Sole Survivor

heinous crimes on her rap sheet. She hadn't looked like a criminal, hadn't sounded like one. This was Los Angeles, however, where clean-cut young men brutally shot gunned their parents and then, as orphans, tearfully begged the jury to pity them and show mercy. No one was what he seemed.
        Yet… the gentleness of her fingertips against his cheek, the sorrow in her eyes, the tenderness in her voice all marked her as a woman of compassion, whether she was a fugitive from the law or not. He could not wish her ill.
        A vicious sound, hard and flat, cracked across the cemetery, leaving a brief throbbing wound in the hot stillness. Another crack followed.
        The woman had nearly reached the brow of the hill. Visible between the last two bristling pines. Blue jeans. Yellow blouse. Stretching her legs with each stride. Brown arms pumping close to her sides.
        The smaller man, in the red and orange Hawaiian shirt, had run wide of his companion, whom he was still trailing, to get a clear line of sight on the woman. He had stopped and raised his arms, holding something in both hands. A handgun. The son of a bitch was shooting at her.
        Cops didn't try to shoot unarmed fugitives in the back. Not righteous cops.
        Joe wanted to help her. He couldn't think of anything to do. If they were cops, he had no right to second-guess them. If they weren't cops, and even if he could catch up with them, they would probably shoot him down rather than let him interfere.
         Crack .
        The woman reached the crest.
        “Go,” Joe urged her in a hoarse whisper. “Go.”
        He didn't have a cellular phone in his own car, so he couldn't call 911. He had carried a mobile unit as a reporter, but these days he seldom called anyone even from his home phone.
        The keening crack of another shot pierced the leaden heat.
        If these men weren't police officers, they were desperate or crazy, or both, resorting to gunplay in such a public place, even though this part of the cemetery was currently deserted. The sound of the shots would travel, drawing the attention of the maintenance personnel who, merely by closing the formidable iron gate at the entrance to the park, could prevent the gunmen from driving out.
        Apparently unhit, the woman disappeared over the top of the hill, into the scrub beyond.
        Both of the men in Hawaiian shirts went after her.

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    4
        
        Heart knocking so fiercely that his vision blurred with each hard-driven surge of blood, Joe Carpenter sprinted to the white van.
        The Ford was not a recreational vehicle but a panelled van of the type commonly used by businesses to make small deliveries. Neither the back nor the side of the vehicle featured the name or logo of any enterprise.
        The engine was running. Both front doors stood open.
        He ran to the passenger side, skidded in a soggy patch of grass around a leaking sprinkler head, and leaned into the cab, hoping to find a cellular phone. If there was one, it wasn't in plain sight.
        Maybe in the glove box. He popped it open.
        Someone in the cargo hold behind the front seats, mistaking Joe for one of the men in the Hawaiian shirts, said, “Did you get Rose?”
         Damn .
        The glove box contained a few rolls of Lifesavers that spilled onto the floor-and a window envelope from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
        By law, every vehicle in California was required to carry a valid registration and proof of insurance.
        “Hey, who the hell are you?” the guy in the cargo hold demanded.
        Clutching the envelope, Joe turned away from the van.
        He saw no point in trying to run. This man might be as quick to shoot people in the back as were the other two.
        With a clatter and a skreeeek of hinges, the single door at the rear of the vehicle was flung open.
        Joe walked directly toward the sound. A sledge-faced specimen with Popeye forearms, neck sufficiently thick to support a small car, came around the side of the van, and Joe opted for the surprise of instant and unreasonable aggression, driving one knee hard into his crotch.
        Retching, wheezing for air, the guy started to bend forward, and Joe head-butted him in the face. He hit the ground unconscious, breathing noisily through his open mouth because his broken nose was streaming blood.
        Although, as a kid, Joe had been a fighter