"I think they went away."
"Sure hope so," Jody said. "I think we"d better stay here, though. How"s the old knee?"
"I don"t know. I"m not so sure it"s broken anymore."
"What, you think it healed?"
"I don"t think I broke it. Maybe it"s just twisted."
"It better be broken after you made me drag you all over creation."
He was silent for a few moments. Then he said, "You saved me, Jody."
"Yeah, well. Glad to be of service. You were pretty good yourself, pal."
He sank against the ground and rested his hands over his hips. He sighed.
"Are you okay?" Jody asked again.
"Sure." A while later, he said, "They got everyone, didn"t they?"
Jody lay down beside him. She pulled his arm and he rolled onto his side. They scooted toward each other until their bodies met. She held him. "It"s all right," she whispered.
Like h.e.l.l, she thought. They killed them all. His mom and dad, Evelyn. His whole family.
"Everything"ll be all right," she said.
Andy didn"t say anything.
After a while, he began to cry.
Jody squeezed him tight against her while he wept with his face pushed against the side of her neck.
Soon after he stopped crying, the sirens began. There seemed to be one at first, then many, their wails rising and overlapping and dying.
The night was still filled with sirens when Jody murmured, "Good G.o.d. I haven"t heard anything like this since the riots."
"Sure sounds like a lot of cops," Andy said.
"Not just cops. Fire trucks."
"Do you think so?"
"Yeah."
As the noise of the sirens diminished, Jody heard car doors thudding shut, voices shouting, other voices tinny and amplified by loud speakers, others broken, crackling with static.
"Do you think my house is burning down?" Andy asked.
"It might be. I hope not, but .."
"Do you think they"re in it?"
"Oh, Andy."
"They are, aren"t they?"
"I don"t know." She pressed her mouth against the side of his head. After a while, she said, "We oughta get up there. The sooner we tell the police what happened, the better."
She started to ease away, but Andy tightened his arms around her.
"Come on," she whispered.
"I don"t wanta."
"I"ll help you walk."
"That isn"t why."
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"Stay here."
"Do you want me to go up and bring someone ... ?"
"No! You"ve gotta stay, too."
"Andy."
"Please. We gotta just stay here."
Jody relaxed in his arms. She gently stroked the back of his head. "Are you afraid those guys might be up there?"
His head moved beneath her hand, nodding.
"They didn"t come down after us," she said.
"They might be waiting."
"I don"t think so. They probably started the fire on purpose, you know? It"s a great way to destroy physical evidence."
"Fingerprints and stuff?"
"Yeah. All kinds of things. So they probably started the fire and then took off. They sure wouldn"t want to be here when the fire trucks and cops showed up. They"re probably miles away by now."
"Maybe."
"They"d be nuts to stick around."
Andy was silent for a few moments, then said, "You think they"re not nuts?"
"Okay. I should"ve said *stupid." They"re nuts, all right, but they aren"t stupid. Those two didn"t jump off the balcony, for instance. They knew they might get hurt. And they didn"t come down here. Must"ve figured it"d be a waste of time, and too risky. Or maybe my trick with the phone worked. If they really thought I"d gotten through to 911, they had to figure the cops would be showing up in five or ten minutes. They didn"t want to be around when the cops arrived."
"I guess not," Andy admitted.
"Which means they"re gone, right?"
"I guess so."
"They"re gone."
"Okay."
"So let"s get out of here."
He shook his head and hugged her very hard.
"Andy."
"What if they"re waiting for us?"
"They aren"t. Come on, we just went through this."
"Maybe they all took off like you said, but maybe they left just one guy behind to hide and wait for us and ambush us when we come out?"
Jody hadn"t thought of that. "That"s crazy," she said.
"Yeah."
She could see the ax man crouching in the dark. Waiting. Knowing she and Andy would be drawn up the hill by the promise of safety in the hands of the police.
They knew it"d be awfully tough to find us down here.
One guy could stay behind easily enough. The rest of them drive off, and he stays. Millions of places to hide. He hides and waits and just when we think it"s all over he jumps us and that"s all she wrote.
Oh, man. It made sense..
"I don"t know," she whispered.
"Remember what you said to Mable?" He must"ve detected that Jody was starting to see the matter his way. His voice sounded quick, almost eager, and he relaxed his hold on her. "You said they had to kill us because we"re witnesses."
"Yeah. I know."
"They aren"t gonna just let us get away. They"ll leave a guy behind to jump us the minute we show ourselves. I know they will."
"I guess ... they might."
Right now, she thought, there must be bunches of cops up there. Cops and firemen. We"ll be fine once we get to them. If we wait too long, though, they"ll be gone. Then we"ll be on our own.
"I don"t know what to do," she muttered.
"Let"s just stay here."
"We can"t stay here forever."
"Till morning. If we wait till morning, n.o.body can sneak up on us. We can see him coming, you know?"
"He might see us before we see him. And by then, the cops and firemen might not be around anymore."
"We oughta wait till morning."
"I don"t know."
"Let"s stay."
"I"ve gotta think about it."
Andy snuggled against her.
She stroked his hair and caressed his back and tried to think. She wanted very badly to be with the cops who were probably all over the place in front of the Clark house. As much as she wanted that, however, she hated to do what would be necessary to make it happen.
Waiting for dawn would be a mistake, though.
She asked herself what her father would do in a situation like this. And the answer came fast.
She didn"t have to wait long for Andy to fall asleep. As soon as his breathing changed and his body relaxed against her, she began to ease away from him. She moved very slowly. She paused often. At last, their bodies were untangled. She rolled over, got to her hands and knees, and stood up.
Andy lay on his side, head cushioned on one bent arm, his other arm resting along his side, his legs back.
Definitely asleep, Jody told herself.
But she feared that he might wake up the instant she looked away-as if her gaze was the only power that kept him sleeping. So she watched him while she crept sideways.
What if this is the last time I see him alive?
What if I come back with a cop and he"s dead, all b.l.o.o.d.y and hacked and ...
He"ll be okay.
She began to climb straight up the slope.
After making up her mind to go for the police by herself, she had considered the best way to do it. The sensible course would"ve been to make a major detour-head off to one side or the other, or actually move away from the hillside, climb whatever fences might be in the way, and cut through someone"s yard to whatever road might be down here.
A lot of directions to choose from. One crazy lunatic, left behind to finish the job, couldn"t cover every place.
A detour might be safer than the direct route, but it would sure take longer.
She wanted to reach the cops fast and get back to Andy fast.