Cold Springs(118)

Kindra's voice trailed off, and Mallory realized the clumping sound she'd heard before had become louder—a heartbeat against the earth.

The rhythm slowed to a patter, and she heard a man's voice, followed by Olsen's broken murmur.

Mallory's ears had to be deceiving her.

She glimpsed the patch of green again, directly ahead—Kindra's jacket. Mallory was considering a knife throw—remembering her four-in-ten average back in camp, Leyland telling her that was damn good for a novice. Four-in-ten, life and death, against a moving target. She was weighing those piss-poor odds when Chadwick's voice shouted her name.

There he was, rising above the corn on the back of the bay filly from Cold Springs—riding a goddamn horse, like goddamn George Washington. All her life she'd heard that's who he looked like, but she'd never seen the resemblance until now.

The bay's coat was glossy with sweat. Chadwick's clothes were torn and water-stained as if he'd ridden through a million tree branches to get here.

Their eyes met. Mallory couldn't say anything. She couldn't warn him; she couldn't even decide if she wanted to. She thought of when she was small—how she'd believed Katherine was so lucky having Chadwick as a father, a silent, gentle giant who would always protect her. And now here he was, riding to her rescue. Mallory wanted to cry. She wanted to break down and yell at him to watch out. But she couldn't do it. She resented him. He was a false hope, a hallucination—a chemical glitch of adrenaline and hormones and he**in withdrawal. Chadwick couldn't have ridden all this way in one morning. He would've had to start at dawn, before he even knew she was in trouble.

Chadwick's eyes were trying to communicate a thousand things. Then his attention turned—he must've seen Kindra Jones. He raised an old-fashioned revolver, but Jones had had plenty of time to aim. A shot thundered, the horse whinnied in pain and toppled, taking Chadwick with it. There was a sickening crunch, then the sound of the horse huffing, thrashing through the stalks.

When the commotion died down, Mallory heard Jones say, “Well, lookee here. My partner.”

“Mallory.” Chadwick's voice was tight with pain. “Run. Get out of here.”

Mallory edged closer, knowing it was crazy. She could see through the screen of corn plants—Kindra standing over Chadwick, his leg bent at an unnatural angle. Chadwick's gun was gone. The horse was nowhere in sight. Blood painted a trail of crushed corn plants where the wounded animal must've gotten back on its hooves and run away.

Kindra paced around Chadwick, keeping the gun barrel trained on his head. “Samuel says hello, Chad. He says you should've stayed with your lady friend this morning.”

“You've got the money from Laurel Heights. Twenty-seven million dollars.”

“Not bad for an Oakland girl with a teaching degree. You find teaching rewarding, Chadwick? Shit, I do.”

“You have what you want. Walk away.”

Kindra's smile seemed sleepy, her eyes half lidded behind her glasses. “Katherine tells me you're right. She says to go on—catch my plane. She was hoping you'd stay at the hotel this morning, get caught by the FBI. I could live with that, Chadwick, knowing you'd spend the rest of your life in a f**king prison. But, see, here you are.”

Mallory heard sirens in the distance.

Kindra kept pacing, ignoring the sound. “I don't know how you got here so fast. Calls for some flexibility, but I'm flexible. Hell, ten f**king years I've lived Samuel's life as well as mine—I'm damn flexible. All those years leading up to this. Right here, with you.”

“You killed your own mother, John Zedman, Pérez. The police know about you, Kindra. Race came forward with the whole story. The police are on their way.”

She laughed, but the sound was brittle. “Race, huh? Race did that.” She yelled, “You hear him, Mallory? This killer, he blames me. He talks about the police, like he really wants to meet them. Come on out, honey. I want you to see this. Be good for you—closure, what your counselor would say. A real live abuser doll about to get crushed.”

“Forget the girl,” Chadwick said. “Let her go.”

“You shouldn't have given my little brother your card, Chadwick. Not after what you've done to my family. You shouldn't have tried to protect me from those rednecks at that truck stop. There's only one protector in my family. Only one person who can do what needs to be done. Kill that bastard Ali. Take care of Race. Take care of Kindra. Katherine's talking to me now, Chadwick. She's pleading with me to spare your sorry-ass life. But I'm finally going to get her voice out of my head. I'm going to listen to Samuel on this one.”

And Mallory suddenly understood her anger. She suddenly understood Jones. She remembered the rage that had made her take a hammer to her mother's apartment, let out nine years of hate, blaming her parents for what she'd become—for the path she'd started the night Katherine died.

The sirens kept wailing, closer now.

Mallory could run—get away clean, nothing but the dry snap of a gun discharge behind her. Nothing on her conscience. Justice served.

But she imagined Olsen's voice—Olsen, whose last words had been about trusting Chadwick. Olsen saying, Some connections, you can't break. Olsen, who was dead in a welter of blood in the front seat of the van.