Part 23 (1/2)

”No.”

”He's not a disgruntled employee? Or a thief?”

Shepard moved like a lumbering buffalo. His breath whistled from his lungs. ”For G.o.d's sake, no.”

Her phone rang. Sick sad little world... She put it to her ear. ”Gabe?”

”Cops are on their way. I'm getting the FourRunner. Keep heading west and watch out for Kanan.”

”Alec Shepard's with me. He's-”

Behind her, tires crunched on broken gla.s.s. She looked over her shoulder.

The red Navigator was turning into the alley.

Her pulse rang like an alarm bell. ”Run.”

Shepard glanced back, doubt in his eyes. She dug her nails into his arm.

”Now.”

The Navigator revved and accelerated at them down the alley. In its wake, trash and old newspapers swirled into the air. Jo broke into a sprint.

A second later, as though he still didn't grasp that he was in a situation where split seconds mattered, Shepard did too.

”Gabe-”

”I'm two blocks from my truck. Keep running.”

”Am.”

Jo's Doc Martens felt like cement on her feet. Her satchel swung from her shoulder like a paving stone. Behind them the groan of the engine grew louder. Metal clanged as the Navigator ran into trash cans and kept going with the mindless inertia of a bowling ball. The end of the alley, where it emptied onto Albion, was a hundred yards straight ahead.

Straight ahead wasn't going to work.

Past a cl.u.s.ter of overflowing trash cans, Jo saw an open door. ”This way.”

She heard Shepard breathing hard behind her and the heels of his expensive oxfords scuffing on the concrete. And the engine rising in pitch.

She jammed through the doorway. Found herself in the back hall of a clothing store. Kept running and heard the Navigator screech to a stop. Then she heard the door of the store slam. She looked back. Shepard had shut it and was fighting with a dead bolt lock.

He looked at her. ”Keep going.”

Outside, the Navigator revved. Its tires screeched as it pulled away. Shepard threw the dead bolt and lumbered toward her. She put out her hands.

”No. He expects us to bolt out the front door and dash for your car. He's coming around the block. We need to go out the back.”

Shepard skidded to a stop on the slick tile floor. ”You're guessing.”

”We have to guess. Mine is that he'll think we're too panicked to double back.”

”What if he's stopped ten yards up the alley, waiting for us?” He glanced at the back door and then out the front windows. ”We could stay here. Sit tight.”

”Plate gla.s.s? We'd be sitting ducks. He's armed. We have to lose him.”

She ran to the back exit and put her ear near the door. Heard no engine.

She thought, AmIagood gambler? If this were a dime edge of rock, two hundred feet above a valley floor, and she had to decide whether to throw herself sideways for the next hold or retreat down the pitch, what would she do? Her heart was ringing, cymbals, timer bells, cuckoo clock.

Just breathe. She shut her eyes, held still, and listened. She heard customers in the store, and a cash register, but no big-block engine.

”Let's go.”

She threw the lock, opened the door, and leaned out. The alley was empty.

She ran out the door. Across the alley, past a flattened trash can that had spewed its contents like a gutted fish, the back door to another business was propped open with a brick.

”This way.” She put her phone to her ear. ”Gabe-you there?”

”I'm nearly at the FourRunner,” he said, breathing hard.

”We're heading into a store that's on Fifteenth Street. I'm listening for sirens.”

Shepard put an arm out. ”No police.”

She turned her head sharply. ”What?”

”Call them off.”

Fear and anger whipped a stripe across her back. ”No way.”

She ran through the propped-open door and along a dim hallway. Shepard pounded behind her, each breath echoing off the walls.

”Call off the police,” Shepard said. ”You don't understand.”

”Don't understand what? Kanan is dangerous, he's armed, and he's after us.”

She emerged from the hallway into the back of a dry cleaner's. Clothes hung in plastic bags on a mechanized track on the ceiling. The eye-watering pong of cleaning chemicals filled the air. On the far side of a part.i.tion, a bored clerk sat on a stool, reading a magazine.

The plate-gla.s.s window out front was covered with red lettering. The street was quiet, a few parked cars, motorcycles lined up perpendicular to the curb across the road.

She lowered her voice. ”Kanan's after you, but I'm after him. We need to get him back in custody, and I'm d.a.m.ned well leaving that to the police.”

Shepard was wheezing. Sweat glistened on his forehead and splotched the fabric of his s.h.i.+rt. His gray eyes were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with pain and confusion that she couldn't decipher.