Part 24 (1/2)

Jo stumbled onto the sidewalk with Shepard hard behind her just as the Navigator drove past. She turned her face away from the street but heard tires scorch the asphalt.

”Run,” she said.

They took off. Jo looked for cover, but the building next to the dry cleaner had barred windows and a locked door. Beyond that, the apartment building on the corner was sequestered behind a security gate. A strangling sensation crept into her throat. She rounded the corner onto Valencia. Glanced back. Shepard was lumbering in her wake, tie and suit jacket flapping. Behind him, Kanan was skidding the Navigator through a hard U-turn in the middle of the block. The front wheels were locked, the back end swinging around, gray smoke boiling off the tires. He pulled a one-eighty, straightened it, and gunned it up the block toward them.

”Faster. Sixteenth Street,” she said. ”Your car.”

Sweat was rolling down Shepard's face into his salt-and-copper beard. ”That puts us back at square one.”

But surrounded by a solid German frame and four hundred horsepower. She pounded along the sidewalk. This street offered no cover, just locked apartment buildings and gla.s.s-fronted businesses and budding trees along the curb. Ahead at the intersection with Sixteenth, the light was green. Horns honked behind them.

Jo looked back. The Navigator was stuck at the corner, blocked by cross traffic.

She pumped her arms. Ahead at the intersection, the light turned yellow. Pedestrians in the crosswalk jogged for the curbs.

”Go for it,” she said.

They ran into the crosswalk as the light turned red. Another horn honked, loud, in her ear, and Shepard danced out of the path of a rusty Honda Civic.

Jo belted across the street to the sidewalk. Up the block the Navigator was weaving through traffic, heading for the red light. She and Shepard had about thirty seconds to get out of his sight.

”Where's your car?” she said.

Shepard shook his head. ”No. Split up.”

”Alec-”

”He'll follow me.”

He cast a look at her, hot and determined and somehow ruthless. Then he ran out into the middle of Valencia Street. He stopped in the crosswalk and turned to face the Navigator.

He spread his arms. She couldn't tell whether the gesture meant surrender, Come and get me, or Just try it, man. The Navigator's engine revved. Shepard turned and fled toward the far side of the street.

Jo stood rooted to the sidewalk. The Navigator approached the red light. With barely a pause, Kanan put the pedal down and accelerated toward the intersection, toward cross traffic, straight at her.

* 19 *

The Navigator's engine swelled in Jo's ears. Its red paint flashed in the bright sunlight as the SUV veered toward her. Cars in the intersection and people on the sidewalk swerved like crazed fish scattering at the approach of a shark. She turned and ran.

She crashed into a cl.u.s.ter of trash cans by the curb. She went down amid a clatter like steel drums falling over, hands out, and pitched to the sidewalk.

”Look out,” a woman shouted.

Over the s.h.i.+ning barrel of the trash can, Jo saw the Navigator bearing down on her.

Get your b.u.t.t up off this sidewalk, Beckett. She scrambled to her feet and aimed for the door of a Chinese restaurant. All around her on the sidewalk, she saw fleeing backs. She heard distant sirens. Through the window of the restaurant, people stared at her with alarm, eyes wide, chopsticks frozen halfway to their mouths.

A cry escaped her throat. If she ran into the restaurant, the Navigator would ram the window.

She jinked left and pitched along the sidewalk at a flat, crazed sprint. Her hands were clenched, her hair falling from the claw clip into her face. Behind her the engine revved. The street streamed by, trees and cars and shops painted with throbbing murals in rain forest colors.

She needed a cement wall to dive over. A bank with an open vault. A crack. A dime edge, a fire escape, a drainpipe to climb. Her feet pounded the sidewalk.

Ahead she saw a parking garage. She pinned her gaze to it. Reinforced concrete, tight turns, and a hundred metal cha.s.sis she could put between her and the Navigator-she aimed for the entrance.

In her peripheral vision she saw a black vehicle on the street ahead. It was barreling in her direction. She heard the Navigator, seemingly right between her shoulders. She swerved into the entrance of the parking garage, toward the ticket machine.

On the street, tires squealed. She heard the Navigator's brakes engage, hard. She glanced back.

Gabe's black 4Runner had skidded to a stop, half askew, blocking the entrance to the garage. The Navigator was stopped in the street beyond it. Kanan honked, a solid insistent blast. The 4Runner didn't move. The sirens grew louder.

Kanan spun the wheel. With sunlight flas.h.i.+ng off his tinted windows, he roared away.

Jo stood for a second. She couldn't seem to move, could barely inhale. The world was throbbing in sync with her heartbeat.

Gabe climbed out of the 4Runner and strode toward her. She ran and threw herself against him. Without breaking stride he swept an arm around her shoulder and shepherded her toward the 4Runner.

”You okay?” he said.

She nodded tightly.

Eyes sweeping the street, he led her to the pa.s.senger side and opened the door. She jumped in. He jogged around, hopped behind the wheel, and pulled sharply back into traffic.

”How did... ?” She grabbed his shoulder. ”Thank you.” Her hand was shaking. ”How did you find me?”

”The phone. You never hung up. I heard you tell Shepard to head for Sixteenth Street.” He checked the mirrors and panned the street. His face was grim. ”You hurt?”

She fumbled her seat belt into the buckle and sc.r.a.ped her hair back from her forehead. ”Fine, Sergeant.”

He looked at her palms. They were sc.r.a.ped and black with grit from her fall over the trash cans. As she stared at them, the shaking in her hand spread up her arms and across her shoulders. Then her whole body began chattering.

”s.h.i.+t, that was scary.”

He took her hand and held on tight. Anxiety fizzed behind her eyes, bright and bubbly. No-it was tears. She blinked and they fell to her cheeks. She wiped them roughly away.

She couldn't believe she had admitted her fear to him. She could only recall confessing fear to her parents when she was five, and once to Daniel when they were four hundred feet above the valley floor in Yosemite, and to her sister Tina one desperate empty night after Daniel died. But it had just poured out of her mouth to Gabe. Yet she didn't feel embarra.s.sed or weak for having done it. Maybe she was in shock.

She looked around the street. ”Did you see which way Kanan went?”

”South, out of sight. And no way are we going hunting for him.” He gripped the steering wheel. ”My number one priority is to protect you. My other number one priority is to protect Sophie-she needs a father, not a hero.”