Xo

them. Keeping her eyes down to spot noisy vegetation and food wrappers, she moved forward steadily but slowed as she approached the cul-de-sac where the spy, or an innocent citizen, was ruining his health.
    Twenty feet farther on she smelled cigarette smoke.
    And she slowed even more, crouching.
    She couldn’t see him yet but noted that the place where he was sitting seemed to be a picnic area; there were several tables nearby, all of them chained to thick concrete posts in the ground. Was table theft from public facilities a big problem in Fresno?
    She moved closer yet, one careful step at a time.
    The orange glow was evident but thick pine boughs completely obscured her view of the smoker, about twenty feet away.
    She reached out and gripped the bough, moving it aside.
    Squinting …
    Oh, no! Dance gasped.
    The lit cigarette was stuck into a fork of a sapling near a picnic table.
    That meant only one thing: Edwin or whoever it might be had seen her leave the motel and drawn her into a trap.
    She spun around but saw no attacker. She dropped to her knees fast, remembering that his weapon of choice was a pistol, probably GabeFuentes’s stolen Glock. She wasn’t much of a target in the moonlight but you can spray ten or twelve rounds very quickly with a weapon like that and all you needed to do was point in the general direction of your victim.
    Still no sign of him.
    Where could he be?
    Or had he lured her here to get into her room, steal her computer and notes?
    No. He’d be coming after her.
    She couldn’t wait any longer. She rose and turned, feeling a painful tickle of panic on her back, as if he were actually rubbing the muzzle of the gun along her spine.
    But instead of returning in the same direction she’d come, she decided to head directly for the motel. This route was closer, though it required her to vault the six-foot fence. Still, she felt she had no choice, and she headed that way now, turning away from the lone cigarette and moving as fast as she could, keeping low, toward the road.
    Thinking about getting across those four lanes, which would expose her to—
    It was then that he sprang the trap.
    Or rather she sprang it herself, tripping over the fishing line—or maybe guitar string—he’d strung across the route he’d anticipated she would take back. She fell hard, slamming into the packed dirt; there were none of the many pine needle beds here, which would have broken her fall. She lay gasping, breath knocked from her lungs.
    Damn, oh, goddamn. That hurts! Can’t breathe….
    She heard footsteps, not far away, moving in.
    Closer, closer.
    She desperately tried to scramble toward the road, where at least a car might be driving past, discouraging him from shooting.
    But the asphalt was at least forty or fifty feet away, through the woods.
    She tried to rise but couldn’t; there was no air in her chest.
    Then through the still, humid night she heard behind her, the double snap of an automatic pistol’s slide, back and forward, chambering a round.

 
     

Chapter 45
    KATHRYN DANCE TRIED once more to get to cover.
    But there was no cover, nothing here but skinny pine trees and anemic brush.
    Then a firm voice, a man’s from not far away, called in a sharp whisper, “Kathryn!”
    She glanced about but could see no one.
    Then the speaker called, “You, by the gym set. I have a weapon. I’m a county deputy. Do not move!”
    Dance tried to see who this was. She couldn’t spot her attacker either.
    There was an eternal pause and then from behind her she heard fleeing footsteps as the attacker escaped.
    Then her rescuer was running too, in pursuit. Dance rose unsteadily, trying—still largely unsuccessfully—to breathe. Who was it? Harutyun?
    She expected to hear gunshots but there was none, only the sounds of returning footfalls and a man saying in a whisper, “Kathryn, where are you?” The voice was familiar.
    “Here.”
    He approached. Finally she sucked in a solid breath and wiped tears of pain from her eyes. She blinked in surprise.
    Walking through the woods, holstering his weapon, was Michael O’Neil.
    She barked a laugh, which contained part relief, part joy and a dash of hysteria.
     
    THEY SAT IN the bar, drinking Sonoma Cabernets.
    Dance asked, “That was your car? That I saw pulling in fifteen minutes ago?”
    “Yeah. I saw you crossing the street. You looked … furtive.”
    “I was trying. Not furtive enough.”
    “So I followed.”
    She lowered her head to his broad