"Annie?" Grace leaned forward on her knees, peering back along the hedge at the spot where Annie was still hidden in greenery.
Silence.
Sharon frowned and moved a little closer to Grace. If she'd been an animal, her ears would have been pricked forward. "Annie?" she echoed Grace's whisper.
More silence.
Grace hadn't moved; she was barely breathing, her eyes fixed on the wall of leaves where Annie had been just a moment ago-where Annie absolutely, positively still was, still had to be ... "Annie!"
"Be quiet."
Sharon shrank back and her mouth dropped open. The voice had sounded like God-big and booming, even in a whisper, coming from a bush, no less.God isn't really a bush, Sharon, honey. That's just how he talked to Moses.
She could feel Grace's arm pressed tightly against hers. They trembled in unison, shudders passing from one body to the next, because somebody else was in there with Annie.
Sharon slammed her mouth closed, trapping a scream that belonged to a woman, not a cop. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Grace fall to her belly, elbows braced on the ground, the big Sig pointed at the bushes before Sharon's gun had even cleared the holster. Grace's expression was tight and hard, and her eyes were so big that they looked like they were eating her face.
The big whisper, definitely male, sounded again. "Who are you?"
Sharon swallowed. It was one of them. God in heaven, one of the soldiers had Annie.
Grace moved her hands slightly, drawing a bead on the sound of the voice, but she kept her eyes forward, her gaze laying right on the barrel of the Sig.
There was a little squeaking Annie-noise from deep inside the hedge, and Grace nearly fainted with relief. Annie was in there, she was alive, but then there were muffled grunts and sounds of a struggle and oh, God, he was hurting her. "Let her go!" Grace's voice was the one that boomed now.
"Quiet! I have a gun to your friend's head. How many of you are there, and what are you doing here?"
There was a sudden commotion in the bushes-a loud cracking of branches, a gut-deep grunt, then a high, whistling sound as branches burst open and Annie came tearing out on her hands and knees like an enormous motorized toddler, her underwear tangled around her ankles, her face horribly contorted. She plowed into Grace and nearly knocked her backward. "That goddamned son of a bitch grabbed me while I wasgoing to the bathroom, for Christ's sake. What kind of a person does that? Shoot the bastard." She tugged furiously at her panties, struggling to pull them up while she was still kneeling. "I got him a good one with my elbow, but he's still wiggling. Go on. Shoot him!"
"Don't shoot," the man's voice said weakly. "Don't. . , please . . . Jesus.. . I'm already shot. ..."
Grace's eyes narrowed. He was lying. He wasn't shot. She hadn't pulled the trigger yet.
".., your friends . . , already shot me . . ."
Grace frowned.Their friends? Not his? Was he telling the truth? Or was it a trick? Was he sitting in there perfectly all right, pretending to be shot so she'd creep over and peekaboo in and then he'd yell, "Surprise!" and blow her off?
"Who are you?" she demanded.
".., deputy . . , deputy . . ." the voice faded.
The three women exchanged glances, then jumped when something small and metal sailed out of the bushes and landed in front of them. Moonlight glittered on it, outlining it on the dark grass blanket. It looked like a perfectly shaped star had fallen from the sky.
"Oh, God," Sharon murmured, leaning forward to pick up the Missaqua County badge. "Who are you? Who's the Sheriff of Missaqua County?"
No answer.
"Hey, you. Throw out your gun."
Silence.
Grace glanced at Annie. "Did you see him? Is he one of them?"
Still outraged, Annie shrugged. "He grabbed me from behind."
Sharon was already moving cautiously up to the hedge, creeping forward to where Annie's exit had left the greenery in disorder. She stopped just shy of the spot, then led the way in with her 9mm. It was a thoughtless act, automatic. She'd done it a million times before. Sure, she'd been stuck behind a desk for the past several months, hiding from the memory of what it felt like to have a bullet plow through your neck, losing her edge and dulling her senses, but she was back in full cop mode now.
She saw him behind the tangle of thick branches at the roots, slumped into it, his arms snaked around from behind as if he were hugging the hedge. His shirtsleeves were light tan, not camouflage. His gun had fallen from his hand and lay in the dirt in front of the bush, beyond his reach.
Sharon released a soft breath, looked at his head, and saw blood. His eyelids fluttered and he groaned.
It took them ten minutes they didn't have to get him down into the basement.
A miracle, Grace thought, grunting as they negotiated the last step down. He had his right arm over her shoulder, his left over Sharon's, and Grace wasn't sure he'd been entirely conscious during the halting trip from the lilacs. Her back ached from the weight of his arm. He was a big man.
"Maybe if I could just sit for a minute," his voice strained.
Annie closed the doors behind them while they eased him down to the dirt floor. He leaned back against a wooden support beam and closed his eyes.
He was Deputy Douglas Lee, according to the County Sheriff ID card in his wallet. They'd gone through it hurriedly while he was blacked out under the hedge. Grace thought they must have looked like criminals, peering at their booty in the moonlight.
She looked him up and down while his eyes were still closed,
thinking that unless the local Sheriff's Department was involved in this whole thing, he probably wasn't one of the psycho warriors. Then again, identification could always be faked, and the uniform could just be part of an elaborate disguise.
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose hard. Nothing was what it seemed anymore. What looked like pretty Wisconsin countryside was really a bloody battlefield; men who looked like U.S, soldiers were really stone-cold killers who shot women in print dresses and wanted to shoot them, too.
Suddenly, the man's chin sagged to his chest and his eyelids went still.
Annie peered down at him. "Is he dead?"
"He's not dead," Grace said, watching his chest rise and fall. "He just blacked out again."
"You think he's really a deputy?"
Sharon shrugged. "The badge looks legit. Which doesn't mean anything."
No, Grace was thinking. We can't trust anyone except ourselves. "I don't know," she said aloud, looking at the wound on his head. One side of his face was streaked with dried blood-a lot of it-and fresh,shiny seepage trickled over it.See that? That's real. And even a crazy man wouldn't shoot himself in the head as part of a disguise, right? So he is a deputy. One more for our side. The odds are improving. We're now up to four against. . , how many?
"Lord God," Annie murmured, staring at the wound. "Who would have thought I could do that much damage with one little ol' elbow."
Sharon had already wet a rag at the sink and was bending from the waist to dab ineffectually at his wound. "Your elbow didn't do this. Might have made it worse, but he really was shot. See the graze right here?" When she pressed a little harder, he groaned awake and leaned forward, grabbing his head in both hands. "Ah, shit, that hurts."
Sharon jerked back involuntarily, holding the rag out at arm's length. He reached for it with a shaky hand and pressed it against his head.
"Who shot you?" Grace said.
"You tell me."
There wasn't much moonlight filtering through the high, narrow windows, but there was enough to show the steadiness in Grace's hand as she raised the Sig and let him see it. "You first."