Which meant he was throwing rocks from behind her.
That tactic could work for her too.
She slipped the phone back into her pocket, freeing her right hand so that she could pick up a rock. She turned and threw it high in the air, imitating what Max had done. Maybe she’d get lucky and hit the bastard.
At a minimum she hoped to confuse him.
The rock struck an invisible branch and made more noise as it dropped past other branches. She used those precious seconds to risk the subtle sounds she couldn’t avoid, as she clutched the knife and crept onward.
MAX FLINCHED FROM THE CRUNCHING sound that his shoe made on the gravel of the parking area. The forest had been a vague hulking presence in what was now a misty drizzle. Now all of a sudden there weren’t any shrouded trees ahead of him. He stepped back onto soft earth and inched quietly to the right toward where his phone showed that Sansborough wasn’t far from him.
He thought he heard her moving past trees.
But maybe not.
It didn’t matter.
In a few seconds, she would step onto the gravel. The noise she made would give her away. She wouldn’t be able to recover before he lunged toward the noise and shot her.
In the face. In each breast. In the stomach.
For Rudy.
He knew that Marta would want Sansborough alive, to exchange her for Nick. But the truth was, Max didn’t like Nick. On the other hand, Rudy had been Max’s cousin.
His friend.
No more watching Rambo movies with him.
No more joking around.
Close to him, a shoe stepped onto gravel.
Shouting to engage her startle reflex and momentarily paralyze her, he rushed ahead, firing.
THE SIGN AT THE SIDE of the highway—Marsdon 20 miles—increased Simon’s feeling of urgency.
So close.
The clouds darkened.
A misty rain blotted the countryside, obscuring the beauty for which the area was famous. He switched on the windshield wipers and glanced toward his phone, hoping to receive another text.
When he finally made it to Marsdon, then what?
There were a lot of woods out here.
A black SUV sped past him, hurling spray across his windshield.
MARTA ADJUSTED THE WINDSHIELD WIPERS to a higher speed and pressed harder on the SUV’s accelerator.
LIZ’S SHOE CRUNCHED THE GRAVEL of the parking lot, the noise seeming so loud that she recoiled, nearly dropping the knife. Someone suddenly shouted to her left.
Max.
His footsteps thundering toward her.
Gunshots roared.
A bullet tugged her right sleeve.
It would have struck her chest if she hadn’t lurched back from the sound she made on the gravel.
Adrenaline broke her paralysis.
She saw Max’s indistinct shape charging into view. She had a rock in her right hand, having planned to throw it and distract him one final time before she raced toward the lodge. Now she hurled it toward his increasingly clear face and ran into the forest.
The drizzle started to dissolve the mist.
Trees began to materialize.
Hearing Max curse behind her, she stretched her long legs farther, faster. Finally able to see where she was going, she zigzagged frantically through the bushes and trees.
FOR A MOMENT MAX THOUGHT that he’d been shot, but then he realized what had struck his forehead.
A rock.
He raised a hand to the already throbbing, swelling lump and felt blood.
“That’s something else you’ll pay for,” he screamed.
His pain-blurred vision cleared.
He heard Sansborough crashing through the forest.
Let her run.
With the mist dispersing, it would be easy to follow her now. He fired once more in her direction, wanting to spur her into a panic, knowing that adrenaline would soon make her hyperventilate and sap her strength.
It wouldn’t be long now.
He took the almost-expended magazine from his pistol and stuffed it into a pocket. He freed a spare magazine from his belt and shoved it home. A round was already in the chamber. He didn’t need to rack the slide as so many stupid Hollywood actors unnecessarily did.
But never in a Rambo movie.
As the drizzle beaded on his windbreaker, he broke into an easy, confident jog, taking care that his breath rate didn’t increase.
That was the secret.
If his breathing remained steady, everything else about him would be steady. It didn’t matter how far Sansborough got at the start. He could easily track her down, using the “find” app. Ahead, beneath an evergreen branch, he saw something that made him smile.
Blood.
One of his bullets had struck home.
Now he had yet another way to know where she was heading.
LIZ LEAPED OVER A FALLEN tree, landed on wet leaves, slipped, and nearly dropped.
Her right arm felt numb.
She wanted to clutch it, to try to stop the flow of blood, but she had to keep a tight grip on the knife in her left hand. Racing onward, she didn’t understand why she felt out of breath. She’d run in marathons, for God’s sake. With all her stress training, she shouldn’t be breathing this hard this soon. But she’d never run a marathon after being shot.
“Sansborough, what you did to Rudy I’m gonna do to you,” Max yelled behind her. “But you won’t die as fast as Rudy did.”
Her brain raced. How had he known that she’d headed back to the lodge? The only noise made had been when she stepped on the gravel. Nothing before that. Straining to fill her lungs, she veered around a tangle of bushes. Her legs almost buckled, but this time it wasn’t because of slippery leaves.
“Bet you’re feeling woozy from all the blood you’re pumping out,” Max yelled. “Won’t be long now.”
She glanced desperately over her shoulder and felt as though she’d been punched when she saw splotches of blood behind her. If the drizzle didn’t wash them away fast enough, Max could easily follow her.
The question kept insisting.
How did he know she’d headed back to the lodge?
Running, she felt the lump of the phone in her pocket.
A wave of fury gripped her.
He was using that to track her.
She pulled out the phone and threw it away.
“You sound like you’re running a little slower,” Max shouted. “Legs feeling weak? It won’t be long now.”
Breathless, her legs losing strength, she peered down at the knife she clutched. She felt so light-headed she had to take care that if she fell, she wouldn’t land on it. The blade had sawteeth on the back, reminding her of the knife in a Rambo movie she and Simon had seen on television. The damned things were broadcast every week, it seemed. Rambo had unscrewed the cap, revealing a hollow handle that contained a needle and thread with which he’d sewn a wound shut.
Running, Liz unscrewed the cap on this one.
The hollow grip contained nothing.
She remembered a scene in which Rambo had burst from the camouflage of branches and—
JOGGING EASILY AFTER HER THROUGH the rain, Max glanced occasionally at the find app on his phone. Even though the noise Sansborough made was easy to follow—and to a lessening degree, the blood—it never hurt to be extrasure. Passing a tangle of bushes, he frowned when he saw that the dot indicated that Sansborough wasn’t straight ahead as the blood track indicated but instead she was to his left.
Somehow he was passing her.
He stopped and aimed toward a tangle of bushes. Was she hiding behind them? But he didn’t see any blood leading in that direction.