Casey mouthed a thank you at Rachel, who was punching 911 into her phone, and eased the wastebasket liner, along with the papers and photos, from the trashcan. She tied the top with a loop and held it, climbing onto a chair to ease out of the open window, right leg first. She swung her left leg out, then hung onto the window frame, dropping quietly to the ground. She held her breath, listening. No movement outside. Not even Trixie, who lay motionless in the driveway.
On her hands and knees, Casey crawled to the back of the trailer, and saw no one there. A stack of crates sat at the front corner of the trailer, so she couldn’t see around to the front. She lay on her stomach and looked underneath. Two sets of feet. She sat on her heels. The man inside had a gun, so she had to assume these two did, as well. The first man would be bringing Davey and Wendell outside soon, and she wanted to get these others out of the way before she dealt with him.
Quietly, she slid the bag of papers as far underneath the trailer as she could, then looked around for something to use as a weapon. Bricks. Rocks. A shop broom. She grabbed the broom and twisted the head until she freed the stick. She stood and balanced it in her hands. Heavier than the Bo she used in hapkido, but about the same length.
Taking a deep breath and centering herself, she stood with her left side against the crates, her back against the trailer. She held the broomstick against her right side, her right arm extended along underneath it, resting the stick on her fingers, the back of her left hand flat against her right shoulder, the stick balanced on her palm.
She scraped her foot along the ground, the gravel loud in the quiet afternoon.
One of the men out front said something, and she heard footsteps. He came around the corner, turning toward her when he cleared the crates. Casey swung the stick upward, striking him in the groin. He bent over with a grunt, and she stepped forward, sweeping the stick over her head to strike him on the back of the neck. He sprawled at her feet, unconscious.
The second man ran around the corner, gun extended. Casey rocked back, pivoting on her left foot and swinging the stick upward. It hit the man’s wrist, knocking his arm back, but he held onto the gun. Pulling the stick forward, Casey hit the bony back of his wrist, and the gun flew about ten feet away. The man lunged toward it, and Casey leapt after him, striking the side of his knee with the point of the stick.
He screamed and fell to the ground, clutching his now-useless knee. Casey jumped forward, flicking the gun away with her staff, and swung the stick around under the man’s chin, lifting his face toward hers. “Who are you guys?”
He groaned, his eyes bright with pain.
The door to the trailer slapped open and Wendell walked down the steps, his face white. Davey came next, followed by the man with the gun, who held the pistol against his thigh. When he saw Casey he dropped the casual pose and wrapped his arm around Davey’s neck, holding the gun at his temple.
Casey looked quickly for the gun on the ground, but she’d knocked it too far away for her to reach. The man on the ground gave a strangled half-laugh, half-groan, and Casey swung the stick from under his chin and knocked the side of his head, putting him out of his immediate misery, laying him flat out on the ground. She faced the last man, the stick balanced in her hands.
“You again?” the man said, a mocking smile on his face. “Dix will be glad to hear you’re still around.”
“Dix?”
“My friend you met at the accident yesterday. You embarrassed him in front of the guys.”
“You can tell him I’m not sorry.”
The man laughed. “Oh, I’ll tell him. Now, honey, why don’t you just put down that little stick of yours.”
Casey gripped the staff tighter.
“Put it down.” The man emphasized the last word by shoving the gun harder against Davey’s head. Davey winced, and Wendell went even paler.
Casey clenched her jaw, then slowly lowered the stick to the ground. She rose, her hands palms-out at her shoulders. “Let the men go.”
“And do what with them? Let them go back inside and call the cops? I don’t think so.”
The sound of a siren split the air.
Casey kept her hands up. “Guess they won’t have to call now, will they?”
The man looked wildly at his fallen comrades, then dropped his gun hand and ran around the trailer. Casey ran the other way, jumping over her first victim and keeping out of the gunman’s sightlines so she wouldn’t be a target if he still wanted to shoot somebody.
But he wasn’t looking for her anymore. He jumped into a dark blue Explorer and flew out of the driveway, tires spinning on the gravel as he sped in the opposite direction as the sirens.
“Let’s go after him!” Wendell was behind her, his color more than fully back.
“The cops will get him.” Casey returned to the side of the trailer and dropped to her knees, pulling the bag out from under the trailer. “But I don’t want them to get me, too.”
“Where are you going? I’ll drive you.”
Davey came around the side of the trailer, Trixie limp in his arms. Where Wendell was now beet red, Davey had gone almost completely white.
“You guys will be in a lot of trouble because of me,” Casey said, indicating the two unconscious men. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” Davey’s voice shook. “They deserved what you gave them.”
Casey looked at Trixie. “Is she alive?”
Davey clutched her to his chest. “She’s breathing.”
“I want to do something.” Wendell’s voice grew loud.
Casey held up the bag. “You already have.”
The sirens came closer, and Rachel stuck her head out of the open window. “I see cruisers.”
“I’m sorry,” Casey said again, and ran toward the far end of the lot, where she climbed a stack of crushed cars, dropped over the fence, and sprinted as fast as she could through the cornfield.
Chapter Five
“You know,” Death said, “you really have to stop doing things like this.”
Casey groaned and held her stomach. The banana and not-quite-ripe apple weren’t sitting too well after her two-mile run through the corn. She lay now in a thicket of trees which had yet to be cut down to make more farmland, probably because a creek ran through it, gurgling and spitting over rocks.
“You kill somebody, you run,” Death said. “You get in an accident, you run. You beat up some guys, you run. You’re getting predictable.”
Casey groaned again and rolled over, holding her arm over her ear to block out Death’s yammering.
“You should at least do something no one expects,” Death said, “like giving yourself up to the police, or heading home.”
Casey took her arm away from her face. “Are you serious?”
Death grinned. “Not really. I just wanted to see if I could get you to do something other than moan and writhe around.”
Casey put her arm back up to her head. “Can you just shut up? For a few minutes, at least?”
“If you say the magic word.”
“Fine. Can you just shut the hell up?”
Death sighed. “That’s two words. But okay. I’ll stop talking.”
Casey relaxed against the ground. Silence. Blissful silence.
A shrill chord rent the air, and Casey shot up. Death was blowing into a harmonica.
“What are you doing?” Casey shrieked.
“Playing a song,” Death said. “To help you sleep.”
Casey wrenched the harmonica from Death’s hands and threw it into the creek, where it immediately sank under the water.
“Well,” Death said. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“I’m not a very nice person.”
“I guess not.”
Casey fell back onto the ground and watched as Death went sloshing into the creek, feeling around the creek’s rocky bed and pulling the harmonica from its watery resting place.