater.
Now the bucket hung halfway down the well. Just out of reach.
“Going to need your help again,” Trish said.
Ally struggled erect.
Her bare feet were bloodied, her stylish dress as shapeless as a flour sack, her arms and shoulders scored with scratches. Brambles gleamed in disheveled hair, matted with dirt and dust.
Still she voiced no complaint. “What can I do” she asked simply.
Wonder Woman’s partner, Trish thought with a smile.
“See that bucket I’ll make like a footstool. You stand on me and pull it down.”
Kneeling, Trish braced herself, hands spread. A blade of sciatica twisted through her sacroiliac as Ally stepped onto her back.
“Got it.” She climbed off.
Trish tugged the line until it was taut. “Okay. We’ve got to shimmy up.”
For once she’d found a use for her academy training. Like the other recruits, she had practiced rope climbing regularly as part of a conditioning program.
Grasping the rope with both hands, tucking it between her knees, she began to climb.
The distance was short enough, and the line seemed to be taking her weight without undue strain, but even so Trish felt a cool caress of relief when she reache
d the rim of the well.
Cautiously she raised her head, aware that she was an easy target for a sniper.
Nothing happened.
She climbed higher, then swung her legs over the rim and lowered herself to the ground. Pain flared in her sore ankle.
For a moment, just one moment, she surrendered herself to the warm night air fragrant with summer blossoms, the whisper of leaves, the trill of a mockingbird running through a series of whistling calls.
It was so good to be out from underground. It was like returning from the dead.
Later she would savor the feeling. Later.
Now there was work to do.
“You next,” she whispered, leaning weakly on the rim.
Ally started to shimmy up, gasps of exertion echoing in the shaft. The rope twirled giddily. Starlight painted her face as a pale smear.
Trish followed the girl’s slow progress, her gaze shifting intermittently to the dangerous darkness on every side.
Climbing the rope was not much of a physical challenge, but Ally’s strength was nearly gone.
Come on, kiddo, Trish urged silently. You can do it.
“No medals for quitters,” she called into the well.
Ally, halfway up, produced an interrogative grunt. “What”
“No medals for quitters, I said.”
“Screw you, Trish.” But she climbed faster. Three quarters of the way now.
From the windlass-a sudden creak.
The knot securing the rope was coming loose.
Instinctively Trish closed both hands over the line.
But the gesture was useless. Should the knot fail, the cord would slither through her clutching fingers, branding her with rope bums. She could never hold on.
Ally was nearly to the rim.
“Hurry,” Trish breathed.
“Hey, like I said, screw …” Then Ally saw how Trish gripped the rope, and she understood.
She shimmied faster, gulping air.
It would be a twelve-foot fall. Concrete floor. Broken arm, broken leg-at a minimum. Then Ally would be trapped in the well, unable to climb out or to take refuge in the caves.
Trish thought of the rabbit skull in the grotto, the scatter of bones.
How many hunted animals had died here in the dark
Ally was less than a yard from the well head.
Trish looked at the knot-unraveling still faster.
Another second, and the rope would spring free.
“Take my hand!”
Leaning forward, she thrust her right arm down.
Ally grasped her wrist, and the knot undid itself, the line lashing like a snake as it dropped away.
The wrenching tug of gravity nearly cost Trish her balance. With her left hand she clutched the rim of the well, digging her shoes into the dirt.
“It’s okay,” she gasped. “Got you.”
Straining, she pushed away from the well, carrying Ally with her, and abruptly Ally’s bare feet were scrabbling on the rim, finding purchase, and she was out.
“Oh, God.” Ally shook all over, a rag doll in a terrier’s mouth. “Oh, God, this is bad, this is bad.”
“It’s nearly over.” Trish fought the violent trembling of her knees. “Is the lake nearby”
Ally brought her breathing under control. “Yeah. That way.”
A wide strip of pavement was visible through a gap in the trees. Trish recognized the path she’d taken when she left the dock and entered the Kents’ backyard.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
They reached the macadam in seconds, then headed downhill, both of them hobbling.
Trish’s ankle screamed with every step. She gritted her teeth against swirls of lightheadedness and limped on.
Couldn’t let pain stop her. Somehow she sensed with premonitory certainty that death was rapidly closing in.
51
The Porsche roared alive with a crank of the ignition key.
Gage slammed the passenger door as the car took off, accelerating from zero to sixty in five seconds.
Tyler muscled the coupe through a tight turn, then steered across the manicured lawn, past sprays of roses and stands of eucalyptus.
“Your brother told me you never killed anybody,” he said over the motor’s throb.
Gage swallowed. “Right.”
Squeal of rubber, and the Porsche swung onto the driveway, skidding momentarily because Tyler had let off the throttle.
When he opened it up, the coupe found its footing and barreled forward, streaking between the house and garage into the rear yard.
“Not gonna freeze up on me,” he said evenly, “are you, man”
Indignant: “No way.”
His high beams stabbed the back gate, already open. He had slapped the wall switch after leaving the cellar.
The gate shot past. Gone.
“Because,” Tyler said, “if you are-“
“Hey.” The gold earring flashed. The kid’s mouth trembled, but his eyes were hard. “She might’ve killed Blair. Okay”
Tyler looked at those eyes, flat and stubborn as nail heads, and for the first time he was not unhappy to have at least one of the Sharkey boys on his crew.
“Okay,” he answered with a nod.
He rolled down the windows and unholstered his Glock.
At the edge of the beach Trish hesitated, pulling Ally back behind a profusion of manzanita.
“I left one of them here,” she whispered. “Want to make sure he didn’t get loose.”
She scanned the area. A dozen yards away, a black-suited figure thrashed and squirmed like a landed fish.
He was conscious now, struggling against the nylon cord, but he hadn’t freed himself. Those square knots she had tied must be pretty good. No wonder she’d earned that Try-It patch.
“No problem. Come on.”
Ally’s bare feet kicked up plumes of white. “You took his belt He’s got a hundred pounds on you.”
“Told you I got lucky.”
The yielding sand was harder to cross than the firm macadam had been. Trish puffed her cheeks, blowing hard.
When she glanced toward the killer again, she saw that he had stiffened, head lifted, staring at her.
Even in the dark, across a span of yards, she could read the hatred in his gaze. His face-flushed with exertion, distorted by the gag stuffing his mouth-was a study in still, focused fury.
Though she knew he was no threat, she felt her stomach ice over, felt the short hairs above her collar bristle in alarm.
Someone else, someone in a movie, would defuse the situation with a quip, cutting and smart. Her mind was frozen.
She looked away, conscious of the peculiar fact that nobody, to her knowledge, had ever hated her before tonight.
It was the price of being taken seriously, she supposed.
The path dipped, the lake tilting into view, and Tyler saw them.
Two darting figures. Crossing the beach. Bounding onto the dock.
His mouth stretched in a smile. “Let’s party.”
The Porsche rocketed down the slope.
Trish fumbled the keys out of her pocket as she and Ally reached the ladder.
“Take these.”
She flipped the keys to Ally, already mounting the top rung. The girl snatched them out of the air.
For a heart-stopping instant she juggled the key ring, nearly dropping it into the black water.
Then she got a firm grip, and Trish let herself breathe again.
Ally jumped onto the nearest boat, the Sea Rayder mini-jet. Trish untied the mooring line and tossed it into the stern, then descended the ladder, drawing her gun.
Engine noise.
She looked over her shoulder.
A black coupe careening down the paved path. High beams projecting a white funnel of glare.
From the speeding car-gunfire.
Cain picked his duffel off the kitchen floor and rummaged for his roll of duct tape, the tape that would bind Judy Danforth and Bar
bara Kent to the headboards of the matching beds.
He had no interest in Judy, of course. But Charles Kent had insisted it would look suspicious if his wife alone was pulled from the closet.
Anyway, Judy would serve as a credible witness to the killing. She would report how the masked man forced himself on Barbara, how he warned her not to fight him, and how in crazed frustration he finally stuck his pistol in her mouth and squeezed the trigger.
Perhaps he wouldn’t even need duct tape for Barbara. Officer Wald’s handcuffs were still in his pocket. He—
Wafting in through the kitchen window on a current of moisture was a string of distant pops.
Gunshots. At the lake.
Lilith heard too. Both of them turned toward the window, then looked at each other.
Cain clenched a leather fist in savage satisfaction.
“Got `em.”
Trish ducked. Sprays of splinters from the planks. Thump of a bullet drilling into a post ten inches from her head.
The coupe reached the bottom of the grade. It charged the dock.
In one continuous motion she swung off the ladder onto the Sea Rayder’s fiberglass boarding step, then pivoted into the stem.
Nice move, said a voice in her mind with peculiarly objective appreciation.
At the helm Ally fumbled with the key set.
Another volley of shots ripped up the dock. The headlights brightened, the car racing closer.
Trish fired three useless shots, not even trying to aim.
Thunder.
The boat’s motor. Ally had found the key. She punched the throttle.
The Sea Rayder lunged forward. Trish fell on one knee. Twist of pain in her ankle.
At the end of the dock, the coupe braked with a howl of tires. Driver and passenger leaned out. Popping corn: a crackle of reports.
The moving boat, low and fast, made a difficult target. Even so, the bullets landed dangerously near. Pockmarks peppered the foaming wake.
Kneeling in the stem, Trish was helplessly exposed. Her body went rigid, every muscle tensing in expectation of a lethal shock.
This was the worst part-to know she might be cut down when she was so close to getting away.
Then the Sea Rayder’s prow lifted, the boat planing on the lake surface, and dock and shore receded, the killers out of range.
