by Meg Gardiner
“So?”
“In any five-minute span, Kanan’s memory is wiped clean. I’m telling you, she’s going to turn on you. This whole setup is wrong.”
Murdock’s cell phone rang. He answered it with annoyance in his voice.
“What?” He frowned and sucked his teeth, staring out the windshield at the pickup. He shrugged. “Sure.”
Hanging up, he turned to Vance. “Watch them.”
Murdock set his phone on the dashboard and got out of the Tahoe. He stepped clear of the door, raised a hand, and waved.
Riva dropped Misty’s necklace and wedding ring into Kanan’s palm. The gold felt warm, tainted. He heard, as if through thick walls, Riva on the phone. He looked at her face.
She had been beaten. Her lip was split, her face puffy, and she had a blistered red welt on the side of her forehead that looked like the imprint of an iron. She put the phone away. She was shaking with rage and pain.
“What happened to you?” he said.
“I escaped from the kidnappers. Seth and Misty didn’t. The police found their bodies,” she said. “They were beaten to death. Misty was raped.”
The truck, his vision, went white.
“The cops got to their hideout. Misty and Seth were already dead,” she said. “But the kidnappers don’t know that they’ve been discovered. They still think you’re going to hand over the sample of Slick.”
“It’s not true,” he said, but without any volition whatsoever, a great cry rolled through him and erupted. He grabbed his head and fell against the window.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see.
“Ian,” she said.
He couldn’t open his eyes. She grabbed him around the neck with her soft hot fingers.
“Ian, that’s him.”
She hit the high beams. He forced himself to look. Up the road, a man was standing next to the Tahoe. Door open, fully exposed. He raised his arm in acknowledgement.
“Two kidnappers,” Riva said. “Man and a woman. You suspected a woman all along, and you were right.”
He closed his fist around Misty’s ring and necklace.
“Ian.” Riva looked like she was about to crack—like she’d had more than she could take. “I’m with you. Whatever you do. However far you need to take it. But we have to do it now.”
The rifle was behind the seats.
“Take the wheel,” he said.
37
Jo kept Murdock in her peripheral vision. He stood next to the Tahoe, signaling to Calder.
The pickup’s high beams drilled the street. Behind the wall of white light she thought she saw a shadow stretch from the sunroof of the pickup.
“Oh, hell—”
Murdock pitched backward as though he’d been slammed in the chest with a wrecking ball. The report came as a crack in the air. Murdock fell and lay splayed on the ground with a dark wet stain spreading across his chest.
Aorta, or straight into a ventricle.
“Jesus.” Jo ducked.
The next noise sounded like a marble hitting the windshield at the speed of sound. A small clean hole punched through the glass.
“Hell’s happening?” Vance tried to open the back door but the childproof lock stopped him. “Murdock, what’s—”
Crack, another bullet pierced the windshield. It hit the empty passenger seat. Glass dust and upholstery fragments blew around the interior.
“They’re shooting at us. Vance, put the car in gear,” Jo yelled.
His face stretched with panic. “What?”
“Shooting. Put it in gear. Do it.”
The pickup roared toward them, eating up the distance down the wide avenue. Another report pinged off the Tahoe’s frame. Vance cringed. His face bleached white in the glare of the onrushing headlights.
“Vance!”
Whimpering, he fumbled for the gearshift. Jo yelled, “Come on.”
He yanked the gearshift into reverse and cringed to the floor in the back seat.
Jo floored it.
Crack. A hole powdered the windshield. Vance whimpered. In the mirror, Jo saw Misty work her hands under her butt and pull the gag from her mouth.
“Riva’s shooting at us?” Misty shouted.
No, your husband is. Jo hunkered down. She needed speed, needed to put distance between her and the shooter, and would never do that in reverse.
She slammed on the brakes. “Put it in drive.”
They squealed to a stop. Vance’s arm flailed for the gearshift. Got it. The SUV jerked into drive.
Jo aimed straight at the headlights. Pedal to the firewall. She ducked low and heard a plea in the base of her throat that was mostly terror and some freakish kind of prayer. Outta my way, motherfucker.
“What are you doing?” Misty said.
Two hundred yards. One fifty. A hundred.
Above her head, the Tahoe’s sunroof shattered. Glass sprayed across the inside of the vehicle. She held the wheel straight.
Airbag wasn’t going to protect her below the chest. Her donor card was current.
“Run away!” Vance shrieked.
Fifty yards. She was committed. The high beams were right in her face.
The pickup swerved.
Bam, a hard noise reverberated through the Tahoe. The pickup had clipped the Tahoe’s wing mirror clean off. In the rearview mirror, Jo saw the pickup veer, overcorrect, and bounce over the curb onto the lawn of an office building. In the far back of the Tahoe she saw Misty bent over Seth, working somehow to free him from the plastic handcuffs.
The pickup’s brake lights came on. It fishtailed, kicked up clods of grass, and turned a doughnut on the lawn. Jo saw the dark shape of a man standing on the truck’s passenger seat and bracing himself against the sunroof, and he had to have a hell of a big gun. She kept her foot to the floor.
“What’s going on?” Misty cried.
“Fuck, oh, fuck oh fuck it fuck it . . .,” Vance moaned. “What’s happening?”
“Riva’s trying to goddamned kill us. Cut me loose from the cuffs.”
Misty cried, “Seth, stay down.”
Jo sped south along Coleman. She needed to get to a populated place. She needed a police station. She needed a battle tank and a Stinger missile.
“Call Riva,” Vance cried from the floor. “Tell her to stop.”
“She won’t. We have to get away. Cut me loose.”
In the mirror the pickup’s high beams swung around and centered on her again.
Kanan stood on the seat and braced himself against the frame of the sunroof. Riva swerved back into the road and headed south after the fleeing Tahoe. The rifle was steady in his arms.
One down.
One to go. A woman was at the wheel. He couldn’t see her from this angle, but he was sure he’d spotted long dark hair, a pale face. Somebody determined to kill them, playing chicken, racing straight at them. No question about it.
The wind raked his face. He squinted at the Tahoe. The pickup’s headlights reflected off the tinted glass in its tailgate. He saw movement inside. A person?
“Riva,” he yelled, “you sure it’s just two?”
“Ian, take your shot.”
He bent down and shouted into the pickup. “Is somebody in the back of the Tahoe?”
“No.”
“You’re sure—”
“Misty and Seth are dead. Shoot.”
She was practically screaming. He straightened. Through the wind and the night, he raised his weapon.
Jo raced through a red light. Trees and office buildings swept past under the streetlights.
Vance shouted, “Call Riva and tell her to stop this. Negotiate.”
Talk about denial. “I can’t reach the phone. Cut me loose.”
“How’d she get such good aim?”
“She has a shooter. Cut me loose.”
Misty said, “Seth, keep your head low.”
Seth piped in. “Who’s shooting? Is Murdock . . . is he . . . where’s Dad?”
&n
bsp; Jo said, “Vance, help me or we’ll all die.”
The hard marble sound slapped through the Tahoe again.
Vance screamed. “It’s Kanan, isn’t it? He’s got a gun and he’s—Riva warned us about him and . . . ohh, God.”
“It’s Ian? Are you nuts?” Misty said.
How nuts, and what kind? “The live kind, and pray we stay that way,” Jo said.
Above the trees in the sky ahead, a descending jetliner approached the airport perimeter fence, landing lights blazing. More jets were lined up on approach behind it.
Seth said, “Why is Dad shooting at us?”
Jo knew why. “He doesn’t know you’re in the car.”
“He’s shooting at us?” Seth said.
“He knows you’ve been kidnapped. He’s trying to rescue you.”
Misty gaped at Jo, her mouth slowly opening.
Seth said, “I knew Dad would come and get us.”
Kanan would never deliberately harm his family. If Jo was certain of anything, it was that. He would put himself on the line for his wife and son. He would kill to defend them.
And he wouldn’t riddle their kidnappers with bullets before they told him where his family was. He might kill them, though, if he thought his family had been rescued.
She was never going to outrun Kanan. She might outrun the pickup, but not a high-powered rifle. Through trees and industrial buildings she saw the runways and the blazing lights of the airport’s commercial terminals. At the airport were armed San Jose cops and maybe some quick-witted young national guardsmen standing watch. She had to get there.
“Misty. What did Ian do in the army?”
Jo glanced in the mirror. Misty was lying low, trying to hold Seth below the tailgate window.
Her eyes were flinty. “He was a scout sniper.”
He definitely might kill the kidnappers if he thought his family had been rescued.
Voice rising, Misty cried, “Seth, keep down.”
With a splintering, liquid crack, a bullet hit the back window.
38
The marble sound spit through the Tahoe. The plastic around the stereo splintered, sprayed, and hit Jo’s right arm. She flinched but couldn’t pull her hands from the wheel.
She was a target in a shooting gallery. Let’s play cowboys and psychiatrists.
From the floor behind her came a dribble of curses, Vance’s sniveling plea to a stunted and foul little god. When the dust flew through the vehicle, he screamed.
His arm came up, waving his pistol. “Drive faster, bitch.”
“Then cut me loose,” Jo shouted again.
She raced down Coleman and burned past another car. Maybe they’d call 911. But even if they did, and even if the police responded within a minute, a bullet needed only a second to do its work.
Like a berserk rat, Vance scrambled into the front passenger seat and grabbed for the door handle. His jeans were falling down on his skinny butt. He clawed at the handle. Got it open. The wind rushed in. Then, with a piggy squeal, he launched himself out, kicking off the driver’s seat like a swimmer off the blocks, clouting Jo in the face with his shoe.
Her head snapped sideways. Stars flared in her eyes. The Tahoe’s back wheels rolled over an obstacle. It felt like hitting a log, or Snoop Clodd.
Misty clambered into the front passenger seat. In her right hand she held a pair of scissors. The blades were long, sharp, and bloody.
“You stabbed him?” Jo said.
“In the ass.”
Affection bubbled in Jo’s chest. “Please, be my best friend.”
Hunching low, Misty reached across the car with the scissors and tried to cut the zip ties that bound Jo to the steering wheel.
“Hold still,” she said.
“Fat chance.”
The Tahoe had power but steered like a fridge-freezer. The shears veered back and forth, dagger points swinging near her wrist.
“Don’t watch me, watch the road,” Misty said.
“Mom warned me about driving with scissors.”
“I’m a nurse. If I slit your wrist, I’ll stick on a Little Mermaid Band-Aid and give you a lollipop.”
“I’m a shrink. If you slit my wrist, I’ll have to section myself.”
Calder’s headlights swelled in the rearview mirror, blinding white.
“We have to get to the airport main terminal and surround ourselves with cops,” Jo said.
“Freeway. Eight-eighty, entrance is up ahead.”
Jo could see the overpass a quarter-mile down the road. From there, getting to the main terminals by freeway would take five minutes.
“No time.”
Ahead she saw one of the side streets that led to the private aviation terminals. She slammed on the brakes and slid around the corner. Misty lurched against the dashboard.
“Sorry.”
Jo didn’t know she could push her foot so hard against the gas pedal. She didn’t know if they were going to make it. She boomed past a darkened business park. Misty jammed the scissors under the zip tie around Jo’s right wrist, squeezed the grip with both hands, and snapped the plastic.
The gate to the airfield lay dead ahead at the end of the street.
She held the wheel steady. “Scissors.”
Misty handed them to her.
“Murdock put his phone on the dash. Look on the floor,” Jo said.
Driving with her left hand, Jo worked the blades around the plastic cuff and snapped it. Misty fumbled around and came up with the phone. Peripherally Jo saw her squinting at the display, dialing a number. She was near tears. Ducking low, Misty put the phone to her ear and peered around the seat to look out the back window.
“Ian’s not answering.”
In the rearview mirror Jo saw the pickup take the turn onto the side road badly. It overcorrected and ran toward the curb, splashing water from the gutter. Kanan had a rifle in his arms.
“Seth, you okay?” Misty called.
No answer.
Misty raised her head. “Seth?”
“Mom . . . I’m hurt.”
“Jesus.” Misty scrambled between the seats and dived into the far back.
Jo looked at the speedometer. She was going eighty-five. Her eyes jinked to the mirror, trying to see the boy. All she saw, through a back window peppered with bullet holes, were Calder’s headlights.
She looked ahead. The Tahoe swallowed ground, speeding toward the airfield gate. Beyond it were the cherry-red lights of the airfield.
Okay, now. “Hang on.”
She braced herself. The gate was a simple swing-arm, painted red and white, with a control pad on the driver’s side to swipe the field pass. She didn’t know if it was wood or steel, whether it would splinter when she hit it or come through the windshield at sixty-five miles per hour.
She hit it going ninety. Metal shrieked. The gate clanged out of her way, flinging sparks like a sharpening wheel, and she drove onto the airfield apron.
“Is Seth hit?” she said.
Misty’s voice came back, screwed down tight. “Shoulder, through and through.”
Jo hurtled past a corporate aviation terminal, plush and brightly lit. Its plate-glass windows overlooked the runways, but she couldn’t see anybody moving around inside. She drove past parked cars and past parked single-engine planes.
Surely Calder wouldn’t follow her. She couldn’t. Even she wasn’t crazy enough to conduct a running gun battle on an active runway at a major metropolitan airport. Jo looked in the mirror.
Kanan saw the Tahoe smash aside the airfield gate like it was a spatula. He held on to the rifle and braced against the sunroof. He felt the pickup slow.
He leaned down and looked at Riva. “Follow them.”
She looked up in shock. “No.”
“Go, damn it.”
“Out onto the airfield? That’s insane.”
Why was she looking at him like that? Why did she suddenly seem to think everything was screwed? She slowed the truck even further, approa
ching the broken gate, and looked around.
In the distance, on the tarmac outside a private hangar, he saw the Chira-Sayf corporate jet. The stairs were down, the lights on. It was being prepped for a flight.
He reached behind his back and pulled out the HK pistol jammed in the waistband of his jeans. Left-handed, he aimed it down at Riva’s head.
“The people who killed my family are not getting away. Drive.”
Staring in the rearview mirror, Jo willed the headlights of the pickup to turn around and disappear. The truck was falling behind. It hadn’t come through the gate onto the airfield.
With a burst of speed, it accelerated.
“God, they’re following,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”
Kanan wouldn’t so recklessly chase people he thought had kidnapped his family, even if he thought they were close to getting away, would he?
No. He would chase people he thought had killed his family.
He would kill them. He would lose himself to avenge Seth and Misty. He would go crazy.
She raced past hangars and private jets along the apron. Obviously, pitifully, there was no security on this side of the airport. She swept by the Chira-Sayf jet. In the distance, across the taxiway, beyond the dark slash of the active runways, were the commercial terminals.
She checked the mirror again. Calder was behind her on the apron and gaining.
Saturday they die. But Ian Kanan had lost the ability to know what day it was.
“Misty, he thinks you’re dead.”
“Oh, God,” Misty said. “We have to do something.”
The airfield was a void between the Tahoe and safety. The runways were more than two miles long. The terminals were almost half a mile away. Attempting to cross to them would knock How nuts? out of the park.
The white landing lights of a descending airliner lit the sky. The jet screamed over the runway threshold and touched down. It roared past at well over a hundred miles per hour, thrust reversers roaring.
Behind her, the headlights of the pickup brightened. She inhaled. Throwing the wheel, she cut across an access ramp and toward the west runway.