Page 20

CHAPTER 20

FIVE JABS, LIGHTNING FAST. A prison-style shanking. Maximum damage, minimal time. The kid was turning to run almost before the shank in his fist left Oliver Maloof’s body the last time. I had blood on my shoes; the alley seemed to tilt beneath my feet as I realized what had happened. Maloof went down hard and fast, probably more out of shock than a reaction to the pain or the new holes in his rib cage. Baby tried to catch him. As red flowers blossomed on his shirt, I twisted and ran after the kid with the backpack.

It was the wrong move. I’m not out of shape, but Baby is the runner, long-legged and lithe, the natural athlete. I’m a weight lifter — I sacrifice cardio for bulk. Still, something in my brain had decided that between the two of us, she should be the one to care for the victim while I pursued the attacker. I would face the danger while she picked up the pieces.

My heart, my lungs, my joints, were all immediately on fire. I felt disastrously shaky, a machine performing a task it wasn’t designed for, a big low Cadillac plowing uphill through rocky bush terrain, engine roaring. I tried to convince myself that legs that could squat-press four hundred and fifty pounds were good for something. I kept after the kid, slowly gaining on him. I didn’t have speed, but I had power. Heads turned as I chased him down the alley and into the street. As he rounded a corner, he maintained his pace, hands flat and arms pumping, head down and leaning into the turn. I smashed into a parked car and bounced off it, making the whole vehicle rock and the alarm go off as I changed direction like a carnival bumper car.

The kid ran along a strip of restaurants, dragged a valet cart into my path. Fifty sets of keys jangled and fanned out on the concrete. I charged through the whole mess — the keys, the papers, the cart, everything — battering it all out of the way, my calves screaming, sweat pouring down my back. The row of restaurants became a bridge, then a palm-lined street, then a cramped path back down to the beach. We both hit the sand, my breath shunting out of me like hot exhaust, the backpack bouncing on the kid’s back, mere yards beyond my grasp.

When I realized where he was heading, my heart lurched into my throat. The surfers gathered around a bonfire at the edge of the dunes looked like they were participating in some ancient ceremony; flames danced on the pockmarked sand amid haunting silhouettes. The kid glanced back at me, a smug grin on his face. I knew what he was thinking. There were two ways to get me off his tail: give me the bag or destroy it. He unhooked a strap as he ran, heading right for the big fire.

I gave it all I had, seeing the photo of Jarrod Maloof in my mind, that fresh-faced teen in the football jersey. Imagining his backpack, maybe the key to finding him, consumed by the flames up ahead.

A hundred feet. Fifty. Twenty. I put on a final burst of speed.

I crashed into the teen three feet short of the fire. Surfers scattered and shouted all around us as I rolled and pinned him to the sand. I raked the backpack off him, feeling like the bonfire heat was boiling the sweat on my face. I gripped Jarrod’s backpack so tightly in my fist that my knuckles cracked. With my other hand, I knocked the shank away, then held on to the kid as if my life depended on it.

“Somebody ... call ... the ... police,” I said, gasping, to the surfers. Catching my breath seemed impossible. My lungs were squashed against the inside of my ribs, spasming with pain. “And someone ... get ... me ... water.”

Two male surfers grabbed the kicking, howling, struggling teenager who’d stabbed Oliver Maloof. A girl with long, blond beachy hair handed me a bottle of water. I took two sips, almost threw up on the sand, and promised myself that I would never, ever run again.