She shrugged with one shoulder. "Busted."
"Wonderful;"
The radio crackled static; half the traffic was garbled, but what he did hear told him roadblocks were being set up throughout the city and around the mountain. .
"It was that guy," she said, swinging into the left lane to pass a lumbering city bus.
“What guy?”
"That Curly guy. At the hang-gliding place.”
Shit, he thought, and grabbed for the dashboard when she played matador at another crossing, this time with a moving van that seemed in no hurry to get out of her way until she blasted the horn.
The office buildings were left behind; warehouses now, barely illuminated, their lights brittle and wan. The neon on the handful of restaurants and bars seemed even more seedy, despite their supposedly cheery glow.
What he thought was a snowflake hit the windshield and melted.
Dead ahead, at the Y-intersection near the supermarket, he saw patrol cars parked at angles in the middle of the road, their lights flashing. Joanne slowed only a little to give them time to part and let her pass, then accelerated again.
"We'll take the same way. It's not as steep."
He grunted, wanting to close his eyes so he wouldn't see the blur of dark trees, or the way the city fell away so quickly from the alarmingly low guard rail. If there were streetlamps, he didn't see them; there was only the gray pull of the headlamps on the tarmac.
Seconds later, they reached the boulder outcropping, and he tensed as she took the curve around it without hesitation.
The way ahead was clear.
"I know what you're thinking," she said, manhandling the car around the final bend.
"I doubt it."
“You’re thinking I'm a damn good driver, making it all this way without hitting a damn thing.”
"We're not there yet."
She laughed. "We will be. You gotta have faith.”
At the top, another roadblock. She passed it carefully, taking the road left, and speeding up again. It didn’t take long for the houses to be left behind.
"A couple of minutes," she told him.
He squeezed the tiny bundle in his pocket, and nodded, wishing the radio chatter was more clear, but he could only catch one or two words at a time; everyone seemed to be talking at once, and he wondered how the hell anyone could pass on information that way.
The road dipped and climbed.
The infrequent houses on the left were lit top and bottom, and he caught glimpses of people clustered in their yards, all facing the same way. Figures moved among the trees, slashing the air with flashlight beams. At least two pairs of police dogs straining at their leashes, testing the ground and air.
"Not wasting any time," she noted, sounding pleased and frustrated at the same time.
They flashed by the college, windows alight, silhouettes against the panes, staring out.
"They don’t have to be afraid now," Joanne said tightly. "He’s already made his kill for the night."
"Maybe."
She stared at him for too long, he had to point at the road to redirect her attention. "What the hell do you mean by that?”
He wiped his face with a palm. "I mean, the pattern's broken. Shattered." He watched a silver glow in the sky, beyond the road’s next rise. “He's gone over the edge. There's no way, now, to predict his next move."
"Swell."
The ridge flattened after the rise, and he saw the congestion at the staging area. At least half a dozen cruisers parked on both sides of the road, an ambulance backed up to the shed’s door, men walking purposefully from one place to another while others just stood around, stamping their feet against the cold, hands tucked under their armpits. Breath steamed in the light thrown by headlamps and electric torches. As she braked to a skidding halt just past the shed, he saw the flutter of yellow crime-scene ribbon.
They hurried toward the entrance.
"You got that FBI ID?" she asked.
"Yes.”
"Put it on your jacket. It’ll save a lot of questions."
He did, scolding himself for forgetting such a simple thing.
But he couldn’t help it.
His nostrils flared, and he inhaled deeply.
.. . Mood . . .
Four men were on their hands and knees on the gravel, peering at the stones, one man behind them with a handful of tiny yellow flags. A trail of them reached from the threshold to where he stood.
Richard followed her under the tape, kept one step behind as several voices greeted her. Someone stepped out of the office, a stump of a man in a heavy, dark-blue jacket, the collar up. He wore no hat, but there were bars on the collar's wings.
"Lieutenant Millson," she told him out of the corner of his mouth. "My boss. Task-force head.”
"He's the one who gave you to me?"
She looked up at him and grinned without mirth.
"Turpin, nobody gives me to nobody. 1 was assigned. There’s a hell of a difference.”
Past the door, near the cliff edge, he heard the sound of a man vomiting. Two white-coated attendants lounged against the ambulance, smoking.
Lt. Millson intercepted them before they could go inside. Joanne introduced Richard, who watched the man’s face—small eyes and small mouth, with a large blunt nose between. Pudgy cheeks. Black hair matted around his forehead and ears. A toupee, he realized; it's a goddamn toupee.
Richard shook the policeman’s gloved hand and hunched his shoulders against the cold wind. "Bad?” He nodded at the building.
"You’ve never seen it that bad, boy."
Oh, yes 1 have, he thought, but didn't say it aloud.
The call had come in less than half an hour ago. Nora Costo, Hendean's assistant below, had come up to see if she couldn't convince him to close down for a while. She was, the lieutenant said, tired of hanging around all day, without practically anyone to watch out for.
"She’s over there." He pointed to a sedan twenty yards away. A small woman sat sideways on the front seat, hands cupped around a Styrofoam cup of coffee. A patrolwoman crouched beside her, talking softly. "Walked in, saw the . . . scene, called it in right away from her car. Lookout Mountain cops were on the roadblocks almost instantly."
Not soon enough, Richard thought; damn it, not soon enough.
He looked at the doorway, took a breath, and started for it.
"Hey,” the lieutenant said, *f thought i said—”
Richard stared at him, stared at the hand reaching for his arm, and stepped inside. Behind him, loanne muttered something that may have been a curse or an apology, and followed.
"Aw, shit," she said. "Aw, Jesus."
Curly Guestin lay spread-eagled on his worktable.
What was left of him, that is.
Richard stepped carefully around the shimmering pools of blood and stood at the dead man's feet, hands in his pockets, breathing through his mouth. There wasn't much left of Guestin from the waist up; it looked as if someone had taken a hacksaw to him, slashing indiscriminately until his left arm had nearly been severed, his torso gutted from navel to throat, his face little more than a red mask.
. . . blood . . .
.. . fresh blood . . .
Richard turned slowly, ignoring the men who worked around the room, trying to find something in the wreckage besides blood. Mumbling to themselves. Once in a while, gagging.
"Find out what you can,” he said to Joanne, and before she could ask, he left, brushed past Millson, and moved stiffly toward the road.
He heard the lieutenant mutter, "Pussy," but didn’t stop.
No time; he had no time.
Suddenly the beat of rotor blades overwhelmed the noise of radios and whispers, and a helicopter rose above the ridge, two intense white beams stretched below it like legs. Cops grabbed for their hats as a minor dust storm swept over the scene, causing the yellow ribbons to snap like whips. Richard used the momentary confusion to run back toward Joanne's car, past it, and duck into the
trees.
He heard shouts, and froze until he realized they weren't meant for him.
Then he began to run.
No time.
. . . merging . , .
No time.
Slipping from trunk to trunk, angling toward the edge, shaking the scent of fresh human blood from his nostrils, searching for the other scent and nearly howling when he found it.
The rogue had come here, and had gone over the edge.
He clung to a small pine and looked down, frowning, seeing nothing but knowing this was the way the other one had gone.
Not that long ago.
Headlights flashed along the road far below; he could barely make out the distant wail of a siren. Four patrol cars, one of them pausing, then speeding up again, heading north toward the river. Although he couldn't see the woodland down there, he spotted several winks of light. The search party had begun to build even in the valley. He didn't have much time.
From somewhere near the shed, Joanne called his name.
The helicopter was joined by a second, and they swung off, northward, one on either side of the ridge.
"Damn it, Turpin!"
He slipped between two large rocks and began to climb-slide downward, letting the trees be his brakes, letting them swing him on to the next one. Mountain climbing in reverse, with no safety net.
The scent was still fairly strong—sweat and blood and a touch of outright fear. He puzzled at that, but couldn't concentrate on much more than not falling; the angle of the mountainside was such that losing his balance would mean slamming his way all the way to the bottom, or near enough that it wouldn't make any difference when they found him.
"Hey!” A young man’s voice in the stand he’d just left. "Hey, down here!”
He snorted angrily.
“Here!” A wide slant of white bounced off the treetops, settled, and aimed down. "Here!”
Richard didn't stop.
Branches whipped at the thick fur that covered him head to claw; twice something dug at the corner of his eye, and whipping his head away made him dizzy for a second; his left foot lost its purchase, and he fell hard against a half-buried rock, the wind forced from his lungs.
"Down there, damn it! I swear to God!”
He knelt there and gasped, swallowing hard, large pointed ears twitching front to side to back, sifting through the sounds of the night for the one sound he needed.
What he didn't expect was the shot.
The bullet struck him high on the right shoulder, the force of it nearly toppling him off the rock. He snarled and whirled, glaring up at the ridge, snarled again and slapped at his shoulder where the fire had lodged, a furrow, not a hole, and he growled, tempted to return and teach the cop a lesson.
Another shot, this one thirty yards to his right.
Blind.
Damn, he thought; the stupid kid is firing blind, 1 don’t believe it.
He passed a hand gingerly over the wound,
grimacing at the matted fur, concentrating as he listened to the shouts, the orders, calming himself
Concentrating.'
Dampening the fire.
He could well imagine the conversation above:
I don't see anything.
Down there I saw it.
It?
A big thing you know? I swear it must've been covered in fur. Really hairy, you know what I mean?
Hairy. Big.
I swear!
Sure: sure you do. You just shot a big, hairy thing, right?
Jesus Christ.
Nope, I don't think so.
He came too close to laughing, and clambered swiftly over the rock and continued down, shifting his angle of descent until he was practically directly below the crime scene.
The fire was gone.
The furrow would be, in minutes.
There were no more sounds of possible pursuit. If he had had the time, he would have felt sorry for the poor guy who'd spotted him.
There was no time.
The scent still didn’t change, neither weaker nor stronger. The rogue hadn’t fled at anything like frightened speed. It was taking its time, confident its human pursuit would never guess what it was, would never believe it had escaped the way it had.
The cries and shouts grew more faint.
The flare of a flashlight couldn't reach this far down.
When he found himself on a narrow ledge, he took a few precious moments to allow his night vision to sharpen further. His arms and legs ached, and trembled slightly from the beating they been taking. His
great head swung slowly side to side, snuffling at the air, marking the scent he'd been following.
Below, a pair of cruisers drove slowly southward, spotlights on their roofs attempting to penetrate the slope’s trees.
He waited until they passed, looked over the ledge, and jumped before he could talk himself out of it.
Twenty feet, maybe more, before he hit the stony ground, fell to all fours, and launched himself into a sprint as the ground leveled for a while before dropping off again. He had reached the mountain's skirt, and the angle wasn't nearly as sharp as it had been. Movement was easier.
But then, it was for the rogue, too.
He didn’t worry about the searchers down here. There were too few of them so far, avoiding them would be easy. What he needed was a direction for the rogue—it seemed as if he had gone straight for the highway, no deviations. Did he have a car down here, waiting? A cave? From what Joanne had told him, the mountain was riddled with them, the largest transformed into tourist attractions.
Fifteen minutes brought him to ground nearly level with the road. He stood well back in the trees, testing the air, catching his breath. Diagonally across the highway, about three hundred yards to his right, were house lights and the vague outline of a split-rail fence. A glance up and over his shoulder, another look at the house, and he figured that must be Nora Costo’s place. Another cruiser sped past, followed by a dark-sided van. SWAT team? he wondered, and stepped away from the tree. At that moment what felt like a bomb exploded across the top of his shoulders. He cried out howled as he fell face first to the ground. He couldn’t think, couldn’t see, and had no chance to protect himself when another explosion killed all the light.
... Mood . . .
Voices:
"Over there."
"What the hell did you ... Jesus!"
"Weil, how was 1 supposed to know, Sergeant? I heard all the commotion, I go running over, I—” "Enough, officer, enough."
"What's he doing out here, anyway?"
"FBI." " ’
“Fucking Beanpod Idiot, you mean."
. . . Mood ...
He heard her before he saw her, smelled her before she knelt beside him.
"Oh my God, look at your head."
Tires shrieking on the road, voices in the woods, the deafening slap of a helicopter's rotors.
"Sergeant, you want me to get an ambulance?" "Good Lord, you didn’t call one yet?"
"Thought he was dead. Ain't no hurry if the guy's not breathing."
Richard pushed himself up on one elbow, trying not to scream. "No ambulance.”
She leaned closer. "What?"
"No ambulance.” ..
"Sure. And tomorrow, you're gonna walk on water."
Fireflies sparked across his vision, rising from the conflagration rising from his back. With his free hand he braced himself against her knee and rose farther.
"No ambulance.”
"Richard, this isn't the movies, honey, you’re bashed up, bashed in, and there's no way I’m going to let you die out here.”
Christ, he thought, why won't she listen?
He squeezed, and she gasped. "Your car?"
"Right here."
Another push, and he was upright. Swaying. Bits of leaf and twig dangling from his hair, clots of dirt and mud clinging to his jacket.
"The hotel,” he said, trying to focus on her face.
"Now that’s j
ust plain dumb."
He wanted to yell at her, but the longer he stayed here, the more danger he was in.
"Tell them," he said, gesturing toward the others hovering near the road, "it's not as bad as it looks."
"Richard—"
He glared at her. "Tell them, Jo, tell them it’s just a scalp wound and get me out of here."
He saw the rebellion, automatic and justified, but she must have seen something as well, because she stood, gripped his arm, and helped him to his feet.
"Sarge?"
"It's all right. Damn Yankee can’t fall down a mountain without scraping his knees, bunking his thick skull on a damn stump."
Someone he couldn't see snickered.
Someone else declared there was movement up the road, haul ass, they needed reinforcements.
"It's all right," Joanne insisted, when the last one hesitated. "You want to miss being in on the kill?"
The patrolman half saluted and took off.
Richard wiped an arm across his eyes, and would have toppled backward if she hadn’t kept her grip.
"You will explain.”
"Hotel. Hurry."
.. .he could feel the blood .. .
He lay on his side across the back seat, swaying with the car's movement as she raced toward the city. She had put a light blanket over him, covering him to his shoulders. It didn't help much; he couldn’t chase the cold.
"You get blood all over my car, Turpin, you clean it up, you understand?"
He grunted.
The fireflies wouldn't leave, the conflagration wouldn't subside. He bit down on his lower lip, one pain for another, but it didn’t do any good.
Joanne snapped into the radio, arguing with her lieutenant. She couldn’t be in two places at the same time, she told him. Stay at the scene, stay with the FBI, why doesn't he make up his goddamn mind?
For a change there was no static: "Language protocol, Detective.”
She apologized flatly, and told him what she had told the others, that Turpin had injured himself a good one, am ambulance would be too slow so she was taking him to the hospital herself.
"How bad is he you got to play nursemaid, Minster?" "Government, remember?" was all she said. "Your idea, not mine."
Silence and static,
"Drop him off, come right back, Detective.”
She acknowledged, dropped the mike on the seat beside her, and glared at the rearview mirror. "If I lose my shield because of this, Turpin, I’ll kill you.”
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