There were other sounds. Wet, crackling noises like when a tree branch snapped in a rainstorm, the same kind of awful splintery sound. She knew it was Mr. Farris’s bones breaking. Many bones, each one broken slowly, with an artist’s exquisite touch. Finally, he told Swann the answer. Something about having a man follow him and, later, breaking into Swann’s room to tamper with his computer.
Swann must have been satisfied with the answer. He said only, “Then it was my fault. I shouldn’t have let your man tail me. Mea fucking culpa.”
After that, he let Mr. Farris die.
Then there was silence, and somehow the silence was worse than the sounds had been. From another part of the church she heard Swann talking in low, urgent tones. Talking to himself, probably. Why not? He was a fucking psychopath.
And suddenly, he was back, pulling her out of the confessional, dragging her past the twisted body on the floor. She noticed he didn’t take the computer, just left it behind. Probably, he didn’t trust it anymore because of what Mr. Farris had said.
He’d forced her out of the church and into his car—a big old Lincoln, a relic from before she was born—and now they were going somewhere else, a new hiding place where the nightmare could go on.
But it couldn’t go on. She couldn’t take any more of it. She kept hearing those groans and those snapping bones and Mr. Farris’s hoarse, whispery voice when he got the words out at last. The voice of a dead man. A corpse’s voice.
And the thought came to her very simply and clearly: That’s how he’ll do me.
With that thought, her fear seemed to recede into an insignificant corner of her mind, and she was suddenly calm. Her head cleared, her heart slowed, and she knew without doubt that she could not stay in this car, could not let him take her to another prison.
Swann was pushing the Lincoln in a straight shot down a long urban corridor lined with strip malls and sickly, graffiti-scarred palm trees. There was almost nobody on the road and Swann was moving fast, his fists clutching the wheel, the knuckles squeezed white. His head was thrust forward in profile, his jaw set hard, a muscle in his cheek twitching. He hadn’t spoken a word to her. He seemed barely aware that she was even there.
She wasn’t belted to her seat and her door wasn’t locked. She could pull the handle and throw it open and fling herself out onto the street rushing past. It might kill her, but it might not. If she hit the asphalt just right, rolled just right, she might survive. It was a chance, anyway. By the time he realized what she’d done, she could be running down an alley, hiding in shadows, free.
There were fewer strip malls with every passing block, and more boxy, windowless buildings. Warehouses or something. An industrial area, deserted, lifeless. She’d never been here, had never seen this part of LA, had scarcely known that places like this existed. For her, LA was the clubs and the backlots and Melrose and Malibu, not scuzzy brick buildings with signs reading Bronson Machine Parts and Central Produce Suppliers.
No traffic, and no one on foot, no one anywhere. She and Swann were alone in the world and there was no help for her. But she could help herself.
She slid her right hand toward the car door. How fast were they going? At least forty-five. Too fast. But he had to slow down sometime. And when he did—
“Shit,” Swann muttered.
She glanced at him. His gaze was fixed on the rearview mirror.
Looking behind her, she saw a car moving up fast.
Swann reached for his gun, and why would he do that unless the other car meant trouble?
Someone chasing them. A rescuer.
He was turning in his seat, poised to lean out the open window on the driver’s side and take a shot at his pursuer. He had murdered Mr. Farris and now he would murder her last hope and then he would murder her.
Chelsea threw herself across the front seat and spun the steering wheel hard to the right.
——
Kate caught up with the Lincoln as it crossed Hoover, heading into Pico-Union. Swann had stayed on Seventh, and his car was distinctive enough to stand out on the lonely streets.
She came up on her quarry too fast, tried at the last moment to slow down before he spotted her…
Too late. He’d seen her. She knew he had.
She was trying to decide on her next move when she saw a flicker of movement in the Lincoln’s front compartment, a struggle, and the car went sideways, hopping the curb.
Chelsea was fighting him, fighting for control of the car.
Kate didn’t think about what she did next. It was instinct.
She punched the gas and closed the gap with the Lincoln, and just as her quarry skidded back onto the street, she rammed it hard, sinking the Jag’s front end into the bigger car’s side panel, throwing up pinwheels of sparks.
Through the Lincoln’s window, she glimpsed Swann, his face a knot of rage.
He shoved Chelsea away and plowed the wheel hard to the left, trying to use the Lincoln’s greater mass to force her back.
Kate bore down harder, the Jag nosing deeper into the Lincoln’s side, crunching metal like a shark crunching bone. Her car was smaller, but she had momentum and the engine’s power on her side, and she forced the Lincoln up onto the curb again and then the Lincoln was on the sidewalk, bumping raggedly as she forced it to slow down.
Swann manhandled the wheel to his right, ripping free of the Jag.
A mistake.
The Lincoln was abruptly angled away from the street, hurtling toward a wall of brick that reared up out of the dark.
It was the windowless facade of a warehouse, and Swann hit it head-on at thirty miles an hour.
Kate spun away to the right and slammed to a stop before the same building.
She turned in her seat and saw the Town Car wrecked against the wall, the long, rectangular hood crumpled like a sheet of paper, the windshield deformed, crumbs of safety glass everywhere, the horn sounding long and monotonous and then cutting off.
The car was still. Too still. No movement inside.
Chelsea…
Kate threw open the door of the Jag and staggered out, just as the Lincoln’s passenger door flew wide.
Chelsea stumbled into view, dazed, unaware of her surroundings, until she saw Kate. Her face lit up, amazement and gratitude and relief all competing for expression, and suddenly, she was running to Kate, reaching her, wrapping her in a deep hug while her slight body shook with hiccupping sobs.
“You…” she said in a choked voice. “You…you…”
You came for me. That was what she wanted to say. Kate heard the unspoken words and held her tight.
“It’s all right now,” she whispered. “It’s all right.”
But it wasn’t.
The Lincoln opened up on the driver’s side, and there was Swann, looming huge, his face bloodied, his arm rising.
Kate knew that movement, knew he had a gun in his hand and was about to fire.
She tore herself free of Chelsea and shoved the girl into the parking lot next to the building and screamed, “Run!”
Chelsea glanced back and saw Swann, and she let out another sob, a strangled sound.
The gun boomed in Swann’s hand, but Kate was already running with Chelsea, the two of them sprinting side by side past empty parking spaces.
She drew her Glock as she ran. There was no cover anywhere. If the lot was fenced in, she would have to turn and fight.
She didn’t want a shootout. She wanted to find a safe place to hide, a place where Swann couldn’t find them.
When she looked back, she saw him enter the lot, but he was moving slowly, injured, limping. He couldn’t catch them. They had a chance at a clean escape if the lot offered a way out.
It did. An opening ahead led them into a wide alley that paralleled Seventh. They plunged down the alley, running east, past dump bins and piles of industrial trash, and emerged on the sidewalk of a smaller side street, a mix of commercial and residential structures.
“Is he…?” Chels
ea gasped.
“He’s still behind us.” Kate knew it without looking. Swann had been slowed by his injuries, but he hadn’t been stopped.
She scanned the street. A few doors down was a long-faded apartment complex sagging under a sign that read Palm Shores. There were neither palms nor shores in evidence, but there was a light in one of the ground-floor windows and a small, curious face peeping out.
“Come on.” Kate ran to the door and battered at it. “Let us in, please let us in!”
She threw quick glances over her shoulder, knowing Swann would emerge from the alley at any moment, and then they would be caught in the open. She would have to gun him down, if she could. If she could hit him before he got her…
The door opened, an old, tiny, dark-complected man gaping at them, and Kate rushed out a thank-you and pushed Chelsea inside, following, slamming the door, locking it, praying Swann hadn’t seen them.
She found the lamp by the window and turned it off, and the three of them waited in the dark, Chelsea slumping against Kate, Kate hugging the wall, and the old man silent, understanding that it was dangerous to speak, to risk being heard.
There was a grandfather clock in the room, and it ticked loudly, each tick like a hard, solid clunk, counting time.
Ten seconds. Thirty.
“I lied to you,” Chelsea whispered suddenly.
“About what?”
“About not caring if I live or die.”
“I think you were lying to yourself,” Kate said gently.
“And you knew it.”
“I’ve told myself the same lie. You and I—we have a lot to talk about.”
“Okay.” A small voice, childish and obedient.
“First we’ll get you to a hospital, call your folks, then—”
A slam against the door and a scream of rage. Swann’s scream.
Chelsea screamed too, as if in sympathy, and Kate hustled her away, yelling to the old man to hide himself, but the man didn’t move. Kate left him, pulling Chelsea into the bedroom.
Make a stand here? No, she wanted Chelsea out of the line of fire. Through the open window, then.
She punched out the screen and hoisted Chelsea over the sill and followed.
They were in another alley, a narrow space between this building and the one next door. From the apartment, they heard the crash of the door and the report of a gun.
The old man, their Good Samaritan—she’d gotten him killed.
Now there was nothing to do but get Chelsea into the clear, then stand and fight.
“Go that way,” Kate ordered, pointing her toward the side street they’d been on before. “Go and flag down a car, do it!”
The girl clung to her, afraid of abandonment, tears still bright on her face.
Ruthlessly, Kate shoved her away. “Go!”
Chelsea broke into a run, heading for the street.
Kate retreated into the shadows of the alley, aiming the Glock at the window, ready to fire when Swann showed his head.
She would have one chance. One glimpse of his face, before he knew she was there. She would have to squeeze the trigger fast, take him out with the first shot. Don’t think about it, just do it. As soon as he showed his face.
But he didn’t.
She counted off thirty long seconds under her breath. Nothing.
She risked emerging from hiding. Approached the window, alert for an ambush.
He could be drawing her near for an easy shot. She could picture it—the gun snaking out of the window, the muzzle in her face, the crash of a report at point-blank range.
Jesus be with me, she thought in reflexive supplication, and she went up to the window and looked in.
The room was empty.
Swann wasn’t there. No one was there.
It didn’t make sense—until Chelsea screamed.
CHELSEA ran out of the alley into the street and looked around helplessly. Flag down a car, Kate had told her, but there were no cars. The neighborhood was deserted, though a few lights in residential windows had flicked on, the occupants awakened by the noise.
She was trying to decide what to do when headlights appeared in the darkness. A Hyundai hatchback had turned onto the street.
Salvation.
She stepped boldly into the middle of the avenue and waved her arms. The Hyundai pulled closer, pinning her in its headlights, and for a moment, she thought the driver might run her down rather than stop.
Then the car eased to a halt and a man leaned out the window on the driver’s side. Chelsea ran to him.
“Please…I need your help.”
He was a middle-aged guy with a squashed nose and sleepy eyes that widened in sudden recognition.
“Holy shit,” he said. “You’re her, aren’t you?”
Though it was incredibly dumb, she couldn’t help feeling pleased to be recognized.
“I’m in real trouble,” she said. “Can you give me a lift? Me and my friend?”
“Sure.” The man looked flabbergasted and stunned, and she knew he would be dining out on this story forever. The night he rescued Chelsea Brewer…
She turned toward the alley, hoping to draw Kate’s attention, and then she screamed.
Swann hadn’t taken the alley. He’d left the apartment through the front door, and he was crossing the street in an ungainly lope, one leg stiff and halting, and the gun was up and Chelsea jumped away from the car as Swann fired and fired and fired…
He must have hit her, couldn’t have missed, but she wasn’t bleeding, wasn’t wounded. She didn’t understand until she looked at the driver, the guy who’d recognized her, and saw him shaking in his seat, a bloody mass, his face half gone and red bubbles boiling out of his open mouth.
Then Swann was beside her, throwing her to her knees on the pavement, kicking her so she stayed down, and he hauled the half-conscious man out of the car and threw him to the ground. He yanked her to her feet and slapped her and slapped her again and the gun was in her face and she was screaming.
——
Kate ran out of the alley and took it all in at once—the stopped car, the fallen driver, Swann manhandling Chelsea in the middle of the street. He had his gun out and he was crazed, and Kate was sure, just sure, he was about to shoot and kill.
She was exposed, no cover, and no time to find any. She couldn’t fire on Swann without hitting the girl. But she could draw his attention.
“Swann!”
Her shout echoed through the desolate block.
He spun to face her, the gun raised, Chelsea still blocking her shot. The look on his face—pure rage.
She ducked back into the alley as his gun cracked. Chips of brick scattered near her face. She dared another look into the street, expecting a new assault, but Swann was already packing Chelsea into the car and jamming himself behind the wheel.
He didn’t want a shootout. He wanted to take his prize and flee.
And she couldn’t stop him. Chelsea, in the passenger seat, was still in the way.
Helplessly, Kate watched as the car tore forward, skirting the unconscious man in the street. Kate caught a last glimpse of Chelsea, her face pressed to the window, eyes big with shock.
Then the girl was swallowed by shadows and night.
Gone.
SWANN took the corner so fast Chelsea thought the car might tip over, and he came up on Seventh and cut east, passing the wrecked Lincoln and the abandoned Jaguar and speeding on.
Blocks away from the scene of the crash, he swerved to the curb and slammed the car into park. He turned in his seat, breathing fast and shallow, staring at her from inches away.
“So you thought you could run from me?”
With his left hand, he slapped her face, stunning her. Her vision doubled.
“You don’t run. You don’t disobey. You do what I want.”
“I will.”
He smacked her again. “What I want. Only what I want!”
“I will, I promise, I swear…”
&n
bsp; “You don’t fuck with me anymore. You understand that?”
She nodded.
He backhanded her a third time. “Say it!”
“I understand.”
“All right then. All right.” He was still staring at her, but there was a different light in his gaze. The same look she’d seen after singing the willow song. “We’re together now, okay? You’re with me—all the way.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry I lost my temper, sugarplum. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
He dug in his jacket and pulled something out. It flashed between his fingers. A needle.
“I’ve got something that’ll calm you down. Take your fears away.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Sorry, have to.” He screwed the needle into a larger mechanism, a cylinder with a plunger. “Can’t have you running out on me again. You can see how worked up it gets me—the thought of losing you.”
“Please…I said I’d be good.”
“I know what you said.” He squirted a few drops from the needle. “But I still don’t trust you.”
“Look, just leave me alone and I…I can be good to you. I can…do things…things you’ll like. I can get you off.”
“I’ll just bet you can. But there’ll be time for that later. A lot of time.”
He took her arm, not roughly, and before she could react, he slid the needle under her skin and depressed the plunger. She watched as the contents of the syringe drained into her body.
“What the hell is that? What are you giving me?”
“Same stuff you took in the club, only an injection works faster. GHB. It didn’t make you feel so bad last time, did it?”
“Why don’t you just give me an OD and get it over with?”
“Hush. Don’t talk like that. Everything will be okay.”
“Right. And you’ll let me go. Sure you will.”
He looked honestly puzzled. “When did I ever promise to let you go?”
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