Almost.
But when I jumped out of the car and staggered to the edge of the precipice, I saw that it was real after all.
Headlights stared up at me from three meters below. My daughter and the killer were caught on a ledge. “Tessa!” I couldn’t keep the terror out of my voice. “Are you OK?”
Sevren’s voice came back to me, like poison blackening the day. “Patrick, is that you? I should have known you’d find-” But before he could finish his sentence the ambulance tipped back over the outcropping and dropped into the heart of the gorge, encased in the screams of my daughter.
86
“No!” I howled.
I listened for the sickening crunch of metal on rock or the roaring screech of the vehicle tumbling down the cliff, but it didn’t come.
I leaned forward but couldn’t see much. I scrambled a few meters down the cliff, toed out onto a ledge using stray roots for handholds, bent over, and then I saw them. The ambulance was caught in the branches of a towering fir tree that jutted out about twenty meters farther down the cliff. Beyond the tree, the gorge dropped off a hundred meters straight down into the valley carved by a hopeless Cherokee girl’s tears.
“Tessa!”
“Patrick,” she called. “Help me, Patrick!”
Something powerful and deep stirred within me. Something bright and wild and right. Nothing else matters. You have to save her.
“Throw down a rope,” yelled the Illusionist.
“He’s hurt, Patrick. His leg!”
“Shut up!” And then a smacking sound and a feeble cry.
“Keep your hands off her!” Fire rose inside of me. The beast of anger roared, broke loose, ran wild.
Even though the snow had let up a little, I couldn’t scramble down the cliff to help her-it was too steep and icy for anyone to free climb. No time to drive around looking for help.
“Drop a rope,” Sevren yelled. “You have gear in your car. I saw it when you were at Abrams’s house.”
I tried to think. Everything was becoming fuzzy again. “She comes up first,” I yelled.
Laughter, dark and vicious. “I go first, or I start to play with her while I wait.” I thought of what he’d done to the other women before killing them. “I have a knife,” he said. “I’m good with a knife.”
“Help me!”
“All right!” I heaved myself up and over the ledge. “Don’t touch her. I’m getting a rope!”
I hurried to the car and pulled out my climbing gear. His voice found me. It was calmer now, full of dark desire. I imagined him eyeing Tessa as he spoke: “Hurry, Patrick. I’m not a patient man.”
A river of emotion churned through me. Anger. Fear. Love. Hatred. I had no idea which would win. Somewhere behind me I heard the tree creak and a branch snap off and crash into the gorge.
Hurry!
I took off my gun and laid it on the hood, pulled on my harness, grabbed some webbing, and scanned the area for something to tie into. Some kind of an anchor. Anything. There were no trees close by. I had to hurry.
The only thing available was the guardrail, but a long section of it lay crumpled from the ambulance’s impact. No other choice. I tied the webbing around a section of the railing that still appeared to be intact, threw a carabiner through it, and clipped the rope into that. It was dicey, but it would hold our body weight. At least I hoped it would. No time to wonder. Just time to trust.
I pushed the pack with my other rope and the rest of my gear out of the way, and then attached a couple of prussiks and ascenders to my harness’s gear loops.
“Hurry!” Sevren yelled. “Or I start giving her lessons. Drop a rope and some ascenders.”
I wasn’t about to back down. Tessa was the only reason I was willing to help him, and he knew it. If he killed her, there was nothing to motivate me. “I’m coming down for her, Sevren. Or you get nothing.”
A short silence and then a blinding shriek that sliced all the way through me. “Patrick!” It was a cry of acute pain and final terror. “I just cut her, Patrick. Cut her good. The brachial artery, right there on the inside of the arm. Oh, it looks deep. It’s spurting. Based on my medical training, I’d say she has about four minutes before she bleeds out. I’m pretty good at estimating time of death. Trust me.”
Dear God, please. No, no, no.
Tears of white-hot anger blurred my eyes. “Press your hand against it, Tessa,” I yelled. “Listen to me! You have to stop the bleeding!”
Hurry, hurry, no time.
No time.
I grabbed two extra harnesses and clipped them to my harness. Then I sprinted toward the edge of the cliff and launched myself away from the ridge and into the gorge. The rope sailed through my brake hand. I was on the brink of losing control and freefalling into the valley when I managed to catch myself, and control my descent. I tapped my feet off the rock face, hopped over a rocky overhang, and zoomed headfirst toward the ambulance.
“Tessa, I’m coming. Hold your hand against the cut!”
87
A moment later I arrived at the ambulance and locked off, so I could hang in place. I stepped gingerly onto the hood, trying to use my weight to steady the vehicle. It was tilted but still horizontal enough for me to stand on the hood. Only then did I realize I’d left my gun sitting on the roof of my car at the top of the cliff.
The windshield stared at me like a giant splintered eye. A web of spidery cracks withered across it, emanating from the place on the driver’s side where Sevren’s head had smashed into it. He stared through the glass at me like a snake eyeing a mouse on the other side of the aquarium. A smear of blood oozed down his forehead, making his face look wild, primal. Beside him I saw Tessa, pale, crying softly, her left arm awash in blood. Her right hand pressing against the wound.
“Give me a harness,” said Sevren.
“I’m taking her up.”
“OK, let’s discuss it then.” He looked at his watch and then at Tessa’s arm. “A couple minutes from now, it won’t really matter, will it?”
Anger boiling. Boiling.
“All right. All right.”
Tessa groaned softly.
I cursed him in my heart, but I didn’t say anything for fear he might hurt Tessa worse. I lowered myself toward the driver’s door. The impact from the fall had jarred it open, and it swung loose on broken hinges. I handed him a harness, and he started pulling it on. His face wrenched in pain as he did. Tessa said his leg is hurt. I saw a bloody scissors on the floor of the cab and a crimson stain spreading across his pants leg.
Good for you, Tessa.
She was squeezing her arm, stopping the flow of blood.
“Hang in there,” I told her. “It’s going to be OK.” She nodded. She looked so fragile. So broken. “I love you,” I said. “I love you, Tessa Ellis.”
He clipped in. “All right. Hand me the ascenders.”
I did.
Think, Pat. Think!
At that point we were both attached to the rope, but I was above him, balancing on the hood, locking off the rope with my right hand. He wouldn’t be able to ascend until I got out of the way. “Now,” he whispered, and seemed to be weaker from the effort of struggling with his leg. “Get out of the way and then unclip.”
C’mon, Pat. Think. Do something.
Then he added, “Toss that other harness, or I’ll sit here for a while.”
“You have to let me take her-”
Tessa moaned and slumped back against the door.
“You’re killing her,” he said softly. “It won’t be long now.”
I dropped the other harness into the gorge. Now I had no way to take Tessa up the rope. I had no idea what to do; she was bleeding to death within reach of me, yet I was powerless to help her.
I slid onto the hood and unclipped. The storm had picked up again, and the metal was slippery with snow. I was staring through the cracked windshield, just inches away from my daughter, watching her die. I heard a weak cry and then she said, “I love you, Patrick.” Then her eyes rolled back. She went unconscious.