The pain in Linda’s heart was nearly as bad as the pain in her side. The good Christian within her had forgiven Daniel for the past. She was ready to forgive him for the present.
Yet he’dshot me.
She wanted to lie down. Let Jesus cloak them, let Jesus save them. She whispered this to Sam, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was in her imagination.
Samantha said nothing. She kept them jogging, Linda in agony, along the twisty paths of the beautiful yet stern park.
Paul, Harry, Lisa…the names of the foster children reeled through her mind.
No, that was last year. They were gone now. She had others now.
What were their names?
Why don’t I have a family?
Because God our Father has another plan for me, that’s why.
Because Samantha betrayed me.
Mad thoughts, rolling through her mind like the nearby sea cycled over the bony rocks.
“It hurts.”
“Keep going,” was Sam’s whisper. “Kathryn and that FBI agent’ll be here any minute.”
“He shot me. Daniel shot me.”
Her vision crinkled. She was going to faint. Then what’ll the Mouse do? Lug my 162 pounds over her shoulder?
No, she’ll betray me like she did before.
Samantha, my Judas.
Through the sound of the troubled waves, the wind hissing through the slippery pines and cypress, Linda heard Daniel Pell behind them. The snap of a branch occasionally, a rustle of leaves. They hurried on.
Until the root of a scrub oak caught her foot and she went down hard, her wound burning with pain. She screamed.
“Shhhhh.”
“It hurts.”
Sam’s voice, shaking with fear. “Come on, get up, Linda. Please!”
“I can’t.”
More footfalls. He was closer now.
But then it occurred to Linda that maybe the sounds were the police. Kathryn and that cute FBI agent.
She winced in agony as she turned to look.
But, no, it wasn’t the police. She could see, fifty feet away, Daniel Pell. He spotted them. He slowed, caught his breath and continued forward.
Linda turned to Samantha.
But the woman was no longer there.
Sam had left her yet again, just like she’d done years ago.
Abandoned her to those terrible nights in Daniel Pell’s bedroom.
Abandoned then, abandoned now.
Chapter 54
“My lovely, my Linda.”
He approached slowly.
She winced at the pain. “Daniel, listen to me. It’s not too late. God will forgive you. Turn yourself in.”
He laughed, as if this were a joke of some sort. “God,” he repeated. “God forgives me…. Rebecca told me you’d gone religious.”
“You’re going to kill me.”
“Where’s Sam?”
“Please! You don’t need to do this. You can change.”
“Change? Oh, Linda, people don’t change. Never, never, never. Why, you’re still the same person you were when I found you, all red-eyed and lumpy, under that tree in Golden Gate Park, a runaway.”
Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ve got to do it this way.” An absurd but genuine apology. “But I’ll be fast. I know what I’m doing. You won’t feel much.”
“Our Father…”
He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn’t. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.
“Who art in heaven. Hallowed be—”
And then a tree fell.
Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.
Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.
Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.
Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.
Except once…
Daniel slashed at her with the knife but she was too fast for him. He grabbed for the gun, which had fallen to the trail. But the rough branch connected hard again and again, bouncing off his head, tearing his ear. He wailed in pain. “Goddamn.” He struggled to his feet. Lashing out with his fist, he caught her in the knee with a solid blow and she dropped hard.
Daniel dove for the gun, grabbed it. He scrabbled back, rose to his feet once more and swung the pistol muzzle her way. But Samantha rolled to her feet and struck with the branch again, two-handed. It connected with his shoulder. He stepped back, flinching.
Two words from the past came back to Linda, seeing Sam fight. What Daniel used to say when he was proud of someone in the Family: “You held fast, lovely.”
Hold fast…
Samantha lunged again, swinging the branch.
But now Daniel had a solid stance. He managed to catch the branch with his left hand. For a moment they stared at each other, three feet apart, the wooden stick connecting them like a live wire. Daniel gave a sad smile and lifted the gun.
“No,” Linda croaked.
Samantha gave a smile too. And she pushed toward him, hard, and let go of the branch. Daniel stepped backward—into the air. He’d been standing on the edge of a cliff, twenty feet above another nature trail.
He cried out, fell backward and tumbled down the rough rock face.
Whether he survived or not, Linda didn’t know. Not at first. But then she supposed he must have.
Samantha glanced down with a grimace, helped Linda to her feet. “We’ve got to go. Now.” And led her into the dense woods.
Exhausted, in agony, Samantha McCoy struggled to keep Linda upright.
The woman was pale, but the bleeding wasn’t bad. The wound would be excruciating but she could at least walk.
A whisper.
“What?”
“Thought you left me.”
“No way. But he had the gun—I had to trick him.”
“He’s going to kill us.” Linda still sounded amazed.
“No, he’s not. Don’t talk. We have to hide.”
“I can’t go on.”