She moved fast, using a combination of a crouched run and scampering along on all fours. Technique didn’t matter. Speed did. She stayed close to the fire line. Only the intensity of the heat and choking smoke kept her back.
Just as she was nearing the horse trail, an earsplitting explosion threw her to the ground. It was a huge shock, even at over a hundred yards away. The blast sounded like it was right by her head.
She gathered herself up and moved faster. She had only one shot at distracting the Tally Man, and this was it.
Marshall Beck had his back to the explosion. He’d been watching the south paddock for Zo?. He whirled to see glass and splintered wood shooting in all directions. He knew there was a risk that the fire might take out the house, but it hadn’t even reached it yet.
“Zo?,” he murmured. This was her doing. “Clever girl, but not that clever.”
Her blowing up the house told him exactly where to find her.
He raced back to his SUV, fired the engine, then rocketed the vehicle along the path to the house. Flames poured from the blown windows on the ground floor. Drapes fluttered in the breeze, burning tatters flying off in all directions. He couldn’t believe Zo? had the audacity to blow up Jessica’s house.
Had she gone inside and seen the rooms? He hoped so. That way she would finally understand what he was trying to do and why it was so important. He realized now that he should have taken her to Jessica’s house before taking her to the stable. Then all this mess could have been avoided.
He slid to a halt and leapt from his SUV, then raced up to the door and stopped in front of it as the heat blistered paint. A mix of emotions rooted him to the spot. The house wasn’t that special. It was just wood. It shouldn’t have meant anything to him, but it did. With Jessica’s teachings and punishments, this place had made him into the man he was. It was a symbol of what he’d become.
“Good-bye,” he said to the home.
Respects paid, he circled the house searching for Zo?. He half expected to find her laid out by the explosion, but she was nowhere to be seen. He scanned the tree line and the pasture for her, with no success.
“Where are you?” he said to the absent Zo?. She was nowhere close. She’d played him, drawn him away from the entrance road. She’d come so far since their first encounter. She was no longer the drunken slut. She was smart and resourceful—a born survivor. She had him to thank for that, if she had the courage to recognize it.
He scanned the dirt road for her and finally found his prey. She was on her knees next to the deputy.
“He can’t help you, Zo?. No one can,” he said and sprinted back to his SUV.
Just as Zo? reached the horse trail, she heard a car engine burst to life. It was Beck’s SUV. The tires churned in the dirt before the vehicle tore along the foot path to the house.
The distraction had worked, but not perfectly. She’d hoped to take the Honda. She’d have to make do with the cop car and prayed it had some gas left in the tank. She sprinted up the trail, through the corridor of fire lining it on both sides. She ignored every stone and rock her bare feet struck. Once, she stumbled and fell, but clambered back up. She sucked in the scorched and smoke-ridden air and coughed it out. It all hurt, but she told herself it was temporary. One way or another, it would end soon.
As she raced up to the cop on the ground, she looked toward the house. Beck was out of the SUV, looking at it.
“Stay there, you bastard,” she murmured.
She dropped down at the cop’s side. She didn’t have to check whether he was dead or not. He stared blankly up at the sky.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The radio on his shoulder crackled. A female voice asked for a status update.
Zo? tore it free and keyed the mic. “Hello. Hello. I’m at a place that has a stable. I don’t know where. A man called Marshall Beck abducted me and killed the officer you sent here. Hello?”
“Did you say our officer is down?”
“Yes, I’m looking at his dead body.”
“Ma’am, what’s your name?”
“Zo? Sutton. None of that matters. He’s burning the place down. He’s going to kill me.”
“Ma’am, I need you to be calm.”
“Fuck calm. Do you know where I am? Are you coming?”
“Yes. We know your position. I’m dispatching units now. Get somewhere safe.”
Is anywhere safe? she thought.
A roar of an engine jerked her attention away from the dispatcher. Her distraction had run its course. Beck was on his way back.
“You’d better get someone here now. He’s coming.”
She dropped the radio and snatched up the pistol the cop had dropped. She looked at the weapon. It was an automatic. She had no idea how it worked. Her self-defense training went only as far as hand-to-hand combat. She’d never bothered with weapons. Point and shoot, she hoped.