Around the corner, he glimpsed a dim form, already disappearing halfway down the next block. He began to run.
He is limping! How close could he get before the boy heard him? He kept to a patch of hardened mud along the curb, muffling his footfalls. I've got him this time!
His shoes struck a particle of glass that rattled invisibly across the sidewalk, and the boy twisted with a bleating cry. The man lunged.
The boy's thin body tensed like a whip, changing direction in quick jerks. Darting for the street, he leapt a low fence.
The man labored after him. Taunted by the boy's back, he cleared the picket fence. For a moment, their footfalls matched, beating across the asphalt in rapid tandem. The boy angled into a garden, then swerved toward a row of rooming houses across the street, porches stacked to the sky.
Can't let him reach it! He saw it clearly in the dim cast of the street lamp--a wedge of emptiness between the buildings.
Too late, he dove into the mouth of the alleyway seconds behind the boy. But he could hear him this time, just ahead, and he pounded after him. Crumbling walls leaned into the center of the rutted passage, and desiccated grapevines twisted along the tops of wooden fences that reeked of mold and rot. Just ahead, the footfalls ceased abruptly, and he heard a grunt of despair.
Glinting in the faint moonlight, an expanse of new chain link connected the weathered fences of the yards on either side, completely blocking the alley. The boy reeled blindly, crashing back into the fence. He hung on it, shaking.
"Okay now." His own voice sounded so calm it astonished him. "Don't be afraid."
The boy's back pressed against the fence. Feral despair lit his face, and the fence made a chittering sound.
"Take it easy." Chest heaving, he stepped closer, his shoulders brushing the rough wood on either side. "I won't hurt you." He held his hands open in front of him. "Just want to talk to you."
Damp breath warmed the back of his neck.
For an instant, terror flared, turning his guts to molten slag; then blood exploded behind his ear. As he slumped, agony burst through him, and the high-pitched screams of a child filled the alley. Even with his face pressing the ground, he could feel the furious shaking of the fence.
Frigid darkness oozed into his body. Something leapt over him, some dull and bloated form that rattled the chain link as it climbed after the boy with ungainly speed.
His thoughts slurred into a dwindling hum as night closed around him, and the side of his face iced against the fading ground. Failed...failed them all...
Finally, only one thought stirred his fading consciousness.
Who killed me?
XII
"Lie still."
Warmth trickled agonizingly into his legs. A hammer blow of pain stopped his rising.
"Whoa, boy."
The voice sounded farther away this time, and he heard something clatter.
"Don't move till I get this ice pack on you."
He felt fingertips probe the muscles at the base of his skull. There seemed to be a snarl of barbed wire beneath his flesh, and a spasm lanced through his skull. Features hovering before him refused to focus. "Who...?" The fog dissipated slightly. "How did I...?" An aching misery washed over him, and his senses returned, slowly, as from some remote shore, spent.
"You're kidding? You really don't remember?" She handed him the ice pack. "Don't just hold that--put it on your head." Her red hair glinted. "Is this lamp too bright for you?"
Haltingly this time, he shifted his position on the sofa, twisting his head to observe a small room clogged with heavy furniture. "Where...?"
"Don't sit up yet." She frowned. "Maybe I should take you out to the med center after all."
"No, no hospital." He shook his head and instantly regretted it.
"Keep that blanket on. Do you feel like you're going to be sick?"
He started to shake his head again, then stopped himself with both hands.
"You sure?" she asked.
Not answering, he bent forward, as though about to pitch from the sofa.
She stared at the mat of his hair, at the broad fingers cradling his skull. "You want to tell me what happened?"
"First...how did you get me?" Razor blue eyes flicked up at her. "Sorry, I forget your name."
"Kit." She blinked. "Officer Lonigan." She pointed at the ice pack in his hand. "You better put that where you need it, like I said."
He pressed the ice pack behind his ear but at once removed it and gingerly explored the area with his fingers. The size of the lump made the air hiss out of his lungs.
"You're not going to faint on me or something, are you?"
"How did you...?"
"We got a complaint about somebody screaming. I pulled up just in time to catch you staggering out of an alley. You practically collapsed right into the jeep." She sank back onto an armchair. "You really don't remember? You talked about some pretty strange stuff."
"I said something?" The ice pack slipped from his fingers to the carpet. "Tell me."
"Whoa--not so fast. Let's see. It sounded like 'I'm it' or something." She studied his face. "Yes, something like that. 'I'm it now.' I couldn't make out the rest. That mean something to you?"
For a moment, he seemed to suppress a shudder. "What made you bring me here? This is your home, isn't it?"
"For one thing, I figured it was time we had a talk." She rose to retrieve the ice pack, placing it in his hand. "Listen, are you sure you're all right? Yes? Then you'd better tell me what's going on now."
The room and what he could see of the kitchen beyond contained several isolated areas of intense disarray: the top of a bookshelf, the kitchen table, the windowsills. But the spaces between seemed vigorously organized, as though larger tributaries of disorder had been dammed at their sources. "Nice place. Do I hear the ocean?" Finally, he sighed and rubbed at his mouth. "Damn." He pulled himself farther upright with a grunt. "Can't talk with you standing over me that way."
"All right." She returned to her seat.
"To begin with...I used to be a cop." Excruciatingly, he swiveled his head. "You don't look surprised."
"Should I be? After the way you pumped me the other night? For information, I mean."
"But there's more, right?" He still steadied his head with his hands, but his voice grated determinedly. "What else do you know?"
"You're smarter than you look." She pursed her lips.
"And you don't seem so suspicious of me anymore either. Why is that?"
She folded her arms across her chest. "Because I know who killed those people."
"People?" Something moved in his face.
"Two others in the past six months"--she nodded--"both in towns not far from here. Don't try to act surprised. That's what brought you here, right?" She coughed once. "Look, if you want to know what I've found out, you're going to have to level with me. I mean it." Rising, she paced into the kitchen. "After all, we're talking about three murders here."
"More."
She turned back.
"There will have been others." His voice faded. "The missing teenagers, the ones supposed to be runaways--did you know any of them?"
Silence beat like a drum. "You can't mean..."
"At the hotel...how did you get onto me that first night?"
"Stacey called me from the bar. She said she'd had a strange customer, acting weird, and what with the body being found and all." She shrugged. "It just took me a few phone calls to find out where you were staying." A damp hissing in the kitchen grew shrill. "Tell me what you meant about..."