Cold Springs(117)

Jones spun the car onto another side road. A quarter mile down, she pulled over with the driver's side wedged against a wall of corn, hit the unlock button for the doors. “Everybody out.”

There was nothing outside—just icy road and cornfields. The van had a sliding door on the left side, behind the driver's seat, pressed up against the corn. Mallory's fingers wrapped around the handle.

“Jones,” Olsen said, “start the car.”

“We need to get out and talk.” Jones' hand reached into her coat by her hip, as if she were unfastening her seatbelt. “The girl is partly right. I'm Race's sister.”

“You're what?”

“I'm here because of Chadwick.” Kindra looked back at Mallory, her eyes burning with intensity—Race's eyes, the moment he'd seen his mother dead. “Chadwick's the one you should be worried about, Mallory. He's a f**king monster. He killed Emilio Pérez the night after we talked to him. He killed my brother Samuel. And I'll tell you something else Olsen doesn't want you to know—Chadwick killed your dad.”

“No.” Olsen was shaking her head. “Mallory, he did no such thing.”

“She doesn't want you to hear it. Your dad was found last night. Dead in Chadwick's old house. Shot three times, stuffed in a closet. Chadwick did that. And you'd better ask yourself why Olsen isn't surprised by the news, even though she was out in the woods with you all night.”

Mallory's heart was unraveling into veins and arteries. This couldn't be true. None of it.

“You're the monster,” Olsen told Kindra. “Mallory—don't listen to her. Chadwick would never do that. My backpack is behind you. Get the phone out. Do it now.”

“Okay,” Jones conceded placidly. “You don't want to get out of the car? That's fine. Messier, but fine.”

The gunshot jerked Olsen back in her seat like an electric shock. She gripped her abdomen with both hands, gaped at Jones in disbelief, blood oozing through her fingers.

Mallory couldn't breathe, couldn't make her limbs obey.

Olsen opened her mouth, as if to protest, and a second gunshot blew a hole just above her kneecap, red mist erupting from the wound like a comet tail.

Mallory's brain managed one blunt command to her body: Move.

She shoved open her door and dove into the corn. The gun fired again. Glass shattered—the window where her head had been a moment before.

Mallory clattered away through the corn, her ears ringing. She couldn't see, could only feel the corn cutting into her, slashing at her sleeves.

“Come on, Mallory,” Jones yelled, somewhere behind her. “You're running from the wrong person.”

Mallory kept running. The gun fired again, a bullet hissing through a corn stalk inches from her ear.

Stupid, she scolded herself. Jones can see the corn moving.

She dove down, pressed herself into the snow.

She heard Jones picking her way across the field, slowly coming toward her.

“Mallory, I don't have a problem with you. But Chadwick is a killer. Katherine's death really messed him up. You got to see that.”

Mallory knew the words were a lie. Jones had brought her to this field to die.

But her father . . . she pictured him huddled in the cabinet at Katherine's house, in the secret space where she'd played hide-and-seek among the broken clock parts. She imagined a gunshot wound opening in her father's chest, his hand clutching at the blood, his eyes wide with dismay. She wanted to cry. She wanted someone to blame.

“Olsen was helping him.” Kindra Jones was rustling through the corn, getting closer to her. “They had the whole thing planned. You see that, don't you? Chadwick hates your parents. He hates you. You survived and his precious daughter didn't. Katherine was my friend, Mallory—she told me what her father was like. She killed herself because of him, because she knew what he was like and she couldn't live with the truth anymore. I'm here to stop him. I can't rely on the police to do that. I'm here to protect you and Race. That's Samuel's job, honey. That's what a big brother does.”

“No,” Mallory protested, realizing too late that she'd spoken aloud.

The rustling stopped.

Mallory heard a sound in the distance like horse's hooves, but it was only in her mind—her own heart hammering.

Survival rules. Survey. Organize. Strategize.

What was there to survey? Jones was strong. She was armed, and intended to kill her. Mallory was going to die.

No. Not without a fight.

She felt around her, found a peach-sized stone, smooth and heavy.

The rustling started again, then Mallory saw a patch of green, Jones' flannel jacket, and threw her stone as high and as far away as possible.

Somewhere off to the north, the rock splashed in the corn. Jones stopped, then her green flannel receded. She'd taken the bait. Now her back would be to Mallory.

Mallory slid her knife from its sheath, rose to a crouch.

“I'm going to leave here today, Mallory,” Jones was calling. “El Salvador, buy me a house on the beach.”

Keep talking, Mallory thought. Give me a target.

“No extradition, Mal. Nobody asking questions as long as you got money. You can come with me. You and Race both. New house, a new life. You ever been to the beaches in Central America, honey? I hear . . .”