She raised her head. Her skin was a maze of welts, scratches, and bleeding cuts. They itched and burned. But she couldn’t worry about that now.
The dive had carried her through the wall of foliage surrounding the pine. The spear was still in her hands. It had snapped in the fall, leaving only a few inches of shaft jutting out below the knife’s handle.
But she had the knife!
Gazing between her feet, she saw Holden scuttling through the shadows under the tree.
She gasped, rolled over, pushed herself up and whirled around to face him.
He held the rest of the spear—a long crooked pole. The break had left it with a point. He walked toward Gillian, both hands on the pole, shaking it at her. “Gonna shove it up your ass,” he whispered. “Gonna make you a scarecrow.” .
I’ve got the knife, she thought. But his words sent ice through her bones. He seemed so sure.
He lunged forward, driving the pole toward her belly. Gillisn slashed at it. The heavy blade knocked it aside. She threw herself at Holden, swinging the knife in a backhand stroke. He hurled himself out of its path and the blade cut only air. She glimpsed a blur of streaking pole and cried out as a blast of pain shot up her arm. Stunned, she saw the knife fly from her hand.
Holden turned, watching the knife, and started to go after it while it was still falling.
Gillian whirled around and ran.
It’s over, she thought.
Christ, I had the knife.
She sprinted.
It’s over, but I won’t make it easy for him.
Her arm throbbed. Her wounds burned. She felt blood and sweat sliding down her skin. Branches whipped her. Her feet snagged on something and she fell and skidded and scurried up again and kept on running.
In the distance ahead, the forest shadows were broken by brightness.
Another clearing? she wondered.
Maybe a lake!
If it’s a lake up there, I’ll dive in and swim. Maybe Holden can’t swim!
She glanced back.
Holden was racing after her, no more than twenty feet away. He had the pole down at his side, clutched in his left hand. His right hand held the knife.
Gillian dashed out of the trees.
Clear open space ahead.
Rocky ground for a few more yards.
But no lake.
A valley.
Gillian tried to stop.
GOD, NO! was her 6na1 thought before she stumbled off the edge..
Chapter Twenty-nine
This is it, Gillian thought as she plummeted.
Her feet hit rock. Her knees shot up, one striking her chin like a pitched hardball.
She was lying on the beach. She could hear the nearby surf. Her skin was sizzling.
I’m going to have a doozy of a sunburn, she thought.
I’d better roll over.
She couldn’t move. The sun seemed to be pressing down on her, holding her motionless.
If I don’t roll over ...
A kid ran by, kicking up sand. Grains of it flew into Gillian’s open mouth. She started to choke.
Coughing, she raised her head and pushed herself up on her elbows. The sight of her naked, battered body destroyed the dream. She coughed and spat. Blood sprayed her chest. So did bits of something—not sand, though. Chips of broken teeth? Her vision darkened and swam. She twisted quickly onto her side and vomited.
When she was done, she squirmed away from the mess. She rolled onto her back and her right leg slipped into emptiness. With a gasp of alarm, she jerked it up and crossed it over her other leg. Her pounding heart sent waves of pain through her head. She patted the ground and felt an edge of rock no more than two inches from her side.
Carefully, she sat up. She looked around, forcing her head to turn on her tight neck.
She was sitting on a shelf of rock that jutted out no more than five or six feet from the sheer face of the mountain. It was less than four feet wide. The center was depressed slightly, and as sandy as a beach.
She started to look down, felt a swell of panic, and scooted cautiously until her back pressed the solid wall of rock. There, she gripped the edge beside her right hip. She took deep breaths. She shut her eyes, but snapped them open, fearful of falling. Too close to the edge. She eased herself closer to the middle.
What am I doing here?
She tried to think back. Her brain pulsed and burned with the headache. Her memory seemed scattered.
She remembered a fall—from a diving board. At Jerry’s swimming pool. But that was a long time ago.
At least I remembered it, she thought. A place to start.
The board had torn off her bikini pants. Jerry gave her a robe to wear. She wore it next door, to the place she was staying. That was a house she’d broken into. She must’ve been on one of her adventures, her intrusions.
She’d gone back to the house. She remembered opening the drier to put the robe in, and ...
The scrapbook.
Fredrick Holden.
She suddenly remembered. She skipped her mind over the nightmare that started with her capture, touching on bits and pieces of her ordeal, and found the part she needed to remember.
The last seconds.
Holden had been chasing her through the woods. She’d rushed right up to the edge of a cliff, tried to stop, teetered for a moment, then fallen. She’d expected her body to be dashed apart on the rocks far below.
By some miracle, she was still alive.
By the miracle of landing on this, she thought, looking at the small shelf surrounding her.
She couldn’t remember landing. She must’ve been knocked senseless by ...
Holden!
Wincing, she twisted her head and looked up the mountain.
Holden was nowhere in sight.
The wall looming above her was nearly vertical. She couldn’t see the top.
From what Gillian could see, however, she guessed that her perch must be well below the edge.
She realized she would have a better view if she crawled out to the end of the shelf and turned her back to the open space.
No way.
Instead, she raised her knees. Her right knee was stiff and swollen, and hurt when she bent it. But she kept it bent along with her left, to hold her feet away from the edge when she scooted forward. With her back a few inches from the wall, she looked over each shoulder and scanned the area above her.
She still couldn’t see Holden.
Still couldn’t see the top.
But she saw that the rock face was slightly concave. Though the angle was so slight that the mountainside didn’t appear to overhang her, there was enough tilt to prevent Holden from climbing down to her.
Unless he had a good long rope.
There was no mountain climbing rope in the trunk of his car, that she knew. And she would bet he didn’t have one in the front, either.
Only one way he’ll get down here, she thought. The same way I did.
He’s a fucking lunatic, but he’s not suicidal. Nobody would jump off up there on the chance of landing the way I did. Not even me. I would’ve let him catch me before I would’ve jumped. Maybe.
If he tries it, he’ll miss.
If he lands here, I’ll kick him off.
He won’t try it. Not a chance. He cares a hell of a lot for his own hide. Here’s a bastard who goes out ofstate to do his killings, who drove me hundreds of miles just so my body wouldn’t turn up near his neighborhood. He’s a bastard who loves himself and wants to live so he can go on torturing and , murdering. No way is he going to jump off a goddamn cliff.
But he can’t let me live. No way is he going to drive away and leave me breathing.