Fresh Kills (27 page)

It couldn't be done.

Acting on some kind of instinct I didn't know I had, I cupped Adam's melon head in my left hand, retrieved the keys with my right and stood back up in one swift motion. Then I thrust the largest key into his face, aiming as much as possible for the eyes.

He howled and grabbed his face. I swung my shaking hand toward the car door, put the key into the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Ignoring Kyle's scream of rage and pain, I lowered myself to the carseat level of the car. Two more seconds and I'd be inside, safe.

Adam and I would be safe.

Strong, wiry hands grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. Blood dripped from his nose, but his sinewy hands had lost none of their strength. I struggled to get inside the car, to put the key into the ignition so I could leave Kyle in the road, take off for safety. I still had my left hand on Adam's soft head; he whimpered as I jerked my body down into the driver's seat.

Kyle had both hands on my arm now; he pulled with all his considerable strength. I looked wildly around; wasn't there someone walking by, someone in a car who would see us and stop?

Cars sped by, on their way to Victory Boulevard, but no one so much as slowed to look at us.

Then I realized anyone watching would think we were having a family squabble, and would avert their eyes, certain they shouldn't interfere.

I swung my left arm, elbow first, at Kyle's midsection; he saw the movement and jumped back with a grunt. Then he pulled with renewed vigor, and because I was off-balance, I nearly fell out of the car. The keys were still in my right hand. I moved back toward the car, trying to crawl in before Kyle had me out altogether. He grabbed at my right hand, but I kept it out of reach, blocking with my body.

The keys were everything. I couldn't drop the keys, no matter what. The keys had to go into the ignition, had to get us out of here.

“Give me those keys,” he demanded. His hands were everywhere, huge bony things that gripped and grabbed and pulled at me. Strong fingers reached out and took possession of my hand; no amount of struggle could keep him from wrenching the keys out of my fingers.

“You'll break my—”

“Who cares? Give me the keys.” And he chopped at my arm with the flat of his hand, then wrapped his fingers around the bunch of keys, scratching me as he pulled them away.

I lunged out of the car, my hand grabbing at the keys. He raised his arm and flung the entire bunch into the tall reeds. They arced into the air like a silver ball, then fell somewhere in the forest of grass.

Gone. The keys were gone.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

I stood a half second in paralyzed wonder. My whole object had been to get in the car and drive away, to leave Kyle standing in the road, to whisk Baby Adam off to sanctuary. And now I had no keys, no way to move the car. Nowhere to go.

Kyle turned toward me, a smile of triumph on his face. He took a step closer; I turned and ran toward the neat rows of houses that flanked the wildlife refuge.

I'd learned the key trick in a woman's self-defense class. As I stumbled along the sidewalk next to the tall reeds, I tried to recall other words of wisdom.

One thing was that I wasn't supposed to be a hero. Disable your attacker and run for help, that was the basic idea. Which meant that instead of racing into an isolated swamp full of egrets, I should have been heading across the road toward the houses. I should have been ringing doorbells, begging people to call the cops, attracting as much attention as possible. Not doing the one thing that would give Kyle maximum advantage, namely letting myself be herded into a desolate area where he knew the terrain and I was hampered by ignorance, bad shoes, and a baby.

That was the theory.

But every time I tried to step off the sidewalk and into the road, every time I leaned toward the houses on the other side of the reed-festooned refuge, Kyle cut me off, harrying me like a big wiry sheepdog, forcing my steps back toward the swamp.

But maybe there were people in the refuge. Maybe there were park employees, naturalists. Birdwatchers. Hikers. Teenagers making out. Kids exploring.

Anyone.

I was having trouble catching my breath. No runner, I was used to an occasional brisk walk along city sidewalks to boost my cardiovascular system.

I hadn't boosted it enough. There was a sharp pain in my side and I gasped for air like a leaky balloon. Any second now, the vise-grip of Kyle's strong hand would grab my shoulder, bring me to the ground, smashing Adam's head on the—

No. That couldn't happen. I had to keep going, had to reach some kind of safety.

I lurched toward the driveway entrance to the wildlife preserve. My turn must have surprised Kyle; he took a moment to orient himself before following me into the copse of trees that sheltered the forest-green sign with the maple leaf on it, the sign that said this land belonged to the New York City Parks Department. There was a building dead ahead. A flat-topped, utilitarian structure of indeterminate use. I had no idea whether it was occupied. But I headed for it anyway, hoping there was at least a caretaker inside.

It beat trying to tell my story to egrets.

I was so intent on making it to the green building that I failed to realize there was no one behind me. Kyle was gone.

Which, in retrospect, should have told me something.

But all I could think of was getting through the barnlike double doors before a large hand reached out and pulled me down into the mud. All I could think of was safety, sanctuary. All I could think of was Adam.

He was wailing now, a birdlike cry that would have had me worried if I hadn't had other things to worry about. Were babies supposed to cry like that? Bouncing him around in the snuggly probably wasn't improving his mood any.

The door was heavy. It slid open sideways, like the door of a warehouse. I gasped for breath as I pulled at the handle with both hands, straining my limited upper body strength. Maybe it was time I joined a gym, made friends with the Nautilus machines.

Inside, it was dark, the kind of dark you expected in a tunnel. A rich, brown darkness that smelled of mulch and loam and fertilizer. As though I'd opened a door into a mole burrow.

Long wooden tables stood in the center of the open space, with seedlings on trays, growing under dim light. I grabbed for breath and looked around, but I couldn't see another person in the blue-tinged light from the overhead rods.

This, I realized, had to be part of the Native Plant Center, which supplied ferns to local parks and gardens. Which meant there had to be someone in a Parks Department uniform somewhere close by.

But where?

And where was Kyle?

I whirled around, half-expecting to see him in the doorway, blocking the only exit I knew. But there was no one in the crack of light I'd left when I pulled the door open.

Turning had been a mistake; the bright sunlight brought purple and red spots in front of my eyes, which had to adjust to the dark all over again.

I took a tentative step forward and called out, “Is anybody here?”

No reply.

I walked closer to the table upon which the seedlings stretched spindly green arms up to the stingy ceiling light. What grew here? Who grew it and why?

More to the point, where the hell were they?

“Just stay right there,” a voice commanded.

I froze.

“Who's there?” I called out, my voice higher and more panicky than I would have liked it to be. “Kyle, is that—”

“Kyle's right here,” the voice, which was not Kyle's, replied. “Just stay put, and everything will be all right.”

It was the kind of voice you used when talking to a very crazy person. A very crazy person who might kill a newborn baby if you said the wrong thing.

“No, it won't,” I shot back. I had to get control of this somehow—which wasn't easy, considering I couldn't even see the person I was talking to.

“I don't want to have to call the police,” the man said, his voice tinged with exasperation.

“Why not?” I countered. “Sounds like a good idea to me. Call the cops—please.”

“You don't want me to do that,” the reasonable male voice replied in a tone that promised infinite patience. “Just let Kyle have the baby and everything will be all right.”

“You know Kyle?”

“Sure do,” the voice said. “He and Donna come in here all the time, pick up seedlings.”

Of course. That was the piece I'd been trying to remember ever since I realized that Kyle killed Amber. The Cheneys had a landscaping business; that meant they knew the workers in the Native Plant Center. The man whose face I couldn't see had every reason to trust Kyle, and no reason at all to trust me.

“Listen to me,” I begged. “I don't know what Kyle told you, but—”

The figure stepped closer. He wore the forest-green fatigues of the Parks Department, and his face already had the weathered brown of an outdoorsman in spite of the early spring weather. His forearms bulged, and his face wore a look of stubborn determination.

“Kyle told me about you,” he said, his voice tinged with contempt. “He told me how you and that dead girl planned to sell the baby. I was there when they fished that girl out of the kill, and I—”

“So was I,” I interrupted. “I was there, too, and I knew her when she was alive and I didn't kill her and I don't care what Kyle told you, I am not trying to sell this baby. I want to take him to the police. Kyle killed Amber, and—”

“Kyle?” The man threw back his head and laughed. “You're the lawyer they been talking about on TV. You tried to sell this here baby and you want me to believe Kyle killed that girl?” He shook his head and took another step closer.

“Where's Kyle?” I asked. It seemed vital that I know. Was he creeping around behind me? Had he gone for help? Would he appear in the doorway, ready to cut me off if I tried to make a run for it?

The Parkie shook his head again. “You just stay there,” he ordered.

I turned and bolted for the door. His footsteps followed; I reached out and grabbed a rake, tossing it behind me as I ran. It clattered in back of me, and I heard a curse that told me my pursuer had run into it.

I reached the door and slid through, then gave a huge shove, trying to close the door enough so that he would find it harder to squeeze through. Then I dashed in the direction I hoped would take me to the road, where I could flag down a car and find a phone, call for help.

I hadn't the slightest idea where I was going. All the trees and reeds looked alike. I ran down a large path that seemed well trodden, and I hoped it led to the road.

It didn't. I stumbled over a tree root and caught myself, grabbing for rough bark that scraped my palm. I shoved my foot back into the Italian loafers that had seemed like sensible shoes back in Brooklyn but hadn't been made for slogging through swampland or hopping over roots. There was a walkway made of flat planks ahead, allowing the birdwatcher to cross the watery inlet without getting his or her feet wet. It probably led deeper into the swamp, where birds' nests were hidden among the tall reeds. It was unlikely that it led to the road, to the mall, to civilization.

If I went forward, I headed into swamp, away from help. But I also headed away from Kyle, away from the Parkie he'd recruited to his cause.

Did Parkies carry guns? I hastily ran through my jumbled memory banks, searching for the New York statute defining the term peace officer, but to no avail. I took a quick glance backward. Was that reed swaying a sign that someone was hidden behind the green curtain? Was the sound I heard merely the breeze playing with the branches, rattling the tall grasses—or was someone moving through the swamp, hot on my trail?

I had no idea. All I knew for certain was that if I stood still, someone would come crashing out of the foliage eventually. Movement seemed like a good idea. Movement made me feel as though I had a semblance of control over the situation, over my own fate and that of Baby Adam.

When I reached the planked walkway, my shoes made hollow thudding sounds. I stopped dead, then moved forward more slowly, walking on the balls of my feet and trying to keep the heels from striking the wooden slats. It slowed my progress, but it felt worth it. Creeping along silently was better than advertising my presence with bouncy steps.

Mercifully, Adam had stopped crying. I looked down at his fuzzy head, blue-purple veins like rivulets on the bald scalp. Then I glanced at the water flowing under the plank bridge, at the tall reeds overhead, picturing a baby in a basket floating along the swamp water, picturing Moses among the bulrushes. God had looked out for baby Moses; I hoped He'd do the same for little Adam.

If I kept going in this direction, would I reach the other side of the wildlife preserve? Would I come out on Victory Boulevard? I could flag down a car there, maybe locate a telephone. Get help.

That thought cheered me. I picked up speed once I stepped off the planking and put my feet back on hard-packed dirt. The path narrowed; I brushed past reeds and bushes, shielding Adam's bobbing head with my left hand and using my right to push green stuff out of the way.

I jumped lightly over a puddle, then came to a stop as I realized there was no more path. Reeds grew up all around me; there was no clear way through them. I pushed aside a bunch and peered through the green curtain, but the growth was equally dense in every direction except backward.

There was no more path. Should I keep going, bushwhacking my way through the tall growth? Or should I turn back, hoping for another way out of the wildlife preserve?

Adam gave a tiny little cry. I looked down at him. Huge, unfocused blue eyes tried to fix themselves on my face and failed. His head bobbed and he cried out again. It seemed a cry of pleasure rather than pain, but it was impossible to know for sure. An incredibly tiny hand reached out from the snuggly and grabbed at the air. He opened and closed his fingers and squealed again.