The Cove

neon sign: HOT HARVEY'S TOPLESS GIRLS.

    Great part of town she'd chosen.

    She closed her eyes again, turned on her side, and wondered where James was. In Washington? She wondered what Noelle had said to him and Dillon. Why hadn't Noelle told her the truth about that night? Maybe she would have if there'd been more time. Maybe. Had Noelle told her the truth, that both her father and her husband had conspired to put her in Beadermeyer's sanitarium? Both of them? And Noelle had bought it?

    She wondered if her grandparents had called Doctor Beadermeyer, and if the Nazi was on his way to Philadelphia. No, he'd wait. He wouldn't want to chase shadows, and that's exactly what she was and planned to be.

    No one could catch her now. The three hundred dollars would get her to Maine. She'd go to Bar Harbor, get a job, and survive. The tourists would flow in in only three months, then she would have more cover than she'd ever need. No one would find her there. She knew she was seeing Bar Harbor through a seven-year-old's eyes, but it had been so magical; surely it couldn't be all that different now.

    Where was James? He was close, she just knew it. She hadn't exactly felt him close, but as she'd told her grandparents, he was smarter than he had a right to be.

    She devoutly hoped he was at home in Washington, in bed fast asleep, the way she should be right now but wasn't. How close was he?

    "Damnation," she said aloud. She thought about it a few more minutes, then got out of bed. She would just get to Bar Harbor sooner than expected. Still, she'd spent $27.52 on this room. To waste that money was appalling, but she couldn't sleep.

    She was out of the room within five minutes. She revved up her motorcycle and swung batk onto the road, the garish lights from Hot Harvey's Topless Girls haloing around her helmeted head. It was odd, she thought, as she passed a Chevrolet-she would have sworn that James was nearby. But that wasn't possible.

    James was the navigator and on the lookout for the Last Stop Motel. When she pulled out not fifty feet ahead of them, at first he couldn't believe it. He shouted, "Good God. Wait, Dillon, wait. Stop."

    "Why, what's wrong?"

    "My God, it's Sally."

    "What Sally? Where?"

    "On the motorcycle. I'd recognize my coat anywhere. She didn't buy a clunker, she bought a motorcycle. Let's go, Dillon. Jesus, what if we'd been thirty seconds later?"

    "You're sure? That's Sally on that motorcycle? Yeah, you're right, that is your coat. It looks moth-eaten even from here. How do you want me to curb her in? It could be dangerous, what with her on that damned bike."

    "Hang back for a while and let's think about this."

    Dillon kept the Porsche a good fifty feet behind Sally.

    "That was a smart thing she did," Dillon said. "Buying a motorcycle."

    "They're dangerous as hell. She could break her neck riding that thing."

    "Stop sounding like you're her husband, Quinlan."

    "You want me to break your upper lip? Hey, what's going on here?"

    Four motorcycles passed the Porsche and accelerated toward the single motorcycle ahead.

    "Damn," Dillon said. "This is all we need. A gang, you think?"

    "Why not? Our luck has sucked so far. How many rounds of ammunition do you have?''

    "Enough," Dillon said briefly, his hands still loose and relaxed on the steering wheel, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. Traffic was very light going out of Philadelphia at this time of night.

    "You feeling like the Lone Ranger again?"

    "Why not?"

    The four motorcycles formed a phalanx around Sally.

    Just don't panic, Sally, Quinlan said over and over to himself. Just don't panic.

    She'd never been so scared in her life. She had to laugh at that. Well, to tell the truth, at least she hadn't been this scared in the last five hours. Four of them, all guys, all riding gigantic Harleys, all of them in dark leather jackets. None of them was wearing a helmet. She should tell them they were stupid not to wear helmets. Maybe they didn't realize she was female. She felt her hair slapping against her shoulders. So much for that prayer.

    What to do? More to the point, what would James do?

    He'd say she was outnumbered and to get the hell out of there. She twisted the accelerator grip hard, but the four of them did the same, seemingly content for the moment just to keep their positions, hemming her in and scaring the hell out of her.

    She thought of her precious two hundred and seventy something dollars, all the money she had in