White Ginger (29 page)

“It could be that he's still alive and being held down there as bait to draw us in,” she theorized. “What do you think we should do?”

Lee interrupted. “We're here, and we're armed. I say we take a look.”

Race looked at him and then at her. His expression was troubled. “The smart thing would be to turn around and call the cops. But I'm guessing you're not going to do that.”

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug of acknowledgment. “I think you're beginning to understand me. He's my friend. Leaving him down there isn't an option. We're going to find him and bring him home.” She pulled the Beretta out of its holster at her back, racked the slide to chamber a bullet, and flipped off the safety with her thumb. “Besides, I'm tired of being hunted.”

He reached out to put his hand on her gun and gently push it down to point at the ground. “All right, Annie Oakley. I understand your feelings. But let's not be stupid about this. If it's a trap, and it certainly has the look of one, let's not run blindly into it. Let me work my way into the valley quietly, on foot, to see what the situation is.”

She was anxious and didn't want to wait. “How long will it take you to get down there?”

“Give me time to work my way around the ridge and come back from the other side. I need a chance to familiarize myself with the terrain and to look for anything suspicious. And I need to do it slowly.”

“Do as he asks,” Lee urged. He leaned against the fender of the car and watched Race with interest. “There's no point in rushing into a trap if we can avoid it. Remember what Ho Chan always told us. ‘If you are in a hurry, you will never get there.'”

She looked from Lee to Race, reluctant to sit idly by while Benny might be in trouble. “You've got an hour. Then I'm going down there to see what's what—with or without you.”

Race looked at his watch and then at her.

“One hour,” he repeated.

Race pulled his duffle bag from the trunk of the car to extract a rifle and a muzzle suppressor. He attached the silencer to the barrel of the carbine. His hands moved over the weapon with practiced ease. The sniper rifle appeared to be an old friend.

“The suppressor will lessen the noise of the firing gun and hide the muzzle flash,” he explained as he donned a camouflage vest carrying enough spare ammo and equipment to fight a war. “So if you see a muzzle flash, it won't be me.”

He made eye contact with Bai to make sure she understood the implication of his statement.

She nodded in response. If she saw a muzzle flash, she'd shoot back.

“And watch your back. If I don't run into problems, I'll be in front of you,” he added.

Without any further explanation, he turned to lope down the hill and disappear into the nearest copse of trees and brush. She looked but couldn't see any sign of him. He'd disappeared.

Bai and Lee settled in to lean against the front of the Beamer. Her eyes continued to scan the valley below. Tree limbs stirred in an early afternoon breeze. As the breeze grew stronger, the limbs and leaves on the trees grew more animated. Dark, billowing clouds scuttled in from the west to stack up against the foothills like layers of burnt marshmallow.

Lee pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time before tilting his head up to look at the darkening sky. “I think we're about to get wet.”

She glanced at him. “I have a strange feeling today is just going to be one of
those
days.”

He looked at her and grinned as he crossed his arms. “Think of this as an adventure. And look on the bright side. We're getting closer to finding out who wants you dead.”

She frowned in response. “I'm having a hard time finding solace in that.”

He looked out across the valley and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his tone was more sober. “Is the loss on this property going to hurt you?”

She turned her head to look at his profile. “Not as much as the loss of a friend. I'm not really worried about the money. Grandfather always said, ‘Fortune and flowers do not last forever.' But if Benny's come to harm, it will be up to me to make things right.”

He reached out to find her hand. “It's up to
us
to make things right.”

She was grateful for his offer—and for his friendship. Still, she worried about the danger they would face. Whoever was behind the land swindle had already shown they wouldn't stop at murder.

“It might be better if you stayed clear of this,” she said.

He assumed an injured air. “Aw . . . do you doubt my abilities, Grasshopper?”

She shook her head. “I just think maybe it's my fate to take responsibility for Benny. If only he'd come to me before buying this property, we might have avoided all this.”

He let out a long sigh and stared at her until she turned to meet his gaze. “I imagine Benny wanted to surprise you. He's always been more than a little smitten by you. It's easy to understand his motives.”

She considered her long association with Benny. “He's had a crush on me since the first grade,” she admitted, kicking at the ground. “The guy's a putz—but a sweet putz. I just want him to be all right.”

She looked over the treetops below and wondered if Benny was down there, maybe held hostage or injured. She didn't want to think he might be dead.

“It's time,” Lee advised her. “Race has had more than an hour to work his way around the valley. Do you want me to drive?”

The question didn't require much thought. “I'll drive. You're better with a gun. You ride shotgun and keep a sharp lookout.”

He started to turn away then hesitated. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything that can shoot back,” she replied, walking around the car to the driver's side.

Before getting in, she again pulled the Beretta out of its holster in the small of her back to place it within easy reach on the center console. Lee plopped down in the seat next to her then held his gun up in a two-handed grip in front of his face.

“Fast or slow?” she asked.

He smiled nervously. “Slow, I think, unless somebody shoots at us . . . then fast—very, very fast.”

She put the car into gear to pull forward at a hesitant five miles an hour. The car thumped off the paved road and onto the dirt track. She steered with both hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel as the car slowly rolled down the steep dirt incline toward the valley below.

Raindrops plopped intermittently onto the windshield. More rain quickly fell: big drops, plunking against the car like pellets against a tin can. The wind subsided as the rain became a deluge. The road turned to mud, and the shallow grooves in the track became puddles.

She kept the car creeping forward, slowly but steadily. Windshield wipers slapped back and forth on high. The whipping blades allowed only brief glimpses of the surrounding woods.

“If we can't see them,” Lee noted, “it's likely they can't see us, which may be to our advantage.”

“Like blind mice,” she acknowledged. “When I imagined racing down here to rescue Benny, this wasn't how I pictured it. It's hard to be dashing at five miles an hour.”

“‘Man has a thousand plans, heaven but one.'”

“I'm pretty sure heaven has nothing to do with this mess,” she assured him.

About a mile into the valley, the road leveled out. Oak trees and manzanita scrub bordered the road on both sides. The dirt track widened to the width of a fire lane.

The storm slowed to a heavy downpour as large raindrops fell from a gunmetal sky. Bai slowed the car as she spied something blocking the road in the distance. After a few seconds, she braked to bring the car to a complete stop.

“Didn't Benny drive an old Mercedes-Benz?” asked Lee.

“Yeah, a gray one.”

“I think that's it up ahead.” His voice sounded subdued.

She looked aside at him. “What are you thinking?”

He stared at the surrounding woods with a penetrating gaze. “Do you see how close to the road those trees are, the ones up ahead on the approach to his car?”

She looked to where he pointed. The dense copse of trees bordered both sides of the road.

“What about them?”

“If I had to pick a spot for an ambush, that's the place I'd pick. Driving past those trees we'd be an easy target.”

She looked again at the copse of trees next to the road. A ditch, some kind of drainage canal, ran alongside the road on the driver's side. The channel cut through the trees next to the road to disappear from sight in tangled brush. She suggested, “I could walk down that ditch and cover you while you bring the car up slowly.”

“I've got a better idea,” he said, opening his door. “I'll walk down the ditch, and you drive the car. I'm better at skulking than you. Wait here until I get in place.”

He jumped out of the car before she could nix his plan. He ran behind the car and slid into the ditch feet first. Waving to her with his gun, he hunkered down and slogged forward to disappear from sight. She waited with the car idling while she watched for his signal. When she saw a hand in the distance waving above the ditch, she knew he was in position. Her foot came off the brake pedal to let the car slowly roll forward.

She didn't hear the shot that put a hole in the windshield, but she felt the wind as the glass spider-webbed. As she turned her head away, she saw the passenger-side headrest explode. Bits of foam flew in all directions, while cracked glass obscured her view ahead. She reflexively hit the gas. The car swerved to the side then careened wildly on the muddy road as another volley of bullets punched through the roof of the car.

There was no way to tell where the shots were coming from. She yanked the steering wheel to swerve the car in the opposite direction to correct the slide and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The engine roared in response. Race stepped out from behind a tree on the right side of the road. His rifle was aimed in her direction. She ducked and heard a small explosion. The car pulled to the left, spinning around in a half circle, completely out of control as it drifted, back end first, toward the ditch, where it slid into the trench sideways.

For Bai, everything shifted into slow motion. Adrenaline surged through her body. Loud, wrenching groans erupted from the car as the passenger side plunged into the muck of the ditch. The seat belt cut into her shoulder when the car lurched onto its side then rocked back to cant at a forty-five-degree angle. The engine screamed, wheels spinning in the mud.

Her foot slipped off the pedal. The engine quieted. She lifted her head from where her cheek lay pressed against the passenger seat cushion and tried to get her bearings. A concussive blast from behind threw her violently forward against the seat belt. Sounds of screaming shrapnel and rending metal filled the air. The car shuddered and the engine died.

She thought the gas tank on the Beamer had exploded. Her first instinct was to bail out of the car. The seat belt refused to release; she was trapped. Her second instinct was to scream mindlessly with fright. She managed that admirably.

She stopped screaming abruptly when she realized she was still alive and there weren't any flames. The car was pointed in the direction from which she'd come. She poked her head up hesitantly to look through a hole in the windshield and saw Lee wading frantically though the ditch toward her. He stumbled, one arm dangling limply at his side, his gun gripped tightly in his other hand. Rage and fear contorted his features.

He yelled, “Bai! Bai, are you all right?”

He leaned against the hood of the car to peer through the fractured windshield. She met his eyes and grinned foolishly while objects other than water rained down from above—bits of tree and debris.

Something larger landed with a thump on the hood of the car. She stared through the windshield at the burnt fingers of a hand and saw a school ring. It was Benny's ring.

Lee stared at the hand, obviously mesmerized by its sudden appearance. He shook himself and shoved the hand off the hood of the car with the barrel of his gun. Then he looked through the window to meet her shell-shocked gaze.

“Can you move?” he yelled. The sound of his voice seemed to echo inside the car. “We need to get out of here!”

He looked around frantically, his gun held at the ready.

“I don't think I'm hurt,” she muttered as she swung around in her seat and used the palm of her hand to hammer at the release on the safety belt. It snapped open to drop her across the console, head first, up against the passenger door. As she lay there, she could see her gun on the floor below the passenger seat. She grabbed it before squirming upright to wiggle around and stare through the splintered windshield.

Lee stared back across the hood of the car with a concerned look on his face. He yelled, “Kick out the windshield! It's your only way out!”

Bai wasn't sure why he felt the need to yell. She put the soles of her shoes against the glass and gave a trial push with her legs. The window surprised her and popped out effortlessly to screech across the hood of the car. She scrambled after it as fast as she could and joined Lee in the ditch. They stood in water past their ankles.