“I thought we were going outside.” I motioned toward the wide glass and metal doors.
“We are,” she said. “But we’re going this way.” She narrowed her green eyes at me. “Hannah’s big brother’s out there, isn’t he?” She shook her head. “That’s a little obvious, Kathleen. You might as well have put Big Bird out there with a badge.”
I told myself to remember that when I got out of this, so I could tell Marcus. Because I was going to get out of this.
Chloe led us down a hallway and out a side entrance that opened onto a narrow alleyway and then the street. She pulled her hand out of her pocket. She was holding a gun. “Just in case you thought I was bluffing.”
“Where are we going?” I said. My hands were shaking, but she couldn’t see that and so far I’d managed to keep the shaking out of my voice.
“We’re going to go for a walk along the river.”
“And what?” I said. “I’ll have an unfortunate accident and fall in?”
“Something like that,” she said with a smile. She made an offhand gesture with one hand. “I know it’s very clichéd, but things become clichéd for a reason. Because they work.”
We crossed the street and headed for the boardwalk. I wondered if I could run and then roll behind one of the cars parked along the street before she could shoot me.
“You can’t,” she said, nudging me with the gun. “I know what you’re thinking. I saw you look at those cars. You’re wondering if you can get to one of them before I could shoot you. You can’t—and I would shoot you. I’m a very good shot. I wouldn’t miss.”
“You can’t get away with this, Chloe,” I said. “It’s crazy.”
She shook her head and gave me a look of pity. “Of course I can. We went for a walk—your idea. You got too close to the edge of the embankment and went over. I’ll be distraught. I’ll try to crawl down and save you. No one will doubt my grief.” She sighed. “Sadly, you’ll be dead, head cracked open on those rocks like a pumpkin falling off the back of a pickup truck.”
She nudged me again with the gun. “And don’t use the word ‘crazy,’ Kathleen. It’s disrespectful. ‘Psychologically challenged’ sounds much nicer.”
We crossed the boardwalk and cut across the grass. I concentrated on breathing, trying to keep the panic down so I could think clearly.
“How did you know?” I asked.
She was scanning the shoreline as we walked. “That you guessed what had happened to Hugh? Ben. He told me you asked him about a rumor you’d heard that there had been bad blood between Hugh and him. He wondered how it had gotten started.” She looked at me then. “I told him I had no idea.”
We were almost at the edge where the grass gave way to the rock wall, huge boulders that protected the shoreline from being eroded by the water.
I needed to buy time. I glanced back over my shoulder. There was no sign of Marcus, or anyone else. “What I don’t understand is why you shot him. Why now?”
“He deserved it,” she said, as though the fact were obvious. “I should have shot him years ago, but I just never got the chance. I couldn’t let this opportunity pass.”
“Because of Yesterday’s Children. Hugh pushed you so hard you ended up . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to push her any closer to the edge—physical or psychological—than she already was.
“I ended up in a hospital,” she said. Her free hand played with the scarf at her neck. “You can say the word, Kathleen. I was in the hospital because I was sick and that was Hugh’s fault.”
“You didn’t have a car accident.”
She smiled. “I should have guessed that you’d have good research skills.”
I needed to keep her talking. “How did you get the scars?”
She ran her hand over her wrist. “These ones are Hugh’s fault,” she said. “The other ones . . .” She exhaled slowly. “I banged my head against a window . . . a few times.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
Chloe had stopped walking. “Hugh wasn’t sorry,” she said. “I had a part in a movie. Jessica Lawrence replaced me. You know what they’re saying about her now? She’s probably going to get an Oscar nomination.” She stared up at the sky, a canopy of inky darkness sprinkled with stars. “That was supposed to be me. That was supposed to be my life.” She looked at me. “I wanted him to apologize. He laughed at me. He laughed. It was the wrong thing to do. It was rude.” She shrugged. “So I shot him.”
I looked over at the rocks piled on top of each other, seemingly all sharp, jagged edges. About six feet down, off to the left a little, I could see what looked like a flat ledge. Maybe, just maybe, I could land on that flat space and get back against the rocks so Chloe couldn’t see me. I swallowed the lump in my throat, except it wouldn’t go down.
Chloe looked around. There was no one on the boardwalk, nearby or in the distance, no one chasing a dog across the grass, no kissing teenagers getting busy under a tree.
I thought about what I’d learned from Maggie about visualization. I could hear her voice in my head: See yourself there.
I saw myself on that narrow rock ledge. I saw myself alive. And then before I had a chance to think about what I was going to do, I did it.
I jumped.
23
I flung out my arms and caught nothing but air for a moment. Then I hit the rocks and started to slide, almost out of control. I wasn’t sure which way was up. I scrambled for something, anything to hold on to while gravel pelted me like rain and above me on the embankment Chloe screamed.
And then my feet connected with something solid. I bent my knees and shifted all my weight forward, trying to hug the rock wall. Jagged bits of rock jabbed through my clothes and scraped my skin. My right foot slipped on the slick face of the rock ledge, but my left one held. The top half of my body kept sliding. There was nowhere to find a handhold—and then suddenly my fingers caught an edge of rock. I held on for dear life with one foot and one hand.
There were rocks in my hair, dirt and bits of gravel in my eyes and mouth, and I was scraped and bruised, but I was alive. I eased my free hand down and wrapped my entire arm around a large rock that jutted out beside me. Over my head I could hear Chloe calling my name. I hoped that meant she couldn’t see me. I fought the urge to cough and pressed myself tighter against the rock face.
Slowly I bent my right knee and pulled my leg in closer to my body. My hands were trembling and my left leg was cramped, but I had no intention of letting go. I closed my eyes while my breathing slowed to normal—or as close to normal as I could get.
I turned my head to the right, the only direction I could really see anything. I was less than five feet from the riverbank. If I could get down without Chloe spotting me, I could run to the marina for help.
A stream of gravel skittered down the slope and hit my shoulder. I tipped my head and looked up. Incredibly, Chloe was starting to climb down. I had to start moving. I knew that once I did she’d know where I was. I was banking on the idea that she wouldn’t be able to climb and hold a gun at the same time.
I shifted my weight, the way I would in tai chi class, and felt below me with one foot. After a moment I found a foothold. I loosed my death grip on the rock to my left and began to climb down. That started another slide of rocks and gravel, but I kept moving, feeling for a handhold and then another place to put my foot.
I didn’t think about the palms of my hands, scraped raw, or the stab of pain in my right ankle every time it pressed against the huge boulders. I just kept moving downward, down to the riverbank and safety.