It hit a large rock at the river’s edge, knocking them forward. The van teetered, tipped, hung on two wheels for what felt like eternity….
And flopped onto its side into the river, Haupt’s side down. She slid down on top of him. Icy water flooded from the open window into the van. They were a screaming, struggling knot, fighting, clawing. She couldn’t let him find that gun. His strangling grip was like the gigantic kraken of the abyss. The water bubbled in, swirling, getting higher.
She struggled up, yanking the steering wheel, trying to trample him down beneath her feet. The van was tipping, moving. If water covered the top of her side, she’d never get the door open. She shoved the door above her, expecting a bullet to punch into her at any second from below.
Haupt still struggled, but his head was below the water level. The water was up to her chest now, gurgling and swirling.
Haupt seized her ankle and chomped. She screamed, struggled. He looked up from beneath the water, a blaze of mad hatred in his eyes. Bubbles rose from his mouth. The water gurgled higher.
She thought about the tattoos he was going to keep for his album. Her hair, which he wanted for a trophy. She put her feet on his shoulders, holding him down as she shoved herself up, and pushed the van door completely open. The van was moving with the current. She saw Haupt’s briefcase, bobbing on the surface next to the steering wheel, and grabbed for it. His hand still clung to it.
She yanked. He gave her one last hateful look before his eyes went blank. He was dead, floating in the water.
Vivi clambered out and pitched herself into the river, shocked by the violence of the current. It tossed her like a twig. She couldn’t swim in any direction. All she could do was try to stay afloat as she zipped along, fighting her way toward the rocky shore. She almost let the briefcase go, but they had suffered so much for those necklaces. She stuck the handle in her chattering teeth and struggled vainly with the current.
The van floated behind her for a while, until the last air bubble inside disgorged itself. A half mile or so later, she managed to grab on to a rock at the edge of the water. She crawled onto it, shaking so hard, she could barely make her muscles function. She spat out the case. Her jaw ached with effort. Her teeth were going to fall out for the clacking.
She clung there, like a wet rag. Just trying to breathe.
Jack jerked to a stop at the skid marks, his heart thudding. He leaped out, staring at the trough the vehicle had made as it slid down into the water. His guts were a knot. His mind rejected the most probable outcome, but the rest of his being shook with fear.
He vaulted over the gravel slope of the road’s shoulder and slid in the loose shale to the water’s edge. He followed the current, hopping rocks, clambering on boulders, slogging through water. He had to swim through cliff-lined channels, prying himself out of the current’s grip just before he got sucked into rapids. He finally spotted her, across the river. Spread out on a rock as if she’d washed up on it. Facedown, wet hair spread around her. He screamed her name, over and over. She did not move.
He dove back in, fighting the water. Got across, God alone knew how. He crawled up. Rolled her over gently, with shaking hands.
Her eyes opened, looked into his. He was so relieved, he burst into tears, and dropped his face against her chest. Her skin was ice cold.
She was alive. His soul shook.
It took them a long, staggering time to get back to his truck. He would have carried her if he could, but they couldn’t go back the way he’d come, not with those channels, those sheer cliffs. He couldn’t dump her into that current again, and the only alternative was to climb straight up, to the road far above them. They had to scramble and claw their way up slippery rock faces, and Vivi could barely keep upright.
Jack’s relief at finding her alive was undercut by growing fear. Her face was so white, her eyes so shadowed. She couldn’t stop shaking, kept falling down. She could hardly speak. When they finally crawled onto the asphalt of the highway, he picked her up.
She protested, weakly, but her voice was slurred.
He sped to town, squealed to a stop outside the emergency room at the hospital. They caused a big stir, and things moved with gratifying speed as the EMT techs got Vivi squared away. He was annoyed, afterward, to find some of the EMT techs wanted to fuss over him, too. Fucking waste of time. He’d prefer if they left him alone and concentrated on Vivi.
He begged a cell phone off one of the EMT techs, and called a guy he knew in the local cop shop. “Hey, Tim? It’s Jack Kendrick.”
“Holy shit, man!” Tim exploded. “Where the hell are you?”
“Later for that. That son of a bitch who was lying in Unit 42 of Evergreen Acres. Do you guys have him in custody?”
Tim hesitated. “Uh…are you okay, Jack?”
“I’m fine. What about the guy in Unit 42? He’s a serial killer.”
“There was no guy in Unit 42,” Tim said. “Just a trashed room, blood on the floor, and a bunch of bullet holes. Whatever happened in there, we missed it. Would have been really helpful if you’d been around to clue us into the serial killer thing, because he didn’t hang around, either. And the chief was unthrilled with you for fucking off before you could give a statement. What were you thinking?”
Jack blew out a long shuddering sigh, feeling the cold sink more deeply into his bones. “You have no idea,” he muttered.
He hung up, passed the phone back, and ripped the IV needle out of his arm, ignoring the shouts and scolding lectures. He grabbed a chair and situated it outside the curtained cubicle where Vivi lay, a vantage point that gave him a clear view of both ends of the corridor plus the lobby entrance. Almost hoping the guy would make a move.
So he could fucking finish this, already.
Vivi drifted in and out of consciousness on the drive into Portland. She shifted in the seat, keeping her eyes closed. She didn’t have the nerve to talk to Jack and ask him how he felt. What it all meant. If he had changed his mind about the two of them, or if he was just being righteous and heroic. A guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do, yada yada and all that. His grim, taut face discouraged confidences.
He’d bullied the hospital into letting her leave after only twenty-four hours, and there had been a big kerfuffle. Lots of shouting about security and danger and attackers. The angry doctors made her sign a waiver accepting responsibility, which she’d been glad to do, though her fingers barely felt the pen, as she floated in a Demerol cloud. Even stoned out of her mind, she knew which side her bread was buttered on. When it came to the Fiend, EMT techs and nurses weren’t enough protection, not by a long shot. Jack Kendrick was the man. Hands down. She’d stick with him.
Margaret had come by that morning, bringing Jack some clothes, and one of her own warm-up suits for Vivi. Eggshell blue, spattered with yellow daisies. Wow. Very special. But still, she was grateful.
“I’m flying to New York,” she announced, bracing herself.
“That’s the last place you should go!” Jack exploded. “John told you he’d hired an army. We’ve warned your sisters and their men. Do you want to face an army? Those guys weren’t enough of a challenge?”
“It’s not that,” she said. “I can’t live like this. I have to resolve this thing. No matter what. You do what you want. I’m flying to New York.”
Jack muttered something foul under his breath.
The earliest flight they could find with seats available left the following morning. Too long to wait, but no choice. They checked into an airport Ramada. When they were locked in their room, Jack laid his pistol on the kitchenette counter. “I’m taking a shower,” he announced. “I’m still cold, from that river. You all right out here?” He waited for her nod, his eyes still doubtful. “Don’t open the door to anyone,” he added.
As if. She rolled her eyes. He disappeared into the bathroom.