Pursuit (25 page)

Her mouth went dry as she realized she had no idea. She couldn’t go back to her apartment: Even if Grace wasn’t there, it was the first place anyone would look. She couldn’t go to her mother’s and put her family in danger. Friends and coworkers were out, too, and for the same reason: How awful would it be to visit on them the fate that seemed to befall everyone who got caught up in this?

But where? Given everything that had happened, she had to assume that whoever this was could track her anywhere. That they
would
track her anywhere. That they would be relentless in trying to find her, and ruthless when they did.

The bottom line was that she needed to disappear. But how?

The window of darkness she would need to get away from the house unseen was rapidly shrinking. She was going to have to work out on the fly the details of what she was going to do once she was out of there.

Jess took a deep breath. First things first: She had to get dressed. She had to collect the belongings she meant to take with her. Then she had to get out of the house.

She owned a gray Acura TL. It should still be in the parking garage next to her apartment. The keys were in her purse.

Turning on a light was a bad idea. Probably everyone was inside the house. Probably they wouldn’t notice. But she wasn’t willing to take that chance, because the only advantages she had was that, one, they imagined she was sound asleep, and, two, they had no idea she had discovered that the person who had previously tried to kill her was in their midst.

There was a tiny flat flashlight attached to her key chain, the kind that’s supposed to last forever. Jess remembered it, crossed to the night table where her purse rested, extracted her keys by feel, and pushed the flashlight’s button.

Presto, a narrow beam of white light.

Her underwear hung from the windowsill weighted by a book. The silky nylon wasn’t quite dry, but she gathered it up. Her suit was damp, too, and so was her shirt. And her shoes—she groaned when she remembered them.

There were possibly items she could use in Mark’s daughter’s closet, but there was no way to be sure, and she was afraid someone might hear her in there and come up to investigate. It wasn’t worth the risk.

A quick check inside the closet in the room she was in came up empty. Not so much as a hanger.

She got dressed as quickly as she could in her damp clothes, threw her purse over her shoulder, and, picking up her shoes so that the heels wouldn’t clatter on the hardwood floor, padded barefoot over to the window. The curtains were some kind of thick slubby material lined in white, she saw as she shoved them aside. Immediately, pale moonlight flooded in through the multipaned, double-hung window. The rain had passed, which was both good and bad. Once outside, she would be able to see what she was doing without the flashlight. On the other hand, she would be easier to spot, too, if anyone happened to be looking.

Jess saw the lock, shined her flashlight on it. Surprisingly, it was bright brass and looked brand-new. Unlocking it was easy. The window itself, however, was old. The only encouraging sign was that the handles set into the bottom of the frame were, like the lock, bright new brass. Somebody had replaced the hardware in the recent past, which meant they had probably opened the window, too.

Stowing the flashlight in her purse, grasping the handles in the window frame, she pulled upward.

It did, with the most ear-splitting screech imaginable.

Her heart going wild, Jess froze with the thing only partway up, looking over her shoulder as if she expected a bad guy to pop up behind her instantly.

Nothing happened. No shouts. No footsteps as someone came upstairs to check out the screech. Just the same hushed house sounds as before, plus the soft moaning of the wind outside. Through the open window, cold, damp air poured in around her, causing the curtains to billow, making her think about needing a coat. Which there was no way in hell she was going to take the time to look for.

There was a screen in the window blocking her exit. Putting a cautious hand through the opening, Jess felt rather than saw it. She was afraid to use the flashlight now unless she absolutely had to. The bright beam could give her away. So she ran her fingers over the cold roughness of the screen, feeling it, testing it out. It was thin wire mesh, designed to foil insects while letting air into the house. She tried to raise it. It was stuck fast.

Pulling her keys from her purse, she did just that, using her apartment key (she was afraid of damaging her car key, because she needed it so desperately) as a blade and sawing through the screen from bottom corner to bottom corner, then up on both sides. The sound reminded her of ripping cloth. Only if someone was right outside would they hear.

By the time she finished, her nerves were so on edge she felt ready to jump right out of her skin.

The path was now clear. She had about two feet of space between the sill and the window frame. Given the sound it had made the first time, she didn’t dare try to raise the window further. Taking a deep breath, Jess stuck her head out and looked carefully all around. It was a straight drop down, with nothing beneath the window but grass. The earthy scent in the aftermath of the rain was strong. The wind blew past the house with a soft whooshing sound, making the tops of the nearby trees sway back and forth as if they were doing the wave. It was cold, maybe mid-forties. The bedroom was located at the back near the middle of the house, and the window looked out over a small, neat yard with some kind of patio to her right and woods encroaching on the unfenced lawn just a few feet beyond the patio’s end. Her immediate goal was to make it to those woods.

Panic surged through her all over again as she spotted the square of yellowish light spilling out over the grass and realized what it was. It wasn’t bright, which meant it was probably filtered through a thin curtain or something—she remembered the kitchen’s unfortunate gold-and-red-checked curtains and nodded to herself—but it was definitely there.

All anybody in the kitchen would have to do is look out into the backyard . . .

Jess visualized the kitchen, the placement of the table, the stove, the refrigerator. None of it was situated in such a way as to give anyone sitting, cooking, or opening the refrigerator a view of the backyard. She didn’t think.

If she dropped straight down, she wouldn’t land in the light. She would land right in the dense bank of shadows directly below. Even if they heard something and looked out, they shouldn’t be able to see her. The bottom of the window was, perhaps, ten feet up. The ground beneath looked clear. If she held onto the windowsill with both hands, she would fall less than five feet. She hoped she wouldn’t hurt herself, or make much noise.

Then she could run like hell.

Experimentally, Jess dropped her shoes, aiming them a little to the side so that she wouldn’t land on them, and heard nothing as they hit.
Good.
Obviously the ground was soft from the rain. She had one final thought, and lightly touched the bottom of the screen’s frame. It was, as she had feared, sharp and ragged enough to scratch her up pretty badly as she squeezed out.

The orange one she had been wrapped in earlier. It now hung from the closet doorknob. Retracing her steps, she grabbed it, folded it over the ruined screen, pressed down to flatten the sharp edges as much as possible, then left it in place as a barrier between her skin and the wires.

Luckily, she was small. Hiking her skirt, throwing one leg over the windowsill and feeling the cold breath of the wind on her bare skin, she slithered out, then hung awkwardly from her hands before letting go. The towel fell with her—good thing; it was bright orange and to anyone looking at the rear of the house, it would have given her away as soon as dawn broke. She landed on her bare feet in smushy wet grass, the jolt of it shuddering through her, the towel fluttering down beside her. Her glasses were knocked askew. Shoving them back into place, she immediately went into a crouch, looking all around like a hunted small animal, heart pounding.

There were no shouts of discovery, no sounds other than the normal ones of a rural predawn. A quick glance at the lighted square on the grass, then up at the kitchen window itself, showed no change: The lights were still on in the kitchen, and as far as she could tell no one was looking out.

She reached for her shoes, picked them up, then grabbed the towel so its brightness wouldn’t give her away.

Throwing herself forward, she made a dismal discovery: She couldn’t. Running was beyond her.

But still she moved, lurching toward the questionable protection of the woods with an unsteady gait that sent needles of pain shooting up her spine.
Maybe I’m doing myself damage, maybe my injury’s not healed enough for this. . . .
The thought brought a surge of panic with it. But what was the alternative? There was none, so she forced herself on, glancing wildly over her shoulder and all around as her bare feet sank into the icy wet grass and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering for fear someone might hear.

It was still night, still dark with thick, shifting shadows dancing across the ground from the clouds that played hide-and-seek with the pale sickle moon overhead. To her right she could see the parking area, Ryan’s RAV4, and the outbuilding, which she could clearly tell now was a detached two-car garage. With a bicycle leaning against the side of it and another car—presumably having been used by the other agents—parked in another small paved area behind it.

Jess practically leaped into the blacker darkness at the base of the woods even as the presence of that bicycle imbedded itself in her mind. Already, her feet were so wet and cold that they were next to numb, which was probably a good thing because of the slippery leaves and sharp twigs and other debris piled beneath the trees. Small, prickly branches from the heavy undergrowth scratched at her legs, and in the near distance a pair of round, golden eyes stared unblinkingly down from what had to be the lower limbs of a tree. She could hear rustling as if the owl—she hoped it was an owl—was ruffling its wings. The insect chorus was louder now that she was away from the house. The scent of wet earth was stronger. The air felt colder.

As she paused to quickly dry her feet on the towel and slip on her shoes—any protection from the cold, treacherous ground was better than none—she realized that she was shaking all over. Gritting her teeth, she tried to will the tremors away. Having finished with the towel, she dropped it and kicked leaves over it until she was as certain as it was possible to be that it would stay hidden from view once the sun came up.

Straightening, looking fearfully back at the house, she realized that her escape was tenuous at best. They could miss her at any moment. Then they would come looking. . . .

Her heart thundered at the thought.

I’ve got to get a plan
.
No way can I walk from here to my car. No way can I ride a bicycle that far. I can’t steal Ryan’s car
. She distinctly remembered him taking the keys.
Or the other car, either. What am I going to do?

Unless she could put miles between the people in that house and herself first, they would be on her like a pack of wolves on a doe as soon as they discovered she was gone. On her own, on foot, how far could she possibly get in just a few hours?

The answer clearly was, not to her car. Not even into D.C.

Her choices, then, came down to this: hide or find a ride.

The woods were out. They were too close. They would be searched. Jess had a hideous vision of herself running (lurching) away from pursuers following her trail with packs of baying bloodhounds. If she were caught, by whatever means, she had little doubt she would be killed. Shiny Shoes had tried it once before, and there would be nothing to stop him from trying again, and probably succeeding.

Nothing except Ryan. But she couldn’t count on that. She couldn’t count on him. To do so would be to risk her life.

The previous plan—which was, basically, trust Ryan to get her out of this alive—obviously had to be scrapped, too.

Which brought her back to the
previous
previous plan. Go to the media. More specifically, to the reporter she knew at the
Post
. During the last year, she had dealt with Marty Solomon on at least a dozen occasions when Davenport had met with him to provide deep background on certain stories, or had her call him with judicious, client-favoring “leaks.” Presented with the scoop of a lifetime, Solomon would be ecstatic. He would also be prepared to roll instantly out of his warm bed and drive like a bat out of hell to pick her up.

Did she remember his number? Jess thought for a second, then felt a glimmer of triumph. Yes, she did.

The back door opened. Just like that, with no warning whatsoever. Jess jumped at the suddenness of it, then took a couple of silent steps back into the inky black protection of the nearest tree as Ryan came out onto the stoop. All she could see of him was his tall form silhouetted by the light pouring out around him, but she knew with no possibility of mistake who it was. She could hear voices—whoever else was in the kitchen talking—and as another gust of wind hit her she could smell, just faintly, bacon. Eyes widening, heart slamming against her ribs, Jess flattened herself against the rough bark of the tree trunk and watched as Ryan closed the door behind him and headed toward the RAV4.