Dance now joined Kellogg and O'Neil, who stood nearby, heads bowed, as they discussed the case. Whatever personal reservations O'Neil had about the FBI man, and vice versa, you couldn't tell it from their posture and gesturing. They were efficiently and quickly coordinating roadblocks and planning a search strategy.
O'Neil took a phone call. He frowned. "Okay, sure. Call Watsonville. . . . I'll handle it." He hung up and announced, "Got a lead. Carjacking in Marina. Man fitting Pell's description--and bleeding--snatched a black Infiniti. Had a gun." He added grimly, "Witness said he heard a gunshot, and when he looked, Pell was closing the trunk."
Dance closed her eyes and sighed in disgust. Yet another death.
O'Neil said, "There's no way he's staying on the Peninsula anymore. He jacked the car in Marina so he's headed north. Probably aiming for the One-oh-one." He climbed into his car. "I'll set up a command post in Gilroy. And Watsonville, in case he sticks to the One."
She watched him drive off.
"Let's get up there too," Kellogg said, turning to his car.
Following him, Dance heard her phone ring. She took the call. It was from James Reynolds. She briefed him on what had just happened, and then the former prosecutor said he'd been through the files from the Croyton murders. He'd found something that might be helpful. Did Dance have a minute now?
"You bet."
*
Sam and Linda huddled together, watching the news reports about yet another attempted murder by Daniel Pell: the writer, Nagle. Rebecca, described as an accomplice of Pell's, had been badly wounded. And Pell had once again escaped. He was in a stolen car, most likely heading north, the owner of the car another victim.
"Oh, my," Linda whispered.
"Rebecca was with him all along." Sam stared at the TV screen, her face a mask of shock. "But who shot her? The police? Daniel?"
Linda closed her eyes momentarily. Sam didn't know if this was a prayer or a reaction to the exhaustion from the ordeal they'd been through in the past few days. Crosses to bear, Sam couldn't help but think. Which she didn't tell to her Christian friend.
Another newscaster devoted a few minutes to describing the woman who'd been shot, Rebecca Sheffield, founder of Women's Initiatives in San Diego, one of the women in the Family eight years ago. She mentioned that Sheffield had been born in Southern California. Her father had died when she was six and she'd been raised by her mother, who had never remarried.
"Six years old?" Linda muttered.
Sam blinked. "She lied. None of that stuff with her father ever happened. Oh, boy, were we taken in."
"This is all way too much for me. I'm packing."
"Linda, wait."
"I don't want to talk about anything, Sam. I've had it."
"Just let me say one thing."
"You've said plenty."
"I don't think you were really listening."
"And I wouldn't be listening if you said it again." She headed toward her bedroom.
Sam jumped when the phone rang. It was Kathryn Dance.
"Oh, we just heard--"
But the agent said, "Listen to me, Sam. I don't think he's headed north. I think he's coming for you."
"What?"
"I just heard from James Reynolds. He found a reference to Alison in his old case files. It seems that during his interrogation after the Croyton deaths, Pell assaulted him. Reynolds was questioning him about the incident in Redding, the Charles Pickering murder, and was talking about Alison, his girlfriend you mentioned. Pell went crazy and attacked him, or tried to--the same thing that happened to me in Salinas--because he was getting close to something important.
"James thinks he killed Pickering because the man knew about Pell's mountaintop. And that's why he was trying to find Alison. She'd know about it too."
"But why hurt us?"
"Because Pell told you about Alison. Maybe you wouldn't make the connection between her and his property, maybe you wouldn't even remember. But that place is so important to him--his kingdom--that he's willing to murder anybody who's a risk to it. That means you. Both of you."
"Linda, come here!"
The woman appeared in the doorway, frowning angrily.
Dance continued, "I've just radioed the officers outside. They're going to take you to CBI headquarters. Agent Kellogg and I are on our way to the inn now. We're going to wait in the cabin and see if Pell shows up."
Breathlessly Sam said to Linda, "Kathryn thinks Daniel might be coming this way."
"No!" The curtains were drawn, but the women instinctively looked toward the windows. Then Sam glanced toward Rebecca's bedroom. Had she remembered to lock the window after finding that the woman had climbed out? Yes, Sam recalled, she had.
There was a knock on the door. "Ladies, it's Deputy Larkin."
Sam glanced at Linda. They froze. Then Linda slowly walked to the peephole and looked out. She nodded and opened the door. The MCSO deputy stepped inside. "I've been asked to take you to CBI. Just leave everything and come with me." The other deputy was outside, looking around the parking lot.
Sam said into the phone, "It's the deputy, Kathryn. We're leaving now."
They hung up.
Samantha grabbed her purse. "Let's go." Her voice was shaking.
The deputy, hand near his pistol, nodded them forward.
At that moment a bullet struck him in the side of his head. Another shot, and the second deputy grabbed his chest, slumping to the ground, crying out. A third bullet struck him as well. The first officer crawled toward his car and collapsed on the sidewalk.
Linda gasped. "No, no!"
Footsteps were running on the pavement. Daniel Pell was sprinting toward the cabin.
Sam was paralyzed.
Then she leapt forward and slammed the door, managed to get the chain on and step aside just as another bullet snapped through the wood. She lunged for the phone.
Daniel Pell gave two solid kicks. The second one cracked the lock on the door, though the chain held. It opened only a few inches.
"Rebecca's room!" Sam cried. She ran to Linda and grabbed her arm but the woman stood rooted in the doorway.
Sam assumed she was frozen in panic.
But her face didn't look frightened at all.
She pulled away from Sam. "Daniel," she called.
"What are you doing?" Sam screamed. "Come on!"
Pell kicked the door again, but the chain continued to hold. Sam dragged Linda a step or two closer to Rebecca's bedroom but she pulled away. "Daniel," Linda repeated. "Please, listen to me. It's not too late. You can give yourself up. We'll get you a lawyer. I'll make sure you're--"
Pell shot her.
Simply lifted the gun, aimed through the gap in the door and shot Linda in the abdomen as casually as if he were swatting a fly. He tried to shoot again but Sam dragged her into the bedroom. Pell kicked the door once more. This time it crashed open, smashing into the wall and shattering a picture of a seashore.
Sam closed and locked Rebecca's door. She whispered fiercely, "We're going outside, now! We can't wait here."
Pell tested the bedroom knob. Kicked the panel. But this door opened outward and it now held firmly against his blows.
Feeling a horrifying tickle on her back, sure that at any moment he'd shoot through the door and hit her by chance, Sam helped Linda to the windowsill, pushed her out, then tumbled after her onto the damp, fragrant earth. Linda was whimpering in pain and clutching her side.
Sam helped her up and, holding her arm in a bruising grip, guided her, jogging, toward Point Lobos State Park.
"He shot me," Linda moaned, still astonished. "It hurts. Look . . . Wait, where are we going?"
Sam ignored her. She was thinking only of getting as far away as she could from the cabin. As for their destination, Sam couldn't say. All she could see ahead of them was acres of trees, formations of harsh rock and, at the end of the world, the explosive, gray ocean.
Chapter 53
"No," Kathryn Dance gasped. "No
. . ."
Win Kellogg skidded the car to a stop beside the two deputies, sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the cabin.
"See how they are," Kellogg told her and pulled out his cell phone to call for backup.
Gun in her sweating hand, Dance knelt beside the deputy, saw he was dead, his blood a huge stain, slightly darker than the dark asphalt that was his deathbed. The other officer as well. She glanced up and mouthed, "They're gone."
Kellogg folded up his phone and joined her.
Though they'd had no tactical training together, they approached the cabin like seasoned partners, making sure they offered no easy target and checking out the half-open door and the windows. "I'm going in," Kellogg said.
Dance nodded.
"Just back me up. Keep an eye on the doorways inside. Scan. Constantly scan them. He'll lead with the gun. Look for metal. And if there're bodies inside, ignore them until the place is clear." He touched her arm. "That's important. Okay? Ignore them even if they're screaming for help. We can't do anything for anyone if we're wounded. Or dead."
"Got it."
"Ready?"
No, not the least bit. But she nodded. He squeezed her shoulder. Then took several deep breaths and pushed through the doorway fast, weapon up, swinging it back and forth, covering the inside of the cabin.
Dance was right behind him, remembering to target the doors--and to raise her muzzle when he passed in front of her.
Scan, scan, scan . . .
She glanced behind them from time to time, checking out the open doorway, thinking Pell could easily have circled around and be waiting for them.
Then Kellogg called, "Clear."
And inside, thank God, no bodies. Kellogg, though, pointed out bloodstains, fresh ones on the sill of an open window in the bedroom Rebecca had been using. Dance noticed some on the carpet too.
She looked outside, saw more blood and footprints in the dirt beneath it. She told Kellogg this and added, "Think we have to assume they got away and he's after them."
The FBI agent said, "I'll go. Why don't you wait here for the backup?"
"No," she said automatically; there was no debate. "The reunion was my idea. And I'm not letting them die. I owe them that."
He hesitated. "All right."
They ran to the back door. Inhaling deeply, she flung it open; with Kellogg behind her, Dance sprinted outside, expecting at any moment to hear the crack of a gunshot and feel the numbing slap of a bullet.
*
He hurt me.
My Daniel hurt me.
Why?
The pain in Linda's heart was nearly as bad as the pain in her side. The good Christian within her had forgiven Daniel for the past. She was ready to forgive him for the present.
Yet he'd shot me.
She wanted to lie down. Let Jesus cloak them, let Jesus save them. She whispered this to Sam, but maybe she didn't. Maybe it was in her imagination.
Samantha said nothing. She kept them jogging, Linda in agony, along the twisty paths of the beautiful yet stern park.
Paul, Harry, Lisa . . . the names of the foster children reeled through her mind.
No, that was last year. They were gone now. She had others now.
What were their names?
Why don't I have a family?
Because God our Father has another plan for me, that's why.
Because Samantha betrayed me.
Mad thoughts, rolling through her mind like the nearby sea cycled over the bony rocks.
"It hurts."
"Keep going," was Sam's whisper. "Kathryn and that FBI agent'll be here any minute."
"He shot me. Daniel shot me."
Her vision crinkled. She was going to faint. Then what'll the Mouse do? Lug my 162 pounds over her shoulder?
No, she'll betray me like she did before.
Samantha, my Judas.
Through the sound of the troubled waves, the wind hissing through the slippery pines and cypress, Linda heard Daniel Pell behind them. The snap of a branch occasionally, a rustle of leaves. They hurried on. Until the root of a scrub oak caught her foot and she went down hard, her wound burning with pain. She screamed.
"Shhhhh."
"It hurts."
Sam's voice, shaking with fear. "Come on, get up, Linda. Please!"
"I can't."
More footfalls. He was closer now.
But then it occurred to Linda that maybe the sounds were the police. Kathryn and that cute FBI agent.
She winced in agony as she turned to look.
But, no, it wasn't the police. She could see, fifty feet away, Daniel Pell. He spotted them. He slowed, caught his breath and continued forward.
Linda turned to Samantha.
But the woman was no longer there.
Sam had left her yet again, just like she'd done years ago.
Abandoned her to those terrible nights in Daniel Pell's bedroom.
Abandoned then, abandoned now.
Chapter 54
"My lovely, my Linda."
He approached slowly.
She winced at the pain. "Daniel, listen to me. It's not too late. God will forgive you. Turn yourself in."
He laughed, as if this were a joke of some sort. "God," he repeated. "God forgives me. . . . Rebecca told me you'd gone religious."
"You're going to kill me."
"Where's Sam?"
"Please! You don't need to do this. You can change."
"Change? Oh, Linda, people don't change. Never, never, never. Why, you're still the same person you were when I found you, all red-eyed and lumpy, under that tree in Golden Gate Park, a runaway."
Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. "I'm sorry, baby. I've got to do it this way." An absurd but genuine apology. "But I'll be fast. I know what I'm doing. You won't feel much."
"Our Father . . ."
He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn't. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.
"Who art in heaven. Hallowed be--"
And then a tree fell.
Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.
Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.
Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.
Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.
Except once . . .
Daniel slashed at her with the knife but she was too fast for him. He grabbed for the gun, which had fallen to the trail. But the rough branch connected hard again and again, bouncing off his head, tearing his ear. He wailed in pain. "Goddamn." He struggled to his feet. Lashing out with his fist, he caught her in the knee with a solid blow and she dropped hard.
Daniel dove for the gun, grabbed it. He scrabbled back, rose to his feet once more and swung the pistol muzzle her way. But Samantha rolled to her feet and struck with the branch again, two-handed. It connected with his shoulder. He stepped back, flinching.
Two words from the past came back to Linda, seeing Sam fight. What Daniel used to say when he was proud of someone in the Family: "You held fast, lovely."
Hold fast . . .
Samantha lunged again, swinging the branch.
But now Daniel had a solid stance. He managed to catch the branch with his left hand. For a moment they stared at each other, three feet apart, the wooden stick connecting them like a live wire. Daniel gave a sad smile and lifted the gun.
"No," Linda croaked.
Samantha gave a smile too. And she pushed toward him, hard, and let go of the branch. Daniel stepped backward--into the air. He'd been standing on the edge of a cl
iff, twenty feet above another nature trail.
He cried out, fell backward and tumbled down the rough rock face.
Whether he survived or not, Linda didn't know. Not at first. But then she supposed he must have. Samantha glanced down with a grimace, helped Linda to her feet. "We've got to go. Now." And led her into the dense woods.
*
Exhausted, in agony, Samantha McCoy struggled to keep Linda upright.
The woman was pale, but the bleeding wasn't bad. The wound would be excruciating but she could at least walk.
A whisper.
"What?"
"Thought you left me."
"No way. But he had the gun--I had to trick him."
"He's going to kill us." Linda still sounded amazed.
"No, he's not. Don't talk. We have to hide."
"I can't go on."
"Down by the water, the beach, there're caves. We can hide in one. Until the police get here. Kathryn's on her way. They'll come after us."
"No, I can't. It's miles."
"It's not that far. We can make it."
They continued for another fifty feet, then Sam felt Linda start to falter.
"No, no . . . I can't. I'm sorry."
Sam found some reserve of strength and managed to get Linda another twenty feet. But then she collapsed--at the worst possible place, a clearing visible for a hundred yards from all around. She expected Pell to appear at any moment. He could easily pick them off.
A shallow trough in the rocks was nearby; it would hide them well enough.
Whispers floating from Linda's mouth.
"What?" Sam asked.
She leaned closer. Linda was speaking to Jesus, not her.
"Come on, we've got to go."
"No, no, you go on. Please. I mean it. . . . You don't need to make up for what happened. You just saved my life a minute ago. We're even. I forgive you for what happened back in Seaside. I--"
"Not now, Linda!" Sam snapped.
The wounded woman tried to rise but then collapsed. "I can't."
"You have to."
"Jesus'll take care of me. You go on."
"Come on!"
Linda closed her eyes and began to whisper a prayer.
"You are not going to die here! Stand up!"
She took a deep breath, nodded and, with Sam's help, climbed to her feet. Together they staggered off the path, stumbling through brush and over roots as they made their way to the shallow ravine.