“That true, Amanda?” Stokes called.
And for the first time, Stokes heard that little voice in person. “I guess I’m OK. I just want to go home.” Her voice made something twitch in Stokes’s heart.
“It’ll all be over soon,” Stokes said.
“Come over here,” Chet said.
Stokes started walking toward them. He raised his eyes a little as he did. He took a chance and lowered his hands, slipping his damaged left hand into his pocket as surreptitiously as he could. That hand needed a head start. He gambled on the fact that they thought they were dealing with Paul Jenkins, because everything they knew about Paul Jenkins told them that he wasn’t going to give them any trouble.
But he wasn’t Paul Jenkins.
And they were about to find that out.
THIRTY-ONE
2:49 A.M.
STOKES STRODE ACROSS THE LONG, dark ballroom, through puddles of moonlight spilling in through the occasional hole in the ceiling. He kept his face as much in shadow as he could as he walked toward the figures in the center of the room, wanting to get as close as possible before they realized that he wasn’t Jenkins . . . before things went to shit.
There he was, the lone gunslinger facing down the bad guys, his fingers twitching near his guns, just like he’d imagined as a kid. The possibility of other outcomes had teased him all day, made him think it didn’t have to come down to something like this, but Stokes wondered if this was inevitable, if from the moment the Nickersons took him off the bus that afternoon, it was always going to end this way.
In the final moments of this hellish day Stokes still didn’t understand exactly why he was doing this—why he’d thrown away his chance at a brand-new life for a little girl he’d never met. He knew for certain that he wasn’t Paul Jenkins, but he was no longer sure exactly who he was.
He was just forty feet away when Chet said, “That’s far enough.”
Stokes kept going. He started walking faster. Loudly, he said, “Chet, your father doesn’t want you killing anyone.”
“What?”
“Lockbox,” Stokes blurted as he marched forward, “lockbox.”
“I told you to stop,” Chet said, his voice rising.
Stokes looked up while at the same time reaching for the gun in the right pocket of his jacket. He also had the two good fingers of his left hand on the gun in his other pocket—the index finger hooked around the trigger, the thumb and three broken fingers providing as much support on the handgrip as they could. Even though he’d never fired a gun before, he got the general idea. Hell, idiots shot other idiots all the time. Stokes figured he was enough of an idiot to be able to do the same. He had no idea how many bullets were in the three guns he had, but he knew the weapons were loaded and he had a gun for each guy in front of him. And if the three guns weren’t enough, hell, he probably didn’t deserve to survive anyway.
When Chet saw Stokes’s face he asked, “Who the hell are you?” Then Stokes saw confusion and recognition light Chet’s eyes at the same time and the guy raised his gun.
Stokes kept coming. “Lockbox,” he called one more time, just in case. Chet was to the left of the group. Amanda was sitting on a big, overturned wooden crate two feet away from him. Iron Mike and Danny DeMarco stood together a few feet away, to the right. Chet hadn’t responded to the lockbox code word, so Stokes knew they’d be shooting this out. He broke into a trot. He wanted to take Chet down first, but Grote’s men were already drawing their weapons. He had both guns out now and he yelled, “Get down, Amanda!” as he started pulling triggers. The guns recoiled in his hands, much harder than he’d anticipated, and his bullets sailed wide and high. He was a lot closer to the mark with his good hand. His other bucked wildly, his fingers causing him agony. But he held on to the gun and kept coming at them, correcting his aim as he did, and bullets kicked off the cement floor. Bullets flew his way, too. Amanda screamed from her position, crouched behind the wooden crate. DeMarco screamed too as a ricochet caught him in the leg. Stokes kept firing, trying to keep from shooting too close to the girl, the muscles in his forearms begging for a break already. But he was getting the hang of it, improving even though he was running now as he fired, ignoring a bullet that hummed just to his left. DeMarco fell on his ass and Stokes caught him full in the chest with a round. He fell back. Stokes didn’t know if he was dead but he was certainly out of the fight for a while, so Stokes turned his attention to Iron Mike, who was backing away and fumbling with his own gun.
Amanda kept screaming but Stokes barely heard her. His ears were ringing, and he was still firing away. He squeezed off a couple of rounds at Iron Mike, whizzing bullets all around the asshole but failing to hit him. But the fusillade caused Iron Mike to worry more about running for his life than standing his ground, and when he spun and sprinted for a side door, Stokes turned to look for Chet.
Stokes registered Amanda’s terrified screams at some deep level of his hearing, in some remote part of his brain, but didn’t pay attention to them. His thoughts had turned black. He was nothing but a man with guns now. He was just someone who shot people. It was all he cared about, all he focused on. Shooting people. Chet was moving sideways toward another side door. He had his gun out and was squeezing off shots of his own. Stokes dimly realized that Chet had been firing already when Stokes caught sight of him.
Stokes turned his gun on Chet and pulled the trigger once, then again, before that gun was empty. He dropped it, switched his second gun into his good hand, and fired immediately. He felt sure he would have nailed Chet dead center if the son of a bitch hadn’t stumbled as he turned for the door.
Besides Chet, Amanda, and Stokes, there was nothing in the room but the wooden crate with a laptop on top of it, a pile of jackets the men must have taken off and tossed on the floor, and DeMarco’s dead body. Other than that, nothing. So there was nowhere for either Chet or Stokes to hide, nothing behind which to take cover. Chet scrambled for the door and was only a few feet from it when Stokes drew a bead dead center on his back. No way he’d miss this shot. He pulled the trigger.
And heard a loud click. He’d emptied both of the antique dealers’ guns.
Chet stopped and turned. He’d heard the click, too. He smiled, raised his piece, and fired as Stokes, in one surprisingly fluid movement that belied his inexperience with firearms, dropped into a crouch and pulled Officer Martinson’s gun from behind his back. He and Chet fired at the same instant and Stokes felt something buzz uncomfortably close to his neck. Chet wasn’t so lucky as Stokes’s bullet caught him in the arm. Before Stokes could fire again, Chet scuttled through the open side door and into the night.
Stokes blew out a breath he felt like he’d been holding since entering the ballroom. In a firefight at close range, with bullets buzzing all around, Chet had run while Stokes had held his ground. Who was the crazy one here?
“Your father wants you to call this off,” he yelled after Chet. “Lockbox, you crazy bastard,” he added, though he knew it was far too late for that.
He wanted to sit down and rest, but he knew that Chet could lean around the doorway and start shooting again any second, so he hurried over to Amanda, who sat behind the crate with her knees up to her chin and her hands clamped over her ears. Tears streamed down her chubby little face. Stokes reached out and pulled one of her hands from her ear. The other fell a moment later, and Stokes saw that it was heavily bandaged.
“It’s OK,” Stokes said. “You’re OK.”
Amanda sniffed. The tears kept rolling.
“He’s dead,” she said, her eyes cutting over to DeMarco lying on his back in a pool of blood the size of a small area rug.
She was right.
“But you’re OK,” Stokes said.
“You’re hurt.”
“No I’m not,” Stokes replied.
She sat up and nodded. He frowned and looked down. Blood was running fr
eely down his chest from a wound on the side of his neck. Must not have hit a major artery or he’d be dead already, but it was bleeding pretty badly. He felt a throbbing in his leg now and noticed another wound there, in the meat of his thigh toward the inside of his leg. It was hurting, as was the wound in his neck.
“Come on,” he said. “We have to get out of here.”
He started to walk away, quickly, toward the side door through which Iron Mike had escaped.
“Where’s my daddy?” Amanda asked.
Stokes turned. She had stood up but remained rooted in place.
“He couldn’t get here. He asked me to come.”
They really had to get going. Both Chet and Iron Mike had survived, and neither was likely to want them to leave the park alive. Stokes thought he might have heard low voices outside. The men out there might have found each other and were making plans. Stokes considered calling to Iron Mike, informing him that Chet had been planning all along to kill him, but he didn’t think Iron Mike would believe him. Why should he, seeing as Stokes had been the one trying to kill him thirty seconds ago?
“We really have to move,” Stokes said.
“Who are you?” Amanda asked.
“A friend.”
“My daddy’s friend?”
Stokes thought about that. “Your friend.”
It was her turn to think. Stokes glanced nervously at the doors, then the windows. Finally, Amanda took a tentative step toward him.
“We have to hurry,” Stokes said.
“Where are you taking me?”
I don’t know.
“Away from here,” he said. “Away from the men who brought you here.”
That seemed to be good enough for her. When Stokes started off at a trot, limping a little and wincing a lot, she followed as closely as her little legs would allow.
He thought of something and realized that Chet and Iron Mike were no doubt thinking the same thing: all he had to do was survive long enough for the cops to come, which they were certain to do before too long. Someone would have heard the gunshots. They weren’t so far out in the sticks that a couple of dozen rounds fired from semiautomatic handguns would go unnoticed. There were houses not far down the road. Someone in one of those houses would call 911. So all Stokes had to do was keep Amanda alive until the cavalry arrived . . . which might not be all that easy.
Stokes had hoped to save Amanda, drop her off safe somewhere, and ride off into the sunset—preferably with the quarter million dollars, though that part of the dream was now dead. But he’d still hoped to sneak out of town when this was all over, and it was starting to look like that wasn’t going to happen, either . . . at least not if he was going to see this through. Sure, he could leave the girl now and probably have a fair chance to make it out alone, out of the park, out of the city, out of the goddamn state, but whatever strange force was behind his actions all day kept him from even considering that course of action now. No, he knew he’d go all the way with this. Which meant he had to stay alive, and keep Amanda alive, until the cops showed up. Of course, Chet and Iron Mike knew that, too. They knew the cops would come, and they sure as hell didn’t want to be there when they did. They also couldn’t allow Amanda or Stokes to be there waiting, alive and able to talk, when the police arrived. So Stokes knew they’d regroup out there in the dark, as quickly as they could, then come after the girl and him with everything they had. He felt like both Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, holed up and surrounded by the Bolivian army at the climax of the movie—a movie that ended with the cowboys making one final, desperate dash for freedom, guns blazing, leaving the audience with no doubt that the heroes were about to be blown to bits by a hundred rifles.
Stokes shook that image from his mind. He had to get Amanda out of there now. They were almost to the door when he stopped. She stopped beside him and clutched his good leg. He’d heard something outside. They’d come around the building. Or, more likely, one of them had while the other stayed on the far side. No doubt, they planned to shoot Stokes and the girl if they tried to leave the ballroom. And if he and Amanda didn’t try to get away soon, they’d probably rush in and shoot the two of them to pieces.
Stokes had no idea what to do. Whatever he decided, he’d have to do it really, really soon. But he was at a total loss. He looked down at Amanda. She looked up at him with fear in her eyes, though he sensed that it wasn’t him she was afraid of. And there was something else in her eyes, too, something it took a moment for him to recognize because he hadn’t seen it in the eyes of anyone looking at him in a long time. It was trust. She believed he’d save her. He wished he felt the same way.
They were trapped. There were four doors to the place, one in the middle of each side of the rectangle. If it were Stokes in charge out there, he’d position them so they could each watch two of the doors, thereby covering every exit.
Finally, Stokes heard what he’d been hoping to hear. Sirens. Not close, but not too far away, and getting closer. He just had to buy time. He looked around the room again. Wooden crate, coats, and a dead body. That was it. They couldn’t stay here. They’d be like targets in one of the games of chance—a shooting game—that used to be so popular out on the midway. They had to run for it. But that meant running right into either Chet or Iron Mike. Alone, Stokes thought he might have had a chance. He might have been able to run fast enough to keep whichever bad guy was waiting outside the door he chose from getting a good bead on him before he disappeared into the darker recesses of the amusement park. But with Amanda in tow, he didn’t think much of his chances. Or hers.
The sirens were getting closer, which was good because the cops were on their way, but bad because Chet and Iron Mike wouldn’t be able to wait any longer. Any second they’d burst in through separate doors, emptying their guns as they came. So Stokes couldn’t wait any longer, either. He had to do something, and he had to do it now.
Seconds later, stokes exploded through one of the doors and into the night, gun in hand. “Stay still,” he said to the coat-wrapped bundle slung over his left shoulder.
The shot came from his right, and he could practically feel the heat from the bullet as it sizzled just in front of his face. He half turned as he ran and squeezed off two blind shots to buy time, then pumped his legs as hard as he could. The wound in his thigh hurt like a son of a bitch, and more than once he nearly collapsed, but he kept running, issuing a loud and steady stream of instructions over his shoulder as he did, things like “Don’t cry,” “Keep your head down,” “You gotta stop squirming.” He also said soothing things like “You’ll be OK” and “We’ll get out of this.” He heard two more shots, but neither found its mark, and soon he was half running, half hobbling through the park, stumbling through the tall grass and weeds, fighting the growth that had taken over the grounds.
He heard shouts behind him and the sounds of pursuit. He never stopped speaking, never ceased his flow of comforting words. And he never stopped running. Still, they were gaining. But the sirens were getting closer, too, much closer. One way or another, this was going to be over soon.
Stokes was starting to feel light-headed as he loped past rusted rides and badly listing booths. To his left loomed a huge structure. The roller coaster, still standing after all these years. Trees and vines had grown up, through, and around its metal girders, like giant snakes twisting through the bones of a dinosaur skeleton.
Stokes’s encouraging words had sunk to a whisper. His little burden, so light before, felt heavy now. As did his legs. He was getting dizzy. It was the blood loss, he knew, accelerated by his mad, shambling run across the park. Stokes looked down as he stumbled along. The front of his shirt was soaked with blood. His pant leg was dark crimson.
The dizziness grew worse. The moonlight-draped landscape of the park became ringed in deep black as he lost the edges of his vision to darkness.
The pursuit behind him wa
s getting much closer. The sirens sounded as though they might have been in the old gravel lot in front of the park.
Stokes limped on. His head became lighter, his thoughts more jumbled. He no longer knew where he was running and had but a tenuous memory of who was chasing him. A shot rang out from behind, then another. Stokes thought he might have felt an impact.
Please, God, no.
“Amanda,” he mumbled. “Are you hurt? Did they hit you?”
No answer.
Another shot.
“Amanda,” he cried, “answer me.”
Silence.
Jesus Christ. Nothing to do but keep running. He was trying to buy time for them both, time for the cops to arrive and save them. Had Ellie been hit? Had she . . . ? No, not Ellie, that wasn’t right. It was . . . Amanda. Yeah, that was it, Amanda. Stokes prayed she hadn’t been struck by one of the bad guys’ bullets. His dimming vision blurred, and he was surprised to realize that tears had come to his eyes. He couldn’t think clearly. Had the girl been hit? She wasn’t moving a muscle. If only he’d run faster. If only he’d carried her in front of him in both his arms instead of over his shoulder, leaving her more exposed.
Just hold on, Ellie. I’ve got you. The cops will be here soon. Just hold on.
He no longer knew whether he was speaking aloud or whether the words were in his head.
The darkness on the edges of his eyes was spreading inward, shrinking the tunnel of his vision with every step. Then, not far ahead, in the center of his sight, he saw the mouth of an artificial tunnel and the yawning darkness beyond it, a darkness that could provide cover, buy them the last bit of time they needed. He stumbled toward the ruins of Miner’s Run, a broken-down thrill ride in which park patrons sat in old-fashioned mining cars and raced on tracks through nearly total darkness. Stokes sought that darkness now. The footsteps behind him were faster than his, and very close now. Another shot ripped the night.
“We’re almost there,” he whispered aloud.
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