Time to Run (24 page)

She wanted to console him, but she was too shaken to make up a lie. "I don't know, honey," she admitted, licking her parched lips.

She glanced in the rearview mirror at the maroon sedan, still pacing her, regardless of her increased speed. There were only a few other cars on Highway 51, and certainly no police anywhere—of course not.

As was his custom, Garret was keeping her guessing, savoring her helplessness. She wondered what his plan was—to pursue her until she ran out of gas?

She glanced at the gas gauge with its needle showing three quarters empty. That wouldn't take long.

Oh, dear, why hadn't she driven in the other direction, straight to the BAPD Police Headquarters? Now she could only hope to arrive at Wagoner before her fuel ran out, and even then, she had no idea where to find the police there.

Kendal dared a peek over his shoulder. "He's still behind us," he moaned.

"I know, sweetheart." Every nerve in her body, every drop of adrenaline was aware of his threatening proximity.

The whopping of a helicopter's blades crept into her consciousness. With a leap of hope, Sara searched the sky. And there it was, an official-looking chopper hovering over the highway ahead of them.

Yes, I'm speeding! Look at me!

She depressed the accelerator farther, and the old motor sputtered, forcing her to ease off the gas.

Please help!
She kept one hopeful eye on the bird. If she lived to feel Chase's embrace, just one more time, it would be enough.

In her distracted state, she blinked at a road sign that flashed to her right. Had that just read state police? Was there a state police building out here, in the middle of nowhere?

"Honey, did you see that sign we just passed?" she asked, as a cold sweat filmed her skin.

"It said the name of some state park," Kendal answered, giving her a fearful look.

"Park? Are you sure it didn't say police?"

"I don't know," he wailed. "We were going too fast."

The exit rushing toward them wasn't marked at all.

At the last instant, Sara took the tight-turning ramp that swept them off the highway. Behind her, she heard the squeal of tires as Garret, presumably, changed lanes to follow.

Sure enough, there he was, shooting onto the narrow country road she'd put them on.

What have I done?
Sara thought, eyes widening as she swept them over the rural terrain. There was no sign of any state police anywhere. She'd put them on a country road, and she couldn't turn back, not without pulling in a driveway to perform a U-turn.

The beating of a helicopter's rotors had her searching the sky again. Like a guardian angel, the chopper hovered several hundred feet overhead. Relief wrestled with terror. For whatever reason, she was being watched. Surely a state cruiser would descend on her, making it less likely that Garret would make his move.

But the only other car on the road was Garret's. He pressed closer, surging toward her bumper, then backing away. She could see him, smiling a rather nasty smile as he taunted her, like a cat toying with a mouse.

Without warning, the blacktop under her tires gave way to gravel. Sara's hopes faltered. Oh, God, she wasn't on a dead-end road, was she? The steering wheel grew slick under her sweating palms.

Up ahead, she could see a fork in the road, forcing her to choose one direction over another—a deserted farm, or a trek into the woods.

Not wanting to stop for any reason, she chose the latter, and gravel gave way to dirt as they shot into a sparsely wooded forest.

She could see a lake now, flashing blue through the screen of trees. The helicopter disappeared from sight, but she could still hear it.

The road stretched, long and straight, with no glimpse of a public building anywhere. She roared down it, tires jiggling over ruts, driving faster than she'd ever dared to drive in her life. But then the truck engine sputtered, making her heart stop. It resumed a normal roar, but then it sputtered again. She could feel them decelerating.

"Carburetor's clogged," Kendal said in a strangled voice. He reached for the glove compartment where Chase kept the injection cleaner.

Not that it would do them any good right now. Sara kept a heavy foot on the pedal, but the engine continued to falter.

Please. Oh, please. We can't stop here.

Garret's car was practically on her bumper. She could see him smirking, his eyes glinting as he sensed her plight. To her horror, he eased into the oncoming side of the road and started to pass her.

As the trees to her left thinned, offering a breathtaking vista of the lake, Garret overtook them. Sara glanced at him fearfully. She couldn't see his face, but she could see the handgun lying on the seat next to him. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she'd always known that he was capable of murder.

It was that knowledge that had paralyzed her for so long.

But not any longer.

With a cry of denial, she wrenched the steering wheel sharply to the left and veered into his path. The heavier truck rammed into the smaller car. Metal scraped over metal, and the car's tires dropped into a ditch on the far side.

With a roar, the sedan leapt out, becoming briefly airborne as it shot between two hickory trees and dove, slow motion, toward the water.

Splash!
Sara gaped with amazement as the front half crashed into the lake.

In the same instant, her engine quit. The truck rolled to a stop, and she and Kendal were left with nothing to do but watch Garret's car sink into the astonishingly deep water at the lake's edge.

In just seconds, all that remained visible was the back fender, sticking out.

Stunned by the results of her actions, Sara stared at the bubbles frothing up from the sunken vehicle. On some level, she was aware of the helicopter, hovering now over the lake, its blades agitating the surface farther out.

The bubbling by the shore abruptly ceased. Sara loosened her petrified grip on the steering wheel.

Garret was gone. Under the water. But not for one minute did she believe he was dead.

She turned to seize the buck rifle off the gun rack.

"Mom, no!" Kendal cried, guessing her intent.

"Stay here, sweetheart," she said, scarcely recognizing her own voice, she sounded so ferocious. "Lock the door and don't unlock it again unless I tell you."

"Please!" He clung to her, sobbing with fright.

"Do as I say!" She peeled his hands loose and locked the door as she climbed down from the truck. Raising the butt of the rifle to her shoulder the way that Chase had taught her, she thumbed the safety and stepped cautiously toward the lake's edge, finger crooked over the trigger.

Fallen leaves crunched beneath her feet, though she couldn't hear them for the beating of the helicopter's rotors.

Straddling the tracks of Garret's tires, she raked the murky water for any sign of him. She could just make out the shape of the car in the water's bluish depths. Beneath the choppy surface, everything appeared still.

The hope that Garret was dead began to ease the crushing weight of fear.

But then, there he was, head bursting through the water as he gasped in air. Startled, Sara stumbled back. She stepped into the rut left by Garret's tires. She slipped, falling hard. The rifle discharged at the sky before falling uselessly on top of her.

Paralyzed with terror, Sara could only watch as Garret rose from the water, looking like a sodden scarecrow. Water streamed from his black suit as he trudged toward her, murder blazing in his dark eyes, teeth bared, and blood running in a bright red stream down the side of his nose from the cut on his brow.

"You think you can kill me, bitch?" he rasped, closing the distance between them.

Sara grappled with the gun, but with her hands muddied, her fingers slipped, and it was too late. He wrenched the rifle from her grasp, tossing it toward the water's edge. "Get up!" he snarled. He seized her by the hair, hauling her to her feet.

She kicked at him, causing him to tighten his grip. In desperation, Sara peered pleadingly at the helicopter. She could see a shooter positioned in the open doorway, aiming a mounted gun at them, but with Garret holding her so close, the man didn't dare to shoot.

Locking an arm around her throat, Garret backed them toward the truck. "You think you're so smart don't you," he snarled in her ear, as they moved away from the lake's edge. "Did you think I wouldn't find you? I found the e-mails that you sent to your real mother. I should have guessed that you came from trailer trash."

She had to keep him away from the truck. Away from Kendal!

But her feeble attempt to dig her heels in only cut off her airway, making her cough and gasp. He backed her to the driver's door and pounded on it. "Open the door!" she heard him snarl to Kendal.

"No!" he cried in a terrified voice. "Go away, I hate you!"

"Open it, or I'll kill you both."

I'm going to die here,
Sara realized, fighting for breath. Already spots were swimming before her, flitting like butterflies among the leaves of the trees around them.

But then a flash of red caught her eye. Garret saw it, too. He swiveled abruptly to stare down the road.

It was a car, Sara realized, hope giving her renewed strength. And not just any car. Hannah's red Mustang was coming toward them. And—oh, please, God—if her eyes did not deceive her-—that was Chase in the passenger seat! He'd never let her die.

But then Garret groped in his pocket, and, to her horror, he produced the gun she'd glimpsed earlier. He thrust the cold, wet barrel of it against her temple.

And the Mustang came to an instant halt.

"Stop," Chase commanded, and Hannah did, breathing an expletive that she'd picked up from him.

He didn't need her to tell him what was on her mind. He had eyes. He could tell that the scene in front of them looked like a classic setup for a double, if not triple, homicide.

One look at Sara's face and he could tell that the fucker was choking her—not enough to kill her, just debilitate her. He had a gun to her head, and she was beyond terrified. Kendal, meanwhile, was staring out the truck window behind him, witnessing something that a child should never see.

"Let me talk to Garret," Hannah promised, with far less confidence than she'd spoken earlier. "I can't believe he's resorting to this."

Chase believed it. Sara wouldn't have run so far and fast if she hadn't sensed that her husband would flip a switch.

All that Hannah might accomplish by talking to the man was to delay the inevitable. Garret had thrown his career down the toilet by his actions today. He'd set out to prove that Sara was his, even if the only way to do that was to take her to the grave. "I have to stop him," he answered, simply.

Hannah knew what that meant. She didn't argue, either, not when Garret had a gun to Sara's head. "Okay, but how?" she asked, glancing at the sparse forest surrounding them. "There's not enough cover; he'll see you. And if he senses that you're going to shoot, then so will he."

Something in the grass by the lake's edge caught Chase's eye. It was Linc's buck rifle. Sara must have dropped it while trying to defend herself.

"Back up," Chase decided as a strategy occurred to him.

"What?"

"Back the car up," he repeated. "Get me out of the fucker's line of sight."

With a questioning look, she pushed her stick shift into reverse and eased them out of the immediate area. The devastation that came over Sara's face was heart-wrenching. Chase jerked his gaze away.

As Hannah backed them up, he went to work unbuckling his ballistic vest, shaking out of it. "Stop here," he said, when he was confident that Garret could no longer see him.

"What are you going to do?" Hannah asked, as he went to work yanking off the holster on his thigh, unlacing his boots.

"I'm swimmin' up alongside him. Sara dropped her rifle by the water's edge. If I can get to it without him seeing me, I can shoot him, and he'll never know. Your job is to keep Sara alive till I get a clear shot."

His boots thumped onto the car floor.

"Swim fast," Hannah urged, freckles standing out starkly on her pale face.

The last time he'd seen Hannah shaken, she'd been rescuing herself from a Cuban prison, while being shot at from behind. "I hope there's ammo in that rifle."

Her nervousness didn't do much for Chase's confidence. "Me, too." Slipping out of the car, he dashed for the shore. He went for a clean entry—diving headfirst into the water and praying he wouldn't gouge an eye on submerged branches. Fort Gibson Lake was deep, and in early October it was frigid.

The chill permeated his fatigues in an instant, but he didn't notice. He was too stunned by the fact that Sara's life could end at any minute. Her husband had outsmarted them both. Not only had Garret found Sara, but he'd chased her into this secluded area for a reason, and it wasn't reconciliation.

No!
Chase raged, sending the power of his denial into his legs. He'd give anything for flippers right now and a tank on his back to weigh him down and fill his burning lungs. He broke the surface briefly, assessing his whereabouts, dragging in oxygen.

He could see the bumper of Garret's car projecting out of the water more than fifty yards away. Good for Sara, Chase thought. She'd driven the fucker off the road.

Flipping like an otter, he submerged himself again, making his approach soundless and invisible, the way that he preferred it.

He swam the fifty yards without surfacing again. Sticking his head inside the sunken car, he discovered an air pocket along the roof and used it to replenish his air. He took an extra second to focus himself, to quell the fear that made his muscles want to cramp. A sniper could not hesitate. One slip of the finger, and the wrong person could die.

In this case, that person would be Sara.

The possibility scared him so badly, he thought he might be peeing in the water.

Get yourself together!
shouted a voice in his head. It was the voice of Chief Jeffries, hard-ass instructor from SEAL training in Coronado.