The Victim (11 page)

She turned to him. “Trailer Park Boys? Should I be taking that as an insult?”

“No, no, it’s a Canadian TV show. They film it in the Maritimes. You just reminded me of one of the characters when you said shit magnet.”

“Hmm,” she mumbled. “Lovely.”

They drove in silence for a moment. Sarah broke out in a clammy sweat as she remembered what Vivian had said. She was to step into the middle of an intersection after the accident. What accident? Could it have been the Buick? Did she miss her chance?

What now?

“You okay?” Waller asked.

“Yeah, fine,” she tried to sound normal as she rubbed her hands up and down the legs of her pants.

“We haven’t got far to go,” he said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”

That sounded weird to her. What could he mean? Was Waller taking her to the police station, or somewhere else?

“What did you do back there to that cop?” Sarah asked. “You were fast.”

“Shotokan.”

“Shotokan,” she said, hearing the word for the first time. “What’s that?”

“A little known martial art. Only a few practice it. It’s great for people like you.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s designed for street fighting too. All you need is the strength of your thumb to bring down some big guys. Women fare better with Shotokan.”

They approached a red light at a busy intersection. Bloor Street.

“I’ll have to look that up—”

A loud ping cut her off. The truck swerved hard right. Waller yanked on the wheel, pulling the pickup off the edge of the sidewalk and back onto the road. The truck moved left and for all the effort Waller exerted on the steering wheel, he couldn’t turn it back.

Sarah braced for impact. A black H2 Hummer had just turned right off of Bloor, heading south on Yonge, when Waller’s pickup crossed all the lanes of Yonge Street and headed right at it.

They hit the grill of the Hummer, shoved it onto the sidewalk and nose first into the front window of a nail salon hard enough just to break the glass window in the front.

Waller lay in his seat, his head resting on the back. Blood trickled from his forehead where he had hit the steering wheel. Sarah checked his pulse. Strong and steady.

She turned the pickup’s engine off, pulled the keys and tossed them on the carpet by his feet. She grabbed his weapon and opened the pickup’s door.

The Hummer driver was just getting out.

Sarah ignored him as she slipped the gun in the back waistband of her jeans and continued walking.

The teenage boys stood by the corner, watching what they had done this time, mouths open.

Sarah pulled the gun out as she headed for the intersection. She fired above their heads, making them think she was aiming at them. They ran away like their asses were on fire.

She replaced the weapon in her waistband, stepped into the middle of the intersection at Yonge and Bloor, and ignored the shouts of passersby as a vehicle from each side came at her. The light changed to yellow. Both cars revved their engines to make the light.

“You better be right about this, Vivian, or I’ll be seeing you in a few seconds.”

Chapter 14

The couple in the backseat couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

Mike had picked up the fare on Blue Jay Way by the Roger’s Centre and was taking them to an office party at the Xerox Centre on Bloor. The woman was hot, dressed in a tight red miniskirt. Her low-cut blouse left nothing to the imagination, the bottom of the V-neck just above her belly button.

As far as Mike could tell, she enjoyed the attention her partner lavished on her. Numerous possibilities ran through his mind on the ride. Was she an escort or his new girlfriend? Whatever she was, she was hot and Mike didn’t get a lot of fares as pretty as her, unless he got the calls for the strip clubs in town after they closed. Seemed like he was always one of the last ones to the clubs though, missing the better looking girls. He always ended up with the dancers who were drunk or high.

He tried to keep his eyes on the road. He wanted to give them privacy in his cab, but movement in his rearview mirror pulled his gaze toward the backseat time and again. Two blocks back, as the man leaned across her stomach and lowered below the seat, the woman had met Mike’s gaze in the mirror. Her top had sat open, both perky breasts completely exposed, sitting up at attention.

Mike had yanked his eyes away fast. He’d expected to be chastised, screamed at for being a pervert. But none of that happened. Instead, when he looked back in the mirror, the woman smiled at him, moaned, licked her lips and rolled a finger around her nipple.

Mike’s erection pushed to be released from his tight jeans. For the last two blocks, all he could do was stare in the mirror at the half-naked woman in the backseat of his cab while her male partner did something to her lower region. She stared back at Mike, teasing him, tempting him, asking him to join her with the look in her eyes.

It was all he could do to watch the road. The intersection of Yonge and Bloor was coming up. He had a green light. As soon as he was through the light he would have to pull over and let his fare out. This was his last chance to memorize the beauty in the back seat of his cab for later.

He looked in his mirror. She had both hands up, rolling her nipples between her thumb and forefinger, moaning even louder. She smiled and blew him a kiss. Mike smiled back.

The light at Yonge changed to yellow. Even though he didn’t want to end this ride too soon, he could still make the light. Either that or jam the brakes on and knock the guy in the backseat around.

He hit the gas. Just as he was about to enter the intersection, he looked in his mirror at the woman again.

That was when she screamed.

Not in ecstasy.

In fear.

Justin Flannagan was sick and tired of doing what he was told. Anna could go screw herself.
She
had cheated on
him
. Three years together, and all she ever wanted to do was control him and sleep around behind his back.

“Change this, change that,” he said out loud to the empty car. “Why do you say it like that?” he said, mimicking her voice in a high nasal pitch. “Why can’t you be normal like other guys? Fuck normal and fuck you, Anna. I’m so done.”

Three years and all he got was control, nagging, and bitching. Then he came home early and she had two guys in their bed. She chased him out to his run-down pickup truck in her bathrobe shouting something about how it wasn’t what he thought. She could explain everything.

“Yeah, right. Explain that?” he had yelled after her. “There’s no explanation for that’ll ever make sense. We’re through. It’s over.”

He’d jumped in his pickup and drove. It had been twenty minutes, and she had tried his cell phone seven times so far. He resolved to throw his cell out the window if she tried again. It was old and filled with pictures of her. Her image was on his screensaver and locked screen. He needed a new one anyway.

“Go ahead, whore, call me again. Call me one more time and I’ll fucking throw this phone out the window. You will never see me again, bitch.”

He continued west on Bloor, heading to the House of Lancaster. It was time for a little pussy for himself. He was going to get lap dance after lap dance on the bitch’s credit card. He’d already taken the maximum cash withdrawal on her card at the ATM. Now, with Anna’s money, he was going to buy pussy and no one would stop him.

Then he planned a late dinner. Maybe he would get a massage at a parlor on her credit card. They take credit. He’d checked. Later, when Anna got the card’s statement, she could see what he had done.

“Serves you right, bitch,” he yelled at his phone on the passenger seat. “You’ll learn to fuck with me.”

He slammed the steering wheel as his eyes glazed over. Up ahead the light changed to yellow.

His cell phone rang. He hit the gas to make the light and picked up the phone. Anna’s picture told him she was calling again. He turned to throw it out the window.

He entered the intersection to someone screaming at him just outside his window.

Then he was airborne.

Simon Peter and his fellow apostles watched as Waller’s F-150 collided with the Hummer. They recognized Sarah as she stepped out of the passenger side, walked a few feet, fired a gun in the air and then hid it behind her.

She continued walking toward them.

In their black overcoats, hiding by the unlit area of the wall nearest a corner of the intersection, it would be nearly impossible for her to see them.

“This is it, my brothers,” Simon said as he stared into the eyes of each one of his followers, the surprise evident on their faces. Every time Matthew’s information proved correct, even though it had saved their lives in the skydiving plane crash, they were stunned. “We all have our needles. It is time to Rapture Sarah Roberts. As it is written, it will be done. Spread out and run to the four corners. We advance as one and come at her in a way that she cannot escape again. We cannot fail our Lord. Now go.”

His brothers ran away, preparing for the end of Sarah Roberts.

The moment had finally come. He felt overjoyed with glee. His toupee firmly in place, white powder paste hiding his fair skin, Simon waited while his apostles got into position. Sarah continued up the middle of Yonge Street, heading directly for the intersection of Yonge and Bloor.

She must be dazed from the accident,
he thought as she didn’t veer to the sidewalk. For some strange reason, she continued past the pedestrian crossing on Yonge, between two cars waiting at the red light and moved into the middle of the intersection.

Simon looked both ways. A taxi cab was coming from the west toward her back. A pickup truck was coming from the east.

Aghast, Simon turned back to Sarah, who now stood in the center of the road.

The light changed to yellow. Both the pickup and the taxi hit the gas to make the light.

Sarah didn’t move.

“No,” Simon yelled as he ran toward her.

From the corner of his vision he saw his apostles running at her, too. It appeared Brother Andrew and Brother James were going to get to her first.

Simon saw the needle sticking out of Brother James’ hand as he jumped at her from five feet away.

Sarah didn’t notice. Her eyes were closed.

From Simon’s vantage point, he saw the taxi driver realize that people were in the road, but it was too late. He swerved to miss Sarah, spun sideways, his bumper sliding past Sarah by no more than half a foot and smacking dead on into James’ legs. Brother James had been in the act of jumping at Sarah so that he could jam the needle into her neck when the cab hit him sideways. He catapulted onto the trunk of the taxi, his head exploding red spray out the top as he continued in an uncontrolled sideways summersault. He landed in the road on the other side of the cab as the taxi’s wheels caught something on the road and flipped sideways.

Brother Simon stopped running and jumped back out of reflex just as the pickup truck barreled past him, doing at least seventy. It spun away from Sarah and hit the backside of the taxi, raising the pickup’s front end in the air.

Someone screamed.

The pickup’s engine revved high as it flew over the back of the taxi. Brother Andrew had been running into the street beside Brother James. He had dodged the taxi’s approach and stopped to stare at the inert form of Brother James on the asphalt.

The front bumper of the airborne pickup connected with Brother Andrew’s chin, lifting him in the air and almost decapitating him. When Brother Andrew landed on the cement, Simon could tell he was dead.

The engines of both vehicles revved as they approached Sarah in the intersection. She closed her eyes and waited. Every part of her screamed to run. She wanted to open her eyes, to get to safety, but she had to fight her urges. When Vivian told her to do something, she didn’t ask why. She had saved countless lives listening exactly to every word Vivian had offered. Now it was time to save her own.

Vivian wouldn’t ask Sarah to kill herself. That couldn’t be what this was about. Her sister had inside information and when Sarah signed on for this automatic writing thing almost six years before, she didn’t come aboard half-heartedly. She jumped on with both feet and fully committed.

It was that commitment that allowed her to not only stand still and keep her eyes closed while her primal urges begged her to run, but to also smile.

It’s all in how you face it,
she thought.

Tires screeched behind her somewhere. Her reflexes ordered her to spin on her heels, duck, move out of the way. Anything but stand in the middle of the road.

But all she did was open her eyes. She barely had time to register the back end of a taxi brush by her leg, ruffling her pants. People on the sidewalk stood open-mouthed, watching.