The guy staggered, his bell ringing nicely, but he was strong and it was definitely not his first time being hit in the head and he kept digging under his jacket. Peter grabbed the thick wrist and held it inside the fabric so the guy couldn’t pull the pistol from his shoulder rig. The guy had a lot of gym muscle but it wasn’t the same as muscle made by working hard all day, and he was still off-balance, blinking from the blow to the head and stepping back trying to get away from Peter so he could pull his weapon. Peter gave him a short chopping punch to the throat with his free hand. When the guy let go of his gun and put both hands to his neck, his mouth open, Peter knew he’d crushed the guy’s larynx. It was done.
He put his hand on the gun butt in the guy’s armpit and put his good foot behind the other man’s heel and pushed him over backward, pistol coming free when the man went down. He looked for the second man and saw him on the other side of the intersection, sprinting after June with a gun in his hand.
Peter raised the pistol he’d taken but the angle was bad and it was a compact little automatic with maybe a two-inch barrel and he was as likely to hit June or the Pacific Ocean as the man chasing her. She had her knees up and her arms pumping fast, but Peter thought the lean young guy in running shoes might be gaining. Peter ran after them as best he could, hoping for an angle, knowing he’d never catch them with his fractured leg in its medical boot.
The silver Escalade roared backward out of a driveway, turned in a crisp reverse arc, and slammed into the running man going at least twenty-five. The man was sprinting full out, so with their combined speed it would have been like hitting a steel and glass wall at forty-five miles an hour. His forehead cracked the rear window and he bounced off the rear end and fell slack to the pavement like a rag doll thrown by an angry child.
The Escalade roared over the crumpled man, who passed neatly between the tires, and came to a chirping stop at the intersection, where Peter popped the passenger door and climbed in. Lewis threw it into drive and hit the gas again, this time veering slightly to drive over one of the crumpled man’s legs. There was a slight bump, and a crunching noise that Peter hoped he’d only imagined.
“Asshole not gonna chase after her again,” said Lewis. He eased up beside June, who stood breathing hard with her hands on her knees between two parked cars, her face pale as she surveyed the carnage left behind. The Escalade windows were down.
“You okay?” asked Peter.
“Jesus Christ.” She looked at him and Lewis. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
“Please,” said Peter gently. “Get in? We need to go.”
She shook her head and opened the door and climbed inside.
Lewis hit the gas as soon as her legs were clear. The acceleration slammed the door as if on its own.
Peter turned in his seat to look at her. His cracked ribs didn’t like it, but he wanted to see her face. He needed to be careful with her, he knew.
“June? We need to talk about your dad. What kinds of things he was doing when you saw him last. Where you think he might be.”
She stared back at him, her freckles standing out like a red spray on her pale skin. What he first thought was shock was actually a cold white anger.
It made him a little afraid.
“I’ll give you directions,” she said. “If we go straight there, the valley’s about a four-hour drive.”
“We need a car,” said Lewis.
“We need more than that,” said Peter.
He peered out the windshield at the sky. The clouds had lifted and he could see a faint shape just below the gray, circling slowly. If the light caught it just right, he’d see a glint of gold. It would follow them, he was sure now.
He dug his phone out of his pocket and put in the number he’d memorized the day before.
A calm voice answered. “Semper Fi Roofing, this is Manny.”
“Manny, it’s Peter. Got a minute?”
45
PETER
They stopped at a car wash near the airport to get the blood off the Escalade’s cracked rear window. They were seven or eight miles south of June’s burned apartment, but the golden shadow still circled overhead, barely visible just below the high clouds, its outline fading in and out of view as the cloud bottoms roiled and shifted. Peter felt the static fizz and pop with the sight of it, and found himself hoping for rain. Maybe it would be less claustrophobic.
After the car wash they found a waterlogged parking lot and smeared mud on the back gate and the floor mats and seats to make sure the rental company cleaned the hell out of the Escalade. It was better than setting it on fire, Peter figured, and less likely to get anyone’s attention.
They left the SUV at the rental drop inside the Seattle airport parking structure, then walked over the pedestrian bridge to the rental desks by the luggage carousels, where Lewis arranged for a white Dodge Caravan using a driver’s license and credit card in another name, as if he’d just stepped off a plane with the rest of the tourists. They walked back over the bridge to the structure, picked up the van, transferred their gear from the Escalade, then joined the long stream of anonymous cars flowing down the spiral exit ramps to the highway.