South by Southeast (46 page)

He roared with pain, but I hadn't tracked, hadn't realized he'd gotten his left arm free, and he clubbed me on the side of the head so hard I saw stars, and then blackness.

Die. You're going to—

Like millions of creatures before me, I sank to sleep in the tar.

APRIL'S RIBS ACHED,
but the terrible pressure on her back and the force behind her head—were gone.
Thank you, Lord.
April had pulled herself away from the water, hands clawing at the soil.
Thank you so much, Lord.
She coughed as if her lungs could split at the seams, but the oxygen massaged her insides, woke up her mind, slowed her galloping heart. For a single shining moment, April's horrific night had turned beautiful.

Then she clawed muddy tar from her face, blinked her eyes hard, and saw Tennyson and Escobar, and she realized the night could change again.

They were fighting like two cats in a sack, and she was still too wobbly to help. Any effort to move brought a fit of coughing. While her lungs spat out acrid water droplets, April looked around for a weapon, anything she could use to help him. Nothing came to sight.

She'd watched as the shotgun flew into the water, heard Tennyson's cry of pain as Escobar kicked him. Then Escobar smashed into him, taking him down at the edge of the pool, and they rolled savagely at the edge of the mire, flirting with prehistoric disaster.
Oh no oh no oh no oh no.

“April,
run
!” If April hadn't seen for herself, she would have known from Tennyson's voice that they were far from free, and if she didn't run, they might never be. Escobar was a demon that had been loosed on them both. He didn't care about law, or love, or his own life. He was like nothing she had ever seen or known.

But April couldn't run. She tried to pull herself to her knees and collapsed back down. She tried to call for help—to scream at the top of her lungs—but her mouth barely made a sound. Would God spare her from the tar only to send her back again? To let this madman kill her and Tennyson?

“Run!” Tennyson shouted again as they rolled, slimed with water and tar and blood.

April rolled over, trying to summon strength back to her legs. She bumped her broken wrist and shrieked as the pain drained her again. How many times had she watched horror movies and complained when the heroine fell down, helpless? What was wrong with her?

You're in shock
, a voice in her head explained. It might have been God's voice or her own.
Take a deep breath. Get on your feet. Get help.

Help wasn't far. She didn't have to get to the van—only as far as the street, where she still heard traffic. She could wave down a car. It was all so simple, if only she could stand up.

With a grunt that was almost a scream, April brought herself to her knees again, pressing her throbbing, swollen wrist close to her back. Everything rocked, but the dizziness passed when she took a deep breath. Her coughing nearly knocked her over again, but determination kept her on her knees.

April didn't want to look, but she glanced at Tennyson and Escobar at the edge of the pit. She saw Tennyson pull Escobar into the water, felt her heart swell . . .

But like the demon he was, Escobar was on top. Escobar was riding Tennyson as if trying to rape him. Tennyson was down, unable
to find footing, unable to gain purchase or find a moment to breathe. A human being cannot fight an ape, and Escobar's ferocity was simian, like a rabid baboon.

April flung herself to her unsteady feet. She swayed for balance, leaning against the baby mastodon's grooved concrete fur. She tried to gather power in her lungs. “Help us!” she called to the sky. “Somebody!”

Her voice was louder but not loud enough to reach Wilshire Boulevard.

April took one step, two steps, three steps toward the broken fence. Freedom. Help.

Before she could reach the fence, a shadow flew toward April in the night.

An angel? A phantom?

It was a dark-skinned woman dressed in skintight black. She moved like a leopard, leaping over the broken segment of fence. So swift and smooth was she that her feet seemed to float above the ground. She held a small, deadly automatic. But she wasn't a police officer; April knew that in a glance.

Did Escobar have a partner? April was so confused and distraught that she nearly sagged back to the ground.

The woman was running toward the water.

“Escobar!” she shouted. There was strength in her voice like nothing April had ever heard from a woman. Not cop-strong or army-strong. This was death. Her voice seemed to silence the night.

Escobar looked toward her, startled. “Who—”

“Your father was a hero,” the woman said. “You don't deserve that patriot's name. This is for the girls you killed, you fucking pig.”

“Wait—” Escobar said, holding up his palm as if to stop a bullet.

But she didn't wait. The gun flamed in the woman's hand with a
pop
that wasn't as loud as April expected. Escobar gasped, head
jerking backward, eyes crossing as if each of them was trying to see the hole just above his nose. Escobar's bones melted, and he slid down into the water.

April expected Tennyson to rise next, but he didn't. The water was still and quiet except for a far-off gurgling sound, as if only the dead inhabited the tarry pond.

“Oh, shit on a stick,” the woman said. “Ten?”

She ran to the water.

For the first time, April realized that the woman was Marsha.

“I knew you were about to do something stupid. Dead ain't sexy, precious.”

I dreamed I heard Marsha's voice whispering just beyond my ear. My face twitched, and I tried to bat the voice away. Marsha's voice wasn't supposed to be in my ear. Only April's.

I blinked, and life turned loud and bright. I rolled over and spat what tasted like crude oil out of my mouth. When I coughed, my lungs bellowed for air. The ground felt hard and grainy against my back. I saw blades of grass, a tree trunk. Marsha was kneeling over me, water dripping from her mucky, matted hair.

I turned to my side as a dark liquid poured from my lips. I'll never forget that nasty taste.

“You stopped breathing, but you'll live,” Marsha said. “Paramedics are on the way. I got to give you mouth-to-mouth, so I guess the night wasn't a total loss.”

The tree trunk was actually a mastodon leg, I realized. The tar pit came back to me. Remembering my nakedness, I curled in a fetal position to hide myself. When I moved, my whole body screamed.

“Where's . . .” I tried to speak, but I couldn't finish my sentence because I was coughing.

Before I could try to sit up to look for April, I felt a hand around
mine. “Ten? Just be still, baby. Everything's all right.” April's voice was thin, but her coughing had stopped.

Sirens approached in a chorus.

Marsha stood up, wiping grass and debris from her damp black jeans. “Well, kids, this has been a blast, so to speak . . . but that's my cue. I've got no business here.”

“Escobar?” I wheezed, gazing around. If he had escaped again, I might spend the rest of my life hunting him.

“They'll have to fish him out,” Marsha said, nodding toward the water. “Or leave him in for twenty years and then open a new exhibit.
Cocksuckus gigantis,
commonly known as Los Angeles Man. It was hard enough getting you out of there. April's no weakling—not bad for a girl with only one good hand. That bastard broke her wrist, you know.”

I had never seen April and Marsha side-by-side, although once they had seemed like two halves of my ideal woman. I'd often wished that Marsha had more of April's sweetness and that April had more of Marsha's daring. April was svelte and wonderfully athletic. But Marsha's mind and body were lethal. There is a difference. Marsha was like a knife, so sharp there was no place to hold it. That night, for an instant, they blended into one image. One woman.

Then I blinked. Marsha was standing above us, ready to float away with emotionless eyes, and April was beside me, squeezing my hand between hers like a mother. Later, on painkillers, I would wonder if Marsha ever had been there. At the hospital that night, it was hard to remember anything except April's miraculous, dimpled smile beaming down at me.

“Marsha shot him,” April said. “She showed up out of nowhere and—”

“You mean that Good Samaritan shot him,” Marsha said. “He shot Escobar and ran off. Said he recognized Escobar from TV. One less serial killer in the world, he said. Looked a little like
Brad Pitt. If you don't get your story straight, one of you is going to jail.”

She wiped down her 9mm and tossed it into the water. A police siren wailed, getting closer.

I fought another coughing spell. “Thanks,” I choked out. Talking felt like fire.

Marsha shrugged. “Your lady here would have handled it,” she said. “But everyone can use a little backup now and then.”

“No, really.” April's lip quivered. “I could barely walk. You saved our lives.”

Marsha blew us a kiss over her shoulder, stepping toward the gap in the fence. “Play safe,” Marsha said. “See you around, Ten.”

I coughed again. “Not if I see you first.” I'd said it with more affection and gratitude than anything I'd ever said to her.

“Don't worry,” she said. “You won't.” She looked at April, who was holding me tight. “You take care of each other, you hear?”

April nodded, unable to speak.

I blinked, and Marsha was gone.

AT THE HOSPITAL
the next day, during my battery of tests, a parade of grim-faced doctors came to my room to tell me how lucky I was to be alive. I'd heard the speech before, but my luck finally felt real.

I wasn't supposed to survive Gustavo Escobar. He was my boulder in the rapids, the end of my good fortune, and maybe I'd known that since the first time Chela mentioned a serial killer. An act of grace had saved April and me, not just Marsha's change of heart. I could barely hear the doctors because of the distraction of the bright, crisp sunlight through my window.

My first stolen morning after I cheated death.

I'd lied to the cabbie who drove me to the tar pits, I realized. Home does matter—and to me, home is the Southern California sun. My father always shared that sunshine with me, and it would take time to get used to the shadow he'd left behind, but it was the only home I had.

Escobar had gifted me with a groin injury called a testicular rupture. The name says it all. I'd had surgery overnight—without it, let's just say I would have had to get used to a change of scenery in the shower. The doctors planned to keep me in the hospital for a day to monitor my recovery and test results. I'm not usually a fan of painkillers,
but I wanted to write a personal note of thanks to the pharmaceutical companies.

No wonder I'd nearly drowned. Or
did
drown, as Chela liked to point out.