The Last Place

“We could come back tomorrow,” Tess said. “Look in the daylight.”

“If we found a weapon, I suppose the state police could use it to shake our Dominican friend down. Assuming he’s still on Eastern Avenue come tomorrow.”

They were halfway up the last aisle when they realized a bay door was open. They picked up their pace, heading toward it. But as soon as they got there, they heard a motor engage and saw two huge headlights snap on, drowning them in light. Then a van burst from the bay, heading straight toward them.

Not again, was Tess’s first thought and she may have screamed it out loud. “Not again.”

“Run,” Carl shouted, as if she needed encouragement. He was moving with surprising speed, given his bad knee.

They gained ground at first, for the van had to turn sharply out of the narrow bay. But once they were in the parking lot, with a long straightaway between them and the gate, the van had no trouble picking up speed. If anything, it seemed to be toying with them, holding back so they would run harder.

Within yards of the gate, Carl veered to the left, intent on making it back to the Dumpster they had used for cover when they were hiding.

Tess had thought they would be better off getting out of the parking lot and closing the gate behind them, but she saw his logic: Once behind the Dumpster, she could get her gun out of the holster and set up for a shot. She picked up speed and was even with him, just inches away from reaching the haven they needed, when she felt the van on top of them, smelled its fetid exhaust.

Carl shoved her, knocking her down, but the momentum of his push carried her along the pavement. She felt something bite her left leg, nothing more than a minor scrape, although it was strong enough to tear the fabric of her jeans. She was there; she had made it. Now all she had to do was shoot at the van’s windshield, forcing it off course.

She tried to stand, only to see blood seeping through the hole in her pants. Through the hole in her leg. Shit, there was a gaping wound, deep enough to see a bit of bone staring back at her. Why did you have to push me so hard, Carl? She turned to ask him this, expecting to see him behind her. But Carl didn’t have the advantage of someone shoving him from behind. He had stayed in the open, drawing the van away from her. And now it was going to hit him.

It was just as she remembered when the cab struck Jonathan. The van seemed to hesitate, for a moment, rearing back, like a bull taking aim, and then impaling Carl on its flat snout, flinging his body through the air. What did a van weigh-3,000 pounds, 4,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds? How fast was it going? ten miles per hour, twenty, thirty? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t a physics equation. Carl was dead, he had to be. Strangely, crazily, she remembered the moment they had shared in the Suburban House. Noodles, I slipped. Noodles, I slipped.

But she was alive-and she had a gun. Even if she couldn’t seem to walk very well, she could shoot. She pulled her gun from the holster, steadying it in two hands and aiming toward the blinding headlights.

“I have a gun too,” came a voice from inside the van. “And I can see you clearly, while you have only a general idea of where I am. Throw your gun down, or I’m going to run you over. That’s not a nice way to die, let me assure you. I have some experience in these matters, as you probably know by now.”

She fired off one round, hitting the windshield.

The voice came back, mildly exasperated. “Tess, don’t be foolish. Put the gun down, or I’ll drive straight at you.”

If she could get to the gate and pull it shut behind her-and she had a chance, adrenaline alone might carry her that far, that fast-she could get away. He’d have to get out of the fucking van then, and she’d be in position, she’d have a shot.

“If you run, I’ll shoot you in the back,” the voice said. “It’s not what I want, but if I have to, I will. Also, you can’t see it from here, but I think your friend is alive. He’s breathing, Tess. Put your gun down and I’ll call for help. Don’t you want to save his life? I have a cell phone right here.” He pushed a button, and its ringer sounded, a chirpy little song in four notes: dee-dee-dee-dee. The tune was familiar. It was the one clocks played, in imitation of Big Ben. Oh, lord, our guide.

“Your gun, Tess. It’s your only chance-and his.”

She threw it, but not at the van. Instead, she threw it behind her, into the shadowy recesses along the razor-wire-topped fence.

“I guess that will do,” the voice said.

She heard the passenger door open and close, saw the figure come toward her, backlit in his headlights. It was a man, nothing more than a man, a man of average height and build, a man of average looks. But she had known that. She had known for some time how ordinary-looking Billy Windsor was.

He knelt alongside her, squeezing her left knee. She jerked back, but he pressed harder. He was trying to stanch the blood. Whatever she had fallen on had taken a neat crescent-shaped chunk out of her knee, almost like a bite.

Billy Windsor leaned his face close to hers. He wore a baseball cap, but he was no longer bearded and the hair visible at the edges was light brown, curly. He placed his palms on her cheeks, indifferent to the blood he left on her face. Her blood, from her knee.

“Well,” he said. “We’ve certainly come full circle.”

CHAPTER 38

Inside the warehouse, he ripped the torn leg of her jeans and pressed a clean rag to her knee-but only after tying her to a wooden chair, a battered bentwood.

He fastened her to the chair’s curves with a jump rope. Her own, Tess realized, the one she kept in the trunk of her car. She hadn’t even noticed it was missing. It had been there in Sharpsburg, the night she checked into the Bavarian I

But then, he had mapped her course through Maryland. He knew where she was going because he had sent her there.

When he tightened the knot on the leather rope, Tess tried to swell her chest as much as possible, so there might be some slack when he was done, but she was weak and light-headed. Had she lost that much blood? Was she in shock? He wore a denim work shirt over his white T-shirt and he took it off, tying the arms around her leg to make a bandage. All this time he had not spoken, but he had removed his baseball cap, so she could finally see his face. He had a nice build, not unlike Crow’s: slender but muscular. He looked to be her age, but then that was one of the few things they had known about him. He was thirty-two. From identity to identity, Billy Windsor had been consistent about his age. He picked men with the same birth year as his, which gave him one less lie to keep track of.

Did he live here? There was a cot, neatly made, with a lightweight blanket and a pretty patchwork pillow. There was an old card table, and he had rigged up electricity and hung a floodlight that threw a circle of light over them. But there was no sign of a bathroom and the rest of the space was stacked with canisters and boxes.

“Shouldn’t I be lying down? In case of shock?”

“Possibly,” he said. “But that would interfere with what I have to do.”

Even now, with her trussed up, he was taciturn about his motives.