Germ

She rose and, holding the pistol close to her leg, traversed the rest of the block. Again she rounded the last building's corner, as casually as her excited muscles would allow, then plastered herself against the brick. She waited, listening, gun at the ready. One minute. Not a sound. Two. Nothing. She peered around the corner. In the distance, two blocks away but seeming farther, the police lights performed their silent ballet. Otherwise nothing moved, nothing appeared out of place, though darkness shrouded most of the back street.

Julia holstered her gun, turned, and walked away from the alley toward Brainerd and her car on the other side. An ambulance flew by in the direction of the bar, lights and siren blaring. She crossed Brainerd. At least a dozen cruisers were in front of the bar and around it into the parking lot. If a federal agent's murder couldn't light a fire under their investigative behinds, the death of one of their own would make them positively combust.

She stepped up to her car and unlocked the door, moving quickly. Before anything could rush out of the shadows at her, she was in the car and gunning the engine. She cranked the wheel sharply to get around a pickup parked in front of her, then punched the gas. She turned left, intending to travel on Brainerd, away from the activity at the bar, and wind through the city to her motel.

She had driven six blocks and had signaled to turn when a hand reached around from the backseat and gripped her throat. She jerked with surprise, and the car careened sharply as it turned the corner. She hit the curb. Two wheels rode on the sidewalk. She corrected the vehicle.

Still the hand held firm—tight but not choking. Julia thought one of the tires was losing air, but that's not what was making the sound.

It was her assailant, his lips near her ear: "Shhhhhhhhh . . . Shhhhhhhhh . . ."

She grabbed his forearm. It wasn't flesh; it was hard as steel but . . . not steel, warmer, textured in a way steel wasn't. A hard plastic maybe, and huge. It was some kind of . . . gauntlet. He applied more pressure, and she let go.

"What—?"

"Shhhhhhh . . ."

At McBrian, she ignored the stoplight and made a wide arc to the left, into the westbound lane.

Finally he spoke in whispered tones. His voice was gentle, pleasant.

"Keep both hands on the wheel," he said.

She nodded.

"Pull over."

"No."

He squeezed harder.

"Make a right up here and stop." The consonants were sharper, the gentleness gone.

"I said no," she repeated, driving past the road he wanted.

The grip contracted. She now found breathing difficult. Her pulse began to throb in her temple. Fragments of her assailant's features floated in the rearview mirror: eyes that flashed green whenever they passed under a streetlamp, messy jet hair, glasses.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered. "I've been sent to deliver a message."

"I don't believe you." Her voice was raspy.

"If I wanted to kill you, I would have."

Julia thought about that. It wasn't true: she had not given him the chance. She'd hopped into the car and taken off too fast. Since then, the car had been in motion. Killing her while she drove risked an accident—attention and injury to himself. But why hadn't he waited to reveal himself until she stopped again? Killing her at a stop sign or light would most likely prevent an injury accident, but not necessarily an accident altogether. In death her foot might jam down on the gas pedal in what coroners called a cadaveric spasm. He couldn't wait until she reached her destination and turned off the car. What if she was meeting the police? The last reason she could think of for his not waiting to kill her until she stopped on her own was that the farther she drove, the more distance she put between him and his own transportation. Then he'd have to either drive her car back, with or without her body, or find another way back. Did killers consider such things? She guessed they did.

"So?" he said. "Pull over."

Instead, she punched the accelerator. The car roared ahead, past other vehicles, through stoplights.

The hand clenched tighter.

twenty-nine

Allen had slipped into Stephen's oversized clothes by the time they pulled into the space between the church and his cabin.

"This is it?" Allen asked incredulously.

"Home sweet home," Stephen confirmed and climbed out.

The cabin was behind the rear wall of the church. The parking lot lay on the north side of the church, in front of the cabin, giving the appearance that a visitor could go either to the church or to Stephen's cabin, as though the cabin were historically significant. Dense pine forest surrounded the property. The dirt road leading to it ended at the clearing, where the gravel parking lot started. The lot had been rutted dirt until last year, when the tiny church finally had enough funds in the coffers to grade the area and pour the gravel.