Tailspin

  Rachael pushed him onto his back. In under three seconds, he was out.

  She poured a glass of water and left it and the bottle of pills on the nightstand next to his bed. She covered him with a duck-themed afghan and went back to her room.

  When she left ten minutes later, she looked as good as she could with what she had in her duffel bag.

  Mrs. Flint called to her before she could get through the front door. “Miss, are you a federal agent, too? I didn’t get your last name.”

  “Abercrombie, Mrs. Flint. No, I’m not an agent. I’m happy to report that Agent Crowne is asleep. Ah, do you know where I can find Tip Top Overhaul?”

  She walked straight to the car repair two blocks over on Long Neck Lane, set off by itself, the big lot in the back closed in by a high chain-link fence. Only one person was around, a youngish guy wearing a tatty T-shirt, jeans, and black sneakers, and he was sitting on a folding chair, back chair legs against the wall in the single garage bay, chewing gum and flipping through a tattered old Playboy.

  Playboy. Now that was good, that was really quite hopeful, Rachael thought as she stepped over an ancient radiator and into the dim space. When he looked up, she nearly turned and ran. She recognized him straight off—Roy Bob Lancer. He’d been a senior when she was twelve, captain of the football team. He blinked up at her, and blessed be, there wasn’t a hint of recognition in his eyes. It was obvious he didn’t remember the skinny twelve-year-old with braces.

  Rachael gave him a smile designed to curl his toes and churn up lust in his belly, and prayed to the tight sweater gods. “I wonder if you towed my car in, Mr. . . .”

  He lunged to his feet. “Lancer, ma’am, it’s Roy Bob Lancer. Ah, you’re the Charger?”

  “Yes, but I don’t see it.” She gave him another blinding smile.

  “It’s out back, ma’am, all safe and sound.”

  “Do call me Rachael. And I’ll call you Roy Bob.” Another toothy smile. “If I knew anything about fuel pumps, and indeed I don’t, I’m going to need you to fix it or replace it for me,” and she kept that delicious smile on her face, her shoulders back, breasts forward. “You’re the expert, everyone says so. And you’re honest, that’s what the sheriff says, and the dispatcher. So, what do you think?”

  “Well, ma’am, I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet. I’m all backed up, you know?” Roy Bob quickly dropped the Playboy and toed it beneath an open toolbox. He looked back at the most beautiful girl he’d seen up close since Ellie had waltzed out on him nearly four months ago, off to the big city of Waynesboro where her cousins lived, she’d said, with a little wave. Rachael was giving him a helpless look that made him want to lay the world at her feet, but what could he do? Agent Savich was an FBI special agent, and it was Roy Bob’s duty not—

  “You know what, Roy Bob? In addition to paying for your services, I’d sure like to add my own personal thank you with a cup of coffee over at Monk’s Café, or maybe even a drink somewhere—you know, a cozy little out-of-the-way place?”

  He glowed, but then, he was shaking his head. “Oh yeah, well, no, shit—forgive my French—I’d sure like that, ma’am, you know, a beer, but I’m so dratted busy right now.” He waved his hand around.

  Yeah, right. Savich had indeed gotten to him. It was time to find another mechanic. No, she would give it one more try.

  “Listen, Roy Bob, I’ve got a super important deal I can’t miss up in Cleveland. I’ve got to leave as soon as possible. Maybe you and I could work something out, maybe—”

  A loud bang sliced through the air near her shoulder, rico cheted off a tire rim, and thudded into an oil can, spewing 10/40 in a fountain. Another bang, this one sharp and loud, gouged into the wall a foot over their heads.

  TEN

  Hey—what was that?”

  Rachael grabbed Roy Bob’s arm and pulled him down behind a stack of old tires. “It was a bullet. Stay down, someone’s shooting at us.”

  “Nah, that can’t be, I mean, who—”

  Another two shots slammed into the wall behind their heads.

  “Holy shit—pardon my Irish—you’re right, but why? Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know.” But of course she did. They’d discovered she wasn’t dead. But how? “Roy Bob, you got a phone in your office?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Don’t move.”

  She managed to look around the side of the tires through the glass into his small office, saw the black phone on his banged-up desk, the door not more than six feet away. Still, she pulled out her cell first, dialed 911.

  No signal.

  “Listen, Rachael—”

  A bullet sank into an old car seat hooked to the wall beside his head. He ducked back down fast. “Oh man, what’s this all about? You FBI, too, Rachael, and someone’s after you?”

  “Roy Bob, I’ve got to get to your phone.”

  “No, look, I’ll go.” He eased up enough to peer around the tires.

  The next bullet struck a support column two feet from his head, spewing concrete shards and thick gritty dust. One spear of concrete sliced Roy Bob’s upper arm, and he yelped.

  “Stay down, Roy Bob. I don’t suppose you have a gun?”

  “Sure, my daddy’s old Remington. It’s propped up behind my desk against the wall, right under his favorite calendar. No, wait! I’ll get it, I’ll shoot this idiot’s head off—”

  He paled, grabbed his arm, and fell onto his side, gasping.

  “Tell me it’s loaded.”

  “Yeah, yeah, two bullets.” No time, she thought, no time. Even if someone had heard the shots and called the sheriff—there just wasn’t time. They’d both be long dead. The only reason they were still alive was because the shooter simply hadn’t walked in and mowed them down. Why? Maybe he’d been warned she might have a gun with her. And she wondered again whether they’d checked to see the block of cement didn’t have her attached to it at the bottom of Black Rock Lake. No matter, someone had seen her, simple as that. But how had they found her, and so quickly? Get a grip, they knew she was here and they wanted her dead. She had to hurry. “You stay here, Roy Bob. Keep pressure on your arm, and keep down. Don’t give him a target.”

  Both of them would be slaughtered if she didn’t do something fast. Before she could second-guess herself, Rachael crawled behind an ancient mop bucket, a stack of oil filters. Nearly there. She rolled through the open door into the office. A shot rang out, not a foot above her head, sending splinters flying out of the door frame. The shooter was firing from directly behind her, and that meant he was right in the middle of the bay opening. They were down to seconds. She felt rage shoulder aside fear. She rolled between the wall and Roy Bob’s desk, came up to her knees, grabbed the Remington, identical to her uncle Gillette’s that she’d learned on, and slammed down on her stomach onto the dirty linoleum as two more shots sprayed dust and clumps of Sheetrock over her head. Rachael jumped up, pumped it once, and fired toward the bay opening. She heard a man yell, curse.

  Got him. She felt powerful, invincible in that moment. She shouted, “Drop that gun and step out where I can see you or I’ll shoot your head off!”

  She heard heavy running footsteps. She scrambled to her feet, ran to the bay opening, saw him rounding a corner, and fired again. She missed, but it was close. The footsteps faded into the distance. Rachael ran after the man, saw him get into a black Ford pickup and burn rubber onto the street. She started to run after him, but realized there weren’t any more bullets in the Remington, and he might see her in the rearview and decide to stop and have another go at her. She lowered the rifle, a fierce smile on her face. She’d forgotten what it was like to feel strong and in control.

  How had they found her so quickly?

  “By gawd, ma’am, that was good, real good. You got the sumbitch—pardon my Italian—I saw a brief glimpse of him holding his sorry arm and running away as fast as he could.”

  “Call me Rachael,” she said as she ran to Roy
Bob’s phone and dialed 911. The dispatcher Mort asked her to state her emergency. She nearly laughed. She sucked it in and asked for Agent Savich. He wasn’t there . . . wait a minute, he and the sheriff just walked in.

  “Hello? Savich here.”

  Rachael shouted into the phone, “A guy tried to kill us! Roy Bob’s place, hurry!”

  When Sheriff Hollyfield, Savich, and Sherlock came running, every deputy in Parlow racing behind them, she yelled, “He’s in a black Ford pickup—that way! The first three letters on his license plate are F-T-E!” She wanted to go with them, but the last thing they needed was to haul along a civilian with an empty Remington. It was hard, but she stood still and watched them take off after him.

  Sheriff Hollyfield yelled, “I saw that wuss car you’re driving. Take my Chevy, it’ll get you anywhere,” and he tossed the keys to Savich. He looked after them, and sighed. He turned to look at Roy Bob and Rachael. Roy Bob was holding his arm, his eyes nearly whirling in his head, not from pain but from excitement. And Rachael looked pretty pumped herself. Sheriff Hollyfield said, “Roy Bob, that was fine shooting. You said you shot him in the arm?”

  “No,” said Roy Bob, “it wasn’t me.”

  The sheriff’s left eyebrow arched as he looked at Rachael. “Sorry, that’s my bib overalls talking. All right, you shot him. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  She laughed, couldn’t help herself. “That was funny.”

  “Yeah, well.” The sheriff was embarrassed he’d been sexist, and it calmed her, even made her smile a bit. She said, “Roy Bob and I were discussing how speedily he could get my car fixed when a bullet whizzed by our heads. Roy Bob would have shot him, but he got hurt, as you can see. I crawled to his office, got the rifle, and shot the guy. Fact is, Sheriff, he could have run in and shot us both dead, but he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid Roy Bob had a gun handy and so he waited and shot from the bay door.”

  “I didn’t realize,” Roy Bob said, still riding so high on adrenaline he couldn’t hold still, didn’t even pay any attention to the blood still dripping between his fingers and down his arm, “it was bullets. Then there was another shot and she pulled me down behind those Goodyears. The guy kept shooting, I got hit in the arm with a piece of concrete, and Rachael crawled into my office and got Daddy’s Remington. Boy, she knows how to use a rifle, good as my grandpa, and she stood right up and fired, hit the bastard—pardon my Russian—her first shot. She fired again but he was moving fast so she missed.” He paused for a moment, grinned real big. “Would you marry me, Rachael? I don’t want Ellie, she can’t shoot worth spit.” He paused, looked down, and paled. “Oh, dude, I’ve got blood running down my arm.”

  Rachael tore the sleeve from Roy Bob’s shirt and wrapped it around his arm. “It’s nearly stopped bleeding, you’ll be okay.” She thought of her Charger and knew it was all over, she’d have to leave it here.

  “And you, Miss Abercrombie? How’re you doing?”

  “I’m purely fine, just fine.” She felt flushed with victory, lit up like a neon sign. “I got him, Sheriff, I got him.”

  “You shoot often with a rifle, Miss Abercrombie?”

  “Not for a long time. It’s nice that you don’t seem to forget. It felt natural, you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do. So you were raised around guns?”

  “Where I was raised, everyone knew how to shoot and shoot well.”

  “I see. And where was that?”

  Roy Bob burst out before she had to come up with a believable answer, “A Remington as old as my daddy, I haven’t seen anybody so smooth with that sucker since Grandpappy died back before the turn of the new century.” He beamed at Rachael, not a single bit of macho irritation showing in his proud face. He added, “And would you look at how pretty she is, Sheriff. Can you imagine how good our kids would shoot and what they’d look like doing it?”

  The sheriff wanted to laugh, but instead he turned a dark eye on Roy Bob. “So someone waltzes right in here and starts shooting. You gambling again, Roy Bob? You stupid enough to take on old Mr. Pratt after what he did to you last fall? You know he explodes like a firecracker.”

  Roy Bob drew himself up. “No, sir. I haven’t gambled since Ellie walked out on me. I’ve been too depressed, just sitting home, beer and baseball my only pleasures.”

  The sheriff sighed. “All right then, Roy Bob, Deputy Glenda is going to help you over to the clinic.”

  “No, Sheriff, not Deputy Glenda, she’s not too pleased with me right now. Besides, I ain’t no wuss, I can get there under my own steam. Hey, Rachael, I’m thinking you look familiar.”

  “That’s because I shoot well,” she said, and poked him in his good arm.

  The sheriff said, “Okay, Roy Bob, you go on over, see Dr. Post. As for you, Miss Abercrombie, I need you to come back to the office with me and we’ll talk this all over, you can give me a formal statement. Hopefully Agent Savich and Sherlock will bring this fellow down.”

  “Roy Bob, about my car—”

  “You gonna hurt my other arm if I don’t fix your fuel pump right away, Rachael?”

  Rachael pointed gun fingers at him. “I just might. Then you might think I look like your mother.”

  Roy Bob laughed, then moaned as he jerked his arm. “I’ll get to it then.”

  But not in time. Now, how was she to get away from Sheriff Hollyfield?

  The sheriff turned to see his youngest, greenest deputy come running into the bay.

  Deputy Theodore Osgood, called Tooth because one of his front teeth was chipped half off, just turned twenty-one, was big, beefy, and panting. He wheezed out, “That guy in the black truck—he nearly hit old Mrs. Crump—missed her, but scared her so bad she fell into a hydrant. We’re getting her over to the clinic.”

  Rachael wasn’t listening. She was thinking, He’ll get away, monsters always get away. Two and a half days since they’d tossed her into Black Rock Lake tied to a concrete block. Didn’t matter how they knew she was here, they’d found her, and now things were critical. She had to get out of Parlow, now. She had to get to Slipper Hollow.

  But how?

  ELEVEN

  The sheriff was right, Savich thought as he sped the powerful Chevy to Judge Hardesty’s airfield. Bobby, their pilot, was sitting beneath a pine tree, puffing on a pipe, reading a Juan Cabrillo adventure.

  He had them in the air in under five minutes.

  Sherlock said into her headphones, “I bet he’s going to head back to the main highway, Bobby. He needs traffic to get lost in, and he’s not going to find it on this road.”

  Savich said, “Agreed. We’re looking for a black Ford pickup, the first three letters of the license plate are F-T-E.”

  Bobby swung the helicopter in a tight circle and headed toward the junction of 72 and 75.

  Sherlock said as she scanned the highway below, “He’s also hurt, shot in the arm, so depending on how bad it is, he might drive erratically, maybe pass out, but there’s no way he’d stop.”

  Bobby cruised at three hundred feet over the highway. Savich said, “Let’s not go any lower yet. People have seen enough attack helicopters in movies. We don’t want anyone to freak, cause an accident. Okay, traffic is getting heavier.”

  Five minutes later Sherlock said, “There—there he is. He just turned off 75 onto a parallel access road. He’s in and out of sight, with all those trees canopying the road, and he’s having to go real slow what with all the ruts.”

  Savich said, “You sure?”

  “Yep, the license plate begins with F-T-E,” Sherlock shouted.

  “Continue on about five miles, Bobby, then bring us down. Sherlock, make sure he stays on the access road.”

  She grinned at him, gave him a thumbs-up.

  The landscape was littered with dense clusters of oaks and pines, and rolling hills between higher peaks. About six miles up the road, Bobby brought them down not more than fifty feet from the access road. Savich and Sherlock jumped out of the helicopter, bent low,
and ran toward the road.

  Only seven minutes passed before they heard the Ford coming. SIGs drawn, they stood in the shadow of a trio of skinny pine trees.

  When the truck was beside them, Savich fired three bullets into the front passenger-side tire and Sherlock blew out the back tire. When the truck swerved to a stop, Savich yelled, “Federal agents! Come on out now, easy!”

  The driver’s-side door opened slowly. A man yelled, “I’m coming out, don’t shoot me!”

  “Lock your hands behind your neck,” Savich shouted. He couldn’t see the man clearly, but he did see one hand go up to grasp his neck. That was okay, Rachael had shot him in the other arm. Then, so fast Savich barely had time to react, the man raised a pistol and fired off six fast rounds over the top of the hood. Savich fired back even as he hit the ground and rolled.

  The man ducked behind the door, and Savich shoved a new magazine into his SIG and came up to his knees behind a big maple. He saw Sherlock out of the corner of his eye making her way around the back of the truck. She looked back once to see that he was all right, then crouched down and ran.

  Keep his attention on me. Savich shouted, “All right, you’ve had your go at me. You missed. There’ll be six cop cars here in about a minute. Do you want to die here? If so, then keep firing at me and I’ll oblige you. If not, throw your gun onto the road so I can see it. Now!”

  Aeons passed, perhaps ten seconds, before the man finally called out, “All right, I’m coming out. Don’t shoot!”

  Sherlock pressed her SIG against the back of his neck.

  “Drop it now. Don’t even twitch or you’re a dead man.”

  The man jerked in surprise, then dropped the gun at her feet.

  “Glad to see you’re not a complete moron. Dillon, I’ve got him.”

  Savich came around the front of the truck, his SIG trained on the man’s chest.

  Sherlock pulled off the man’s sunglasses.

  They stared into the eyes of a man whose face was gray with pain. “Rachael got you good, didn’t she?” Sherlock said.