Hedging (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery)

1
    T HE IMPOSSIBLE chirped. Beside her. Another chirp. Louder: an urgent bleat.
    Phone, she thought. Phone. She groped for the receiver. Fumbled it to her ear.
    “Two. Gray car.” The accent was ...
    Not now, she told herself. Move.
    Sound enclosed her, roaring. The walls groaned. Her eardrums thundered. The bed quaked. In the murky darkness, she was sharding, splintering. She pressed hands to ears. Her eyelids twitched, eyes tearing.
    The roar faded to a deep hum that made her throat tremble.
    They were coming. She was trapped.
    Subtle motor, different from the roar. She knew what had to be done with exquisite clarity. She opened the bathroom window and ground her coat sleeve back and forth on the warped frame to catch enough black threads, and with hardly a second thought, pulled off a shoe, grit-sticky, and dropped it on the floor.
    No sooner had she thrust herself under the low slung mattress, dragging along the voluminous coat, than they exploded into the room, winter with them. And light. The door, off its hinges, lay at right angles to her. Stop breath.
    “Fuck, she went out the window. There’s her shoe.”
    “Muthafuck musta warned her.”
    Pancaked under the bed, nose to dusty carpet, she didn’t know reality from nightmare.
    “She couldna gotten far with one shoe.” They were moving around the room. Black Gucci loafers in her face, one gold stirrup dented. Shiny. New tips. She could have misted them with her breath.
    “See that?” They were bent over the bed.
    “Yeah. You got her?”
    “Nicked maybe. Not enough blood.”
    A blast smashed her.
    “You shot the fucking mattress!”
    “Felt like it.”
    “You’re a fucking idiot! You wanna leave a trail? Dig it out and let’s get going.”
    The weight of the man on the bed pressed her face and chest deeper into the carpet, drained her lungs of air.
    “Can’t get ahold of it.”
    “Forget it.”
    Time dissolved. When she came back, they were gone.
    She inched out, cheek scraping prickly fibers. As if terror had made her swell. Breathing pain. On her knees, dry-heaving. Her back, one long bruise, crackled. Crackled? She groped under her skirt. Documents, print outs. God, that’s what they were after. No time for this. She thrust them under the bed.
    Move. Move. The sheets were torn and bleeding, the mattress shredded. She blinked. Don’t think. She wrapped the coat around her, pulled the wool beret over her ears.
    Her shoe lay across the room, on its side. She was on her way.
    Night fell on her when she stepped over the toppled door. Icy snow sliced her bruised face. She made her way to the manager’s office. The door was open. He lay sprawled on the floor, the chair over backward, his turban a slipped bandage. Blood. Labored breathing. She had to get out of there before they came back. He’d tried to help her. 911. Phone smashed to crumbling pieces. She pulled drawers open looking for a cell phone. Panic, a wilderness threatened. She pushed it back.
    Check his pockets. Success. She made the 911 call. Where was she? On the desk, a billing book. Golden Blossom Motel. Somewhere. “Assault. Murder.” She threw down the cell and fled. She was not stupid. If she kept it, used it again, it could be traced.
    She ducked into the shadows. A taxi came up the drive to the motel and stopped in front of the manager’s office. A woman got out carrying an overnight bag. Another car followed. A gray Mercedes. They were coming back. The woman’s scream thrust her into motion.
    Two lane highway, snowy brush on the side of the road. A tower of Texaco lights ahead. Plane circling, lights blinking, lower and lower. Hideous droning sound. She was near an airport. If she could just get to the gas station without being seen.
    It didn’t matter. Closed. Two cars and a truck sat dark and empty on a side lot. They would find her now. She had nowhere to hide. Unless one of the vehicles was unlocked. It was possible. Before going for the lot, she checked the road again.
    Coming down the highway, through the swirling snow, headlights. A bus. It pulled to a stop in front of the gas station and two swarthy men in work clothes got out.
    “On or no, lady?” the driver called to her.
    She got on.
    “Where to?” The bus pulled away from the gas station and onto the highway again.
    She let out a ragged breath. It was going to be okay. “What’s your last stop?”
    “Port Authority, New York.”
    “Okay.”
    “That’s eleven-fifty.”
    “I—” She put her