The Cold Nowhere (42 page)

He stopped, leaving the lights on. When he opened his door, the wind ripped it out of his hand. Serena got out on the other side. They both slid their weapons from their holsters.

Stride followed the wall of the freeway overpass and gestured to Serena to remain on the other side of the alley, in the shadow of the trains. The two of them crept south, the wind fighting them, drowning out the noise. Cars shot by on I-35 a few feet over his head. He saw Serena clearing the space between each rail car.

They were alone.

Then he heard it, distant and muffled, as if coming from inside a wall. A young girl screamed, and the scream cut off sharply into silence. He was sure he recognized the pitch of the voice.

It was Cat.

Serena ran across the road to join him. Thirty yards ahead of them, the wall beside the interstate ended and the weedy ground sloped downward under the roadbed. On the other side of the freeway was the harbor.

‘Do you know where they are?’ she whispered.

‘Sounds like the graffiti graveyard.’

He led the way to the end of the freeway wall and stole a look around the corner. He was conscious of his truck headlights illuminating him from behind and throwing his shadow like a giant. The sunken area between the freeway beds was dark. He heard water dripping. The winter branches of a bent tree scratched his face as it fluttered in the wind.

Stride inched his way down the slope. Serena followed. He reached a dirty creek, which stretched like a ribbon between six-foot walls under the southbound lanes. The creek water was frozen. Boulders and rusted debris jutted out of the ice. He saw a ladder leaning on the east wall. Where light from the freeway spilled over the maze of concrete, graffiti art bloomed in a wild, psychedelic maze of colors. It was everywhere, covering everything.

He listened and heard nothing, but somewhere over the wall, a cone of light speared through the darkness. A flashlight. He cupped his hand over Serena’s ear and whispered. ‘Stay with the creek.’

Stride crossed to the opposite side of the canal, wincing as the ice broke, flooding his shoes with frigid water. Serena stayed behind him, almost invisible, following the wall on the fringe of the creek. He balanced a wet boot on the slippery steel of the ladder and pushed up one step. The ladder vibrated. He climbed two more steps and then shunted over the top of the wall. With a squishy thud, he dropped into snow and mud.

In the land ahead of him, a shot exploded through the darkness.

*

Cat watched the flashlight go on and off as Ken McCarty crept closer to them. She pressed her lips shut, trying not to scream again.

The graffiti graveyard was a grassy shelter tucked between the north–south overpasses. The ladder up the stone wall from the creek was the only way in, but once inside, the enclosure stretched for hundreds of yards, with drivers speeding north and south just overhead, unaware of the odd playground beneath them. The homeless came here, along with druggies and artists. The ground was littered with hypodermic needles, broken glass and aerosol cans. Every wall and column was covered with elaborate spray-painted designs, like a multicolored museum.

Cat squeezed herself behind one of the concrete pillars that propped up the roadbeds. Brooke stood behind another pillar ten feet away. There were other people around them. Despite the cold, she saw blanket-shrouded bundles huddled against the walls. In the occasional flash of light, their eyes glittered at her like cats.

The flashlight swept the ground on either side of the pillar where she stood. She pushed her ankles together to keep the beam from finding her. She heard another shot, and the noise was deafening inside the concrete jungle. She knew what he was doing. He wanted them to move, to run, to show themselves. She clapped her hands over her ears and held her breath.

Each flash of light, on and off, teased her with examples of graffiti art around her, making the paintings on the concrete look scary and alive.

Flash. A smoking monkey with suspicious, squinting eyes.

Flash. A green-and-blue chain of spiked barbed wire.

Flash. A row of bone-white skulls with black eye sockets.

Flash. A fanged spider.

Flash. A single sentence scrawled in drippy red, covering up a golden devil-robot.
Alone we are nothing
.

Cat stared at Brooke, who pointed a finger northward. Ken was
getting closer; they had to move or they would be trapped here. When the light went off, they skidded across icy ground, jumping past three more pillars and ducking into cover just as the flashlight shot across their feet, nearly exposing them. Each time the light came from a different angle. He was zigzagging as he tracked them north. Soon he would be so close that they would be able to hear his footsteps.

They were more than a hundred yards from where they had started. It was cold, and they clung to each other, shivering.

‘He won’t stop,’ Brooke whispered in Cat’s ear. ‘He’ll find us, and he’ll kill us.’

‘We have to double back,’ Cat said.

She knew there was only one way to escape. They had to cross the graveyard to the southbound overpass, climb the wall, and drop down into the frigid creek. They could slip past him in the water, back toward the railway yard and the downtown streets. They would be safe, unless he heard them and found them there. If he did, there was nowhere to run.

‘The creek,’ Cat said.

Brooke nodded.

The graveyard was dark. His flashlight was off. They didn’t hear him coming; he was somewhere in the field of concrete, waiting and watching. Above their heads, a highway light made crazy shadows and lit up the graffiti. As cars passed, the light flickered like a strobe. They had to cross a stretch of dead grass to move from the northbound to the southbound lanes, and there was no way to dodge the light. If he was looking when they ran, he would see them like black silhouettes. They had to risk it.

Maybe he was a hundred feet away.

Maybe he was right there, with the gun.

They dashed across the snow. Their running footsteps through the wet drifts sounded loud. The light stretched out their bodies on the ground. They crossed from the shelter of one cross-beam to the
next cross-beam in no more than two seconds, and they stopped, listening. Cat expected to hear him running. She expected to feel the flashlight beam dazzling her eyes. Instead, there was silence.

‘Come on,’ she said.

They crossed to the wall bordering the creek. Cat pulled herself up, scraping her hand on sharp gravel. She swung her legs around, dangling them over the water below her. Brooke had trouble with the climb, and Cat extended one of her hands to help her. When they were both on top of the wall, they took a breath and jumped. It wasn’t far, but the ice cracked like a bullet and cold water splashed up to their ankles. The bed of the creek was slimy and uneven with hidden debris.

The walls bordering the creek were barely eight feet apart and six feet tall. No light made it down there; it was like an underground tunnel. They couldn’t see the archway far ahead of them; they walked in nothingness. The only thing real was the touch of Brooke’s hand; their fingers were laced tightly together.

The wind didn’t reach the creek, but they heard it above them, wailing like a wounded animal. The air was freezing, and the ice bath made a bitter chill that traveled up Cat’s body. Her bones shook; she couldn’t stop herself from trembling. After a minute in the water, she no longer felt her feet, and she began to stumble in her boots. Each step broke through the glaze of ice, and no matter how quiet they tried to be, she felt as if they were shouting their presence to him.

Suddenly, she was blinded.

The flashlight beam, ten feet away, lit them up, turning night to day. They froze and covered their eyes. Running was pointless; they couldn’t escape. Cat squinted and tried to see behind the light; at first, all she could see was a hand holding a gun, pointed across the short space at her chest. She thought about her baby. She wondered if her mother was right and if there was a heaven somewhere.

The light tilted up and Cat saw the face of the person behind it. Not Ken McCarty. Not someone evil. It was Serena.

Silently, Cat leapt across the short space and felt herself wrapped up in Serena’s arms. She wept into her shoulder with relief. Serena kept the light on Brooke and the gun leveled across the water. Cat took her wrist gently and pointed the gun down.

‘It’s okay, she’s okay, she helped me.’

Brooke raised her arms in the air in surrender.

‘Where is he?’ Serena whispered.

‘Up there somewhere. Is Stride here?’

‘Yes. Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Serena turned. Her flashlight swung with her, and in its glow they all saw a hunched figure on top of the creek wall, ready to spring. She raised her gun, but it was too late to aim and fire. Ken McCarty jumped with arms spread, flying down through the air like a vampire bat, landing squarely on Serena’s chest and driving her backward into the water.

The gun dropped. The flashlight dropped.

The creek was black again.

‘
Stride!
’

Ken McCarty’s voice boomed through the graffiti graveyard, calling him closer. The shout came from below, fifty yards away, in the belly of the creek. Stride ran through the snow, dodging the concrete pillars. When he reached the creekside wall, he crouched and switched on his own flashlight, expecting a bullet over his head.

Nothing happened.

He left the flashlight on top of the wall and crab-walked ten feet, where a rusted set of bedsprings was propped against the stone. He pushed himself up on the metal frame, high enough to swing his torso over the top of the wall and point his gun down toward the water.

Ken stood in the ankle-deep creek. The light captured his cocky grin, which hadn’t changed since he was a baby cop. He stood behind Serena with one muscular forearm locked around her throat. His other hand held a gun against her temple. Three feet behind him, Cat and Brooke stood in frozen silence.

‘It’s been a long time, Lieutenant,’ Ken called.

‘Let her go, Ken,’ Stride said. ‘Let her go, and put the gun down.’

‘I don’t think so.’

Stride didn’t have a shot, and Ken knew it. Half the cop’s face was hidden behind Serena. He saw Serena struggling to breathe as Ken’s grip choked off her air.

‘Ken, you know it’s over. The police are surrounding this area right now. You’re not going anywhere. If you want to stay alive, let her go, and drop the gun.’

Ken jammed the gun into Serena’s face and she struggled in his grasp. ‘Actually, Lieutenant, my odds just got better. I have a hostage. Someone you care about. I don’t think you’re going to let anything happen to her.’

‘You’re not walking out of here.’

‘No? Then shoot me. Go ahead, take the shot. I hope you’ve spent time on the range lately. It’s dark. The angle’s bad. Chances are, you blow your girlfriend’s head off instead of mine. Are you willing to take that risk? I’d hate to think of you grieving about it the rest of your life. How many women are you willing to lose, Stride?’

Stride said nothing. They both heard sirens on the streets outside the graveyard.

‘They’re coming for you, Ken.’

‘Then get on the radio and tell them to back off! Serena and I are getting out of here right now. No cops, no guns. If I die, she dies in the crossfire.’

‘Where do you think you’re going to go?’ Stride asked. ‘You won’t last a day on the run.’

‘I got away for ten years, Stride. I’ll get away for ten more. I don’t need much of a head start. Let me go and I’ll release Serena when I’m safe.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ Stride said.

‘Then you better shoot me.’

Stride’s hand tensed on his gun. He saw Ken’s forehead lined up in his sights, but the cop’s body jerked, going in and out of focus. It was too dark, too far, too cold. Serena’s green eyes gleamed in the light, and he knew she wanted him to shoot. She’d wrench away and give him a split-second, but he couldn’t do it. He tried to tell her with his eyes.
No
.

Ken took a step and pushed Serena forward with him. She was going to bolt; she was going to wrestle away. The ice crushed into white frost. Stride had to make a choice.

‘Stop!’ he called.

‘I’m getting out,’ Ken said. ‘Keep your girlfriend alive and let me go.’

Stride aimed the gun again. His finger slid on the trigger. As he searched for a moment to fire, he spotted movement in the shadows directly behind Ken. His eyes flicked to Cat and saw the girl’s face wrenched with emotion. Tears ran down her face. Her mouth was slack with fury and horror.

As Stride watched, Cat knelt down and slid her hand into her boot. She came out holding a knife.

Cat clutched the knife in her hand. She could hear her mother’s voice ringing out in agony, as clear as it had been that night. Even when she’d clasped her hands over her ears to drown it out, she could still hear it. The knife going in and out of her body. Her mother. Crying. Bleeding. Dying.

This man caused it. This man standing in front of her. This man took them all away. Her mother. Her father. Dory. Now he was holding Serena. He was going to take her away, too.

She couldn’t let it happen. She had to stop it.
Please, Mother, give me the strength to stop it.
All she had to do was stab him. Raise her arm, drive the knife down, penetrate his flesh, take away his life. Pay him back for what he’d done, plunge in the blade over and over and over and over the way he deserved. It would be so easy, so right. Kill him. Stab him.

Cat could see the dimple in his back, underneath his neck, where she would strike him first. Blood would spurt. She’d seen it before. He would cry in pain, and she would have no mercy. She would pull the knife out, slash again, pull the knife out, slash again, pull the knife out, slash again. She would count. Ten times, twenty
times, thirty times, forty times, until the black creek was red with his blood.