Night Flight

by Donna Ball

  For a moment she almost thought she had gotten through to him, that he might be listening to her after all, that she might be saved ... but all he said was, in a strange, tight tone, "Hold on to that number, Cathy. Use it." And he hung up the phone.

  Cathy stood there listening to the dial tone until the officer gently took the felt-tip pen from her hand. Cathy replaced the receiver. Crazy, she thought. This whole thing is crazy . . . Jack would have enjoyed this: point-counterpoint, warnings from a stranger, danger in the night. . . only Jack would have figured out the plot by now. Jack would know what to do.

  She shook herself a little, grasping for the edge of reason. Do? There was only one thing to do. She had to get out of here. She had to call Ellen, she had to get a lawyer. She had to make bail . . .she had to get to Jack. That was all that mattered. She had to get to Jack.

  The officer tugged at her arm, her grip more gentle now. "Come on, honey. Back you go."

  "But—my phone call—"

  "Prisoners don't use the phones up here for their calls. There's a pay phone in back. Come on, now."

  "Yes. Okay." With a steadying gulp of breath, Cathy pushed back her hair and let the woman start to lead her away. And then she stopped, and looked back at the desk. After a moment's hesitation, she picked up the paper on which she had scrawled the name and phone number and pushed it into her jeans pocket. Then she nodded to her escort and even tried to smile a little as she was led back toward the cell.

  The silence around his desk was thick and heavy, and it was a long time before Dave could make himself break it. "He's going to get her," he said, without looking up. "The son of a bitch is going to get her unless we can get to her before he does."

  "Dave, it's not-"

  "If you tell me one more time it's not our case . . ." Dave said, very softly.

  Hayforth was silent for the time it took to swallow back harsh words. "It's not," he said flatly. "We've got a big enough mess to clean up on our own turf and it's only going to get worse. We

  don't have the authority to override a federal agent's orders on the Hamilton woman, even if the agent is suspect, and the FBI's not going to thank us for screwing up their case—again. Stay out of it, Dave."

  "Screwing up their case," Dave repeated softly. "Yeah, I guess we did that all right. Of course, lucky for them they had an alternate plan. Do you want to know what Plan B is, Chief?" He slid open the desk drawer and took out his gun, checked the clip. "Plan B is to let Kreiger get the information from the girl however he can and keep his rendezvous. The point of the game is to catch him with the goods, and they can't do that if he doesn't know where to go."

  Hayforth said quietly, "It's not your business, Dave."

  "You got that right." Dave holstered the gun, and his eyes fell on the cigarette pack, flattened up to its single remaining occupant. He picked up the pack and put it in his pocket. If this didn't qualify as an emergency, he supposed nothing ever would.

  "That number you gave her—it wasn't your home, it wasn't the station."

  "Right."

  "Cell phone?"

  Dave stood up.

  Hayforth's next words were studied and deliberate, but Dave read the message in his eyes very clearly. "Don't make me ask for your badge, Dave."

  Dave smiled, faintly. "I won't." He picked up the report on his desk and handed it to the chief. "If anybody asks for me, I'm on compassionate leave. I'm thinking about driving up north, maybe as far as Oregon. Do a little fishing, take in the woods. You probably won't be able to reach me."

  Hayforth held his eyes for a long time, then nodded slowly. "I'll tell them. If anybody asks."

  Dave lingered a moment longer, but there was nothing left to say. He picked up his windbreaker and pulled it on over the shoulder holster as he moved toward the door.

  This one's for you, Alice, he thought, and pushed out into the night.

  **********************

  Chapter Eight

  Cathy never got to make her phone call. As they reached the holding area someone called to the woman who was escorting Cathy, the two officers consulted briefly, and before she knew it Cathy was signing a receipt for the return of her purse and its contents.

  He did it, she thought dazedly. The man on the phone, the policeman, had come through after all. He had made them let her go. There was a God. Everything was going to be all right.

  Then someone said behind her, "Miss Hamilton?"

  A tall blond man was approaching. "My name is Scott Kreiger."

  He took a folder from his pocket and opened it for her. It contained a badge and a photograph and some kind of official insignia. Cathy stared at it for a long time, her heart pounding.

  He said, gesturing, "I wonder if we could step over here where it's quiet and I could ask you a few questions."

  Cathy turned back to the man behind the counter. "My car," she managed. Her voice was raspy and thick, as though from overuse.

  He passed her a slip of paper. "Just give this to the attendant at the impound yard."

  Cathy stared at the paper, trying to make sense of the words printed there. "But —I don't know where this is. How can I get there?"

  The phone rang and the man behind the counter reached for it, giving Cathy a disinterested shrug.

  Kreiger's voice sounded a little impatient behind her. "Miss Hamilton-"

  Cathy's hand clenched on the paper, crumpling it a little. She turned slowly. "What do you want with me?"

  "I told you, just to ask you a few questions."

  "Are you the one who had me arrested?"

  He looked wary. "You're not under arrest, Miss Hamilton."

  "That man, the detective, he said you would try to take me into custody."

  His features sharpened. "What detective?"

  "The one who called me, from Portersville. He said I shouldn't talk to you."

  Kreiger frowned. "Well that was unprofessional, to say the least. I assure you the detective will be reprimanded."

  He made an effort to smooth out his features, but even in her distracted state Cathy could tell he was angry, and worried. He said, "I didn't have you arrested, but I did arrange for your release.The reason I did that is because you have some information that's vital to the case I'm working on. As for what the detective told you—it's really better if you don't know any details, but this is a big case, with a lot of prestige, and there's a certain amount of interagency rivalry involved. You can talk to me, or you can talk to him —or you can talk to some stranger in some other precinct or courtroom. But it'll really be easier for everyone concerned if you just cooperate with me, now."

  Cathy's eyes were burning with fatigue, her muscles ached, her body quivered with excess adrenaline. The words he had spoken were little more than an annoying background buzz. She said, as evenly as possible, "I'm not under arrest?"

  "No."

  "Then I don't have to cooperate with anyone, do I?" She started to push past him.

  "As far as I'm concerned you can walk out that door right now. Of course, I'll just have to get a warrant and track you down again, and by that time a lot of people may have gotten hurt. I wish you'd reconsider, Miss Hamilton."

  Cathy didn't want to reconsider. And it wasn't because of what the detective had said on the phone, or because of the threat of a future warrant, but because she just didn't care. His problems were not her problems; she didn't have time to talk to him now, she didn't want to talk to him now.

  But six feet away from him she stopped, and looked at the half-crumpled impound slip in her

  hand in some confusion.

  Kreiger was beside her. "It will only take a few minutes," he said gently.

  Cathy rubbed her forehead with the back of her wrist. It was hard to think and the road ahead seemed endless, fraught with obstacles. She wasn't sure she could take any more. She didn't know what to do.

  Just go, Cathy. Go.

  "I'm so tired," she said. Even speaking the words was an effort almost beyond her capabilit
ies.

  He touched her arm lightly. "I'll drive you to the impound yard," he said. "We can talk on the way."

  After a moment she nodded. She didn't know what else to do.

  She thought fatigue would overtake her before she even reached Kreiger's car; she was certain that the moment she sat down the weight of exhaustion would smother her and she would fall asleep. But being in the car, alone with this stranger—a stranger about whom she had been warned—with no sound except the engine and the road noise, had anything but a relaxing effect. Kreiger said nothing, and the silence was suffocating.

  He was definitely a policeman, and that knowledge should have reassured her. The dashboard of his car was lined with official equipment: a radio and scanner, a microphone, what appeared to be some kind of miniature computer. But the radio was turned down so low the static was barely a background noise, and the lights from the other electronics gave off an eerie glow. Cathy's nerves were as tight as steel cables as she watched the small town of Hinesville slip away.

  Cathy twisted the straps of her purse around her hands. "Why do they keep the cars so far away? Shouldn't it be closer to the police station?"

  "Small town police departments don't usually keep their own impound yards. They use private facilities —garages, private lots, whatever they can get cheap."

  Nervously, Cathy slipped her hand inside her purse, searching for her spare set of keys. He's a policeman for God's sake, Cathy. Don't do this to yourself . "I really don't know what I can tell you, Mr. Kreiger. I didn't know any of those people who were—back there. I stopped to make a phone call and all of a sudden this man grabbed me, and then there was shooting . . ."

  "The telephone call, Miss Hamilton." His voice was no longer smooth and persuasive but brisk, businesslike. It startled her.

  "What? I-I tried to call the hospital. My brother—the line was busy—"

  "Not the one you made. The one you took."

  Cathy swallowed tightly. Her fingers found the keys and threaded around them briefly for reassurance. Attached to the key chain was a small cylinder of pepper spray encased in leather—similar items were marketed as the perfect self-defense device in drugstores and novelty shops across the country. If it had been mace the police would have confiscated it, but there was no law against carrying pepper spray. Cathy had laughed when Jack had given it to her. He had said, "You can't be too careful." She had attached it to her key chain because it made her keys easier to find, and she hadn't thought about it again. Throughout all that had happened tonight, she hadn't thought about it once . . .

  Don't be crazy, Cathy. For God's sake, he's a cop.

  She said, "I —I don't know what you mean."

  The road they were traveling was dark and empty; no streetlights, no buildings, no cars. Farm country. Miles and miles of fields.

  He said, "You answered the phone; you took a message. What did the voice on the other end say?"

  No, not farm country. Wine country. The fields that stretched as far as the eye could see on either side of the car were actually vineyards.

  Her fingers moved over the leather casing of the cylinder. She did not know why she answered as she did, she would never know why. Maybe it was a stranger's voice saying, "Don't talk to him, don't go anywhere with him." Maybe it was Jack's voice saying, "You can't be too careful."

  She replied, "He said ... he said, 'It's off tonight, babe. You've been made.' "

  Kreiger said, "You're sure?"

  Cathy nodded because a sudden convulsion of her throat made speech impossible. She swallowed, and in a moment managed, "Yes. I'm sure."

  He nodded thoughtfully.

  Darkness on either side, thick with vines, the endless landscape broken occasionally by a crossbar support that rose up from the shadows like an executioner's device. The car began to slow, and at first she didn't understand why, then she saw what Kreiger had seen: a dirt road leading off to the right between the unbroken rows of arbors. A service road, traveled by day by tractors and pickup trucks, but by night . . . empty.

  He needn't have bothered, Cathy thought. No one would find her . . .

  He cut the engine, and the lights. He unfastened his seatbelt and turned toward her. His jacket parted and Cathy saw the gun in his shoulder holster. An evil looking thing, steel and black. Of course he has a gun. He's a cop.

  She was amazed at how steady her voice sounded as she said, "Are you going to kill me?"

  He smiled. It was not a particularly attractive gesture. "No, of course not. I just want you to think, very carefully, about what you really heard on the telephone. Because what you just told me isn't exactly right, is it?"

  Her voice was hoarse and didn't sound like her own; neither did the words. "How do you know that? Who are you? What's this all about?"

  It couldn't be her, Cathy Hamilton, sitting there so calmly firing questions at this man who was very likely getting ready to kill her, surreptitiously fumbling with the lock on the little canister of pepper spray and hoping it didn't explode inside her purse. It couldn't be her, plotting to try to escape from police custody, lying to an officer, staring at an automatic weapon and feeling no fear. Buying time, thinking clearly, doing what she had to do . . .

  He said, "I think I've already answered that. Now I get to ask the questions."

  "I've already told you what I know."

  Suddenly his gaze sharpened, though his tone did not. "What have you got in your purse, Cathy? All right, take your hand out, slowly. Bring it up where I can see it."

  Cathy took her hand out of her purse, but she didn't do it slowly. He was lunging for her wrist simultaneously as she brought her hand up; the lock came free and she squeezed her eyes shut as she pushed the button.

  The sound he made was somewhere between a shout of fury and a gasp of pain. When Cathy opened her eyes she saw him pressed back against the driver's door, clawing at his face, but her own eyes stung with the acrid, ammonia-sharp odor and she knew she had only seconds. Don't breathe, don't breathe. . . . She tore at her seat belt, groped for the passenger door release of the automatic locks. His hand struck out blindly and clipped her shoulder, knocking her sideways. Don't breathe. . . . She jerked the doorhandle but the door was still locked. She fumbled again for the button, heard a thump inside in the mechanism. He grabbed for her just as she threw the door open, and he caught her shirt at the shoulder, fingernails pinching her flesh. She wrenched herself away from him and felt cloth tear and skin open as she launched herself through the door, landing on her hands and knees in the rocky road. Over her shoulder she saw him lunging toward her, his face red and distorted by the chemical, his movements furious and deadly. She twisted around and kicked the door closed, then scrambled to her feet. She ran.

  Instinctively she veered off the road, into the protection of the vineyard and its tall, thick, sheltering vines. Almost immediately she regretted her decision. The lanes of sandy soil between the rows were uneven and the impenetrable density of the vines on either side of her made it impossible to see between them; sound was muffled and all light was cut off. Her sneakers filled with sand and more than once she tripped and fell hard. The gnarled vines and trailing leaves formed silhouttes like a writhing Medusa and she was running through a nightmare, pursued by the sound of her own gasping breath and the plucking skeletal fingers of monsters come to life. Her lungs were burning and she felt exhausted; the panic that rose up inside her was as deadly a threat as the man who might or might not be pursuing her.

  Something struck her leg hard, cracking against the bone just below her kneecap. She plunged face forward on the ground, her hands digging for purchase in the soil while agony shot up her leg and spots danced before her eyes. The scream she might have uttered died in her throat as she waited for her pursuer to descend on her.

  Except that no one was pursuing her.

  The breeze made whispering sounds in the leaves, but nothing moved. And somewhere distant another sound, low familiar, comforting. But no one was chasing her. Sh
e had either lost him in the dark or he had been too incapacitated to follow her—or she had been wrong from the beginning and he had never intended to hurt her at all . . .

  Don't be a fool, Cathy. Honest cops don't interrogate their witnesses on deserted dirt roads in the middle of the night.

  Biting down hard on her lip, she pushed herself into a sitting position, carefully straightening out her leg. It wasn't broken, but when she pushed up her jeans and gingerly touched her shin she could feel a knot already beginning to rise, just below the kneecap. The instrument that had done the damage was within a single sweep of her hands, and she picked it up cautiously. A broken hoe handle. She had tripped over it, flipped it up, and it had struck her in the leg, almost crippling her.

  She dropped the hoe handle and used an upright support to pull herself to her feet, cautiously testing her weight on the leg. A bad bruise, nothing more. But she couldn't make herself go any farther; she collapsed against the post, trying to breathe, trying to think, straining to hear above the thunderous sound of her heart.

  All right, think. Who was he, what did he want, why had he brought her here? If all he had wanted to do was question her, he could have done that back at the station. If he was the one who had gotten her released, then she had to have been turned over to his custody, and he could have held her as long as he wanted to, until he got the answers he wanted. But he did not want anyone else to hear those answers. So he had told her she was free to go, he had lulled her into a false sense of security so that she would go with him quietly and of her own free will. And when he had her alone . . .

  It made no sense. Everyone at the station had seen her leave with him. The paperwork had probably documented his taking over her custody. It would be no secret who was responsible if anything happened to her. But maybe he didn't care. Maybe he was that crazy ... or that powerful.

  Her head ached with trying to reason it out. None of it had ever made sense, not from the beginning, and she would go mad trying to reason it out. She didn't even care why anymore. The only thing she cared about was that she was alone in this dark labyrinth of vines and leaves, lost and stranded without a car, without even her purse, and somewhere out there was a madman with a gun.