Meter Maids Eat Their Young (31 page)

We were rounding the third floor landing when the bellow of an angry beast began reverberating off the stairwell walls.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Sounds … like you pissed him off … big-time,” Jaz said.

“You think?”

I stumbled at the bottom of the stairs and broke my fall by slamming into the exit door. It flew back, taking me with it as I clung to the push-bar, trying to regain my balance. An alarm began to clamor somewhere inside the building. Jaz grabbed my arm and pulled me into the parking lot. The rain was falling now, in torrents, and we were soaked before we made it to the gate.

“Where to?” I said.

“Into the park,” she said. “If we can get down to the trees …”

A shot rang out as we ran through the gate, ricocheting off a metal post inches from my head. Jaz went down the hill like a ski diva while I followed, the bumbling clown act to her graceful descent. As we crossed into the woods, two more shots rang out. At the same moment a tree exploded inches from my face. I stumbled and fell. Jaz turned to come back for me.

“Go,” I shouted. “I'm okay. Just get out of here. Get to the cops.”

She hesitated a moment. Another shot rang out. She turned and ran.

I scrambled to my feet, looking back over my shoulder. Keller was midway down the hill, slipping, sliding and cursing. I could hear sirens in the distance. I hoped Mutt had been greedy enough to want that other forty and that those sirens were coming for us.

Deciding that waiting around to see if my hopes were realized wasn't going to be good for my health, I turned and slipped into the woods, in the opposite direction from the one Jaz had taken.

It was dark as hell in amongst the trees. I was soaked to the bone, cold, angry, and scared out of my mind.

There had been no more shooting. The sirens had stopped. Ditto the alarm. I could only guess what was happening up at the admin building. From time to time I heard noises in the woods somewhere behind me. I knew it had to be Keller. Raccoons don't cuss as a rule.

I weaved my way in and around the trees, crouching low, trying to figure out what the hell direction I was moving in. I couldn't make out the forest because the damn trees kept getting in the way.

When I finally stepped into a clearing, I realized at once I had been moving opposite to the direction I had intended. From where I stood, I could see the bike trail leading off, crossing the old service road and disappearing beyond it. That service road would lead me back downtown but I would have to cross the old wooden bridge first, which would put me right out in the open.

I looked back over my shoulder. I hadn't heard anything from behind me in several long moments. Was Keller still back there, or had I lost him? Had he turned off, gone after Jaz instead? I had to get to the cops. Taking a deep breath, I sprinted across the clearing, crossed the bike trail and clambered up a small hill to the service road. In moments I was at the edge of the bridge.

What illumination there was on the bridge was dim and made even dimmer by the rain. Shadows from the trees wove worrisome patterns across the wooden planks. Between the sound of the rain and the rush of water below, I couldn't hear a damn thing. Wishing like hell I was anywhere but here, I stepped out onto the bridge and started to make my way across.

The blow that caught me on the side of the head seemed to come from nowhere. I hit the planks hard, slid a few feet and rolled over. I could make out the dark shadow of Keller, standing a few feet away. He didn't have the gun in his hand, which was about the only positive thing I could say at the moment.

“Where's the bitch?” he said.

I was about to say something witty and sharp when Jaz said it for me.

“The bitch is right here, you Neanderthal throwback.”

He turned. I stared. Jaz was standing at the other end of the bridge, the briefcase still in her hand.

“This what you looking for, caveman?”

She walked toward us.

“Jaz—”

“Shut up, Teller,” she said. Her tone was harsh and as cold as midnight in the dead of winter.  It didn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

She stopped in the middle of the bridge.  Keller moved toward her, into the light. She held up her free hand, lifted the briefcase with her other and held it out over the rushing water. “No way, caveman,” she said. “You stay right where you are or this goes into the water.”

“You threatening me, little lady?” he said, the hint of a smile on his face.

“No threat,” she said. “Negotiation. There's two mil in here. A hundred and thirty mil in the computer. I figure this two is worth that one-thirty. What do you think?”

Keller looked surprised. The smile broadened then leaked away.

“The cops are all over this by now,” he said.

“The cops are all over the building,” Jaz said. “But they don't know jack about what's going on. And knowing them and how they work, it'll take 'em awhile to figure it out. In the meantime, we're the only ones who know about this. There's still time to make the transfer. I have the password. That, and your account number, is all I need.”

“Interesting point,” said Keller, the smile returning. “What about your boyfriend here? I doubt he'd go along with this.”

“First, he's not my boyfriend,” she said. “Second, what's one more dead body to you?”

At that, Keller's smile returned. He looked at me and back at Jaz. “Sounds like a good deal to me,” he said.

I swallowed hard, what little thought of salvation I had left slipping away faster than my body heat.

Jaz lowered the briefcase and walked toward him. He was reaching beneath his jacket for his gun when Jaz swung the briefcase into the side of his head.

Salvation regained!

I leapt from the ground and rushed him, hoping to hit him while he was off balance. The blow wasn't hard enough, though. He hit me with a roundhouse right so hard, I knew in that moment what Liston felt like when Ali knocked him to the mat.

I hit the planks and rolled, coming up on my knees. My brain felt as if a depth charge had gone off somewhere deep. I heard a scream, a scuffle. I tried to shake off the pain, shake off the darkness that was closing my eyes. I looked up, an effort that cause jagged currents to course down my spine. Maybe I screamed. I can't be sure now.

My vision cleared. I spotted Keller, then Jaz, sprawled on the ground a short distance beyond him. She was crawling backward, her hands and the heels of her feet fighting desperately for purchase on the wooden planks of the bridge. Keller raised his arm. I saw the gun in his hand, trained on Jaz.

A fury rose within me, quenching the pain. It propelled me from the ground like a runner from the block. I closed the distance between us in four quick leaps and pounced on his back, my arm swinging beneath his, driving his arm upward. I heard the shot, heard the bullet zing off the iron railing of the old bridge.

My weight and momentum overbalanced him, drove him forward. I felt his body hit the low railing, heard it in the expulsion of his breath. We began to tip forward, over the rail. I tried to break free of him but our combined center of gravity was too great. I was going to follow him down to our deaths on the rocky slope below.

Without warning, there was a great wrenching at the collar of my coat. My head snapped back. I separated from Keller like a champagne cork exploding from the bottle. He toppled over and fell, screaming into the darkness. My butt hit the wooden planks with a bone-jarring crash and an instant later the back of my head hit it with an explosion of intense white light.

Jaz dropped to her knees at my side, her breathing ragged, her head hung low, a nasty gash dripping blood from her eyebrow. She looked at me, smiled. I took the smile with me into darkness.

I drifted in and out of something that wasn't quite sleep and, from the distant pain I was feeling, wasn't quite death either. From time to time there would be others in the room when I woke. Doctors, nurses, friends; some of the downtown shopkeepers, total strangers. Marion. He grilled me for over an hour while I contemplated the way his lips moved as he shouted. I had no idea what was in the bag that hung near the head of my bed, but the amusement I had from watching Marion's face told me it wasn't glucose alone.

The nurses eventually ejected him from the room. I could hear his protests as they led him down the hall to the elevator and knew I would have to deal with him and his questions at some point. But I had questions of my own, if I could stay awake long enough to ask them.

At one point I woke up and Felice was sitting next to the bed, reading. I looked over at the window. It was dark.

“How long?” I asked, my voice sounding harsh and pinched to my ears.

“Two days.”

“HL?”

She was silent for a moment and I knew he was gone.

“I'm sorry, Teller.”

I could feel the tears fill my eyes. I blinked them away.

“Jaz?” I said.

“Gone,” she said. “She got the police, brought them to you. In all the rush to get you off the bridge and to the hospital, she disappeared.”

I flashed on the bridge, Jaz bargaining with Keller only to get close enough to smack him with the briefcase. Gutsy. I smiled.

“They didn't find it,” Felice said.

“Find what?” I said, though I knew she had plucked it from my mind.

“It,” Felice said. “Nor do they have any knowledge of it that I can tell.”

I didn't have to ask who they were. Who knows, maybe all those blows to the head I'd taken were making me psychic?

Right. And the next thing you know, I'd be hitting the lotto on a regular basis.

“Any idea where she went?” I said.

“Maybe.” She reached into her purse. “But I think I'll let you find that one out for yourself.”

She handed me an envelope. “Don't let Marion see that,” she said.

“What about Keller?”

“Dead. He hit the rocks and fell into the water. His body washed up about two miles downriver.”

She closed her book, slipped it into her purse and stood up.

“It's time I got going,” she said. “Someone has to run your paper while you convalesce.”

As she left the room, I considered what she'd said. My paper. I looked up at the IV bag. It was nearly full. At that moment, I was very glad it was.

With an effort, I tore open the envelope. There was a short note inside. I smiled as I read it, tucked it back in the envelope. No, this was definitely not something for Marion's eyes. Tucking the envelope beneath my pillow, I closed my eyes and drifted off.

When I opened them again, the room was flooded with light. A faint susurration caught my attention and I lifted my head cautiously and turned in the direction of the sound.

I couldn't have been more surprised to see Santa Claus sitting in the chair beside my bed. There was Marion, stretched out, legs crossed, hands clasped about his stomach, mouth slightly agape, sleeping.

Laying my head back down on the pillow, I stared up at the ceiling, counting the little squares, trying to come to grips with all that had happened.

“It's about time you woke up,” Marion said.

“If you're here to bitch and moan and pull out my fingernails with a pair of pliers to get more information, you can forget it.”

I looked over at him, holding up the call button. “That nurse who tossed you out the last time is on duty,” I said.

His expression changed and for a moment I thought he was having a gas attack or, worse yet, a heart attack. It took several seconds for me to realize he was smiling, really smiling.

“You can put down the weapon,” he said. “I'm not here to badger or cajole.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Well, since you've been scooped by every news hack for a thousand miles, I thought I would fill you in before you heard it from your competition. Most of them got it wrong anyway, though the BBC ran a pretty accurate account.”