Cold Springs(17)

Inside the café, Mallory's friend in camouflage hadn't turned around yet, but it was only a matter of seconds.

“Your mother's made the decision, sweetheart,” Chadwick said. “Cold Springs is a good place to turn your life around.”

“I don't need turning around.”

“You're living on the street with a drug dealer,” he reminded her. “Is that where you want to be?”

Mallory glared down at the chessboard—a lopsided game in progress, her white pieces sweeping the board.

“He's not a dealer,” she said. “He's my friend.”

Chadwick heard no conviction in her voice. She was a little girl, trying to explain a nightmare.

“Let's talk in the car,” he said.

“His mother was killed. She f**king died, Chadwick.”

“Okay, honey.”

“I can't leave him. He's in trouble. It's my f**king fault.”

“Okay, honey. Okay.”

A few people at the inside tables were now watching them through the glass. Olsen kept a nervous eye on the guy in camouflage.

Chadwick willed the young dealer to keep chatting up the espresso guy. He willed Olsen to stay put—don't press the girl. Don't ruin it.

“Mallory,” he said, “we can work it all out. I wouldn't be here if I didn't believe this was the best thing for you. Come with us.”

Chadwick could feel the situation teetering. Mallory was about to crumble, to let herself be a kid again and cry, probably for the first time since she'd run away from her mother.

Then the camouflage boy, Race, turned and saw them.

Olsen made a small noise in her throat like a bedspring snapping loose.

“Get in the car,” she told Mallory. “Now.”

She grabbed Mallory's arm, but underestimated the strength of a desperate kid.

With all ninety pounds of her body weight, Mallory shoved Olsen away, into the table, which collapsed under her. Chess pieces clattered down the sidewalk and Mallory took off up Ocean View.

Chadwick saw things unfold in slow motion—Race coming out the door, reaching into his jacket; Olsen scrambling up, not ready to defend herself; Mallory Zedman ducking into the alley behind the café dumpster.

Chadwick cursed, but he had to let Mallory run.

Race came around the corner.

Chadwick registered the boy's features with the instant clarity you get when looking at a person who is trying to kill you—nappy rust hair, jawline like a lightning bolt, Arabic nose and eyes as hard and bright as amber.

Race's face transfixed him, resonating with an old, dark memory even as the gun came out of the boy's coat, the muzzle rising toward his head.

Chadwick only unfroze when Olsen screamed his name.

His right fist caught Race in the nose, his left coming from underneath, hitting the kid's gut hard enough to slam him backwards onto the sidewalk, where he curled into a combat-colored heap, the gun clattering into the street.

Olsen looked at Chadwick, her eyes blank.

“Come on,” he told her, then he ran.

Chadwick had lost precious time, but his stride carried him well. He saw Mallory at the opposite end of the alley. She crashed into a sidewalk flower seller, knocked over a bucket of yellow roses, dashed into the street and barely missed getting run over by an SUV.

Chadwick started closing the distance. When he came out of the alley, Mallory was pounding up the steps of the BART station sandwiched between lanes of traffic on the Highway 24 overpass.

An eastbound train was pulling into the platform. Mallory could easily be on board before he got there.

Chadwick ran, kicked up a cloud of pigeons, took the stairs four at a time. He got into the terminal in time to hear the station manager yell, “Hey!” and see Mallory hurdle the turnstile.

Chadwick yelled, “She's mine!” and jumped the gate.

The BART manager yelled, “HEY!” with more outrage.

The escalators to the platform were all moving the wrong way. This was the evening commute—everybody coming back to Rockridge, not going out. Chadwick got up top, did a quick visual sweep. The wind and the cold were intense, the view stunning—hills streaked with fog, lights of houses like fairy glow; the Oakland-Berkeley flatlands spread out to the west, trickling to a point at the red and silver lights of the Bay Bridge; the Bay itself, an expanse of liquid aluminum.

Then he spotted Mallory—thirty yards down the platform, pounding on the closed doors of the train, trying to get in. She pried at the rubber seal with her fingers. The train slid away, pulling Mallory with it for a few feet before she stumbled backwards, cursing.

Chadwick closed in, pushing against the wave of exit-bound commuters. Mallory stared at him like a cornered possum.

Another train was coming from the hills—its yellow headlights just now visible in the east. Chadwick would have Mallory in hand before it reached the station.

Mallory moved back, to the very end of the platform, then glanced across the rail pit—at the chain link fence that separated the station from the highway.

Don't be crazy, Chadwick thought.

Mallory jumped.

She hit the fence, but failed to hold on to it and tumbled back into the rail pit, her back slamming into the metal, money spilling out of her coat pocket—a brick of cash. Her foot was inches from the electric third rail.