by Diane Hester
‘What do you think they’ll do if they catch us?’
‘The police?’ She laughed. ‘Arrest me.’
‘You? What for?’
‘They’ll go to the cabin, find the dead men and figure I killed them. And they’d be right.’
‘But they came after us!’
‘Oh, we’ll tell them that, but it won’t make any difference. They’ll ask a lot of questions, write down all sorts of information, then walk away and leave us to fend for ourselves.’
Zack didn’t speak. She sounded both frightened and angry now, and what she’d said seemed a bit mixed up.
‘We’ll describe what happened over and over till we can’t bear it any more. We’ll tell them what they looked like – their scars, their eyes, the clothes they were wearing – and still they’ll do nothing. They’ll say they can’t find them. And even if they did they couldn’t arrest them. Not enough evidence. No other witnesses.’
Zack sat gaping. What was she talking about? ‘Can’t find who?’
She turned so sharply it made him jump. ‘Them, Jesse. Don’t you remember? Fish Hook. Puppet. Those monsters. Those –’
He shrank into the blanket. The way she was staring at him – scared and angry yet really confused . . . For the first time he was actually a little afraid of her.
Slowly she reached her hand towards his face, as though touching him would help her understand something. He let her fingertips trail down his cheek, but her look of bewilderment didn’t fade.
The driver’s door opened and Chase got in.
Chapter 62
‘You still want to do this?’ Chase said, pulling his seatbelt across him.
Her face turned away from him, Shyler nodded.
‘You all right?’
‘Drive.’ She waved her hand.
Chase pulled out in the direction she’d indicated. He tried to drive as though nothing was wrong. As though bile wasn’t oozing up the back of his throat, his chest not tight.
He was grateful that whatever had happened in his absence was keeping Shyler staring out her window. So far she and Jesse had been so preoccupied, neither had noticed the car that had emerged from the lane behind them and was now following at a cautious distance.
Despite this good fortune he still fought doubts. Could he go through with this? What would happen if he just kept driving? Would the others stay with them? Would they force a confrontation in some later setting where the outcome might not prove as safe?
He took a deep breath and blew it out again. For better or worse he was committed. He cleared the next bend, eased the right tyres into a rut and began to slow down.
Shyler straightened. ‘Why are we slowing?’
‘Flat tyre.’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘Can’t you feel it?’ The rut was doing a passable job of creating vibration but she wasn’t convinced.
He pulled to a stop. ‘It’ll just take a minute. I’ll put on the spare and we’ll be on our way.’
She reached out and stopped him turning off the engine. ‘I don’t believe you. There’s nothing wrong.’
‘Shyler, come on. If I drive on it this way it’ll ruin the wheel.’
‘Someone’s coming!’
At the boy’s frightened words, Shyler looked back.
As Chase had planned, the bend had obscured the Jaguar’s approach so it swung into view only thirty yards behind them. It started slowing down at once.
‘Get us out of here.’
‘Shyler, relax. They probably just want to give us a hand.’
She pressed the barrel of the gun to his knee. ‘I said get going.’
‘Hey now, careful. I can’t drive with a shattered kneecap.’
Composure fading, Chase reached down and grabbed the rifle. If he could keep holding on to it he just might prevent anyone getting hurt.
‘It’s them! It’s them!’ The boy began pounding the back of his seat, voice shrill with panic. Had he spotted the social worker in the other car? His fear seemed a bit excessive for that.
‘Jesse, get down!’ Shyler shouted, trying to wrench the rifle free.
Chase held on to it. ‘Shyler, no!’
As they struggled, he looked in the rear-view mirror. The Jaguar hadn’t veered over yet. He’d expected them to pull up behind him; instead, they seemed headed to come alongside. That and the speed at which they were approaching suddenly seemed odd. But disquiet turned to panic when, three car lengths back, he saw what protruded from the passenger window.
‘On the floor!’ He let go of the rifle and pushed Shyler down, then threw the Land Rover into reverse.
‘Hang on!’ he yelled but his words were drowned by the rear side window exploding inward. Glass and bullets showered the cab, taking out the window on the other side. He stomped on the gas.
Shyler, who’d raised her rifle to fire, fell against the dash when the Rover shot backwards. Chase caught a split-second glimpse of a man staring in at him as the Jag swept past in the other direction.
Reversing full speed, he weaved side to side, hoping to avoid the fire flying from the man’s automatic. A few of the bullets still found their mark, sparking off his hood and cracking the windshield. When the Jag finally slowed and started a U-turn Chase slammed the brakes and did the same.
The instant they were racing forward again Shyler dropped the rifle and scrabbled around to look over the seat.
Chase gripped the wheel, knowing it wasn’t the Jag she was checking on. ‘Is he all right?’
She didn’t answer.
Chapter 63
‘Is he all right?’ Chase repeated.
‘Yes, he’s okay! No thanks to you!’ Shyler turned and hunched down in her seat. ‘Why didn’t you listen to me? Why did you just sit there when –’
She cut off abruptly, her expression one of dawning realisation.
‘Your car’s driving fine. There’s no flat tyre.’ Her mouth dropped open. ‘You stopped deliberately to let them catch us!’
Chase checked in the rear-view mirror. The Jag had halved the distance between them. He rammed the Land Rover into third and stamped on the accelerator. ‘One of them approached me in the store, said she was a social worker, the other a cop. What could I do?’
‘So you just went along with them? What, did they offer you a reward or something?’
A volley of bullets strafed the car, the last one taking out Chase’s side mirror. ‘Can we discuss this later? Right now I’d like to get us out of this.’
Shyler looked out at the woods speeding by. ‘We’re headed back to town.’
‘If you have a better idea I’m listening.’
‘Oh, now you’re listening!’
The Jag was looming like a semi in his mirror. ‘One thing’s for sure, we can’t outrun them. Not in this heap.’
At the sight of the track coming up on their right her eyes grew wide. ‘No, but maybe we can go where they can’t. Turn in here!’
Chase fought the wheel as the Rover threatened to reject the sharp turn. Three heartbeats later they were bumping through pines over a rough, barely discernible track.
‘Shyler, this is a logger’s trail.’
‘How does this thing handle water?’
He turned to her. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Your Rover! How does it cope with streams?’
Chase felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach. ‘How deep are we talking?’
‘No idea.’
The flutter became a full-blown migration.
Zack slammed against the Land Rover’s door as they took a hard turn. His ears were ringing, heart pounding like a blue-light disco. Tragg had found them. They were dead for sure.
Spitting out crumbs of broken glass, he straightened on the seat. He couldn’t believe it. The doctor had actually ratted them out. After all his talk about wanting to help he’d gone and made a deal to hand them over. Zack glared daggers at the back of the man’s head. The only good thing was tha
t he would now cop the same thing they did.
The car dropped into what felt like a crater, nearly throwing him off the seat. Where the hell were they? He stuck his head up and took a peek.
The road they’d been on had disappeared, replaced by a narrow trail winding through trees. Skidding around another turn, a huge fallen branch came into view, angled, half-propped, across their path.
Chase never slowed. He swerved left, aiming for the gap with the greatest clearance.
Zack clutched the seat. Still too low – they’d never make it!
Metal screeched as the branch scraped the roof. The Rover caught briefly, tyres churning, then lurched free.
Shyler spun round. ‘They’ve dropped back a bit. At least they’ve stopped shooting.’
‘They’re still coming, though.’ Chase fought the wheel through another tight turn. ‘All this has done is buy us some time.’
‘Trust me. Just a little bit further.’
They burst from the trees into blinding sunlight. On either side the hills were bare, scalped to a stubble of foot-high stumps. Zack shielded his eyes from the glare. It looked like a buzz cut on a giant’s head. And they were the fleas.
The track ahead wound down and left, disappearing behind a slight rise. The stretch in between was fully exposed. If Tragg cleared the forest while they were still on it . . .
Bullets glanced off the Land Rover’s roof.
Chase hit the gas. They flew down the slope, took the turn and were briefly airborne when the track bottomed out.
Zack’s eyes widened at what stretched before them.
‘Chase, slow down!’ was the last thing he heard before the Rover plunged over the bank of the stream.
Chapter 64
The wave from their impact sluiced away and Shyler peered out through the clearing windshield. Luckily Chase had braked in time to avoid hitting the boulder at the stream’s edge. Steering around it, he started slowly forward again.
She looked both ways, trying to judge the best path across. Along their shore grey-green water churned between shelves and islands of granite, some large enough for shrubs and saplings to have taken root. But it was the calmer stretches in the middle that worried her. Pockets that gave no indication of what lay beneath.
Chase eyed the water with the same misgivings. ‘How deep is it out there?’
‘I told you, I don’t know.’
‘But you knew it was here. Haven’t –’
‘I’ve canoed along it, never driven across.’
Gunfire from behind them.
‘Guess we’ll find out.’
The instant they cleared the top of the rise, Tragg swore savagely. The trail they’d just driven had been bad enough – rocks and pot holes to knock out his fillings. But a creek? No way could he drive the Jag across that.
Hanging from the window he fired a desperation sweep at the Land Rover. It was already halfway across and nearing the deepest part. Water splashed up over its fenders. It seemed set to reach the far side in seconds. Then suddenly its front end dipped sharply.
Tragg caught his breath. A pot hole. Or better yet, they’d bottomed out. With water now skimming the lip of the windows, another few feet could see them go under. If they started to sink they’d have only two options – stay in and drown, or bail out and swim.
Raising his gun, he took aim at the doors. He’d be ready and waiting the second they opened.
Zack couldn’t tear his gaze from the window. When the first splash of water had hit his face he’d tried to pretend he was just in a car-wash and forgotten to roll the windows up. But with the sharp nosedive the car had just taken that calming image had deserted him.
‘What’s happening? Are we sinking?’
Ignoring him, Shyler leaned towards the dash, trying to see the bottom through the swirling current. ‘Aim for those rocks.’ She pointed ahead.
Chase eased them forward another foot and the Rover’s back end dropped down level with the front.
Water surged against their side, spilling over the top of Zack’s door. He shrieked and scooted across the seat. ‘Water’s coming in!’
‘Jesse, stay calm.’
Calm? Was she kidding? They were going to drown!
Chase kept going. The Land Rover yawed over unseen obstacles, lifting their right side clear of the torrent, the next minute plunging it back again. Icy talons ripped at Zack’s feet.
‘It’s coming in faster! We have to get out!’
Chase spun towards him. ‘Don’t touch that door!’
Zack jerked his hand away. The doc had never raised his voice before. Weird that it would actually make him feel calmer.
For a second anyway.
Till the Rover took another sharp lurch to one side.
Chapter 65
‘That’s it, we’re clear!’ Shyler yelled. ‘Go, go, go!’
Chase hit the gas. Rocks and gravel churned beneath their wheels. With a shudder the tyres caught and they shot upwards onto the opposite bank.
In fighting the current they had drifted slightly, but the trail was there. Just a few yards over, rising through the forest that resumed on this side – a hill thickly timbered in maple, oak, hemlock and pine. Bullets ripped the foliage as they entered its cover and climbed into shade as dense as twilight.
Shyler fell against her seat, took a few breaths, then turned around again.
‘Are they coming?’ Chase said.
‘I don’t think so.’
He slowed and she peered through the criss-crossing branches. ‘They’re turning around. They’re going back.’
When the Rover sped on she gazed down at Jesse. Her heart tightened. He was trying so hard to be brave but his eyes were wide, his face so pale. She reached out her hand. ‘How are you going?’
Jesse took hold of her but for a moment he seemed unable to speak. Then he swallowed and managed a feeble smile. ‘Just a little wet is all.’ He nodded at the water sloshing against his seat.
‘What about the windows, the broken glass? You weren’t cut?’
He shook his head.
‘We’ll stop in a minute and see if we can clean things up for you back there.’ She squeezed his hand and let it go.
‘You want to stop?’ Chase whispered disbelievingly the moment she was facing front again. ‘It’s safety glass. It’s not going to cut him.’
‘He’s wet. With all that cold air blowing in on him –’
‘All right. When we get to the top of this hill. But just for a second.’
Ten minutes later, standing on a bend where the trail levelled out, Shyler wished she had chosen not to stop. ‘Why won’t it start?’
Chase straightened from under the hood and swept the damp hair off his face. ‘Take your pick. Either we were hit or something got wet that shouldn’t have.’
‘Can’t you fix it?’
‘Fix it? I don’t even know what’s wrong.’
‘He’s lying,’ Zack said from where he sat drying his shoes in the sun. ‘He wants us to sit here, he wants us to get caught.’
Chase sighed. ‘I can understand why you would think that but it isn’t true.’
Cradling the rifle, Shyler scanned the sky. There were maybe six hours of daylight left. To their right the trail wound back to the road. On their left a rocky ridge cut a break through the trees leading down and away towards the next stand of pine.
‘We better get moving.’ She started around the back of the car.
Chase walked after her as far as the driver’s door. ‘You mean on foot?’
‘That’s just what I mean.’
‘Moving where?’
‘That way.’ She pointed along the ridge.
Frowning, he surveyed the rugged terrain then turned in the direction they’d been driving. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to keep following the trail?’
‘Right now our friends are checking a map to see where that leads. They’ll go out the way they came, swing around and try to cut us off. In the Rover we might’v
e beaten them out. On foot we’d simply be walking straight into them.’
Shyler reached through the broken rear window, grabbed the knapsack and started back. When she reached him she stopped, staring in silence into the face of the man who had nearly killed them.
She could almost have forgiven him for calling the police. If she’d been certain he’d done it out of concern for their safety. But this second betrayal, to the monsters who wanted Jesse dead . . . He claimed they’d lied about who they were. Could she believe that?
Chase held her gaze. ‘So who were those people?’
She didn’t answer. If she started to explain she just might forget how much she still needed him. How much she still . . . For an instant tears stung her eyes. God help her, she’d wanted so much to believe –
‘You know it isn’t only your lives at risk any more,’ he said. ‘They’re after me now, too. Doesn’t that give me the right to know what’s going on?’
She slung the knapsack onto her back. ‘I’ll take this. You carry Jesse.’
At hearing her words, Zack jumped up. ‘No way! I’m not letting him carry me!’
Shyler stepped towards him and touched his face. ‘You’re not strong enough to be walking yet and we have a long way to go.’ When he still seemed reluctant she tousled his hair. ‘Just pretend you’re riding a horse.’
Zack’s mouth twitched as he looked up at Chase. ‘Not a horse, a donkey. A big, dumb ass.’
Chapter 66
The ridge top afforded a spectacular view of the stream they’d just crossed, the forests beyond and a range of pine-covered hills rolling into the distance to their left. Most impressive were the rocky escarpments jutting from the mountain directly ahead. With clear autumn sunlight warming their faces, they headed for the woods on the clearing’s far side.
Chase plodded on, unmoved by the scene. He was too aware of the hostility radiating from the child on his back. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he spoke over his shoulder, ‘I know you won’t believe this but I’m truly sorry I helped those people.’