Middle Of Nowhere

   "He's dead," she said bluntly, knowing this was the button that had set him off. "He's dead and gone, all through a string of mistakes. Your mistakes, Abby. And if he's looking down right now, then his soul is tortured. Is that what you want? Did he take the fall for you to have it end up like this? Him dead. You a cop killer?" She let this sink in. "That's what you have in mind, isn't it? Kill Boldt. Or me? Or both of us? Put the blame onto Boldt instead of yourself? Do you see that's all you're doing? Do you realize it won't do anything to take away the voices?"

   He snapped his head toward her as if she'd poured salt on a wound.

   "You hear voices. They started right after your brother's death." She said, "You think they're bad now? You've never killed a man, have you, Abby? It's not something you forget. It's not something you walk away from and all is forgiven. You blame Boldt for Ansel— but you've got that wrong."

   His eyes burned into her as he turned the car right onto a street marked Sid Price. A damp and dark narrow lane. Enormous trees. Close quarters. She couldn't be sure he'd even heard her.

   He drove down a small dirt track, a dead-end driveway that led down to a muddy patch of lawn and a boat launch into Miller Bay. The narrow waterway was only fifty yards wide at this point. Flek parked the car up from the boat ramp. He lowered both windows, shut off the car and turned off the lights. Daphne could smell the low tide and mud flats. It smelled like death.

   "Don't do this," she pleaded. "I can still get you out of most of this. But if you go through with it. . . ."

   Paying little attention to her, he leaned over awk

wardly and reached under the seat and worked to untwist some hidden wire. If she was to have a chance to fight back, it was then, with his head lowered. But she couldn't summon the strength, nor the courage. She could barely keep herself conscious. She had lost great quantities of blood. Perhaps she was dying. She had heard Flek mention one hour and she no longer believed she could or would make it that long, certainly not conscious.

   "Please," she said.

   He sat up, the Chinese assault rifle in hand. The German scope. He had wired it high under the seat, so that even a thorough check under the seat by a traffic cop might not have revealed it. He said, "Cops lie, lady. They lie about me doing that other woman, and now you lie to save your ass. They'll lie about anything, if it makes their job easier."

   He sought out the oily rag and gagged her again, a man going about his business. He turned on the car's interior light and met eyes with Daphne. "If I get Boldt, I'll spare you. If I don't, it's you who's gonna pay. Say your prayers." Then he was gone, down toward the water, the rain and the darkness absorbing him.

C H A P T E R

63

"Gaynes says the signals have stopped moving," LaMoia reported.

   "Then that was them," Boldt said, his attention fixed on the entrance to the street marked Sid Price. The Crown Vic was parked down a muddy lane, called Quail, from which they had an unobstructed view across Miller Bay Road. A big monster of a car had turned through the rain only a few minutes before, its taillights receding. LaMoia had guessed it was an Eldorado.

   "Shit, Sarge," LaMoia complained. "He could lay in wait for you anywhere down there. We gotta rethink this."

   "We're at least a half hour ahead of when he expects us," Boldt reminded. "That's in our favor. We need to move while it still means something."

   "We may have the jump on him, but he's got the sniper's rifle. Our peashooters are good at ten to thirty feet, Sarge. He's dead on the money at two hundred yards."

   "We had his sight recalibrated," Boldt informed the man, who knew so little of the investigation to this point. "He wanted a hundred and fifty yards. Manny Wong gave him seventy-five."

   "No shit? And you're counting on that? What are you smoking? If he's tried the thing out on a range— which you can bet your ass he has—then everything's back on target. I wouldn't put a hell of a lot of faith in this guy missing, Sarge. I'd be thinking about shooting him first. That usually has the more desired effect."

   "His first shot will miss," Boldt said confidently. "You have to hit him before he throws that second shot."

   "Me and who else?" LaMoia complained. "I got me a peashooter here. I got to know where he is if I'm to be useful. And I won't know until after that first shot."