Outburst (37 page)

Yes, this davenport's glory days were long gone, the material around the back had long ago disintegrated, and two rusty springs had sprung out. Janice saw them and knew it was quite possibly her only chance.

“What do you think?” he snickered. “Should we get it over with now, or shall we wait some?”

Janice turned around and backed up against the davenport. Behind her she jabbed out her hands, but she missed, striking her fists against the rotted upholstery. She took blind aim again. And again missed.

“You know what? I'm hotter than hades in this fucking mask. What do you say we just get it over with? I mean, wouldn't that make you feel better too? I mean, waiting is such a pisser. Particularly waiting for death.”

This time she hit it directly, piercing the plastic tape with one of the springs.

“Janice, dear, that's a pretty good place. Why don't you stay right there?”

As she stared at him, Janice went ass-crazy on the spring, jabbing her wrists on it over and over again, poking the rusty metal through the tape just as often as scraping and scratching her skin. Frantic, Janice kept at it, then worked even faster as she felt the tape weaken, as she sensed her wrists shifting loose ever so slightly. And then it happened—the tape ripped. Finding strength she never knew she had, Janice wrenched her wrists and, once and for all, ripped them apart. She shivered with hope, but stood still, holding her wrists behind her back, telling herself: not yet.

Something flashed, an atomic-white blast of light, which for a mere moment brightly lit the room. Instinctively, they turned. And the next second everything exploded.

The storm was upon them.

As if some great fan had been turned on, the wind came up, not a gust, but a solid, strong blast. The broken windows rattled, the leaves on the vines in the living room tremored. And Janice knew this was her chance.

Into her gag, she screamed.

She probably should have plotted it all out a little better. She probably should have scoped out a real weapon—the standing lamp, a chair, a piece of wood. In the moment, though, her hand formed a fist, and as he approached she swung back and walloped him as hard as she could. At first, with no idea that her hands were free, he showed no alarm. Then he realized what was transpiring.

“What the—”

Janice was a baseball dyke from the get-go. Granted, she'd never played hardball, only softball, but everyone always said it, said she had a hell of an arm, better than half the guys. And taking her best aim and using every bit of strength she could muster, she punched him as hard as she could right on the jaw.

“Fuck!” he cried out.

Janice didn't stop. As he fell back, she lunged forward, scooping up the large glass ashtray sitting on the coffee table. Bringing her arm back, she hurled it right at him, striking him square on the forehead. Blood spurted out one of the eyeholes of his mask, and Janice dove on him, grabbing him by the collar, shoving him to the side. He fell to the floor, his right hand protectively clutching the gun to his gut, his left hand groping his head.

“Christ …” he moaned.

Janice made a snap decision. She could probably outthrow him. But she knew she couldn't outwrestle him. If she descended on him now, he'd simply pull the gun on her and blow her apart.

Ripping the gag from her mouth, she tore out of the living room, ducking down the short hall and out the side door. She jumped over the hole in the porch floor, flew down the steps, and ran down the small ridge and into the sea of daylilies. Glancing back, she saw no sign of him. Just a minute or two, that was all she needed.

The wind came up, lightning and thunder started to pop burst after burst, and the clouds, like some great extraterrestrial creature about to blot out life, covered the sky, sucking up any sign of day. But rather than descending into blackness, a strange, terribly eerie light suffused everything, a light that was all at once both gray and green. Looking up, Janice, a native midwesterner, knew this wasn't good, not at all. Were this the city, the sirens would be blaring, screaming: Time to head to the basements.

Hoping beyond hope, Janice ran to the van and threw open the driver's door and clambered over the seat. But good fortune wasn't hers: no keys.

“Shit!” cursed Janice.

Suddenly glass shattered up at the house. Janice turned, saw a hand and a gun jab out of one of the windows.

“You won't get away!” he screamed.

There was a crack, not of lightning but of gunfire, and the next instant the van's windshield dissolved into a million spidery cracks. Ducking, she glanced back between the seats, her eyes searching for a weapon of any kind but seeing only Kris's body. There was another burst of gunfire, and the next instant a bullet tore into the far side of the van, twanging itself deep into the metal.

Now what?

Janice had no idea. The rain was starting now, fine drops whipped along by the wind. She couldn't dash down the road; he'd catch up with her. Nor could she tear to the barn; he'd pick her off, no problem. She turned around, saw the corn, lush and tall, a neon-green mass as dense as a rain forest.

Keeping low, she tore toward the field as the thunder cracked and the rain fell. She scrambled over a rusted string of barbed wire, through a weedy ditch, then dove into a narrow row of corn. Weaseling her way between the stalks, her feet scrambling over the dirt, Janice pushed and pawed her way along, no longer cursing the heat and humidity, but thanking God for the outrageously perfect growing weather that had sent the corn soaring six and seven feet tall. Using her hands and arms like machetes, she chopped her way along, slicing through the sharp fronds, a riotous vision of green stalks that blossomed and thrived all around. Janice glanced back, saw that the edge of the field, some twenty feet behind, was already invisible.

The rain was picking up, tumbling through the thick leaves, and Janice ran one hand across her face, wiping the sweaty moisture away. Something cracked. What the hell was that? Another car? The roar of rain? She heard something rustling and she froze. A deep chill ran up her spine, and she turned and focused every bit of her energy toward the farmhouse. Was he coming now? Was he diving into the cornstalks? Was he going to catch up with her so quickly?

She heard it again, and her stomach seemed to cave in. Oh, God. That was the sound of someone coming, of course. The sound of someone rushing through the corn. But it wasn't someone chasing her from the farmhouse. No, it was coming from right behind her. Scrambling in the dirt, Janice spun around. And there, squatting in the soil, was a man, his gun trained right on her.

She gasped, “Rawlins!”

His brow furrowed like the tilled soil he knelt in, Rawlins took a deep breath, lowered his gun, and asked, “Are you all right?”

She wasn't going to cry. She'd made it this far. She was going to be okay.

Taking a deep breath, Janice said, “Yeah.”

Clutching her eyes shut, Janice reached to the dark soil, braced herself. Only then did she start shaking. Only then did the fear start catching up with her. Rawlins scrambled toward her, kneeling before her, wrapping his arms around her. And Janice let herself fall into him. He's a cop, he's got a gun, it's over. Turning her head to the side, she put the left side of her face against his shoulder and clutched him. Above them lightning and thunder burst and danced.

But then in the distance she heard something else—the sound of an engine. Someone was driving up the road to the farm. Oh, God, no, she thought. It can't be him.

Desperate, she pulled away from Rawlins and said, “Tell me that's not—”

“Todd,” quietly said Rawlins.

Just as he drove
up the lane and the farmhouse came into view, Todd's phone started ringing again. Oh, no. Not another call from Kenney. Not another set of instructions. This could screw up everything Rawlins and Todd had planned.

He grabbed the slim phone from his pocket and said, “Yeah?”

“This is McNamee.”

McNamee? He was the police officer they'd called to trace the rental car Russ Fugle had seen.

“Did you get something?” demanded Todd.

“Yeah, we got it.”

“Who?”

“Let me speak to Rawlins.”

“Rawlins isn't here.”

“But—”

“Quit fucking around and tell me who rented that car! We got a kidnapping going on right now!”

McNamee hesitated another second or two, then told Todd that Enterprise did in fact have a white Toyota with the last three letters
GMF
. And the car was in fact rented on the day Mark Forrest was killed.

Hearing the name as he drove into the farmyard, Todd demanded, “What? Are you sure?”

“Of course I am.”

“But …” Todd shook his head. “Listen, I gotta go. We need some assistance out here—now!”

He gave McNamee his location, hung up, and threw the phone on the passenger seat. This didn't make sense, any of it, and Todd hoped just one thing—that he wasn't too late.

He pulled up behind a van, stopping just some fifteen feet behind it. He saw the shattered windshield, prayed that it had just been hailing here, prayed there'd been no bullets flying, not yet anyway. Rawlins and he had counted on one thing and one thing alone, that Todd hadn't been called to discover a murder but, like before, to witness one.

Please, prayed Todd as he slowly opened his door and got out. Please let that be the killer's signature, his modus operandi. Please let Janice still be alive.

The sky rumbled and flashed, and the rain began to increase, the drops growing to large pellets that slapped down on Todd. Surveying the scene, he took in the farmhouse, the small outbuildings, and the barn. He couldn't see Rawlins, but Todd, who'd dropped him off just before turning down the farmhouse lane, knew he was out there somewhere in the cornfields. But would their plan work? If only Todd could find them, Janice and her would-be killer, and then keep them talking long enough for Rawlins to effect all this. What other choice was there? How else could they be doing this?

Okay, he told himself, so get on with it.

He put his hands to his mouth and hollered, “Janice!”

Feeling as if he were going fishing with himself as the bait, he left the side of his Cherokee. He walked past the van, stopped when he saw a hole in the door. Running his fingers over the small but very distinct hollow, he was sure a bullet was lodged in there. He then glanced at the finely shattered windshield, which hung in place like modern art; no, that hadn't been destroyed by hail. Continuing down the rutted lane, he descended into a pool of dread. Janice was here somewhere. The question was where.

The rain started splattering down in enormous drops, and Todd wound his way through an assortment of farm machinery that looked like tanks and battle equipment abandoned after a wartime defeat. The house? Perhaps, he thought, shielding his eyes and looking up to the right. Just as easily they could be in the barn up ahead. Or one of the outbuildings? Wherever they were, though, Todd had to stay out here. Pull them out. Make them come into the open. Or so ordered Rawlins.

“I just need,” Rawlins had said, “one clean shot. That's all it'll take.”

A white-hot bolt shot down from the sky, spearing a nearby tree. Todd's heart seized and he leapt aside, spun around to see a towering old elm topple in front of the house. Smoking as it fell, it crashed down in near slow motion. And then the rain started gushing, falling down as hard as if some great heavenly bucket were being dumped.

Totally drenched, Todd trotted forward in the downpour, held his arms up to shield his eyes, and shouted, “Janice!”

He glanced up at the house, kept going, tromping through puddles, slopping through mud. Half jogging, he neared the barn, a medium-size structure that was no longer barn red but driftwood gray. His eyes scanned the building, ran past the silo. Could he be heading right toward some trap? Would it be better if he simply turned around and dashed back for his car?

“Janice!”

And then, quite oddly, the rain all but stopped. The wind died. A few of the clouds parted. The grayish-green light became not brighter, but greener, horribly so. Todd stopped in the farmyard, turned around. Past the barn and the silo he saw the most full and brilliant rainbow he'd ever seen, a complete arc of queerly bright and distinct colors—yellow, orange, red, blue, purple—that for just a few moments refused to be invisible. Was the storm, so fierce in threat, already over? Or was this the proverbial lull?

In one quick second Todd had his answer: the sun—and with it the rainbow—was obliterated by a black cloud. In the distance he sensed something deep and rumbling, a sound like the most enormous locomotive in the world. Shit, he thought. That wasn't any wimpy straight-line winds. Hell, no. Turning around, he stared toward the heavens and saw the anvil of a great tornadic supercell reaching out in his direction. Although he couldn't yet see the rope of any vortex probing the ground, he was fully aware of what was coming. As if to confirm it all, the wind kicked back in, not a mere gust or two, but this time a hard, definitive wind blasting from the southwest.

And then there he was.

“Don't move, asshole!” shouted the hooded man, who stood only some ten feet off to Todd's right.