Blue Smoke and Murder

91

SEPTEMBER 17

6:42 P.M.

With each step, Zach gained on Ski Mask. Whatever the shooter did for a living, wind sprints weren’t on his daily to-do list. As Zach closed in, he could hear the man’s breath groaning in and out. Zach couldn’t see Jill any longer. Either she’d gone to ground or she’d outrun Ski Mask.

Zach’s earphones whispered. “The client vanished. The shooter is-shit, he just dropped into some kind of hole. Watch it, Zach!”

He kept running for a long five count, then skidded to a stop near the edge of the hidden ravine. Against the pale sand of the river bottom he saw a bulky shadow turn toward him.

He dropped to the ground as two shots exploded out of the ravine. The shooter was no more than fifteen feet away.

Zach didn’t aim toward the muzzle flash. Instead, he aimed for the thighs.

Bring him down and then finish him off.

His gun kicked.

The shadow cursed and went to his knees.

More shots exploded out of the ravine. Even as Zach registered the fact that one of the shots came from a Colt Woodsman, the muscular shadow in the ravine jerked, driven backward, closer to Zach.

“You’re dead, bitch!” the man screamed, raising his pistol to send a hail of bullets toward Jill.

Zach didn’t know he was yelling until the shadow turned toward him. He saw the twilight gleam of eyes behind the mask and shot twice, the double tap of death.

The shooter slammed against the far wall of the narrow ravine and bumped down to sprawl in the sand.

Prone, Zach kept his pistol pointed at the space where the man’s head should have been.

“Jill, it’s Zach,” he called. “Stay down until I tell you to move.”

Nothing answered him but the echo of shots careening back from the mountains.

“Jill!”

Zach didn’t remember jumping into the ravine, but he was there, flashlight in one hand and weapon in the other, kicking Ski Mask’s gun away.

Not that it mattered. Even the darkness in the bottom of the dry creek couldn’t conceal what two bullets at close range had done.

“I’m coming in, Jill. Don’t shoot me.”

He waited for an answer.

All he heard was the harsh sound of his own breathing and the yammer of ops in his headset, demanding information. He ripped the headset off and let it dangle around his neck as he went toward the darkness at the bend in the streambed.

When he saw Jill sprawled facedown against the pale sand, he went to his knees beside her. Fighting to breathe slowly, he put two fingertips against the pulse point in her neck and prayed like the choirboy he once had been.

Be alive.

Be alive!

His own heart was beating too fast for him to feel if there was a pulse in her neck. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He felt the heartbeat under his fingertips at the same instant she groaned.

“She’s alive,” he said raggedly, replacing the headset. “Now shut up until I find out how bad she’s hurt.”

Faroe’s snarled order stopped all communication.

“Jill,” Zach said gently. Then more firmly. “Jill!”

Dazed eyes opened, looking very green in the cone of the flashlight’s glare. She breathed with the gasps of someone who has had her breath knocked out. “I thought-you said-shut up.”

“Them, not you.” He kissed her sweaty, sandy cheek. “Where do you hurt?”

She rolled over, gasped as pain shot through her right arm, sat up, and said, “Pretty much everywhere, but it all still works after a fashion. You okay?”

He gathered her close. “I am now.”