The Sleeping Doll

Simply lifted the gun, aimed through the gap in the door and shot Linda in the abdomen as casually as if he were swatting a fly. He tried to shoot again but Sam dragged her into the bedroom. Pell kicked the door once more. This time it crashed open, smashing into the wall and shattering a picture of a seashore.

Sam closed and locked Rebecca's door. She whispered fiercely, "We're going outside, now! We can't wait here."

Pell tested the bedroom knob. Kicked the panel. But this door opened outward and it now held firmly against his blows.

Feeling a horrifying tickle on her back, sure that at any moment he'd shoot through the door and hit her by chance, Sam helped Linda to the windowsill, pushed her out, then tumbled after her onto the damp, fragrant earth. Linda was whimpering in pain and clutching her side.

Sam helped her up and, holding her arm in a bruising grip, guided her, jogging, toward Point Lobos State Park.

"He shot me," Linda moaned, still astonished. "It hurts. Look…Wait, where are we going?"

Sam ignored her. She was thinking only of getting as far away as she could from the cabin. As for their destination, Sam couldn't say. All she could see ahead of them was acres of trees, formations of harsh rock and, at the end of the world, the explosive, gray ocean.

Chapter 53

"No," Kathryn Dance gasped. "No…"

Win Kellogg skidded the car to a stop beside the two deputies, sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the cabin.

"See how they are," Kellogg told her and pulled out his cell phone to call for backup.

Gun in her sweating hand, Dance knelt beside the deputy, saw he was dead, his blood a huge stain, slightly darker than the dark asphalt that was his deathbed. The other officer as well. She glanced up and mouthed, "They're gone."

Kellogg folded up his phone and joined her.

Though they'd had no tactical training together, they approached the cabin like seasoned partners, making sure they offered no easy target and checking out the half-open door and the windows. "I'm going in," Kellogg said.

Dance nodded.

"Just back me up. Keep an eye on the doorways inside. Scan. Constantly scan them. He'll lead with the gun. Look for metal. And if there're bodies inside, ignore them until the place is clear." He touched her arm. "That's important. Okay? Ignore them even if they're screaming for help. We can't do anything for anyone if we're wounded. Or dead."

"Got it."

"Ready?"

No, not the least bit. But she nodded. He squeezed her shoulder. Then took several deep breaths and pushed through the doorway fast, weapon up, swinging it back and forth, covering the inside of the cabin.

Dance was right behind him, remembering to target the doors-and to raise her muzzle when he passed in front of her.

Scan, scan, scan…

She glanced behind them from time to time, checking out the open doorway, thinking Pell could easily have circled around and be waiting for them.

Then Kellogg called, "Clear."

And inside, thank God, no bodies. Kellogg, though, pointed out bloodstains, fresh ones on the sill of an open window in the bedroom Rebecca had been using. Dance noticed some on the carpet too.

She looked outside, saw more blood and footprints in the dirt beneath it. She told Kellogg this and added, "Think we have to assume they got away and he's after them."

The FBI agent said, "I'll go. Why don't you wait here for the backup?"

"No," she said automatically; there was no debate. "The reunion was my idea. And I'm not letting them die. I owe them that."

He hesitated. "All right."

They ran to the back door. Inhaling deeply, she flung it open; with Kellogg behind her, Dance sprinted outside, expecting at any moment to hear the crack of a gunshot and feel the numbing slap of a bullet.

He hurt me.

My Daniel hurt me.

Why?

The pain in Linda's heart was nearly as bad as the pain in her side. The good Christian within her had forgiven Daniel for the past. She was ready to forgive him for the present.

Yet he'd shot me.

She wanted to lie down. Let Jesus cloak them, let Jesus save them. She whispered this to Sam, but maybe she didn't. Maybe it was in her imagination.

Samantha said nothing. She kept them jogging, Linda in agony, along the twisty paths of the beautiful yet stern park.

Paul, Harry, Lisa…the names of the foster children reeled through her mind.

No, that was last year. They were gone now. She had others now.

What were their names?

Why don't I have a family?

Because God our Father has another plan for me, that's why.

Because Samantha betrayed me.

Mad thoughts, rolling through her mind like the nearby sea cycled over the bony rocks.

"It hurts."

"Keep going," was Sam's whisper. "Kathryn and that FBI agent'll be here any minute."

"He shot me. Daniel shot me."

Her vision crinkled. She was going to faint. Then what'll the Mouse do? Lug my 162 pounds over her shoulder?

No, she'll betray me like she did before.

Samantha, my Judas.

Through the sound of the troubled waves, the wind hissing through the slippery pines and cypress, Linda heard Daniel Pell behind them. The snap of a branch occasionally, a rustle of leaves. They hurried on. Until the root of a scrub oak caught her foot and she went down hard, her wound burning with pain. She screamed.

"Shhhhh."

"It hurts."

Sam's voice, shaking with fear. "Come on, get up, Linda. Please!"

"I can't."

More footfalls. He was closer now.

But then it occurred to Linda that maybe the sounds were the police. Kathryn and that cute FBI agent.

She winced in agony as she turned to look.

But, no, it wasn't the police. She could see, fifty feet away, Daniel Pell. He spotted them. He slowed, caught his breath and continued forward.

Linda turned to Samantha.

But the woman was no longer there.

Sam had left her yet again, just like she'd done years ago.

Abandoned her to those terrible nights in Daniel Pell's bedroom.

Abandoned then, abandoned now.

Chapter 54

"My lovely, my Linda."

He approached slowly.

She winced at the pain. "Daniel, listen to me. It's not too late. God will forgive you. Turn yourself in."

He laughed, as if this were a joke of some sort. "God," he repeated. "God forgives me… Rebecca told me you'd gone religious."

"You're going to kill me."

"Where's Sam?"

"Please! You don't need to do this. You can change."

"Change? Oh, Linda, people don't change. Never, never, never. Why, you're still the same person you were when I found you, all red-eyed and lumpy, under that tree in Golden Gate Park, a runaway."

Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. "I'm sorry, baby. I've got to do it this way." An absurd but genuine apology. "But I'll be fast. I know what I'm doing. You won't feel much."

"Our Father…"

He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn't. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.

"Who art in heaven. Hallowed be-"

And then a tree fell.

Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.

Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.

Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.

Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.