Summer Shadows (44 page)

Marsh sighed. “The one time in my life I need a Colton West hero, and I have a softie, a beautiful softie.”

“I just couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t, even though she knew she had put them back at risk.

“It’s all right. But we need to get out of here before he comes to.” He tried to pull himself to his feet, got as far as his knees, and couldn’t go farther. He looked at Abby. “Run, tiger. Get help.”

She knelt beside him. “I’m not leaving you here.” She wasn’t leaving him ever, as far as she was concerned. She draped his uninjured arm over her shoulders. “Come on. Up you go. You can do it.” She struggled to her feet, pulling him with her.

Marsh tried to support himself, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. He could do nothing but lean against her.

Abby gazed in despair across the wide beach to the park and their car beyond that. Never could she manage Marsh’s weight for even a quarter of that distance. She looked in the opposite direction. The water.

She wrapped one arm about Marsh’s waist, pushing her shoulder into his uninjured armpit. She took a firmer grip of the uninjured arm draped across her shoulders. “We’re going swimming, guy. Help me get us into the water.”

“What?” He lifted his head, staring at her, his eyes unfocused.

She began her unsteady move into the sea. “Help me, Marsh. Help me!”

He tried. He took several small steps before he fell to his knees in the shallows. She glanced back at their shooter. He was almost invisible in his black, but she could just make him out, kneeling in the sand, his head hanging. Any minute he’d stand and come after them again. He wouldn’t even need his gun to do in a wounded man and a lame woman. She dropped to her knees in front of Marsh.

“Come on, sweetheart.” She put her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her. “Come on. Just a little deeper.
Then I can take care of you.” Tears ran down her cheeks. “Can you hear me? Marsh?”

He blinked at her, then leaned forward and placed a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “I hear you, tiger.” His voice was so weak it frightened her.

“Don’t you faint on me,” she hissed. “I need you to walk a bit farther.” A wave washed softly around their thighs. “Feel that? Just a little deeper. Come on now. Up you go!” She pulled both of them to their feet. “Come on, love. Step. Step. That’s the way. I knew you could do it.”

Slowly, painfully, they made their way into the surf. Every other step Abby glanced back, expecting to find their pursuer crashing into the water behind them. She could just make out a deeper black form rising to its feet, staggering about. He was looking for his gun.

Oh, God, help!

A wave broke over Abby’s waist. At the same time Marsh collapsed. She grabbed at him as he went down, catching his collar. She lifted his face above the water, then tugged him close. She wrapped her arms across his chest, pulling his back against her front. She continued to back into the surf, dragging him with her. She needed to get beyond the breakers so they could move with greater ease. Thankfully undertow was not a consideration on a clear, calm night like tonight.

When she was in water almost to her chest, she decided she was far enough beyond the breaking waves. She turned and began making her way parallel to the land, using the far-off streetlights as her guide. Marsh hung in her arms, his head resting on her shoulder, his legs trailing in the water.

Suddenly the figure in black ran toward the water, arms flapping like a mad scarecrow. Abby’s heart stalled, then jump-started itself at a frantic pace.

“I’ll get you!” he roared. “Don’t think you can escape me!” He plunged into the water until he stood knee deep, scanning the waves, looking for them.

Forcing herself to remain calm, she turned her head so her white face wouldn’t show, wishing for the first time that Marsh’s beautiful golden hair was a common, muddy brown. Thankfully his head rested against her shoulder farthest from land, but still,
that golden head gleamed in the starlight like burnished bronze.

The gunman turned and raced back to the beach. He fell to his knees, hands raking through the sand, searching for the gun again.

May it take him forever!
She continued their slow but steady progress through the water. Judging by the house lights she now saw, Abby thought she and Marsh had gone at least one block. How far should she go in the water? Three blocks? Five blocks? Ten? How long before she ran out of strength? That would undoubtedly decide for her how far she would go.

A roar of triumph sounded above the breaking of the waves, and their pursuer ran to the edge of the water. He fired two shots, making Abby flinch, but they were wasted. He had no idea where she and Marsh were. He began walking along the edge of the water, searching for them.

He would find them with his night goggles, wouldn’t he? He’d found them once before; surely he could do it again. Unless the phosphorescent screen was damaged somehow by the bright flash she’d shined into it or by the sand when he’d dropped it. Or maybe he didn’t know how to restart the device. She strained to see if he was still wearing the goggles, but she couldn’t tell at this distance.

In her focus on the goggles, Abby didn’t see or hear the large wave bearing down on them until it broke early and over their heads. She managed to turn in time to avoid the worst of the water, but it broke full in Marsh’s unprotected face. He wrenched away from her, coughing and spitting.

“No, Marsh!” she screamed as he slid from her grasp. She reached for him and felt only water.

O
H, GOD, HELP!
Oh, God, help!
The same prayer screamed through her mind over and over as she swung her arms wildly, trying to locate Marsh. The opaque green-gray water of daytime was an impenetrable black at night. There was no way she’d ever see him. All she could do was dive, praying that she would literally run into him. Six minutes without oxygen before brain damage began: Wasn’t that what they said? Of course if you breathed in lots of water and filled your lungs, the six minutes meant nothing.

She dived and swam the way she thought the water’d pull him. She flailed her arms, reaching, grasping. Once she bumped into something and felt a surge of joy that turned in an instant to agonizing disappointment. It was only a jellyfish.

Lungs bursting, she came up for air. Taking a deep breath, she dived and slammed into his body. Overwhelming relief poured through her, dulling the pain in her shoulder where she had rammed him. She found his head, grabbed his hair, and stood, praying she could still touch bottom. The water came to midchest, a little dicey with the swell of the unbroken waves, but manageable.

Thank You, God!

Yanking on his hair, she pulled his face out of the
water, rolling him onto his back. She let the next wave float them a bit toward shore. She pulled his back against her chest once again, only this time she kept her back to the waves. She’d walk sideways all the way to Atlantic City if she had to, but she couldn’t let any more rogue waves break in his face.

She stood perfectly still for a minute, her hand resting over Marsh’s heart. She leaned her head over his shoulder, listening. At first there was nothing, and she felt sick.
Oh, God, You can’t take another I love! You can’t!

Then she felt the beating of his heart against her palm, heard the faint intake of breath, felt its exhalation against her cheek. She buried her face in his neck, sobbing in relief.

But they were far from safe. Marsh still had his wound, and she could only assume it was still bleeding. Blood in the ocean. All kinds of unpleasant shark stories flashed through her mind. It was all she could do to begin crab-walking northward toward town and help, but if she panicked, they’d both be lost.

She searched the beach. Where was the man in black? Shouldn’t she be able to see him silhouetted against the lights on the far side of the beach?

Right foot, together, right foot, together. She was amazed at how stable her footing was, thanks to the weight-bearing property of the water. Right foot, together, right foot, together. The man in black was nowhere to be seen.

Or more accurately, she couldn’t see him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t out there, gun at the ready, waiting for her inevitable exit from the sea. Or maybe he somehow knew where they lived. What if he went there and was waiting, ready to jump them when they got home?

If there proved to be any truth to that scenario, it meant two things: He knew who they were, and this was not a random crime.

Right foot, together, right foot, together. But why was someone after them? It was as confusing as those horrible letters. Why? And who? Was it
them
he was after or just her? She had lurched right as the shot was fired. What if he had been aiming for her and gotten Marsh when he reached to help her?

Now there was an idea to assure her a lifetime of guilt.

But why her? What had she done? Right foot, together, right
foot, together. There was only one possibility. If it was just her, then it had to have something to do with the hit-and-run. Nothing else made sense. Probably the letters were involved somehow too.

Marsh stirred, and she leaned over him. “I’m here, Marsh. We’re all right.”

“Cold,” he breathed as he shivered. “So cold.”

Shock
, she thought.
He’s suffering from shock
. She felt sick to her stomach.
Can’t shock kill you?

He shivered again like one convulsing, and she had to clutch him to her so he didn’t slip from her grasp. Not just shock, she realized. Hypothermia too.

“You’re going to be okay, Marsh. You are. Just hang on.” Who was she trying to convince, him or herself?

“Love you,” came in the merest whisper. “So sorry.”

She kissed his temple. “I love you too. And I’m the one who’s sorry.”

But he was gone again, unconscious, as the water continued to steal precious body heat from him, and his blood flowed away with the tide.

“Don’t you leave me,” she sobbed at him through gritted teeth. “Don’t you dare leave me!”

She had to get him out of the water. At this point the gunman could be no more a threat than their present situation. She turned, pulling Marsh toward shore with the same crablike steps. Right foot, together. Right foot, together. She had to have come several blocks. The darkness that represented the park seemed a great distance, too far for the gunman to have tracked them.
Oh, Lord, please. Too far!
It would be safe here.

She was standing in shin-deep water, bent double and thoroughly winded from pulling Marsh, when she realized that none of his weight was being borne by the water anymore. His head and shoulders were above water because she held them there, but his body was resting on the bottom.

She reached up an arm, swiping it across her face to get rid of the seawater and tears that blurred her vision. She bent again, pulling and tugging with all her waning strength, and fell with a splash when her bad leg gave way. The jar of the landing clinked her teeth together and stole what little breath she still had. Pain streaked across her lower back and up her spine.

Marsh!
She jerked to her knees, ignoring the biting agony the movement caused, grabbing for him, pulling his head above water. She tried not to think about the way he had sunk like a stone in water less than a foot deep, but she knew he’d still be lying there breathing in the sea instead of oxygen if she hadn’t lifted him. She sat with him cradled against her, her legs spread like parentheses down his sides, waiting for the worst of the pain from her fall to subside.

When she thought the twisting movement wouldn’t send her into spasm, she looked back over her shoulder at the houses no more than fifty or sixty yards away, houses with their lights still on, probably some with people sitting on their decks.

They might as well have been miles away for all the good they were doing her. No one could see her sitting in the water, so low to the ground, and no one would hear her scream for help over the noise of the water.

She scootched a few inches toward shore on her bottom, straining to drag Marsh with her. Her back complained about the abuse to the already ragged nerves and muscles. Tears fueled by fatigue and frustration ran down her cheeks and into her mouth.

“Oh, God,” she sobbed. “Please help us!”

An almost spent wave purled in, lifting Marsh momentarily from the sand. She tugged and he floated a few inches closer to shore before he sank once again. Maybe all she had to do was be patient, moving with each incoming wave. Soon they’d make it to a place where she could safely leave him while she ran for help.

Ran
for help. That was a laugh. She was so weary that she’d be lucky if she could crawl across the beach. Her breath came in jagged gasps, and her hip was on fire. She rested her cheek against Marsh’s head for a minute, hoping, praying for a second wind. Her arms felt so weighted it was all she could do to keep them wrapped around his chest. Her legs were cramping from their awkward position and their prolonged immersion in the chill water. Her back began to spasm from all her tugging and lifting of the dead weight of Marsh.

Oh, Lord, more. We need more help!

The prayer had barely been thought when she heard splashing. She turned her head, and there stood the man in black, gun pointed at her head.

S
EAN RUBBED
at his eyes. They stung miserably from that light she shined at him. One minute the two of them were there, eerie green aliens folding a quilt on the Seaside beach. Then
boom!
It was like the world exploded in a flash of white. The goggles shut down quickly just as they were supposed to, but that left him blind, the darkness total, punctuated only by brilliant flares where the light had burned his retina.

He’d wrenched the goggles off, throwing them aside, rubbing his eyes, trying to get decent natural night vision. That was when she hit him.

She hit him! That skinny, crippled girl hit him! As he pitched forward onto his face, the blackness swamping him, his one thought was that McCoy was laughing.