The answer fell into her lap. Fly or die. They burst out of the woods into a wash of sunlight. The pasture spread out below her. She rammed her foot to the floor, jerking the wheel hard to the left, felt the sick skid, the strap biting into her, the loft as she broke gravity, and over the gangbanger's howl and Dar singing Alleluia! the tires left the earth and with a spine-shattering crunch they rolled, and rolled, and rolled, and rolled.
XXVIII
Every muscle in his body tensed as Amado watched one of the men force Isobel around the corner of the barn. He couldn't see what was happening there, and he was too far away to stop it even if he could. He inhaled. The lady priest was right, he needed to be smart. The gunman was going to imprison her in the barn.
Unless he was going to rape her. Or kill her.
He waited for a scream. A shot. He didn't realize he was holding his breath until the gunman reappeared, taking up his guard position. He exhaled. She was in the barn, then.
"Hey!" The man yelled in Spanish. "Victor!"
"Yeah?" Victor was the downslope guard.
"You ready?"
"Hell, no. How are we going to do it, anyway? It's a stupid idea. We should just wait until Alejandro gets back."
"I'm not risking him getting mad. I have an idea."
"What, wave your lighter under the barn? You're full of shit, Ferdo."
"Set the hay bales on fire."
Victor paused. "That might work." He sounded surprised.
Amado waited for a protest, a plea, some movement from the barn. Nothing. Then he shook his head. Idiot. The Christies couldn't understand a word. They had no warning. What should he do? How could he save Isobel when there was an open field and two men with guns between them?
Ferdo snagged one bale by its cord and set it on end. He picked up a second and a third, balancing each on its square end. He dug into his pants pocket. "If you see anybody moving in there, shoot them, okay?" A small flame sprang from his fingers. Amado knew it was a lighter, but from this distance, Ferdo looked like a devil summoning fire to torment the damned.
"I've got a better idea." Victor swung his arm up and shot into the wide shadowed rectangle of the second-floor door. Amado heard yells and shouts from the interior. Victor squeezed off another shot.
On the other side of the barn, the tops of all three hay bales were smoking. Small pennants of flame fluttered, danced, then unfurled into sheets of red and orange. Ferdo grabbed one by its lower half and pitched it into the barn. Yells and screams were cut off as Victor put another bullet through the door. Ferdo tossed the second bale in. Then the third.
Victor's gun blasted one more time. "I think that'll do it."
"Should I get my cell phone? To take pictures? Out here in the boonies, who's going to know what they got?"
"Don't worry. Word will get around." Smoke roiled away from the side of the barn where Ferdo had thrown the hay in.
"Should we let the girl out?" Ferdo asked. "We could bang her."
"That cold-blooded bitch? Forget it. I could find a hotter lay in a convent."
"At the end of your right arm, you mean."
"Better than some of the dogs you do."
Over the increasing roar of the fire, Amado heard a distant metallic scrunch, wrench, smash, repeated over and over. He whirled around. Birds twittered and cawed. Nothing moved along the road or among the trees.
"What the hell?" one of the men said.
Amado spun back. This was his chance. He sprinted from the rhododendron bush to the roadway, staying out of sight of the meadow. He cupped his hands around his mouth. God, make me a mimic. "Victor! Ferdo!"
"Alejandro? Is that you?"
"Get over here and help me, you stupid sons of whores! She's getting away!" He jogged a few feet down the road and shouted, "She's running toward the farm! She'll call the police! Follow me!" He ran another five yards. "Hurry, you fools! Help me catch her!" He spotted the huge granite stone and dove behind it. Seconds later, Victor and Ferdo thundered past, already panting as if they'd run a mile. For a moment he was tempted to run after them, to smash into their backs and roll them into the dirt, to batter their faces until there was nothing left but blood and bone. Octavio. Oh, my brother.
But Octavio was dead. He had to help the living. He rose and ran for the field, for the barn, for Isobel.
XXIX
She opened her eyes. The windshield had cracked into a hundred pieces, diffusing blue and green and white over the airbags, deflating like emptied bladders. She hung upside down from her shoulder strap and seat belt. The roof, the doors, the floor looked like the inside of a tube of toothpaste after a series of good squeezes.
She looked to her right. The gunman was crumpled between the dashboard and the passenger seat. Parts of him were at odd angles, and blood from a gash on his head sheeted over his face. She swallowed. Tried to feel some stirring of compassion, but all she could see was Octavio sitting in that now-empty seat as she told him, You're safe. Everything's going to be okay. Another failing to add to her many failures as a priest.
Her door wouldn't unlatch and her window wouldn't roll down. She braced her back against the seat and planted her feet on either side of the steering wheel. She reached down with one hand to support herself against the roof. It took her three tries to unbuckle her belt. When it clicked open, she jammed herself in place, muscles screaming, and hand by foot by foot let herself down.
She inched forward along the inside of the roof and, twisting sideways, kicked out the remains of the windshield. She crawled past the steering wheel, beneath the slab of the car's buckled, battered hood, chunks of safety glass embedding in her palms and catching in her dress. She squirmed through the narrow space between grass and steel and then she was free, rolling onto her back, breathing deep, looking at the dazzling sky arching over her.
Finally she said, "Thank you, God," and staggered to her feet. It felt like she'd been worked over with a lead pipe. Her poor car was totaled. Another one. She lifted her eyes to the hills. From whence my help cometh. USAA was going to cancel her. Her parishioners would start calling her the Reverend Stephanie Plum.
She had been staring at a column of smoke for a while before she snapped to and realized it marked the location of the barn. She shuddered. Call the fire department. She glanced at the wreckage of her little red Subaru. Her phone was in there, somewhere. Walk down to the house and call? Hike up and tackle the next two bad guys? Lie down and wait for help? That last was appealing. They could send an ambulance for her. Maybe she could get a bed next to Russ.