Her lips tight, almost in a pout, she complied and they climbed the steep hill. At the top Brynn suddenly smelled rosemary and wanted to cry, thinking back to the Easter lamb she’d struggled to roast for her family just weeks ago.
They slipped through a copse of wiry trees, eerie, something out of
Lord of the Rings.
Her face was now throbbing with every step. She touched her cheek and inhaled as the ache flowed through her head and neck. The swelling was worse. She wondered if the wound would get infected. Would there be terrible scarring? The thought of plastic surgery came to mind, and she actually smiled, thinking, You vain girl. Maybe you should concentrate on staying alive before you worry about making yourself presentable for the multiplex on Saturday night.
Graham had caught her once in the habit of stroking the dip in her
crooked chin. She’d blushed and he’d smiled, then whispered, “It’s sexy. Don’t fret.”
She grew irritated at how persistently thoughts of her past kept intruding tonight. She hadn’t thought about Keith so much in years. And Graham and Joey kept making regular appearances—while her only goal was getting to safety.
Like that old cliché, memories flashing through her thoughts at the end of her life.
Damnit, concentrate.
They followed the trail around a bend to the left. Brynn looked back. A clear panorama was behind them and she could see, a hundred yards away, the crest of a rolling hill.
There was movement along it, going from tree to tree.
She gripped Michelle’s arm. “What’s that?”
It was as if a sniper were crawling into position to take a shot.
“Get down,” Brynn ordered. They both crouched. She surveyed the ridge and the trail. No clouds now and the half-moon cast light bright enough to shoot by. At this distance they were probably safe from a shotgun but Hart had fired at her with a Glock. A 9mm slug could easily make it here, and he obviously was skilled.
She squinted at the ridge.
Then she laughed. “It’s just our friend.” She pointed, standing up. “Or maybe one of
his
friends.”
The pursuer was of the four-legged variety, loping from tree to tree. The gray wolf, she assumed. They usually hung in packs, Brynn believed. But this one was clearly solo. Was he following them? Maybe her growl hadn’t scared him off completely.
Then the creature stiffened, looked back. Was gone in a fraction of a second.
“You see that? Like he vanished…” Brynn’s smile faded. “No…Oh, no!”
In the distance two men were moving quickly along the Joliet Trail, headed in their direction. A half mile away, moving doggedly. No doubt that they were Hart and his partner; one carried a shotgun. The men disappeared, where the trail dipped beneath the cover of trees.
“No!”
“It’s them,” Michelle whispered. “How did they find us?”
“Bad luck. There were a dozen ways we could’ve gone. They gambled
and won. Come on. Move!” The women began jogging, and hobbling, as quickly as they could, their breath coming fast.
Go, go, go…
“I didn’t think they’d really follow us,” Michelle’s rasping voice whimpered. It was a pathetic sound. “Why?”
Hart, Brynn thought. The answer is Hart.
The trail turned to the right, due east, and when they broke from the trees the ground opened up with a moonlit view of rocky terrain: tall hills rising above the path and deep ravines falling away below. Gashes in the trees revealed rugged sandstone bluffs.
“Look. There.”
They saw an intersection. Another path, narrower than the Joliet, branched off to the left and rose up a hillside, skirting a steep cliff into a dim valley. Brynn motioned her companion along. Michelle followed, glancing back from time to time, her hand in her jacket, where the Chicago Cutlery knife rested in her waistband. She seemed to find solace in making sure the weapon hadn’t vanished.
At the juncture they paused. There was an open shelter with a bench—no phone, Brynn noted immediately. A trash can, which was empty. The area was trampled down, courtesy of a hard Wisconsin winter. The Joliet Trail continued on into the inky night, descending to the right—northeast. The small path was marked with a sign.
APEX LAKE
1.1
MILES.
TRAPPER GROVE
1.9
MILES.
UMSTEAD RANGER STATION
2.2
MILES.
Brynn walked to the fence marking the edge of the cliff and looked into the valley. She pointed to the left. “Down there. Can you see it? That building? It’s the ranger station.”
“Oh. Way over there. I don’t see any lights.”
“No, I’m sure it’s closed.”
The place was less than a mile away—as the crow flew—through a deep valley, though hiking via this path would take them on a much longer trip: more than two miles, according to the sign. The path would meander, leading to Apex Lake, the grove and finally to the station.
Brynn had a vague memory of the station, which had served as a staging area for one of the searches she’d been on. It had been closed then too—the time of year was winter—but she could picture it clearly.
“I remember phones there. But I don’t know if they’re working now. And a gun cabinet, I think. But we can’t take the path.” Nodding toward the sign. “It’s too long. We’d never make it in time.”
“They might not go that way. Just keep going on the Joliet Trail.”
Brynn considered. “I think they’d be inclined to figure that we headed for the station.” She was staring at the dark void beyond the cliff and stepped even closer to the edge. She paused by a
Danger
sign. Looked down.
Climb it, or not?
Whatever they did they’d have to choose soon. The men could be here in ten or fifteen minutes.
“Is it straight down?” Michelle asked.
Still gazing down into the murkiness, Brynn saw a narrow ledge maybe twenty feet below them; below that the cliff face descended for another fifty or sixty feet.
Brynn whispered, “I think it’s climbable. Tough, but it can be done.”
If they could make it to the forest floor they’d have an easy direct walk to the ranger station.
The odds of a working phone and gun and ammunition?
Brynn couldn’t say. A roll of the dice.
She decided that breaking in wouldn’t be a problem. If they could get to the building, even the strongest lock in the world wouldn’t keep her out.
“I hate heights,” Michelle whispered.
I’m with you there, baby….
“Are we going to try it?” the young woman asked in a shaky voice.
Brynn grabbed a birch sapling and leaned out into space, studying the rocks below.
THEY’D MANAGED A
Lewis pulled up, gripping his side. He leaned against a tree.
“You all right?”
“Yeah. I quit smoking last week.” He inhaled deeply. “Well, pretty much a month ago but I had one last week. Then stopped for good. But it catches up with you. You smoke?”
Wincing at a pang from his shot arm, Hart kept looking from side to side. “Nope.” He’d grown convinced that the women weren’t armed but he didn’t like that damn dog or wolf or whatever it was nosing around. People were predictable. He’d made a study of human nature in the extremes and he was comfortable taking them on, however dangerous they were. Animals, though, operated with a different mind-set. He recalled the paw print near the Feldman house.
This is my world. You don’t belong here. You’ll see things that aren’t there and miss things that’re coming up right behind you.
But then he inhaled hard and leaned against another tree. The men’s eyes met and they shared a smile. Hart said, “I haven’t run like this in years. I thought I was in shape. Man.”
“You work out?”
He did, regularly—his line of work required strength and stamina—but it was mostly weight-lifting, not aerobic. That wouldn’t’ve been helpful; Hart rarely chased anyone, and he didn’t think he’d ever run from anybody, not once in his life. He told Lewis, “I don’t do much jogging.”
“Nope. Health clubs don’t figure much in the Lewis family. But I work construction some. Was working for Gaston on that tower near the lake.”
“I don’t know it.”
“Gaston Construction? The big tower? Other side of the expressway. The glass is up now. I hired out with the concrete sub. That’ll keep you in shape. You handy?”
Hart said, “Some. I’ve done plumbing. No patience for painting. And electricity I stay away from.”
“I hear that.”
“Carpentry’s my favorite.”
“Framing?”
“More furniture,” Hart explained.
“You make furniture?”
“Simple things.”
Measure twice, cut once….
“Like tables and chairs?”
“Yeah. Cabinets. It’s relaxing.”
Lewis said, “I built my grandmother a bed once.”
“A bed? Come on, let’s keep going.” They started walking again. “How’d you happen to build her a bed?”
Lewis explained, “She started going crazy, getting older. Maybe that Alzheimer’s thing, I don’t know. Or maybe she just got old. She’d walk around the house singing Christmas carols all year round. All the time. And she’d start putting up decorations and my mother’d take them down and then she’d be putting them up again.”
Hart picked up the pace.
“So she’s pretty flaky. And she starts looking for her bed. The bed she had with my grandfather. It musta got thrown out years ago. But she thought it was somewhere in the house. Walking all over the place trying to find it. I felt bad for her. So I found some pictures of it and made her one. Wasn’t all that good but it looked close enough. I think it gave her a good couple of months. I don’t know.”
Hart said, “Like ‘making’ a bed. Only you really did make one, not with sheets and blankets.”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” He gave a laugh.
“Why’re you in this line, Comp? You could be making union scale.”
“Oh, I’m in it for the money. How can you score big at sweat labor?”
“You score big doing this?”
“I score
bigger.
Now my mother’s in a home too. And my brothers, they contribute. I can’t do less than them.”
Hart felt Lewis’s eyes on him, like he wanted to ask about his family but remembered the story about the brother and the parents being dead.
“Anyway, I’m good at this. What I do. Hell, you heard my rep. You checked, right? People vouched for me.”
“They did. That’s why I called you.”
“Banks, payroll offices. Collection work, protection…I’ve got a talent for it. I got contacts all over the lakefront. How ’bout you, Hart? Why’re you in this fucked-up business?”
He shrugged. “I don’t do well working for other people. And I don’t do well sitting. I do well doing. Got that itchy gene.”
It suits me….
Lewis looked around. “You think they’re hiding?”
Hart wasn’t sure. But he didn’t think so. He had a feeling that Brynn was somehow like him. And he would rather move any day, keep moving, however dangerous it was. Anything rather than hiding. But he didn’t tell
Lewis this. “No, I don’t. They’ll keep going. Besides, I saw some patches of mud back there. Prints in them.”
Lewis gave a crisp laugh. The sound had irritated Hart at first. Now he didn’t mind so much. The man said, “You’re the last of the Mohicans. That movie rocked…. You hunt, I’ll bet.”
Hart said, “Nope. Never been.”
“Bullshit. Really?”
“Truth. You?”
Lewis said he hadn’t for a while but he used to. A lot. He liked it. “I think you would too. You seem like you know your way around here.”
“This isn’t the North Woods. That’d be different. We’re in Wisconsin. A state park. Just using logic.”
“Naw, I think you’re a natural.”
Hart was about to ask, “Natural what?” But froze. A shout, a woman’s voice, came to them on the wind. A shout for help. She was trying to keep it quiet, he got the impression, but he heard alarm, if not desperation. It was in the distance but not too far, maybe a quarter, a half mile up the Joliet Trail, the direction they were headed.
Another call, the words ambiguous.
“Same person calling?” Hart asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s go.”
Staying low, they moved forward as quickly as they dared.
“Keep a lookout. I don’t trust her. One of ’em screamed fake before, at the lake, don’t forget. Maybe they’re trying to sucker us in, wanting a fight. Maybe no guns. But they’ve got knives.”
Ten minutes later the men, keeping low and scanning the greenery around them, paused. Ahead of them the trail broadened and a smaller trail branched off to the left. The intersection was marked by a wooden sign, visible in the moonlight. An arrow pointed out a path that Hart had seen on GPS. It went west and north and, after circling a small lake, ended at a ranger station. From there a two-lane road led to the highway.
Hart gestured Lewis down into the bushes beside him. Scanning the surroundings. “You see anything?”
“Nope.”
Hart listened carefully. No more cries, no voices. Just the breeze, which hissed through the branches and made the leaves scuttle along like crabs.
Then Lewis touched his arm, pointed. Fifteen feet past the intersection was a dark wood fence with a sign that said,
Danger.
Black space behind it, where cliff dropped into ravine. “That tree there, Hart.”
“Where?” Finally he spotted it: A branch had broken off the tree beside the cliff. You could see the white wood below the bark.
“I don’t know if it’s a trick or not,” Hart whispered. “You go round there to the right. That bunch of bushes.”
“Got it.”
“I’m going to the edge and look around. I’ll be making some noise to give ’em a chance to make a move.”
“If I see anybody I’ll take her out. Shoot high, then low.” Lewis grinned. “And I’ll keep my mouth shut.”
For the first time that night Lewis looked confident. Hart, finally at ease with his partner on this difficult night, decided the man would do fine. “Go on. Stay clear of the leaves.”