She was tired. That was her best excuse. She’d run, she’d pumped iron, she’d walked, she’d studied, then she’d downed three gallons of water and two PowerBars and headed out here. Her legs were shaky. Her arm muscles trembled with fatigue.
She hefted the empty shotgun to her shoulder, and went through the rhythms of firing over and over again.
Place butt firmly against right shoulder to absorb the recoil. Plant feet hip-width apart, loose in the knees. Lean slightly forward into the shot. At the last minute, as your right finger squeezes the trigger, pull forward with your left hand as if the gun were a broom handle you were trying to tear in half. Hope against hope you don’t fall once more on your ass. Or smash your shoulder. Or shatter your cheek.
Live ammunition was limited to supervised drills, so Kimberly had no real way of knowing how she was doing. Still, lots of the new agents came out after hours to go through the motions. The more times you handled a weapon, the more comfortable it felt in your hands.
If you did it enough times, maybe it would become instinctive. And if it became instinctive, maybe you’d survive the next firearms test.
She leaned into her next practice “shot.” Went a little too far, and her rubbery legs wobbled dangerously. She reached out a hand, had just caught herself, and then, in the pitch darkness beside her, she heard a man say, “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
Kimberly acted on instinct. She whirled, spotted the hulking, threatening form, and whipped the empty shotgun at the man’s face. Then she ran.
A grunt. Surprise. Pain. She didn’t wait to find out. The hour was late, the surroundings remote, and she knew too well that some predators preferred it if you screamed.
Footsteps. Hard and fast behind her. In her initial panic, Kimberly had sprinted toward the trees. Bad idea. Trees were dark, and far from help. She needed to cut back toward the Academy buildings, back toward lights, population, and the FBI police. The man was already gaining on her.
Kimberly took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding, her lungs screaming. Her body was too abused for this kind of business. Good news, adrenaline was a powerful drug.
She focused on the footsteps behind her, trying to separate their staccato beat from her heart’s frantic hammering. He was gaining. Fast. Of course. He was bigger and stronger than her. At the end of the day, the men always were.
Fuck him.
She homed in on his rhythm, timed it with her own. One, two, three-
The man’s hand snaked out for her left wrist. Kimberly suddenly planted her foot, pirouetted right. He overshot her completely. And she took off at warp nine for the lights.
“Jesus!” she heard the man swear.
It made her smile. Grim and fierce. Then the footsteps were behind her again.
Is this how her mother had felt? She had fought bitterly to the end. Her father had tried to protect Kimberly from the details, but a year later, on her own, Kimberly had looked up all the articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer. HIGH SOCIETY HOUSE OF HORRORS, the first banner headline had declared. Then it had gone on to describe the trail of blood that ran from room to room.
Had her mother known then that the man had already killed Mandy? Had she guessed that he would come after Kimberly next? Or had she simply realized, in those last desperate minutes, that beneath the silk and pearls she was an animal, too? And all animals, even the lowliest field mice, fight to live in the end.
The footsteps had closed in on her again. The lights were too far away. She wasn’t going to make it. It amazed her how coolly she accepted this fact.
Time’s up, Kimberly. No actors here. No paint guns, no bulletproof vests. She had one last ploy.
She counted his footsteps. Timed his approach. And then, in the next heartbeat, as he was upon her, his giant form swooping down on her own, she dropped to the ground and curled her arms protectively over her head.
She saw the man’s face, faintly caught by the distant lights. His eyes went wide. He tried to draw up short, his arms flailing wildly. He made one last desperate move, careening left to spin around her.
Kimberly adroitly stuck out her leg. And he went flat on his face on the ground.
Ten seconds later, she flipped him over on his back, dropped down on his chest and placed the silver blade of her serrated hunting knife against his dark throat.
“Who the fuck are you?” she asked.
The man started to laugh.
“Betsy?” Tina called nervously. No answer. “Bets?”
Still nothing. And then it hit Tina, the second thing that was wrong. There were no other sounds. Shouldn’t she be hearing car doors opening or closing? Or even Betsy heaving as she dragged the spare to the ground? Surely there should be some noise. Other cars. Crickets. The wind in the trees.
But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. The night had gone completely, deathly still.
“This isn’t funny anymore,” Tina said weakly.
Then she heard a twig snap. And then she saw his face.
Pale, somber, maybe even gentle above the black collar of his turtleneck. How in the world could someone wear a turtleneck in this heat? Tina thought.
Then, he hefted up the rifle and leveled it against his shoulder.
Tina stopped thinking. She bolted for the trees.
“Stop laughing. Why are you laughing? Hey, stop!”
The man laughed harder, a steady ripple of spasms moving down his large frame and tossing her from side to side as easily as if she were a small boat caught in a rough wake. “Toppled by a woman,” he gasped with an unmistakable Southern accent. “Oh, please, honey… don’t tell my sister.”
His sister? What the hell?
“All right. That’s it. Move one more muscle and I will slit your throat.” Kimberly must’ve sounded more impressive this time. The man finally stopped laughing. That was better. “Name?” she asked crisply.
“Special Agent Michael McCormack. But you can call me Mac.”
Kimberly’s eyes widened. She had a sudden bad feeling. “FBI?” she whispered. Oh no, she’d taken out a fellow agent. Probably her future boss. She wondered who would make the call to her father. “You know, Quincy old fellow, you were a star among stars here at the Bureau; but I’m afraid your daughter is just too, er, freaky for us.”
“Georgia Bureau of Investigation,” the man drawled. “State police. We’ve always had a soft spot for the Bureau, though, so we stole your titles.”
“You little-” She was so angry she couldn’t think of a word. She whacked his shoulder with her left hand, then remembered, oh yeah, she had a knife. “You’re with the National Academy,” she accused him, in the same tone of voice others used for addressing vermin.
“And you’re a new agent… obviously.”
“Hey, I still have a knife at your throat, mister!”
“I know.” He frowned at her, his easy tone throwing her for another loop. Was it her imagination, or had he just shifted to get more comfortable beneath her? “Why are you carrying a knife?”
“They took away my Glock,” she said without thinking.
“Of course.” He nodded as if she were a very wise person, instead of a highly paranoid aspiring federal agent. “If I might ask a personal question, ma’am. Umm, where do you hide the blade?”
“I beg your pardon!” She could definitely feel his gaze on her body now, and she immediately blushed. It was hot. She’d been working out… So the nylon shorts and thin blue T-shirt didn’t cover much. She was training after hours, for God’s sake, not preparing for an interview. Besides, it was amazing the things you could strap to the inside of your thigh.
“Why did you chase me?” she demanded, pressing the tip of her knife deeper against his throat.