She couldn"t breathe at all. She couldn"t move at all. A rush of panic overtook her as her head began to swim. Above her, a pair of dead, black eyes pierced into her from the small holes of a ski mask.
You can"t pa.s.s out, she barely had time to think before she did.
6:58 P.M. PST.
Chuck Morales straddled the woman lying on her back. Her hair-reddish-brown, not black-fanned out around her on the pavement. A sudden strong stirring arose within his groin. Chuck continued to watch for a moment after the woman"s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and then he cautiously loosened his grip on her small throat.
The body was lifeless.
He glanced down at her T-shirt, damp with perspiration, and thin running shorts. In this horizontal position, the T-shirt clung lightly to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and stomach, revealing the outline of her torso. The waistband of the shorts was elastic, but an additional drawstring poked out below her navel in a bow. Chuck pulled the drawstring open and then reached for his own fly. As he pulled down his zipper, a now full erection poked through a thin pair of cotton boxers, and he drew a breath.
Don"t lose your head because of your d.i.c.k, he reminded himself. While his left hand reestablished its grip on her throat, his right reached into a cargo pocket halfway down the right thigh of his loose pants. It emerged rapidly, and in three precise motions, the six-inch blade of a silver b.u.t.terfly knife caught the thin light of the slivered moon.
But suddenly there was too much light.
The ski mask blocking his peripheral vision, Chuck"s eyes jerked upward, and he turned his head toward the source of illumination. Headlights. From above.
"f.u.c.k," Chuck muttered. He quickly reversed his former hand movements to re-sheath the knife, dropped it back into the pocket, and stood up. Tucking his softening p.e.n.i.s back into his pants, he jerked the woman upright by her arms and threw her over one shoulder. Then he ducked quickly into the trees.
Chuck had barely gotten off the road, his victim still over his shoulder, when a patrol car rounded the switchback just above him on the road. He waited, motionless, while the car slowly pa.s.sed.
That"s a sign, bro, he heard in Oscar"s voice. Stop f.u.c.king around.
Slowly, almost gently, he lowered the body to the ground before him. He retrieved the knife from his pocket and reopened it, and then straddled the woman once again. Her eyes were closed. His left hand gripped her lower jaw to hold steady her head.
As Chuck"s right hand raised the knife to her throat, one of the woman"s knees thrashed upward, squarely crushing his s.c.r.o.t.u.m into his pelvic bone. Chuck"s groin exploded in sudden, immense, eye-popping, excruciating pain. "Ooooh," he moaned weakly as the pain flooded from his loins through the rest of his body and then turned to nausea.
Chuck fell sideways off the woman and retched. His body convulsed violently several times, each time drawing him into a tighter fetal position. For the next fifteen minutes, he was paralyzed, lying with the side of his face emerged in a small trickle of vomit, hands drawn protectively-too late-to his squashed, deflated t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.
7:43 P.M. PST.
By the time Roger Gilman arrived, there were four police cruisers lined up alongside an ambulance, and a fire truck stretched down the other side of the street. The lights of the police cars were still flashing, and a section of street had been sequestered from pa.s.sing traffic, but the sirens had been silenced. Gilman could hear the frantic barking of the four K-9 unit German Shepherd dogs racing through the foliage below.
Had Gilman not been notified in advance, he might not have recognized the woman before him.
Katrina Stone was sitting in the back of the ambulance, her legs dangling out of the opened door. One of them was skinned all the way from the hip to the knee, and a medic dabbed at the still-bleeding road rash. Stone held an ice pack to the back of her head with one hand. The other held a blanket around her torso. She was shivering violently. As Gilman neared her, she looked up and her red, puffy eyes briefly met his before she broke her gaze and looked at the ground beneath her.
Gilman felt a pang of guilt. From the moment of his own involvement in Operation Death Row, he had considered her the prime suspect in the investigation of an unspeakable crime. Looking at her now, he thought, there"s no way.
Stone was in the middle of giving her statement. "No, I didn"t say that," she said when Gilman arrived, "I didn"t know it was a cop coming by at all. I pa.s.sed out."
"I"m sorry," the police officer said sympathetically. "I must have misunderstood you. Can you please start over from when you were attacked?"
Stone sighed and began again. "I was running, and all of a sudden out of nowhere, this huge guy just slammed into me. I couldn"t breathe. He pinned me down. I was out of breath from running, and I couldn"t breathe because he"-she let go of the blanket and tried to demonstrate with her free arm-"he pinned me down. He sat on top of my stomach. He was wearing a ski mask. His eyes were like coal."
Her eyes began to well up again, and Gilman reached wordlessly into his pocket for a handkerchief. Stone took it and surprised him with a brief smile of grat.i.tude before she looked down at her feet and broke into sobs.
The officers huddled around her waited. Out of the corner of his eye, Gilman saw a flash of movement and then turned to see Sean McMullan charging toward them.
When he reached the circle of men surrounding Stone, McMullan gripped the shoulders of two of the policemen and pulled them roughly aside to step in toward her. He reached one hand forward to lay on her shoulder; with the other, he tilted her face upward to look into her eyes.
Stone"s sobbing was cut short with a slight gasp.
McMullan looked critically into one eye and then the other. He then looked away from her face to the b.u.mp on the top of her head, and scanned her body thoroughly. "You hit your head," he said, "can you follow my finger?" He held up an index finger vertically in front of her nose, and then began slowly moving it from one side to the other.
"The EMT already did that," an officer began with a bit of annoyance. McMullan"s eyes blazed as he stood upright and glared at the officer, who took a step backward, closing his mouth as he did. As McMullan"s attention returned to Stone, Gilman and the officer exchanged a glance.
Stone wiped her face with Gilman"s handkerchief and closed her eyes for a moment. As she did, she took three deep breaths and held each, letting the air out slowly each time. Then she looked back up, and for the first time, into the eyes of each man in turn.
Gilman was shocked at the transformation. It was if she had closed a valve that released her emotions. She handed back the handkerchief and gathered the blanket around herself once again.
This time, when she spoke, her voice was strong. Angry. Determined. And logical. "I pa.s.sed out, and when I came to he had me over his shoulders and was carrying me. There was a car pa.s.sing. I didn"t look up to see it. I kept still. I was hoping he wouldn"t know I was awake, which evidently, he didn"t.
"He put me down. After the car pa.s.sed he straddled the top of me again and I could hear him doing something. I couldn"t tell what he was doing... my eyes were closed... "
Stone closed her eyes again and paused for a moment, but this time it was not to gather her emotions. Gilman could sense her reliving the moment. She wanted to be sure to remember the details accurately. The data needed to be precise. Otherwise, the conclusions would be wrong. It was almost fascinating.
Gilman glanced at each of the officers briefly, and then settled his eyes upon McMullan. McMullan did not seem to notice. His gaze was focused on Stone, his jaw working, his face flushed, his breathing rapid.
As his eyes darted from one player to another, the sympathy Gilman had been feeling for Stone gradually began to wane. This was an intelligent woman. Out running, alone, on an abandoned beach, at night, in the middle of this investigation. She should have known better. And McMullan was in the palm of her hand. It was possible that she was playing with all of them.
"I felt one hand on my face and something up against my throat," Stone said. "Something cold. I a.s.sumed it was a knife. I decided it was now or never, so I kneed him in the nuts as hard as I could. He fell off me, and I got up and ran the rest of the way up the hill. I didn"t have my cell phone, so I started heading back toward my car to get it, but then you showed up." The last line was directed at the officer who had been questioning her.
Gilman interjected, "If she didn"t call you, then who did?"
"n.o.body," the officer replied. "This is my normal route. I had just driven down the hill to the beach and was on my way back up. She must have just beat me to the top."
Sean McMullan interjected. "You mean she ran up this hill, after having just been knocked unconscious, faster than you could drive up it? Didn"t you hear anything?"
Stone interrupted. "There was nothing to hear, Sean. My mouth was covered the whole time I was awake. I couldn"t scream. Then once I got away, I was just running. I wasn"t making any noise. I guess I was just trying to get as far away from him as possible. I was lucky this officer showed up. Otherwise, I probably would have just run all the way to my car."
McMullan redirected his interrogation. "What about the dogs? Haven"t they found anything down there?"
An officer who had previously been silent answered. "They"ve definitely gotten a scent but it"s led them to the beach. After that, they"re lost. I guess the guy went into the water."
"Well if he doesn"t drown or die of hypothermia, he has to come back out," Gilman said optimistically.
"He better hope he drowns or dies of hypothermia," McMullan answered, and turned to run down the hill to the beach.
Five hundred yards up the coastline, Chuck swam parallel to the beach. The late-winter Pacific Ocean was below fifty degrees. As his body turned from cold, to pain, to numb, Chuck remained as submerged as possible only allowing his nose and mouth to peek out of the water with each subsiding wave, in order to catch a breath. I"ll probably catch f.u.c.king pneumonia, he thought. The b.i.t.c.h is going to pay for this.
9:01 P.M. PST.
An hour later, serenity had been restored to the suburban road atop the police beach access street. Katrina, Roger Gilman, and one police officer were the only three people remaining. On one side of the police cruiser was Gilman"s car. Sean McMullan"s black sedan remained jutting into the street, its awkward angle evidence of a hurried parking job. But McMullan had still not returned from the beach.
He"s probably chasing the guy down the coastline, Katrina was thinking.
"Katrina, seriously," Gilman said quietly. "I realize we can"t force you to go to the hospital, but I really don"t think you should be driving home. I know it"s tough to insist anything with you, but please, let me drive you. I"m begging you-don"t drive right now. You"re too upset, and you"ve also hit your head."
Katrina looked into his eyes and was surprised to find that she believed in his sincerity. Even with the veiled allusion to her stubbornness, about which Katrina knew he was right, his intentions seemed to be truly in her best interest. She was both skeptical and relieved.
"Who"s going to drive me?" she said. "All three of you have your own cars, and if one of you takes me, then my car will be stuck here. Otherwise it"s a bunch of driving around for more than one person. Just take me to my car and let me go home."
Gilman paused for a moment. "Where is your daughter tonight?"
Katrina grimaced and threw a hand over her eyes. "Oh s.h.i.t! What time is it?"
"Almost nine fifteen."
"I"m late to pick up Lexi from her dad"s house."
Gilman reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "Well, he"s probably worried something happened to you. And by the way, something did. So tell him to come pick you up and drop you and your daughter off at your house."
Katrina shook her head at him, but for the first time that evening, she smiled.
Ten minutes later, Gilman had dismissed the uniformed officer. He and Katrina were alone, leaning on the back b.u.mper of his car in silence, when Tom Stone"s Jeep screeched to a halt next to Sean McMullan"s car. Tom leaped from the driver"s seat and raced toward Katrina. "Are you OK?" he asked.
"Yeah, I"m OK."
Kimberly and Alexis slipped up behind Tom. "Hi, Katrina," Kimberly said softly.
"Hey, Kim," Katrina said, without looking up.
"I"m-I"m really sorry this happened to you," Kimberly said.
"So am I." The voice was Lexi"s.
Katrina went to her daughter, and Alexis stood still to allow Katrina to hug her tightly.
"So, what"s the plan?" Katrina asked then. "Geez, I feel like such an invalid here."
Tom chuckled slightly. "Well, it"s about time you let someone take care of you for once, even if it"s just to give you a d.a.m.n ride home. Give me your keys."
Gilman produced them from his pocket. "We found them on the path near where you were attacked," he said.
"Kim is going to take you and Lexi to your house in my Jeep, and I"m going to follow in your car," Tom said. "Simple as pie. I"ll even trot over to the gliderport to get your car... you don"t even have to give me a lift."
"How"d you know my car was at the gliderport?" Katrina asked.
"Because I was married to you for nine years, dummy." He stuck out his tongue and jogged off.
Sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of Tom"s Jeep, Katrina looked wordlessly out the window. Lexi and Kimberly were silent as well.
Katrina finally spoke. "I think there"s something I need to tell you."
"Who?" Kimberly asked.
"Actually, both of you."
"What?" Alexis leaned forward over the back of Katrina"s seat.
Katrina sighed and turned sideways in her seat in order to be able to face both of the other women. "I think we-I-well, maybe you too-might be in serious danger. I"m not convinced that this attack was random."
"I don"t understand," Kimberly said. "I thought the terror threat was over. I thought now it"s just a matter of you finishing whatever you"re doing, and then the government will take it and move on. I thought everything is fine now."
Katrina shook her head. "It"s not over. Something is still going on. My postdoc recently had his apartment broken into, and I"m wondering if this is related. I"m not saying you need to be paranoid. I"m just saying that you-all of us-should watch our backs. I don"t know. Maybe I"m being paranoid. But better safe than sorry."
Kimberly took her eyes off the road long enough to give Katrina a hard glare, and then reverted to staring directly in front of her. "That job of yours is going to be the death of us all. You"re like an alcoholic, too wrapped up in your own situation to see the effect it"s having on you and everyone around you."
"Look, Kimberly," Katrina said. "I didn"t say that I know for certain that there is anything to worry about. I"m just trying to give you a heads up in case there is. And anyway, it"s not my fault. I"m doing the best I can. And it really has been a rough night for me. So cut me some slack, OK?"
Kimberly looked back over at her, but her face had softened. "I"m sorry," she said. "I know you"ve had a s.h.i.tty, scary night and I shouldn"t have said that. We"ll talk about it later."
A moment pa.s.sed in silence. "OK," Katrina said at last.
When she turned to address Lexi, who had been wordless throughout the exchange, her daughter was looking out the window. I hope she is even listening, Katrina thought. If you never listen to me about anything ever again, just this one time, please, Lexi.
"Alexis?" Katrina said.
The girl"s face snapped forward, away from the window, and her eyes bored into her mother. What Katrina saw there was pure rage.