Ransom River (43 page)

Ahead, the trees ended. They ducked beneath low-hanging branches and emerged from the orchard onto a wide straight road that ran into the foothills. It was absolutely empty. No traffic, no broken-down cars, no hitchhikers, not even roadkill.

Nothing but a low, throaty note on the air, the sound of a big engine heading toward them.

Across the road, a hundred yards away, was Ransom River. The caged section of concrete and cyclone fencing that ran toward the long and dark storm drain.

“We’ll cross the river,” Rory said.

“How?”

“We’ll climb the fence and ford it. Petra, the fence runs for two miles. They can’t get across it in vehicles. If we hurry, we can lose them. We can even hide in the storm drain—they won’t know where we’ve gone.”

“Are you kidding?”

“Dead serious.” She put the phone to her ear. The line was still open. “Seth, are you listening?”

“It’s a risk,” he said. “I’m still a mile away.”

Petra looked close to crying but nodded. Rory stuck the phone in her pocket. They ran to the fence, grabbed hold, and pulled themselves up, digging the toes of their shoes through the diamond mesh. The steel pressed painfully into Rory’s fingers.

The noise of Boone’s rattling engine grew louder. The suit stepped from the trees and walked toward them, as calmly as a man processing to Communion.

R
ory balanced unsteadily on top of the chain-link fence. Below, the river was running fast. Already swollen from the autumn rains, it was choppy and several feet deep. And the overnight downpour had worsened it. She blanched.

Petra nearly gasped. “It’s dangerous.”

Rory looked back. The suit walked toward them at a measured, inexorable pace.

“So’s he.”

They jumped like they’d been juiced with high voltage and landed on the concrete riverbank.

In the distance, Boone’s wrecker appeared.

Rory and Petra scurried down the steep slope of the riverbank. At the edge of the water a rusted tricycle lay upside down, wheels clawing the air. Near the storm drain, a shopping cart seemed to be fording the river. White plastic bags clung to it like wet ghosts. They ran to the lip of the concrete. The water gushed past.

This ain’t no swimming pool,
Rory thought.

Across the river, up an even steeper concrete bank, another high fence waited. But beyond it, beyond the gravel frontage road that paralleled it, were fields, and beyond the fields was hope: Rock Creek Plaza.

Rory stepped off the concrete lip into the river.

The current grabbed at her legs. The cold bit. She braced herself.

“It’s manageable. We can do it.”

Petra grabbed her hand. Beneath the cuts and bruises her face was pale. They forged into the river. It swiftly covered their knees and whitecapped off their thighs.

Behind them, the wrecker whined up and ground to a halt. The door slammed. Rory glanced back. Boone ran to the fence and glared down at her. His face was strawberry red, his eyes slitty from the alcohol fire. The suit loomed beside him.

Rory got Boone’s phone. The call to Seth was still active. “We’re crossing the river a hundred yards upstream from the storm drain.”

“I’m close. I’m driving up the frontage road on the far side. I’ll get there.”

She felt the two men behind her. Two, not four. Mirkovic and the Nightcrawler hadn’t come.
Addie,
she thought.

Boone rattled the fence as he started to climb. He yelled and dropped back to the ground, swearing and shaking his hands. He shouted, “Seth ain’t gonna save you, Rory.”

Petra said, “He didn’t hop the fence.”

“His hands are burned.” The diamond mesh must have hurt him too much.

The door to the wrecker slammed shut. The truck’s gears ground and the engine whined.

Rory struggled to keep her feet beneath her in the brown churn of the river. She stuck the phone in her pocket. The concrete was slippery. The current forced them gradually downstream, but they didn’t fight it.

Downstream, the storm drain swallowed the river. Rory got a good look at it: three culverts, eight feet high, a line of concrete tunnels that dropped from bright sunlight and frothing water to rough echoes and blackness. The river funneled into the drain in a roil of white water.

She leaned forward. Her pulse throbbed in her temples.
Don’t lose your footing. Fall, and you’ll be swept away.

She looked over her shoulder. Boone was backing the wrecker up.

Petra slipped. Her feet tangled with Rory’s. Rory slid to her knees. Reflexively
she put her hands out to brace herself. The water, cold and powerful, sloshed over her.

“God,” Petra cried.

Torn loose from Rory, she fishtailed away in the current. She splashed and spun and gasped into the water, instantly taken.

The river swept her toward the storm drain.

Seth drove with his foot to the firewall and the wheel jolting back and forth in his hands. The truck bounced over the rough gravel road that ran along the chain-link fence above Ransom River.

The truck bucked over a rise, and four hundred yards upriver, there it was. Seth gunned the truck through dust and kicking gravel to the entrance of the storm drain. The water gushed into it, at least waist high. It was muddy brown. He saw debris bobbing on the current. But he didn’t see Rory.

Fishtailing to a halt, he put the truck in park. He flipped the tail of his shirt over the Glock, threw open the door, and stood on the frame of the truck. And he saw Rory on her knees, half-submerged, struggling to her feet. Near her, splashing, caught in the current, he saw Petra.

“Jesus, no.”

Rory got her feet under her and splashed toward Petra, seeing the maw of the drain, hearing a roar. They’d come almost a hundred yards downriver in just a few seconds.

Boone’s wrecker dropped into gear. The engine gunned.

Petra fought the current, swimming, almost clawing the water, trying to stand. The culverts seemed to suck her toward them. Rory ran, but the river outdistanced her. Breathless, she watched Petra recede toward the storm drain.

And hit the rusted shopping cart.

She crashed into it and got snagged between the basket and wheels, as if wedged in its jaws.

And Rory heard another sound: an engine. She looked up. On the far side of the river, on the frontage road, Seth’s truck had stopped on the gravel in a storm of dust. In a second, he was out of the cab and over the fence and careening down the slope.

Upriver, the wrecker rammed the fence. Its big push bumper smashed down a ten-foot section of chain link with a bang and clatter. The suit climbed through the gap.

Petra’s face was just above the water. Rory splashed to the cart and tried to pull her out. The current gushed like a broken fire hydrant. If she didn’t get a good grip, Petra would slip from her hands like a fish and be gone again in an instant. She slogged to the downstream side of the cart as a backstop. Seth jumped into the river and forged to her side. Together they slid Petra free. Rory braced her against the force of the water.

Seth hauled Petra to her feet. “Go.”

Rory put an arm around Petra’s waist and together they battled toward the far side of the river. Seth followed, a hand on Rory’s back. Rory helped Petra onto the concrete bank. It was slick and as steep as a playground slide. Petra scrambled up the slippery slope on all fours.

Seth said, “Up, Rory. Run.”

He turned, putting himself between her and the suit. Mirkovic’s man was jogging along the far slope, heavy and relentless. Rory climbed onto the bank.

Boone shouted something. Seth said, “Hurry.”

Petra reached the top of the fence and tumbled over.

The sound of gunfire was deep and shocking. Rory gasped and threw herself down against the concrete. The crack of the gun had sounded bigger than a handgun.

Upriver, coming down the far bank, was Boone. He had a matte-black shotgun in his hands. He raised it and fired again.

The shot hit the culvert. Concrete chipped and flew. Seth stood in the river facing him.

Rory got to her feet. “Seth…”

Boone pumped the action with one hand and leveled the gun again.

Seth shouted, “Stop, Boone. F—”

He fell before she heard the gunshot.

Seth took the round in the chest, buckled like he’d been hit with a swinging log, and went down. The crack of the gunshot reached her, like a whiplash. Seth fell back into the water. The splash swallowed him.

Rory slid down the concrete and leaped back into the river and flailed toward him. Seth surfaced, his head back, arms outstretched, and the water took him into the culvert. Fast, like night dropping, he disappeared.

Off balance, she careered toward the spot in the river where he had been standing.

Petra shouted, “No—Rory, no.”

She kept running.

Behind her, Boone shouted, “Stop.”

The water gushed into the culvert, choppy and brown. Rory didn’t seem to be breathing. Chunks of concrete blew from the side of the culvert. Another gunshot pocked the air. Rory jumped sideways, flinching, hands covering her head.

“Stop,” Boone shouted.

She stopped, thigh deep in the river, and slowly turned. Thirty yards away, on its trash-strewn banks, Boone stood facing her. He held the shotgun level and steady.

“Petra, go,” she said.

Petra hesitated.

“It’s our only chance,” she said. “Get out of here, get help. Get to the sheriff’s station.
Go.
”

Petra paused only a second longer before climbing into the cab of Seth’s pickup, slamming it into gear, and taking off downriver along the frontage road.

Please,
Rory thought.
Please get the sheriffs here.

In the river, a branch sliced past. In such a swift current, Seth was already
a hundred yards gone down the dark throat of the storm drain. She could barely see because her vision was throbbing so hard.

Boone marched toward her. The suit flanked him. Rory reached into her back pocket and raised Boone’s phone. They couldn’t tell it was wet and ruined.

She shouted to be heard above the rush of the water. “Cops are on the way. They’ve heard everything.”

Beneath his rage, uncertainty crossed Boone’s face. Then he raised the shotgun.

Rory held his gaze. She spread her arms and fell backward into the churning water. It carried her into the darkness.