Turn or Burn (21 page)

We did a half mile before we slowed again. We could still hear the dogs in the distance. Francesca was doing a good job at making sure we didn’t make any circles. “There’s a road,” she said. “Maybe we can stop someone.”

I caught up, drew some deep breaths, and looked ahead. The road wound up and to the right and disappeared further into the forest. If you looked carefully, you could make out the yellow line that used to be there. “We’ve got to pick a way and go with it,” I said. “Follow me.”

We started running. Leanne was keeping up, knowing that the alternative would be deadly. A vehicle appeared; it looked like a Suburban. I went to the center of the road, getting ready to flag it down.

When the driver saw me, he sped up. He was coming towards me fast. Too fast.

“Back into the woods!”

We ran off the road and continued in the direction we’d been running. The Suburban moved faster, its engine revving. It screeched to a halt and, within seconds, they were shooting at us. We went down, scrambling behind trees. Chips of bark fell on top of us as the bullets came. They had our position, and the woods there weren’t quite thick enough to protect us from being hit.

“What should we do?” Francesca asked me. Her Italian accent was stronger now, as if warfare brought it back.

“Distract them. I’ll make my way around and see what I can do.”

“You got it.” She told Leanne not to move and then got up and started running parallel to the road, making enough noise to draw attention. She was staying low but they saw her and fired in that direction. I took off the other way.

After fifty feet, I moved left toward the road, coming up behind them. They were still taking shots at Francesca, and I tried to bury the worry in my mind. She could take care of herself.

One of the men was standing at the tree line following Francesca with his rifle. The other had his rifle propped up on the hood of the Suburban, pointing in the same direction.

As I reached the edge of the trees, I moved even more quietly. Neither one saw me. Taking a few steps toward the road, I got a clear line of sight to one of them. Thirty feet away. I raised my gun and fired at his back. The shot sent him tumbling over on his side. His rifle fell from his grip. I shot off another round. A kill shot for assurance. This wasn’t a game.

Before the other one figured out what was going on, I came around the back of the Suburban with my gun pointed at his head. “Drop the rifle!” I yelled. “Make a move and I’ll bury a nine-millimeter bullet in your skull.”

He turned his head very slowly toward me and verified that I had a gun.

“You know you can’t get it around fast enough. Don’t even think about it.”

Poor bastard didn’t listen to me. A quick movement in his neck gave away what he was about to do. I really wanted to talk to this guy, though, and knowing that his partner was most likely seeing angels, I decided to take my chances with a warning shot. I fired into his shoulder and ran toward him before he could do anything else. I kicked him to the ground, at the same time stripping the rifle from his hands. Then I hit him with the butt of it and he went night-night.

“I got ‘em!” I yelled out into the forest. “You can come on out!”

Francesca came out down the road.

Once she got close, I said, “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, tough guy.”

She helped me lift the live one into the backseat of the Suburban.

“Leanne!” I yelled. “You out there? We need to move. The others heard those shots. I can promise you.”

I listened. The dogs were getting closer.

“C’mon, Leanne. Let’s go!”

As if it couldn’t have gotten any worse, another vehicle appeared at the end of the road. They were hauling ass toward us.

I looked back to the woods. “Leanne!”

“I’m coming!”

“Run your ass off!”

I got into the driver’s seat, and Francesca got in the back with our prisoner. I put the Suburban in Drive and held my foot on the brake. “Take shotgun!” I yelled through the open window to Leanne, who had finally made it to the road.

She got in just in time.

I pressed my right foot down just as a bullet tore through the side window. Two men came out of the forest, running toward us, firing. The two Dobermans were up ahead of them.

But we were moving, and only two more bullets made contact, burying themselves into the door.

I was moving the needle as fast as I could, testing the limits of the Suburban, but the vehicle behind us had too much speed. Looking in the rearview mirror, I saw a ram on the hood. It was the Dodge I’d seen at the cabin. They’d be on us in no time.

“He’s dead,” came Francesca’s voice from the backseat.

“What?” I turned. “That bullet got him?”

“No.” Francesca had pulled his head up and was pushing it away from her. Foam was coming out of his mouth. “More cyanide.”

“Get down!” I warned, just as the back window exploded.

“Keep it steady,” Francesca said. “I’ll get them.”

I turned to see her loading the rifle with bullets from the dead man’s pocket. She aimed and fired. Their windshield cracked. Another shot. The Dodge took a hard left and smashed into a tree.

I didn’t slow down for another half mile. Once I felt like we were safe, I slowed to a stop on the side of the road. “Get him out of here,” I said.

Francesca didn’t argue. She stood and dragged the guy out by his shoulders, pulled him a few steps behind the tree line, and climbed back in. “You know Jacobs is going to be all over us. Won’t be hard to figure out we were a part of all this.”

“At this point, it doesn’t matter. We’re into some serious shit, and the only way out is to get to the bottom of it. Then Jacobs will give us a break.”

“We hope.”

I pulled back onto the road. “I know if we go to him now, he’ll put us in jail.”

“And without us, he’s not going to get anywhere.”

“Then, it’s settled. We go at it alone. Ted would do the same thing for us.”

We drove back to the ferry terminal and left the Suburban in the lot. I wiped down the keys and left them in the ignition. We boarded via the pedestrian walkway, looking way out of place. We got in line to get a bite to eat and something to drink, and the cashier certainly did a double take as I paid.
What, lady? A little sweat and dirt scare you? You should see the burn under my shirt.

We hired a cab back to Seattle. First, we dropped off Leanne at a friend’s place and asked her to forget everything she saw. It didn’t take much convincing. She hated cops. All she needed to hear was that I’d make things right. I promised her justice.

We grabbed our stuff at the Pan Pacific and headed over to Fremont to a small motel. The front desk clerk gave me no trouble when I paid in cash. He checked my ID but didn’t copy it. We split a room for safety reasons, and trust me, that was
all
I was thinking about. Safety.

I took a look outside the window. Not much scenery: a large fir tree and lots of concrete. Francesca sat on the end of her bed and started scrolling through channels on the television. “So we’ve lost our cars and our computers. And we have no idea what to do next. I don’t, at least. Do you?” She looked up at me.

I had taken off my shirt and was looking at the triskelion they’d burned onto my stomach.

“Does it still hurt?” she asked.

“It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry I let them do that to you.”

“You didn’t.”

“I tried as hard as I could to get out of there fast.”

“I understand. How’d you get out?”

“Getting halfway up was easy, but then the wall curved back in toward the hole. It was like I’d fallen into a cavern. I kept digging my fingers in, trying to reach the lip, but I had no holds. It was all dirt. Finally found a root and it got a lot easier.”

“I guess I believe you.”

“I couldn’t have made it up.”

I raised my eyebrows and nodded. I guess I still trusted her.

“Turn it up,” I said, noticing CNN. They were talking about Dr. Kramer’s murder. We watched for a little while. They’d released more details. Kramer had died of blunt-force trauma injuries to the head. In other words, someone had hit her in the head multiple times with a blunt object, and then they had pushed her body into the lake. I realized something about it just didn’t seem right.

“You know what doesn’t make sense?” I said. “This isn’t the same kind of murder as the others. We go from a well-planned assassination in a high-security environment at the Summit, to a sniper on the street, to some kind of hate crime. Someone
bashed her head in
with a rock. Doesn’t line up.”

“Well,” Francesca said, “we’re talking multiple murderers already. Each individual may have his or her own method. This is a group. The same group that just branded you…don’t forget that. I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

“Oh, I won’t. Trust me. I’m just saying…it seems inconsistent.”

“We do have an admission of guilt. What else do you want?”

“What if someone else sent that letter claiming responsibility for Kramer’s death? A copycat. Or what if there is some turmoil in the group…maybe two different factions of the Soldiers of the Second Coming. We see it all the time in the desert. Two leaders go their different ways. I’m just saying, Kramer’s murder seems different than the other two. Like there was a different motivation. A different thought process. Something more personal.”

“I hear you, Harper. We certainly don’t need to make any conclusions yet. That’s for sure.” She shrugged her shoulders and stood up. “Anyway, I’m going to go grab a few things from that store down the road. You want some meds for your burn? Looks like you could use an ice pack for your forehead, too.”

“All of the above, please. And some Advil.”

“You got it.”

“Hey, Francesca?”

“Yeah.”

“Please be careful.”

She smiled. “Isn’t that sweet. You’re still worried about me.”

“This is just almost more than two people can do on their own.”

“I’ll be very careful.”

She left as I was peeling off my clothes and turning on the water. I left it cold so it wouldn’t burn as badly. I stepped in and the water instantly dirtied at the bottom of the tub. It was a mixture of blood and dirt and sweat, and the cold felt good on my skin. I closed my eyes and let it run over my face and down my body for a while. I was nearly overwhelmed by what was going on. I didn’t even know where to begin, and to tell the truth, I was losing hope.

She patted my chest. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Be there in a second.”

“Don’t even think about it.” She shook her head and disappeared into the bathroom. I was in desperate need of some rest. Making sure the Ruger was loaded and within arm’s reach, I let my eyes close and soon drifted off.

Not too long after, the demons came.

My eyes opened and the shock of reality hit like someone had dumped a cooler of ice water on me. I gasped for air and started swinging at whoever was touching me.

It was Francesca. She caught my hands and pinned them down. I stopped fighting and gasped for more air.

“You’re okay, Harper. Breathe deep.”

I fell silent and lay limp on the bed. I could feel the trickle of sweat rolling down my face. Francesca leaned over me and turned the light on, and curled up next to me. She put a hand on my chest. “You with me?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m with you.”

“That was a bad one, huh?”

I rubbed my eyes, feeling ashamed and embarrassed.

Francesca got up and came back with a couple hand towels soaked in water. She was wearing a T-shirt and panties. She put one towel on my chest and folded the other and laid it on my forehead. Putting her leg up over my waist and her arm around my chest, she held me tight.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling for a while. All that healing I’d done had broken down. I hadn’t had such a nasty dream in two years. It felt like the dream had lasted days, but the clock said it was only 2 a.m.

I watched that ceiling for almost three hours, Francesca’s touch comforting me. I was too exhausted and depleted to think about what had happened the past couple days and what she’d told me about being engaged, so I just lay there and felt her touch and thought about how nice it would be to take her back to Red Mountain.

The church was a massive establishment, its property taking up two full blocks. A four-story cross rose out of the ground and reached up past the roof.

We pulled in at 10 a.m., hoping that meant they were open for business. We’d cleaned up, eaten, gone for a walk along Lake Union, and talked about what we should do next. Her contact had given us more information regarding the cabin and Jake’s Woodworks. Jameson Taylor owned the cabin, and I had a feeling his wife didn’t know that. Another man owned Jake’s, and it wasn’t a guy named Jake. We’d go see them again soon enough, though I had a feeling those involved were already far out of our reach. As I’ve mentioned, I’d been doing this a long time. I could smell a dead end.