Once he created a fair distance between himself and the rotting tree trunk--he peered at it one last time to make sure it didn’t come to life--he started back up into a run. Above, the trees thinned some, and although rain clouds still dominated the sky, the full moon’s beams seeped through some thinner wisps, spreading about a bit of blue light in the ever-darkening conditions, helping Richard to see. He continued in this fashion for a few minutes until he heard a steady run of water in the near distance, one very distinct from the continuing precipitation.
The trough. He was nearing it again.
He slowed his pace to a walk. Carefully he moved forward until he saw a clearing in the trees. Once beyond that, the edge of the waterway came into view. He approached it cautiously, looking over his shoulder to make sure he was still alone. He then peered over the side to the stream below. It had risen a couple of feet--the storm had added much of its furor to it, and continued to do so with no signs of letting up.
For a moment he wondered if Pam had been able to flee--his car was probably up to its chassis in water right now. He estimated that Pam would have only been able to escape if the man in black had decided to immediately follow him. If this were the case, then Richard would have no choice but to cross the stream, especially if his twin was hiding just beyond the outskirts of the wooded area, watching him. He looked back into the woods, then down again. The slippery drop into the stream, the churning waters, might prove too perilous to cross now. Feeling his body tipping towards the trough, he stepped back, then sidestepped along it, keeping his sights aimed forward, his body shivering in anticipatory fear of the man in black hot on his heels.
He stayed at a distance of ten to fifteen feet from the trough’s edge, seeking an open area in the woods that he could slip into with the hope of cloaking himself, yet still have a bit of moonlight to guide him along.
Finally, he saw a passage between two pines, and broke for it.
He slipped in a patch of slick moss and landed on his back. Pain lanced through his body. He tumbled sideways, down a small incline, towards the trough. Shit! He grabbed onto a small shrub, which helped slow his descent as he slid through an icy-cold puddle. Another shrub at the mouth of the puddle acted as a stop, and he hooked his leg around it to keep from falling further.
Heaving, he spit out mud and pine needles, then started coughing as some of the grit made its way into his throat. When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was the edge of the trough, not two feet away from where he’d ended up.
Instantly, his problems multiplied. Surely he’d made a lot of noise while falling, possibly giving away his location to the man in black. He also dropped the gun. He’d have to find it, and in doing so, chance exposing himself.
He reached back, probing the muddy earth. Nothing. Carefully, he unhinged himself from the shrub, crawled back, nails and fingers deep into the sodden ground, toes grabbing hold and kicking away hunks of sediment, sending it over the edge, into the stream. His thigh screamed in pain, the screwdriver having gouged a hunk of flesh out of it during the fall. The unrelenting rain made the going extra treacherous--one slip and he’d tumble back, fifteen feet down into the ravine.
Finally, his palm landed on something cold and hard. The gun.
He picked it up.
It discharged.
The unexpected backfire sent a shock of pain from his hand to his head. The sound of the gunshot deafened him, then echoed through the mountains, without a doubt sending a giant red flag up, revealing his location to his nemesis, perhaps Pam, and to anyone else within a mile or so. He had no idea which direction the gun had fired, but was grateful to discover that it had not been towards himself.
He felt paralyzed, unsure of what to do at the moment. The drop was still only a few slippery feet away; he still had the tough challenge of trying to make it away without falling in. Regardless, he knew one thing for sure: he had to keep moving, even now with the temporary inability to hear his enemy advancing. He writhed forward, inches at a time, making slow progress, keeping himself shrouded by the low brush. He was fully coated in mud, which lent additional camouflage in his attempt to remain unseen. Once about fifteen feet away, he got to his knees and crawled like mad, parallel to the trough. He’d quit trying to remain silent, surrendering restraint for speed. He stopped ten yards from the closest thicket of trees, utterly exhausted. Rain splashed up into his face, and at this moment of sheer discomfort realized he wouldn’t get very far crawling through the woods all night. The man in black would catch up to him in no time, even if he’d taken care of Pam first.
Richard took a deep breath. Time to make a move.
He rose to a crouch, bore up for a run into the woods.
A gunshot blasted the area. The earth exploded five feet in front of him, the force of which sent him reeling. Mud and water splattered him. He was unclear as to which direction it had come from, but promptly knew there would be only one way to escape the shooter’s line of vision.
Down.
He rolled to the left and hurled himself feet first into the trough.
Thankfully, and unexpectedly, the drop hadn’t been as bad as the first fall he’d made while holding Pam. Although he still had the gun to contend with--and that damn screwdriver which was making chopped meat of his leg--he managed to hold it out in front of him as he controllably slid down the rain-slickened gradient on his rear, making a splash in the water, which had risen to almost three feet.
Trembling, he stood in a panic. Pain stabbed his body in a dozen places. He quickly wiped the water from his eyes and struggled up the channel, trying to find speed as the current pulled at his thighs. He pressed on for nearly fifty feet, then took a left curve where the water lightened to calf-deep puddles along the higher edges. His footsteps sunk into the silt up to his ankles. With true determination, he kept moving, the motion of the water still strong against his legs, tiring his muscles. His feet lost their support, but he recovered, making the best progress possible despite the pulpy bottom that claimed his footsteps. Eventually he became so lightheaded from fatigue, he had no choice but to slump against the sloping gradient.
The rain had lightened to a drizzle, finally. The air was eerily quiet. Richard found himself hyperventilating in a desperate effort to catch his breath. Plumes of cold air escaped his lungs in frequent bursts. He peered around, saw no one approaching, heard no water splashing nearby. But, he knew he was being watched. Aimed at. Most likely from above.
“
Sparke
!”
The distant shout was like the cry of a ghost riding the beams of a haunted house.
Richard scrambled to his knees, pressed himself against the side of the depression. With his dark clothing and coating of mud, he felt reasonably camouflaged.
In the echoing distance: “Are you enjoying the show,
Sparke
? The Richard
Sparke
show?”
Richard kept looking around, up, all over. Saw nothing.
“I hope you are, because I haven’t even started yet,” he yelled.
“And after I finish with you, after I tear those frail limbs away from that pathetic little body of yours, I’m gonna go back and finish off that sweet little cunt of yours, show her tortures she never thought imaginable, just like I did Samantha!”
Richard remained silent for fear of giving his precise location away. At that moment, the man in black shouted, “Speak up,
Sparke
! No use in staying silent, I can see you. I have the gun aimed right at your left thigh. You have five seconds before I shoot. Four. Three--”
“Where are you?” Richard shouted above the sound of the rushing stream. The rain had all but stopped now, the clouds diluted to thin traces. The night was beginning to brighten, bathed in clear blue moonlight.
No answer. Damn! There
hadn’t
been a gun aimed at his thigh, he’d been tricked into giving away his location! He’d opened his big mouth, and was now a sitting target, the man in black undoubtedly following the direction from which Richard’s voice had traveled. Richard thought the man in black’s voice--
his
own voice--had materialized from the left, the direction from where he’d come.
But I could be wrong about that. He might’ve circled around, as a ploy. He could now be coming at me from the front, from the direction he expects me to flee.
Richard was consumed with confusion and fear, felt powerless and susceptible, like a possum trapped in the glow of oncoming headlights. Realizing it would be suicide to wait for his adversary to make the next move, he stood up with his back against the muddy wall, aimed the pistol around in an indecisive arc, and tried to decide which direction to run. Head down, he chose to keep moving upstream with the hope that it would eventually rise above the trough and give way to an escapable route.
Another shot rang out. A piece of the wall, not ten feet away, disintegrated before him in a shower of mud and sediment. Richard went down into a crouch, moving as fast as possible, despite the treacherous circumstances.
He’s playing with me
, he thought,
following me from the top of the trough
.
The channel twisted suddenly to the right. Above, trees spotted the upper edges of the gulley. Richard stopped and hunkered down at the side of the stream. Here, with the misty rain, and the distance uphill he’d traveled, the water covered only his shoes. Ahead he could see the upper edges of the land sinking sharply down to meet the approach of the stream. Beyond that, the water flowed downward again, probably into a small lake or pond. All he had to do was make it to the pond, then off into the woods where he could hide in any number of places, maybe even make it back down to the highway.
Silence dominated.
All I have to do is make it back into the woods. I can see the trees from here.
He stood.
From behind, a voice.
His
voice, a half-whisper. “Hell-o,
Sparke
.”
Richard turned, only to see the butt of a rifle come down right between his eyes.
The phone rang immediately after Delaney said
‘Asleep’
on the tape. Leonard and Kevin clutched their chests with a start, much like they did earlier when they were waiting outside the doctor’s office and the call came in about his grisly murder. They looked at each other with tense relief, feeling ambushed by the blatant interruption. Kevin stopped tape just as Leonard answered the phone.
“
Moldofsky
.”
“Len, it’s Reese.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“We’re at his girlfriend’s place. Pamela Bergin.”
“Presidential Studios?”
“Yeah...how do you--”
“We were there today.”
Silence on the other end. Angry hesitation, all over again. “Let me guess Len, no report, right?”
Leonard’s immediate silence was an affirmative. He then added, “We wanted to talk with Pamela to see if she could tell us why there was blood on
Sparke’s
floor. We thought she might have had something to do with it.
Sparke
said she’d cut her hand with a knife but we didn’t see any injuries on her.”
“Okay...” Reese said expectedly. “So what did you find?”
Leonard hesitated, blew out a nervous breath. Any way you looked at it, he and Kevin fell into deeper shit for not reporting their objective this afternoon. Had they not rushed into things, perhaps taken Richard in for further questioning, Delaney would still be alive. “Nothing of any interest, really.” He didn’t have the time nor energy to elaborate about the damage to her car.
“How long ago was this, Len?”
Leonard leaned over to Kevin, asked his faithful partner what time they’d been at Pamela Bergin’s place. He whispered back, “About two-thirty.”
“Two thirty this afternoon.”
“Shit, Len...
Sparke
was probably putting the knife to his shrink at about that time.”
Leonard’s pulse raced. He eyed the tape recorder, realizing that many of the answers pertaining to Delaney’s murder would be revealed once he pressed ‘play’. “So what’s happening over there? Did
Sparke
murder Pamela?” Kevin’s face paled at Leonard’s words.
“We don’t think so. She’s missing. Her place is empty, her car is gone. We’re checking out the neighbors right now, but it doesn’t seem like anyone heard anything.”
“Any signs of forced entry?”
“No.”
“What about blood?” Leonard mouthed
she’s missing
to Kevin, who shook his head and rubbed his cheeks with concern.
“No...why? Len, did she say anything I should know about?”
“No, I’m just, well, we felt that she was definitely hiding something, most likely to protect
Sparke
. What it is, I have no idea. We had no time to query her further because we were keeping a tail on
Sparke
. Other than that, there’s really nothing.”
Reese hesitated, spoke to someone in the room with him, then came back. “Len, you don’t need me to tell you how important this is. We have a brutal murder on our hands, with no idea where our primary suspect is. I repeat...I need you to think. Is there anything she said that’s even close to being pertinent, something that might indicate where she could be heading?”