“I don’t see the van in there,” Carl whispered, as they approached the open gate. “Just that El Camino.”
“Motor’s not running, though,” Tess said. “What I can’t tell is if he’s still in his car.”
There was a Dumpster near the gate and they ducked behind it as soon as they got through the gate. But they must have been seen, for the El Camino’s motor roared on and, before they could react, the El Camino made a quick U-turn and headed out of the lot. The man didn’t bother to get out and close the gate behind him.
“Did he see us?” Tess asked Carl. “What was that about? He didn’t have time to get out of the car, much less meet anyone.”
Carl couldn’t crouch as deeply as she did, so he had braced himself against the Dumpster with his forearms. “He led us on a goddamn wild-goose chase. While we’re chasing him, Billy’s probably back on Eastern Avenue, clearing out his stuff. Shit. We should have split up, left you behind to watch the house while I followed this guy. But I didn’t want to leave you alone.”
“And I didn’t want to be left alone,” Tess admitted. “We could have called Crow and Whitney. They’ve helped me before, but never when… never when-”
She could not bear to finish the thought out loud. Never when it might get one of them killed. Billy Windsor killed the women he loved for reasons she couldn’t fathom. But he killed for sheer convenience too. She had been keeping Whitney and Crow at arm’s length for the past few days without realizing it.
Carl straightened up, massaging his lower back as if it were tender. Tess was beginning to feel her body again too, noticing all the tight muscles in her neck and shoulders.
“It took us a few minutes to park and work our way over. Let’s look around just for the hell of it, make sure he didn’t throw something out of the car before we got here.”
They glanced into the top of the Dumpster but saw nothing but mounds and mounds of bagged trash, black and wet-looking in the moonlight. They began to pick their way through the littered parking lot, scuffing their feet through the broken bottles and smashed cans, looking for something that might have recently come to rest there.
The old industrial park appeared to be abandoned, a series of vacant warehouses with bay doors rusted shut. They went up one aisle, down another, turning into the third and final row without finding anything.
“We could come back tomorrow,” Tess said. “Look in the daylight.”
“If we found a weapon, I suppose the state police could use it to shake our Dominican friend down. Assuming he’s still on Eastern Avenue come tomorrow.”
They were halfway up the last aisle when they realized a bay door was open. They picked up their pace, heading toward it. But as soon as they got there, they heard a motor engage and saw two huge headlights snap on, drowning them in light. Then a van burst from the bay, heading straight toward them.
Not again, was Tess’s first thought and she may have screamed it out loud. “Not again.”
“Run,” Carl shouted, as if she needed encouragement. He was moving with surprising speed, given his bad knee.
They gained ground at first, for the van had to turn sharply out of the narrow bay. But once they were in the parking lot, with a long straightaway between them and the gate, the van had no trouble picking up speed. If anything, it seemed to be toying with them, holding back so they would run harder.
Within yards of the gate, Carl veered to the left, intent on making it back to the Dumpster they had used for cover when they were hiding.
Tess had thought they would be better off getting out of the parking lot and closing the gate behind them, but she saw his logic: Once behind the Dumpster, she could get her gun out of the holster and set up for a shot. She picked up speed and was even with him, just inches away from reaching the haven they needed, when she felt the van on top of them, smelled its fetid exhaust.
Carl shoved her, knocking her down, but the momentum of his push carried her along the pavement. She felt something bite her left leg, nothing more than a minor scrape, although it was strong enough to tear the fabric of her jeans. She was there; she had made it. Now all she had to do was shoot at the van’s windshield, forcing it off course.
She tried to stand, only to see blood seeping through the hole in her pants. Through the hole in her leg. Shit, there was a gaping wound, deep enough to see a bit of bone staring back at her. Why did you have to push me so hard, Carl? She turned to ask him this, expecting to see him behind her. But Carl didn’t have the advantage of someone shoving him from behind. He had stayed in the open, drawing the van away from her. And now it was going to hit him.
It was just as she remembered when the cab struck Jonathan. The van seemed to hesitate, for a moment, rearing back, like a bull taking aim, and then impaling Carl on its flat snout, flinging his body through the air. What did a van weigh-3,000 pounds, 4,000 pounds, 5,000 pounds? How fast was it going? ten miles per hour, twenty, thirty? It didn’t matter. It wasn’t a physics equation. Carl was dead, he had to be. Strangely, crazily, she remembered the moment they had shared in the Suburban House. Noodles, I slipped. Noodles, I slipped.
But she was alive-and she had a gun. Even if she couldn’t seem to walk very well, she could shoot. She pulled her gun from the holster, steadying it in two hands and aiming toward the blinding headlights.
“I have a gun too,” came a voice from inside the van. “And I can see you clearly, while you have only a general idea of where I am. Throw your gun down, or I’m going to run you over. That’s not a nice way to die, let me assure you. I have some experience in these matters, as you probably know by now.”
She fired off one round, hitting the windshield.
The voice came back, mildly exasperated. “Tess, don’t be foolish. Put the gun down, or I’ll drive straight at you.”
If she could get to the gate and pull it shut behind her-and she had a chance, adrenaline alone might carry her that far, that fast-she could get away. He’d have to get out of the fucking van then, and she’d be in position, she’d have a shot.
“If you run, I’ll shoot you in the back,” the voice said. “It’s not what I want, but if I have to, I will. Also, you can’t see it from here, but I think your friend is alive. He’s breathing, Tess. Put your gun down and I’ll call for help. Don’t you want to save his life? I have a cell phone right here.” He pushed a button, and its ringer sounded, a chirpy little song in four notes: dee-dee-dee-dee. The tune was familiar. It was the one clocks played, in imitation of Big Ben. Oh, lord, our guide.
“Your gun, Tess. It’s your only chance-and his.”
She threw it, but not at the van. Instead, she threw it behind her, into the shadowy recesses along the razor-wire-topped fence.
“I guess that will do,” the voice said.
She heard the passenger door open and close, saw the figure come toward her, backlit in his headlights. It was a man, nothing more than a man, a man of average height and build, a man of average looks. But she had known that. She had known for some time how ordinary-looking Billy Windsor was.
He knelt alongside her, squeezing her left knee. She jerked back, but he pressed harder. He was trying to stanch the blood. Whatever she had fallen on had taken a neat crescent-shaped chunk out of her knee, almost like a bite.
Billy Windsor leaned his face close to hers. He wore a baseball cap, but he was no longer bearded and the hair visible at the edges was light brown, curly. He placed his palms on her cheeks, indifferent to the blood he left on her face. Her blood, from her knee.
“Well,” he said. “We’ve certainly come full circle.”
CHAPTER 38
Inside the warehouse, he ripped the torn leg of her jeans and pressed a clean rag to her knee-but only after tying her to a wooden chair, a battered bentwood.