Shea flattened her palm against the dashboard, gaze careening from the scene behind them to Dru to the windshield. “What is wrong with him?” Alarm shot her voice high. “Did you piss him off?”
“I don’t see how. I didn’t cut him off or turn in front of him.” Dru wanted to tell Shea to tighten her seat belt, to assume the crash position. But she couldn’t form the words. Ahead, the road looped into a near U shape before it straightened, and she stiffened in anticipation, praying she could safely navigate the deep curve at this speed. The truck kept pace. There couldn’t be a cat whisker’s width between them. If she could make it home—but what would she do there? She and Shea would be trapped. Dru glanced at her purse. She had the .38. She felt a momentary relief, stinging and cold, that vanished in the wake of her mind’s observation that this maniac, whoever it was, could also be armed.
And then the truck slammed into them hard enough that her head recoiled.
Shea yelled, “Oh my God, Mama! He’s going to kill us!”
“No, he’s not.” Dru was furious now. She slammed on her brakes, tires shrieking, Toyota skidding, mind on her gun, focused on the thought that once they stopped, she’d shoot him. Before he had a chance to get at them, she would blow out his fucking brains where he sat.
As if he could read her mind, he pulled alongside her, crushing the heavier weight of his truck against the smaller car, pushing it off the road. The noise, metal grinding on metal, the higher squeal of tires, was horrifying, deafening. Dru held the steering wheel, stiff-armed, both feet pushing down on the brake pedal as if by the sheer force of her will she could keep her car upright and on the road. The thought roared into her brain that if the Toyota turned over, Shea would take the brunt of the impact.
But she wasn’t safe, either. She could feel the heat from the truck, feel the force of it crushing her door. The Camry was off the road now, skidding along the shallow ditch, sliding into a neighbor’s yard, metal screaming. She jerked her gaze to the truck’s driver. It must be a man. But who? Who would do this? He was staring at her, but his hat was low over his eyes, his face in shadow. She had no clue as to his identity. The sedan rocked on its axles. Dru reached for Shea, finding her hand, closing her eyes—and it stopped—the noise, the motion—so suddenly, it was a moment before Dru realized it. Opening her eyes, she saw that Shea was holding the gun, extending the .38, in her trembling grasp, looking past Dru out the driver’s-side window.
“He’s leaving,” Shea said. “Should I shoot him?”
“What?” Dru whipped her gaze to the window and saw that Shea was right. The truck was backing off, reversing, fast, on the grassy verge, dislodging chunks of dirt, sod, and gravel as it navigated back onto the road. Then it was gone, in a heated rage of screeching tires. Dru could have sworn when it headed into the deep curve, it was balanced on only two of them.
She looked back at Shea. “Let me have it,” she said, gently, taking the .38. “Hand me my phone. I’m calling the police.”
But before either she or Dru could act, Shea’s phone went off, and she answered it, saying it was Lily.
Their conversation was clipped, frantic, and lasted less than a minute, but Dru knew by the time Shea clicked off, before she spoke a word, that everything had changed.
17
The stench was of blood and putrefying flesh mixed with sweat. It made Lily’s stomach roll, and she clenched her teeth, crawling toward the body in the far corner of the fort. The body she thought was AJ’s was on its back, lying so still. Too still. Pleasepleaseplease . . . the word was a prayer, as much a demand as it was a plea.
When she was close enough and saw that it was her son, a sound escaped her, something between a cry and a groan. She took his hand. “AJ?”
“Is he alive?” Her dad, having come up the ladder at her shouted command, stood in the fort’s doorway, his face grim.
“Yes, barely. We need an ambulance.”
“I called already. I told them to go around to the old service gate.”
Lily nodded, watching AJ struggle for breath. His pulse was rapid, his skin clammy to her touch. Incongruously, his chest was bare, and what looked like a very bloody shirt was wrapped around his right thigh. He was shoeless, and his right ankle was swollen and discolored, angry shades of blue and red.
“I’ll ride Sharkey out to meet the EMTs and guide them in. Can you tell what happened?” Her dad knelt on AJ’s other side. If he was affected by what he saw, he gave little sign of it.
“Something under that shirt has bled pretty badly,” Lily said.
“Gunshot, maybe,” her dad said. “Looks like his ankle’s broken or sprained. Hard to tell.”
“Mom?”
“I’m here, honey. So is Granddad.”
“We’ve got help, coming, son.”
“Good,” AJ said, and he grinned—grinned!—“’cause lying here on this floor is starting to give me a backache.”
“Oh, AJ.” Laughter that felt awfully close to hysteria bumped Lily’s ribs, and she clamped down on it.
“What happened?” her dad asked.
“Maybe he shouldn’t talk,” Lily said.
“I think I got the bleeding stopped,” AJ said. “It’s my ankle that’s killing me. I tried getting out of here a while ago—don’t know when. I lost track. I fell off the damn ladder, though. Can you believe it?”
“But what about here?” Lily’s hand hovered over AJ’s thigh.
“Gunshot. Bled a lot. Got my shirt off—”
“You made a tourniquet,” Lily’s dad finished.
“Yeah. Once a marine, always a marine.”
“Semper fi,” her dad said, and AJ smiled, eyes closed.
Lily’s glance collided with her dad’s.
“He’s tough, our boy. He did good.”
She nodded, knowing he was trying to reassure her, to reassure them all.
“I better get going.” He got to his feet. “Hang in there, champ. Take care of your mama. You know how she gets.”
“Yeah,” AJ murmured.
Lily still held his hand and felt the pressure when he tightened his grasp. “Go on,” she told her dad. “We’ll be fine.”
AJ asked for a drink. “I got some rainwater in a cup.” Lily found it and held it to his lips. Afterward, he lay back, keeping his eyes closed. He felt cooler to Lily’s touch than before, and his color had gone from chalky white to gray. His lips were blue. She recognized the symptoms of shock and knew his feet ought to be elevated, but she was afraid to move him, afraid it would start the blood flowing from the gunshot wound again. Where was the ambulance?
“After I fell off the ladder,” AJ said, “the coyotes came. I think. Unless I dreamed . . .”
“Just rest.” Lily smoothed his hair from his brow. How long had he been lying here? Since Becca was killed? Two and a half days?
“Shea?” he asked, and his eyelids fluttered; he shifted as if he might sit up.
“She’s fine. Lie still.”
“I know she’s scared . . . everybody scared . . . worried. Sorry for that . . .”