She fumbled with bolts at the front door, pushed against rusty hinges to get it open. She went out into moonlight, a wide clearing. A figure in a ski mask lay sprawled in the dirt, face up, not moving. She pointed the Glock at him as she went past.
At the metal frame gate, she bent, squeezed through the horizontal bars. Then she was on the service road, moving up it with the Glock in a two-handed grip in front of her. She saw the Blazer ahead, went around it to make sure no one was there. She looked at the dirt and saw no tire tracks other than her own.
He didn’t walk here. He’s got a vehicle someplace.
Her tac bag was in the backseat where she’d left it. She got the Kevlar vest out, pulled it on over her sweatshirt, worked the Velcro snaps.
Then, in the distance, she heard the single gunshot.
THIRTY-ONE
Morgan stepped over the body, started down the road to the Monte Carlo. He could hear far-off sirens.
When he reached the car, he decocked the Beretta, pushed it into his belt, got the keys out, dropped them. He felt fresh sweat on his forehead, a growing pain in his stomach. He bent, picked up the keys, and the vertigo hit him. He fell against the side of the car, put a hand on the fender to steady himself.
Not now, he thought. You need to keep moving. You need to get out of here.
He got the driver’s side door open, set the gearbag on the seat, pushed it over as he got behind the wheel. He fumbled with the keys, his fingers unresponsive, dropped them again. He got the ignition key in, pulled the door shut. He ground the starter on the first try, got it going on the second.
The road was too narrow to turn around, and he couldn’t risk backing up all the way down to the highway. He set the Beretta on the seat, pulled ahead. There was a clearing past the Lexus, enough room to make a three-point turn, face back the other way.
He swung left, cleared the car and the body, trees scratching the driver’s side. He turned the Monte Carlo across the road, reversed until his rear bumper crunched into undergrowth. He had to do it twice more to bring the car’s nose around.
Lights off, he looked past the Lexus, down the length of the moonlit road to the highway beyond.
Sara gunned it, driving with the windows down, listening over the sound of the engine, the growing sirens. The Glock was on the seat beside her. In the rearview, she could see two bloody fingerprints on her cheek.
Then she saw the second service road ahead, started to brake. That was where the shot would have come from, where the vehicle would be. The only place.
She barely made the turn, tires squealing, kicking up dust as she took the hard right. The Blazer clattered over the canal bridge, and the Glock flew from the seat onto the floor. She hit the gas, switched on her high beams, roared up the narrow service road. Then she saw the car.
Morgan looked at the onrushing headlights, hit the brakes hard. The Monte Carlo’s nose dipped, and the gearbag rolled off the seat and thumped on the floor.
He slammed the shifter into reverse, hit the gas, backed up toward the Lexus. The headlights came toward him. He thought about abandoning the car, heading out on foot. He wouldn’t get far carrying the bag, though, and he’d come too far, done too much, to leave it.
He braked, the car rocking, shoved it into park, gripped the Beretta, and opened the door.
She saw the face through the windshield, knew it was him. She slowed, but he was reversing now, back up the road. She followed him, and then he braked hard and she had to do the same. The Blazer came to a stop about ten feet away, their grilles pointing at each other, dust swirling in her headlights.
She moved without thinking, got the Glock from the floor, pushed the driver’s side door open, saw Morgan getting out, ready to run. But then he was leaning across the roof, aiming a gun at her, using the car for cover, and she crouched behind the door, the Glock in a two-handed grip over the top of it.
“Police! Don’t move!”
He looked at her. The sirens were louder, closer.
You could shoot him now. He has a weapon. He killed Billy. Do it.
Her finger tightened on the trigger but didn’t squeeze. He watched her, his gun not moving.
“Drop the weapon,” she said. “Now.”
When he spoke, his voice was calm. “You need to get out from there,” he said, “and get out of my way.”
She realized then why he’d backed up. The Blazer would have blocked the narrow road, but as he’d reversed she’d followed him into a wider clearing. There was room to get around her now, past her. If she’d stopped farther down the road, he’d have been trapped.
Too late now.
“Put that weapon down,” she said.
“I don’t want to shoot you, woman. If I did, I would have done it back there. Or let those other boys get you. But I let you be.”
She was breathing shallowly, starting to hyperventilate. She tried to control it, steadied the Glock. She looked back toward the refinery, saw flashing emergency lights turning down the service road there.
“Just you and me,” he said. “Nobody’s going to save you. And nobody has to get hurt. Just get out of my way.”
“I can’t do that.”
She felt sweat in her eyes, blinked it away. The Glock began to waver.
“You owe me, woman.”
She was trembling, her arms spasming as if she were holding a heavy weight. The barrel clinked on the lip of the door, then again.
“Are you wearing a vest?” he said.
She steadied the gun.
“Yes,” he said. “I guess you are.”
Then, as if in a movie, she saw his gun angle down, the bloom of the muzzle flash. She was already squeezing the trigger when the impact hit her. A sledgehammer to the chest, the stars and moon whirling around her, and then she was on her back, the imprint of bright flashes echoing in her eyes.
He shot you.
She looked up at the sky, saw a shadow cross the moon. She heard a car door shut, somewhere far away, the squeal of tires. The smell of exhaust as the car passed by her, a foot from her face. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She closed her eyes.
Danny.
He swung the Monte Carlo around the Blazer, steering wide of where the woman lay. As he rumbled over the metal bridge, he felt the searing pain on his right side. The familiar place. He dropped the Beretta on the seat, wrenched the wheel to the right as he reached the highway. The tires sprayed gravel and then he was on the wide road, lights out, gas pedal to the floor.
In his rearview, he saw more emergency vehicles far behind him, watched as, one by one, they turned down the service road to the refinery, their lights blotted out by the trees.
The Monte Carlo leaped ahead, the V8 growling, the moon bright enough to drive by. He was alone on the road.
How much night was left? He knew he wouldn’t get far in daylight. He needed to find another car, switch plates, get out onto the interstate, head north, out of this county, out of this state.
He looked over at the gearbag, saw bits of safety glass on the seat. For the first time he saw the starred hole in the windshield, just above the dashboard.
He tugged his right glove off with his teeth, let it fall in his lap. He pulled away the edge of the windbreaker. Just a dull ache down there, numbness, but everything was wet, warm, and he could feel it spreading down his leg. He touched his pullover on the right side, felt where the bullet had gone in.
Up ahead, a tan Florida Highway Patrol car came over a rise, siren blaring, lights flashing. It blew past him. He watched it in his rearview, waited for it to swing around, come after him. It topped another rise and was gone.
After a while, he slowed to fifty. He was unsure how long he’d been driving. The highway seemed more like a country road now. Trees on one side, sugarcane on the other. Dawn was a pink bar on the horizon. A soft whistling came through the hole in the windshield. He felt sleepy, cold.