Laurie seemed frozen, like she couldn't believe what she'd done. But her scream started my blood moving again. I yanked open the SUV's door and managed to get hold of her arm and drag her toward me, shouting at her to climb on. There came a few wild seconds of thrashing around while she squeezed outside and onto the bike behind me, and I fought to keep the son of a bitch from dumping and make sure she was still hanging on.
The opening door had tripped on an interior light. This time it was easy to see the man in the backseat, swinging the rifle toward us again. I popped the clutch so hard the front wheel came off the ground, and cut the handlebars hard to the right, passing in front of the SUV so the gun's muzzle couldn't follow us. We jumped over the road-edge hump into the woods.
I yelled at Laurie over my shoulder, "Hide your face!" She pressed hard against my back with her arms wrapped around me like I was a spar in a shipwreck. I ducked my head low and powered on through the trees, whipped by low-hanging branches and raked by stumps.
I couldn't even guess how any of this had happened and I didn't give a rat's ass. The only thought in my head was to get out of there as fast and far as I could.
36
After Laurie and I had gone about a mile, it started to sink in that we were intact and not being followed. My panic eased off some, and I slowed the bike along with it. I knew where we were, not far north of the lake. I kept on going until we came to the top of a ridge that gave a view of that long stretch of water and the highway that skirted it. Everything out there looked as dark and still as when I'd followed the tow truck in.
By the clock, that had been several minutes ago. In my head, it was a lifetime.
I stopped and cut the engine, thinking that Laurie would let go of me. She didn't, and now I could feel that she was shivering hard. That was no wonder after what had happened. But when I unlocked her fingers from around my waist and eased us both off the bike, I realized that she was wearing the same light turtleneck she'd had on earlier today, with just a shawl over it. The rain had thinned to a mist up in the woods, but the night was still chilly and damp. Along with shock and fear, she must have been freezing. I was just the opposite by now, heated up and sweating from wrestling the bike around. When I pulled off my coat and wrapped her in it, the cool air was welcome.
"What the hell is going on?" I said.
Her hands clenched my shirt again, her face pressed tight against my chest now.
"That man's a killer, a torturer," she said through chattering teeth. "He's here to kill you."
I stared at her, trying to get my mind around that. Something else was starting to sink in-the sense that I'd seen his face before.
"How do you know that?" I said.
"I recognized him-from before."
"From before?"
She kept gasping out words, the bits of information coming in like punches, wild but fast and hard enough to stagger me.
"No, I don't mean I know him. I only ever saw him once. I don't even know his name-I call him John Doe. But I saw him with Wesley today, and Wesley gave him that rifle. I followed him to your house. He hid there and waited. But then the sheriffs came, and I guess he was running away, and he found me."
"What were you doing there?"
Her forehead butted against me in a way that was still agitated but oddly shy.
"I was hiding, too," she whispered. "I had to tell you, and there wasn't any other way."
I stroked her hair, trying to calm myself as much as her. This woman who barely knew me had come up into the cold dark woods, knowing that a hired killer was nearby, in order to save my life.
Then it came to me where I'd seen him. He was the man who'd delivered Balcomb's twenty-five hundred dollars this afternoon. I remembered him hesitating at my gate like he was thinking about coming up to the cabin. He must have decided to play it safe-just check the place out and come back after dark. But his disguise would have taken me in. If he'd approached politely, he could have shot me dead before I raised my rifle.
"I guess the sheriffs found out about him," she said, her words still muffled against my chest. "I don't know how. I didn't call them."
"They're not looking for him. They're after me. I'm a suspect for killing Kirk."
Her face lifted swiftly, eyes wide with alarm. I put my finger to her lips. This wasn't the time to trade stories.
"Let me think a minute," I said.
She nodded, although doubtfully, like she didn't have much faith in my abilities along those lines.
Neither did I. The rug had been jerked out from under me all over again, and I was more brain-fried than ever. But a few things stood out clearly-first and foremost, that I didn't have to wonder anymore whether Balcomb would keep his promise to back off.
With a professional after me, I was as good as dead. Laurie was at risk, too, as an eyewitness who could identify him. And a man like that who'd been stabbed in the eye by a woman with a car key was going to have a serious personal ax to grind.
Now there was no choice but to turn myself in.
In a way, it was a perverse stroke of luck. The other information I'd gathered was sketchy and circumstantial, but Laurie's testimony would be rock solid, and would powerfully reinforce my claim that Balcomb had sent Kirk after me first, and I'd acted in self-defense. It was still a risk, and I'd be likely to do some time anyway for my cover-up-but this nightmare would be over.
"Let's head for town," I said. I'd have gone straight to Gary Varna, but I didn't want to chance running into John Doe on the way.
"Do you have a place to stay there?"
"Yeah, the county jail."
Her eyes went wide again. "No! We can't."
"Don't worry, not you-they'll put you in a motel or something until things settle down."
She shook her head violently. My confusion deepened. I'd expected that would be what she wanted. Then I reminded myself that while she might not be fond of her husband, I was asking her to send him to prison.
"We have to," I said. "Otherwise, John Doe's going to come after you."
"He'll come after me if I do tell the police-him or somebody else." Her eyes stayed big but her voice was sharper. "You still don't get it? After what just happened? If something threatens Wesley, that something disappears."
"You're his wife, for Christ's sake."
"You don't know him," she said, almost with contempt.
I was getting to.
"I thought he treated you well," I said.
"Except for once. I tried to leave him. That's how I know what I'm saying."
"What if we played it like this never happened?" I said. "You go back to him now, tonight, and swear you'll never breathe a word?"
"He'd say yes. But the truth is I've crossed him, and he'll never forgive it. Someday soon, I'd have an accident. And John Doe would still come after you."
I stepped away and pressed my hands against my temples, trying to squeeze intelligence out of the brain between them. The situation kept getting worse by leaps and bounds-and yet simpler. All other bets were off. Now we were down to saving our skins.
When I turned back and saw her huddled inside my coat, it struck me that not only did she not have extra clothes or a car, she didn't even have her purse-no money, no credit cards, no identification, nothing.
"Is there somebody you trust that you can call to come get you?" I said.
"Come get me? Here?" She looked startled.
"In town. I can drop you at a motel and give you a couple hundred bucks, but I just can't do anything more, Laurie. You saved me. I'll always owe you. But the sheriffs are on my ass. I can't go back to my place-they're even taking my truck. You better look out for yourself."