One of the police cars lurched forward in pursuit, suddenly alive in a swirl of sound and colored light. The other stayed where it was. An officer jumped out and started walking toward me, yelling at me to get on the ground.
If his gun had been in its holster, I might have done what he’d said. But it wasn’t. It was pointing at my chest. The spell I’d been under since I left my house was finally broken. I was innocent. I was sick of people attacking me. Following me. Breaking into my house. Taking my things. Spying on me. Stealing my work. Accusing me of crimes I hadn’t committed. Confusing me with contradictory stories. Shouting at me. Threatening me.
I’d had enough.
So when the last remaining bike emerged from the smoke, causing the officer to dive for cover, I did what its rider had told me to.
I ran.
Wednesday. Evening.
THE DECISION TO RUN SEEMED WISE FOR ABOUT TWO MINUTES.
It’s years since I’ve seen the inside of a gym, and I was feeling the pace before I’d covered a quarter of a mile. My heart was pounding, my legs were heavy, and with every second the dread of hearing a siren or a motorcycle engine grew greater. I’d be a sitting duck if anyone caught up with me. I hadn’t passed a single turnoff. The wall on my left had given way to a natural bank. It was steep, and covered in slippery moss. The woods on the right were accessible, but what then? I couldn’t hide forever. And the police would have dogs …
The road forked, after another quarter of a mile. The town names carved into the dainty wooden signpost were too eroded to read, so I picked at random. I went right, and after five more minutes I heard the murmur of traffic. My heart soared. I was closing in on safety.
I pushed myself faster, approaching a stand of taller trees that masked the intersection with the busier road, then stopped dead. Something weird was going on. Low down, around their pale trunks, the trees were glowing. Red, then blue. I crept closer, and saw a police cruiser parked at the crossroads, its light bar firing LED rays in all directions. An officer was standing next to the car. There was a shotgun in his hand, and his body was stiff with tension.
Trying to run quietly now, as well as fast, I started back toward the fork in the road. But as I approached I saw the same telltale colors lighting up the sky around the final bend. The police were there, too, now. The net was closing. I couldn’t go forward. I couldn’t go back. So I went sideways, off the road and into the woods.
I ran wildly, crashing through the undergrowth and pushing visions of attack dogs out of my head until I found a narrow path. It merged with a wider one, and then another until it reached a stream. The water was flowing away from the road, so I followed as it meandered through the trees. Then I saw lights through the branches to the right. They were coming from a house. The house itself was nothing special—a poor attempt at a van der Rohe clone—but it would lead to a road. A different road. One that might be on the other side of the police blockade …
Brambles snagged my clothes like barbed wire as I fought my way through the scrubby no-man’s-land that surrounded the property. I was within touching distance of the rough lawn that covered the bulk of their yard when I heard a dog bark. Then another. They were in front of me. Rushing toward me across the grass. They were small. Black terriers. Not police dogs. Nothing that could hurt me. But still noisy. Lights came on in the house. Would the occupants be armed? This was Westchester, not the Wild West, but I wasn’t about to take the chance. And if the owners didn’t have guns, they’d certainly have a phone.
I cut back to the stream and pressed on through the woods, moving as fast as I could in the failing light. After another quarter of a mile I saw a second house. It was larger and more traditional. Two floors, white clapboard, screen porches, and turrets. The kind Carolyn was always saying we should buy, as if we needed the extra space.
A light was on in one of the first-floor windows. Anyone looking out would have a clear view all the way from the tree line to the side of the house. There was no cover. I was just as worried about being seen, but the road was calling to me. Plus night was falling fast, making moving through the woods more dangerous. I’d tripped on exposed roots twice in the last hundred yards.
I took a deep breath, and went for it.
There were no brambles in my way this time, allowing me to move faster. And to rush headfirst into a deer fence. The mesh was so fine it was almost invisible. It was too high to jump. Too flimsy to climb. Too tough to tear. But as far as I could tell, it extended all the way around the perimeter. If I followed it on the outside, could I reach the road that way?
I took a dozen steps, then gave up. The undergrowth was impenetrable. I’d never make it without a machete. I was about to turn around and slink back to the stream when I noticed a branch that had fallen from a tree a few yards farther on. It caught my eye because one end wasn’t resting on the ground. Something was suspending it, about two feet in the air. I pushed on and saw what was holding it up. It was the fence. It wasn’t broken. But it was weighed down to a height that could easily be climbed.
The stretch of open ground was even wider than it had seemed from a distance. There was a vegetable garden to the right, backing onto what was probably the garage wall. To the left, half a dozen flower beds were separated by fancy rustic-brick paths that branched out like the veins in a leaf. Farther round the side of the house, I could see a large pond—probably a natural extension of the stream I’d been following. And beyond that, screened off from the house by a wattle-weave fence, was an aboveground pool. A little low-rent for the neighborhood despite its fancy cedar-wood sides, but in-ground pools are banned around there due to the high water table. It’s the same where we live, which is why Carolyn refuses to have one.
I reached the corner of the house and began to creep across a semicircular area of paving that fanned out from the side door. Beyond it the ground fell away and a curving brick path led down to a thicket of tall bushes. A wide gate nestled at the far end. And there was no sign of red and blue lights on the other side.
My right foot reached the path, and I froze again. A car was approaching. It was close. Its headlights cut through the bushes, sending thousands of points of light dancing toward me up the path. I willed it to keep going, but the crazy patterns grew calmer. The car was slowing down. And then it stopped, right on the other side of the gate.
I turned and ran, desperate to be back in the woods, and the house door opened. Light spilled out like a physical barrier, so I dived for the end of the fence. Then I crabbed across to the side of the pool and threw myself against its base, fighting to control my breathing.
There was no other sound, except for the car engine on the other side of the bushes. Didn’t pools usually have motors to circulate the water? Heaters? Equipment to keep them running? Maybe this one was empty. Could I hide inside? I started feeling for a way to pry open the cover, but all my hands settled on was a two-inch, flexible hose leading to an abandoned pool vacuum.
I crawled back to the fence and peered around the end. A man—short, with gray hair and a camel raincoat—was standing with his back to me. He closed the house door, very gently, picked up a tan leather suit carrier, and started down the path. And then it hit me. The car I’d heard pull up wasn’t a police cruiser. It was a cab, coming to pick the guy up. Or a car service. A way out I could have exploited, if I’d been thinking straight. Which was annoying, given that the police were searching for a man on foot.