I rushed toward the front door, snapping on the living room and porch lights as I flung it open. “Don’t leave the house.”
Outside, Ralph had made it to the porch and was facing the police cruiser that was careening away from us through the mud. He fired three times but the squad’s windows were bulletproof.
His right forearm was bloody, chunks of meat gouged out from where the pit bull had attacked him. The dog lay dead in the yard.
“Saundra and her daughter are inside. Stay with them.” I sprinted past him. “Clear the house. He might not have been alone. I’ll get Basque.”
With my car blocking the road, there wasn’t enough room for Basque to get by on either side, but in the slick mud, if he had enough speed and hit the side panel just right he might be able to nudge it out of the way and get past it.
As I bolted through the rain toward the squad, Basque backed up to gain enough speed to ram my car.
I closed the space between us as he gunned the engine, and, fishtailing in the mud, roared forward and slammed into the front passenger side of my car. The vehicle moved, but not enough for him to get past. It looked like the squad’s driver’s door might have banged open for a moment.
His tires spun determinedly and started sinking in the soft earth. Both cars were sliding slowly toward the embankment.
I skidded in the mud on the way to the driver’s side, almost slipping down the bank into the marsh stretching away from me into the darkness. I stood back from the door so I’d have a clean shot. From this angle I couldn’t see inside the driver’s seat. The headlights from the car cut a glowing swath of light through the rain.
“Hands out the window!”
Nothing.
“Hands out! Now!”
The squad’s tires were spinning in the mud. With the loose embankment giving way, my car was starting to tilt off the road, and I realized Basque might just get past it.
Whipping my gun forward, I threw open his door and saw that he wasn’t inside.
There was a metal accelerator bar pressed against the gas pedal, the other end Velcroed to the steering wheel.
Lien-hua had said he’d have an escape plan. He was ready for this, he was—
I spun to search the night, but even as I did, he emerged from the shadows and was on me.
The impact of his fist against my jaw threw me backward and I smacked into the car. A burst of pain shot through my face, and then I was raising my arm to fire when he grabbed my forearm and twisted my wrist backward to go for my weapon.
51
Basque’s grip was like steel, and when he cranked my wrist sideways he was able to wrench the gun free. My SIG dropped to the mud.
Don’t let him get it, Pat. Do not let him get it!
Hurtling forward, I threw my arms around him and drove him toward the marsh. His legs smeared out from under him and we tumbled backward, landing together in the mud and rolling down the embankment toward the water. The Mini Maglite that I’d somehow managed to hold on to sent light spinning and flickering through the rain-drenched darkness until I lost hold of it.
When we hit the water he was on top of me.
I snatched in as much air as I could before my head went under.
Struggling to get free, I tried to disentangle myself from him but he squeezed my neck with both hands to hold me under, then repositioned himself to straddle my chest.
Grabbing at his hands I tried to pull them off my throat, but he had the leverage and I couldn’t peel his fingers away.
I thought of Tessa and of Lien-hua, of the picnic we’d had, the hope of a future together, then of getting the news that Lien-hua had been attacked, of seeing the look on Tessa’s face when I told her.
Every moment.
So brief.
So unfathomable.
He was choking me just as he’d done with Lien-hua with the belt. She shot him in the right side when he did. She had—
Yes.
I didn’t know exactly where the wound was, but I went for it and landed a series of fierce blows against his side; it only served to weaken his grip a little.
The world was growing dim, and what little air I had left in my lungs escaped in one sharp, final burst of bubbles.
While we live.
Let us live.
My SIG was still by the car and all I had for a weapon was that automatic knife in my pocket, but the way I was positioned I wasn’t sure I could get to it. Desperate for air, I dug my right hand into my pocket while I tried to peel his fingers off my neck with my left.
The world was becoming a splintered hungry darkness and as I was starting to fade out for good, I managed to pull the knife free. I flicked out the blade, pictured where his neck would be, and then, with all the strength I had left, I stabbed it fiercely at his throat.
I missed, but hit the side of his face.
My hand slammed into his jaw, the blade sliced through his cheek and into his mouth, probably also smashing through his teeth.
His grip loosened and I pushed him back. I wrestled free from his weight, scrambled against the mire that tried to hold me down, and managed to get my head above water.
I gulped in a mouthful of air.
Stood to fight him.
The headlights from the squad on the road above us gave me enough light to see Basque. The knife was still protruding from his jaw, dark blood draining in thick streaks from his mouth. Off to my right, more clumps of loose soil were cascading down the embankment and my car was teetering on the lip of the bank.
Basque grabbed the knife and drew it out of his jaw without even flinching, then spit out a mouthful of blood and fragmented teeth. He looked more savage than ever, like some kind of primal beast moving through the marsh toward me in the driving rain.
As he swiped the knife at me, I dodged to the side and then threw a punch at his bloody mouth and connected hard. His head snapped backward. Before he could turn toward me again, I tugged my feet free of the mud, grabbed him, and threw him under the water.
He went into the marsh face-first, and I scrambled on top of him and, pressing him down, grabbed his arms, got the knife from him, and cuffed his wrists behind him.
I didn’t pull him out of the water, but held him there, kneeling on his back, forcing his face into the muddy bottom of the marsh.
There is a dark side to justice.
And it calls to us all.
This man deserved to die.
And he was going to.
Sirens whined faintly in the night. Backup. They were on their way, but they weren’t close enough to save Basque.
Beneath me, I could feel his body start convulsing.
End this.
For all the times you’ve wanted to stop him, vowed to stop him.
End this.
Lien-hua’s question about whether I wanted to catch Basque because of justice or revenge wedged itself like a thorn in my mind, and Tessa’s query about what I would do when I found him — if I was actually going to bring him in — came crawling back to me.
Basque’s body stopped spasming.
A few more seconds just to make sure.
It can end right here, right now.
Justice doesn’t always have clean hands.
All I had to do was let go of him and he would never rise, never breathe again. That was justice on behalf of all the people he’d killed, all the lives he’d destroyed.
I stepped back and caught my breath.
Apart from the ripples from my movement and the unrest caused by the fearsome rain, the water in front of me began to become calm.
Basque did not rise.
You did it. You stopped him. You killed him.