In Shadows (21 page)

He leaped out into the flow, following in her wake.

HE LAST FEW FEET WERE THE WORST.
The trees were closer together, and the water rampaged through them. It was all Jake could do to paddle and kick the final inches to the tree, tugging an exhausted Mandi along beside him. Now she and Pierce clung to the first spruce, and Jake was five feet away, wrapped around the other. With the car and the headlights gone, safety and the flashlight were eight feet above their heads. The water was like ice. Jake’s entire body felt bee-stung. Hypothermia. The next step would be numbness. Then death.

“We have to climb up in the tree!” he shouted.

“I don’t think I can make it,” said Mandi.

“You have to.”

“What about Pierce?”

Jake took several deep breaths, struggling to get his stamina back. The space between them wasn’t much of a jump, but at the moment the distance seemed almost insurmountable.

“I’m coming over!”

Mandi nodded, crowding behind Pierce, wrapping her arms around him and the tree. Jake kicked off upstream, letting the water carry him back to them. He slid his hand between Pierce and the tree and hung on. He glanced up at the flashlight that was now way out of reach.

“Can you explain to him what we need to do?” shouted Jake.

Mandi let go of the tree with one hand and got Pierce to open one palm. She signed rapidly, but Pierce shook his head.

“What did he say?” said Jake.

“He said we need to get out of here.”

Jake frowned, spitting water. “Tell him he has a firm grasp of the obvious.”

But Pierce continued signing.

“He said he hears the whispers again,” said Mandi.

Jake closed his eyes and tried to hear it, but the rushing water and the slapping rain obscured all other sounds. “I don’t hear anything.”

“He says it’s coming this way.”

She signed back to Pierce, but before she was finished he began to jerk convulsively in her arms.

“What the hell?” said Jake.

“He’s trying to get away!” she said, hugging Pierce against the tree.

Jake glanced up once more at the flashlight, then searched the trees around them for some way out. He tried to spot higher ground through the feeble glow, but everything around them was rushing water. Pierce was about to break away from his mother, and if he did Jake had no idea how he’d get the kid back.

“All right! Tell him we’ll get out of here.”

“How?”

“Don’t ask me how yet! Just tell him!”

Mandi signed to the boy again, and Pierce quieted, but his face was still a mask of terror.

“Here!” said Jake, crowding in closer to Mandi and slipping his hand between her and Pierce. “Have him talk to me.”

Pierce bent his elbow nearly double, but managed to spell into Jake’s hand.

It’s almost here.

Jake shook his head.
I don’t hear it.

It’s coming.

Jake wanted to say, So what? It wasn’t like the whispers were the only thing they had to worry about. But the look on the boy’s face was worth a thousand words, and Jake couldn’t get the image of mangled corpses out of his mind. Suddenly drowning didn’t seem so bad.

“I’m going to climb up and get the light,” he said.

Mandi peered up the slippery tree trunk but said nothing as Jake worked his way around to find a better climbing position. Pierce felt the movement and tried to get Mandi to give him her hand, but she put herself nose to nose with him and shook her head emphatically.

Jake lunged upward, locking his arms and legs around the tree like a boa constrictor, but even as he did gravity pulled him downward. He bumped Mandi’s shoulder with the sole of one shoe.

“Sorry.”

“I’m all right,” said Mandi, twisting her head to see up through the rain.

“There’s nothing to get a grip on.”

He dug his nails into the bark, vising his knees into the trunk, but the damned tree was slippery as an eel. He tried another leap upward, but he plunged backward into the stream just in time to see the flashlight dropping into the raging flood. He slapped his way to the surface, wrapping
his arms around Mandi and Pierce as the flashlight doused itself somewhere in the depths.

Now they were all blind.

“Great,” he muttered.

Pierce began to shake again, trying to break free of Mandi’s grasp. Jake squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, but it didn’t seem to help.

“I can’t hold him much longer,” Mandi gasped.

“We’ll have to keep Pierce between us,” said Jake. “Whatever you do don’t let go of him, and I won’t, either. We can stop at trees for a breather.”

“All right!”

He eased around, pressed into her by the force of the water. When he reached the far side of the tree he found Pierce’s hand and spelled.

We’re going to swim. Just float on your back. Don’t let go of our hands.

Pierce squeezed his hand tightly.

“Float with your feet in front of you for protection,” Jake shouted at Mandi. “And keep your knees bent! Are you ready?”

“I guess so,” she answered uncertainly.

“Okay, then,” said Jake. He took Pierce’s right hand in his left. As they splashed out into the current, Jake thought he, too, heard the whispering sound.

EEPING THREE PEOPLE TOGETHER
and alive in the swirling black madness of the flood was insanity. Jake’s knees ached, and his shoulders were raw from being rubbed against rough bark and broken branches. His mouth was full of foul-tasting, gritty runoff. And each time they were driven into a tree he nearly lost his grip on Pierce. Worst of all, he could hear the whispering clearly now.

It stalked and circled them through the flood like a shark. Pierce struggled frantically between them, and Jake could hear Mandi panting and sputtering on the other side of the boy. When Jake bumped into yet another tree he locked his arm around it, drawing Mandi and Pierce in, even though Pierce continued to kick and splash.

“I’ve got to rest,” Jake shouted at Mandi. “Tell him to give me just a moment.”

“He’s terrified,” she said.

Like I’m not
, thought Jake.

Only the occasional lightning bolt revealed any of their surroundings. The entire valley seemed to be under water.
They weren’t swimming through tree trunks any longer. They were being propelled through the upper branches. And the sound kept getting closer. To Jake it felt as though the thing was breathing right down the back of his neck.

“Come on,” he said, kicking off again just as another lightning bolt flashed.

But the struggle through the current was wearing him to the breaking point. He gave one last hard kick—fearing that his decision had cost them all their lives—and was surprised when his feet touched solid ground.

“Hey!” he said, jerking Pierce to his feet. The water was barely up to Jake’s waist. “Keep moving upslope.”

They struggled into ever shallower water until they finally huddled, shivering, beneath the spreading branches of a fir, at last out of the flood.

“Do you have any idea where we are?” shouted Mandi.

“No.”

“We can’t stay here.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Well, which way should we go?”

“I can’t tell where the damned noise is coming from,” said Jake. “One minute it’s over here. Then it’s over there.”

Pierce slapped at Jake’s chest, then found his hand again.

It’s coming
, Pierce spelled.

Jake spelled back, trying to explain to Pierce how dangerous it was to continue stumbling around in the dark, but Pierce took Jake’s hand and pointed behind him.

You know where it is?
spelled Jake.

Pierce placed Jake’s hand on his head and nodded vigorously.

“He says he can tell where the sound is coming from,” said Jake.

“Maybe we should just go where Pierce doesn’t hear it,” said Mandi.

Jake didn’t have any better ideas, and the noise was growing again, turning dirgelike and even more threatening than before.

Jake placed Pierce’s hand on
his
head and nodded back.

“What if we’re moving away from the road, though?” said Mandi, as Pierce dragged them along.

“Right now I’m more interested in moving away from whatever that is,” shouted Jake.

They clung to each other, crashing through underbrush, trudging in and out of shallow water, the rain dripping in sheets from the thick canopy overhead. Jake fought his growing panic, knowing that Pierce and Mandi were only controlling theirs because of him.

They wandered for what seemed miles before Jake jerked Pierce and Mandi to a halt. Pierce tugged at his arm, and Jake could feel fear raging through the boy.

“Tell him I need to
think!”
shouted Jake.

She moved close to Jake, wedging Pierce between them. Pierce tugged at their hands, slipping one of his under Mandi’s and signing furiously.

“He says he knows the way!” Mandi shouted.

“Mandi, that’s crazy.”

“Maybe it isn’t. He said
being lost is like being broken.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Pierce is good at fixing things.”

“We could drown out here, Mandi. If Pierce is in the lead and gets caught in a current he might be pulled away, and we wouldn’t see him.”

“I know that. But we’re running out of time. We have to trust him. He says that thing is coming, right now.”

At that instant another bolt of lightning struck somewhere up the mountain, and Jake thought he caught a
glimpse of a giant shadow moving at the farthest range of his vision.

“Go on, then,” he said, nudging Pierce. Pierce squeezed his hand and pulled them up a muddy slope that seemed intent on impeding their progress. The sound was louder now, nearly drowning out the rain.

ANDLELIGHT FROM A WINDOW
drew Virgil’s attention to Mandi’s house, and a tremor of fear raced through him. He shielded the flashlight with a capped hand and stared through the window at the Latino man sitting in the recliner, clothed only in a towel. The toned arms and tight abs spoke of long hours in a workout room, but the Ranger tattoo and the pistol resting on the table beside him warned Virgil that this was no simple street tough.

The smart thing would be to hike up the road to Pam’s house and get Jake and Cramer, then come back here and corral this guy and his partner, who was presumably also in the house. But he was afraid that the road between Mandi’s and Pam’s might be flooded, too, and getting there and back was problematic. At least Mandi’s car was gone. That was good news.

Sometimes you couldn’t do the smart thing. Sometimes you had to go with your gut. And at least he had the element of surprise going for him.

Climbing silently up onto the stoop, a patch of mud just
in front of the threshold caught his eye, and he leaned over to get a better look.

“Shit,” he whispered, staring at the neat footprint in the wet brown clay. A perfect star was centered on the sole. At least one of the guys inside Mandi’s house had been at Albert’s the day of the killing. Why? Had Albert died because he wouldn’t give out information on Jake?

Virgil flicked the flashlight off and rested it in a corner of the wall. Then he checked to make sure there was a shell in the chamber and the safety was off on the shotgun. But his quivering hand reminded him of his age again and that at least one of the guys inside was mid-thirties, athletic, and trained to kill. God only knew who the other guy was or what kind of training he had. Or where he was. His resolve quavering, Virgil did what came naturally.

He acted.

Gripping the shotgun tightly in one hand, he quietly turned the knob, slamming the door open as he burst into the hallway, pointing the shotgun at the big bastard who was already reaching for his pistol.

“Shove it away!” he shouted, watching the hallway from the corner of his eye.

The guy did as he was told, the pistol clattering to the floor, but not far enough away for Virgil’s peace of mind. The bathroom door opened just a crack, and Virgil shouted instinctively.

“Come out with your hands up, or I put a shell right through that door!”

“All right!” said the second crook, swinging the door wide and stepping out, wrapped in a towel.

Virgil swung the shotgun so that he could easily take out either of the two. The second guy was smaller and wirier, and he had a sneaky look in his eye Virgil didn’t like.

“If you think you’re faster than buckshot,” he said, “just try something.”

“We weren’t causing any trouble, Officer,” said the bigger guy. “What do you want with us?”

Virgil laughed. “I thought I’d start with murder, attempted murder, breaking and entering, grand theft auto. I imagine Jake has a few things to add.”

At the mention of Jake’s name the bravado left the Ranger’s face, replaced with a deep-seated rage and curiosity.

“Jake Crowley?”

“So you know him.”

The smile that crossed the big guy’s face was in no way reassuring, and Virgil found himself tickling the trigger of the shotgun.

“Do you know where he is?” asked the Ranger.

“You must be joking,” said Virgil, frowning. “You!” he said, catching the little crook edging back toward the bath. “Get in here with your buddy and spread ’em against the wall. You, too, big fella.” He waved the shotgun at the Ranger, who merely shrugged and turned away, placing both hands on either side of the window jamb and spreading his feet. The little guy did the same next to him. Virgil jerked out his handcuffs and poked the big guy in the back with the shotgun barrel. “Give me your left hand.”

“Fuck you.”

Virgil sighed. This would be hard enough with one perp. With two dangerous criminals it was going to be touchy, to say the least. But if he cuffed the two of them together they should be easier to manage. He stuck the shotgun in the little guy’s kidneys, hard enough to knock some of the wind out of him.

“Hand!”

The little guy offered his left hand behind his back and
Virgil snapped a cuff on it and backed away. When the punk glanced over his shoulder, Virgil nodded toward the big guy.

“Hook him up,” he said, nodding toward the other man’s right hand.

The little guy glanced from Virgil to the Ranger. Clearly he was more afraid of the big guy than he was of Virgil and his shotgun.

“Do it!” said Virgil, taking a threatening step forward.

As the small crook stepped in between Virgil and the Ranger, the big guy kicked the little guy square in the belly, driving him back toward Virgil. Virgil just managed to lift the shotgun so that he took the brunt of the falling weight against the stock as he stumbled out into the hall. He smashed the gun sideways into the little guy’s head, knocking him to the floor, trying to get a shot at the bigger guy before he could charge. But the Ranger was already crashing through the window, shattering glass and thin mullions. The candle blew out, and by the time Virgil stumbled to the opening there was nothing to see but broken glass, the hammering rain, and the towel snagged on the sill.

Moaning from behind drew Virgil away from the window, and he hurried over to the smaller crook. Even by the dim light of the candle in the bathroom Virgil could see a welt running up the guy’s cheek all the way to the hairline. He was going to have a sizeable headache. And the last thing Virgil wanted once the creep came around was to have to baby-sit him. He glanced around the hallway. Ten feet away, beside the phone table, a heating pipe ran floor to ceiling. Virgil grabbed him by the arm, dragged him unceremoniously across the carpet, and hooked the handcuff to the pipe. The guy lost his towel, but Virgil wasn’t too worried about his modesty at the moment.

Now what to do about the other guy?

On one hand the asshole was running around in a valley
he didn’t know, buck naked and unarmed. On the other hand Virgil was pretty sure that if he really was an ex-Ranger, the situation might not bother him too much.

Virgil stared at the busted window, and suddenly it occurred to him that the guy might be reentering the house at that moment. Why run away when he could hang around and use his training to kill an old, out-of-shape sheriff? Virgil snatched his flashlight from outside, then locked the door and shoved a chair from Pierce’s room under the knob. Then he locked the kitchen door and all the other windows. But there was a broken window in Pierce’s bedroom covered with cardboard that wasn’t going to stop anyone intent on getting in. And as he passed the handcuffed crook again he saw that the guy’s eyes were open, glaring at him.

“You didn’t have to hit me like that,” said the crook.

“Shut up,” said Virgil, crossing the living room to shove the recliner up against the wind-tossed curtains. But of course that left most of the opening still uncovered. The house was a sieve.

He jerked the curtains closed on the other two windows and then got the comforter off Pierce’s bed and hooked it over the rod on the busted window in the living room, draping the thick blanket down behind the chair to hold it in place. He wasn’t happy with it, but the sills were five feet off the ground outside, so if the bastard did try to slip back in that way he’d have to make some noise. Virgil turned back to the little punk.

“Could I have my towel back?” said the guy, making a face. “It’s kind of chilly.”

Virgil smirked, kicking the towel across the floor to him. The guy eventually gave up trying to wrap it and simply draped it across his midsection. Virgil picked up the pistol from the floor, stuffed it in his pants, then found another in the bathroom, along with a nasty-looking switchblade. He
also found credit cards and ID in the name of Paco Estaban. From Houston. In the other guy’s clothes he found ID in the name of James Torrio. Also from Houston.

Jimmy Torrio. The brother of the man Jake had killed on the beach. So he hadn’t sent goons to do his dirty work. He was here in person.

On the floor beside the dryer were two sets of shoes. One large. One small.

The smaller set had a star on each sole.