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Because the patron saint of lost souls-or fools-guided her footsteps she came not to the edge of a cliff or ravine but out of the thicket and into the more open land beneath the pines.
The moon had yet to rise, but there was a hint of ambient light from the sky. After feeling her way blindly through the brush, A
Back against a pine, she straightened her leg, drank water and listened. From a ways away-a mile, a yard, she couldn't tell-came the shush of a body passing through brush. The water froze in A
More listening. Faint, very faint, a hissing roar like that of distant water rushing down a narrow gorge. No rivers this high, no streams of that magnitude; A
The hiss was the familiar obnoxious noise of a Coleman stove, the clink a pan or lid. Someone was making di
Joan would not leave her knocked out in a rocky field while she calmly prepared di
For a time she remained sprawled on the soft carpet of needles, unsure whether it was better to go see who was camping in her woods or to run away.
The rumble from the Coleman stopped. An angry voice, just one, the words unclear but the savage tone unmistakable, made the decision for her. Setting her mind beyond the pain in her leg, A
The steps stopped when she stopped. Maybe it was only the crush of her own booted feet placed with such care. Maybe she imagined it. Whatever the source, A
The ranting voice, though more unsettling, was easier to track through the dark than the amorphous hiss of the stove had been. A person venting with such energy also made enough of a racket to cover the unavoidable sounds of her progress; she covered ground quickly.
Speed acted against her in a peculiar way. The faster she moved, the more she believed she was being pursued, the better she could imagine the glowing eyes and bared teeth inches from the nape of her neck. It took effort and a damaged knee to keep her from giving in to childlike panic and ru
A misstep. The knee twisted and A
Not making noise in body by movement or in mind by fear of the dark and the monsters that dwelt therein, A
Sobered, she moved again. Closing out the vision of the bear, she returned to the calming slowness that had marked her progress in the begi
Another minute and she stopped abruptly. Perhaps fifteen feet in front of her was a dark form. A man, she guessed. He held a flashlight that he was pointing into the woods in the opposite direction from where she stood. By its backwash she could see he was tall and under his right arm he held a long-barreled rifle. In the pale spill of the flash she saw Joan and Rory.
Joan's face was colorless but for black around one corner of her mouth that could be blood or dirt. Her wrists and ankles were tied together so she had to sit hunched over, elbows around her knees. Rory was beside her. His ankles had been lashed together but his hands were free. He held them palm up in front of his face as if he felt for raindrops. At his feet the Coleman stove lay on its side, a pan tipped over nearby.
Rory'd been put to cooking, A
"Goddamn it," the man bellowed. The light swung like a sword, piercing the darkness several feet to A
Chapter 23
The McCaskil who held the rifle and the flashlight was a different man than the shifty Lothario A
A crazy man, a scared crazy man, with a rifle and hostages. In law enforcement this was what was referred to as a worst-case scenario.
"Out," McCaskil cried in a voice ugly with fear. He swung the rifle toward Rory and Joan, and A
"I'm not going to hurt him." His voice became wheedling as he turned. Silence followed, deepened by the darkness and the trees. "Balthazar's mine!" he shrieked and A
A gut-numbing roar froze the cowardly thoughts; bear- thebear- close by. McCaskil screamed high and shrill, and the rifle at his side fired, the glare of the muzzle harsh and bright and then gone, leaving a red wound seared across A
"I'll kill them. You'll have killed them," he screamed into the night. "Like you killed that Van Slyke woman. Butcher. I'll do it."
A great gush of terror brought the contents of A
Run away, run away,she thought and moved to the next tree, closer to Joan and Rory.
The two of them sat shoulder to shoulder about fifteen feet from the mad McCaskil. Ranting, a second round fired, the thrashing of his booted feet as he made short, aborted dashes at sounds only he could hear, covered the noise A
The west-facing slope was dryer than the valleys, and there was little undergrowth, not much in the way of cover but shadow and luck. Behind Rory and Joan, several yards in the woods, A