Thicker Than Blood (28 page)

At last the car appeared and terror began to give way to elation. She was breaking into a run when a shot sounded behind her and dirt spewed from the ground a few feet ahead. She threw herself to the ground.

A harsh voice rang out behind her. “Stop!”

Rachel pitched herself to her feet and tried to run toward the car. Her energy was gone. She stubbed her toe, lurched to one knee, rose and forced herself forward again.

The car didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

Another shot hit a rock to her left, spewing fragments of stone. One bit into her cheek. She started to drop to the ground, thought better of it, and instead dodged in the direction of the rock, then right again.

Trying to work the key out of her pocket as she ran, she hurled herself one way, then the other. Don’t make it a pattern. The thought drummed through her head. Keep him guessing. Four steps right, five left.

Another shot churned up dirt a few feet to her right. She ran on, thanking God she had turned the car around before she parked.

Pain seared through her left arm just above the elbow. She dropped the key.

Frenzied fingers searched the ground. The key gleamed among a dozen dirt-imbedded stones. She snatched it up and ran again.

A bullet struck metal somewhere close ahead. If he managed to disable the car, she was dead—or as good as.

But the Toyota seemed relatively unharmed. Rachel plunged under the bumper. More shots pierced metal. The shooter wasn’t far. And he would be watching the driver’s door.

Key in hand, she slid out beneath the passenger door, rose and jammed the key into the lock. Seconds later she was in the driver’s seat and the motor was running. Darkness was moving in fast. Unable to see much of the road, she turned on the headlights, then quickly thrust them off again.

A bullet slammed into the passenger seat.

A web of cracks had appeared on the windshield near the upper right corner.

But the car was moving, complaining loudly, jouncing hard against the rocks. The Toyota was not built for this, but it was moving.

The left front wheel careened off a rock, and for a moment she thought the car would roll. But it righted itself. A quarter mile later, the surface under the tires went smooth. She had reached the main road. Blindly, she turned the steering wheel left and gunned the engine.

Forty, fifty, sixty. She wasn’t sure when the shooting had stopped. Had there been a car nearby, hidden in the brush? Was he behind her even now?

The moon was bright, but she was barely able to see the road. Her foot hovered over the brake. Red rear lights would be glowing bull’s-eyes.

But a blind crash, if it didn’t kill her, would strand her with her pursuer.

She stomped down on the brake. The car fish-tailed, skidding sideways, but held the pavement. No lights showed in the rearview mirror. If he was back there, he wouldn’t be able to see either, and his vehicle would probably be a pickup or a four-wheel-drive. Neither was built for speed. The Toyota would fare better on the open road.

She turned on the headlights and floored the accelerator.

Chapter Forty-six

Rachel wrestled the steering wheel, the pain flaring through her arm, bringing beads of sweat to her upper lip The car almost foundered in a chuck hole. She slowed her speed and cautiously probed the area near her left elbow. Her fingers came away damp. She wiped them on her jeans.

The desert here was flat and filled with moonlight and shadows. She passed no cars, saw no lights until she reached the main highway.

A car sped down the hill toward her. Past her. Another followed. Ordinary people living ordinary lives. The gas station where she and Hank had called the sheriff was closed. Eight miles later, Rachel pulled into a brightly lit Shell station and stopped at the full-service island, leaning her shoulder against the inside of the door so the attendant wouldn’t see the blood on her torn jacket.

“What happened?” He pointed at the spider’s web of broken windshield. His hair, long in back, had been shorn to the scalp on the sides. His pants were slung so low he looked like a child whose dirty diaper was weighing him down.

“Attacked by kamikazes,” she said, and left him trying to figure out what a kamikaze was.

In the rest room, Rachel shed her jacket, rolled up the sleeve of her tee shirt, and examined her arm in the mirror. The blood had begun to cake around a diagonal gash that began just below her shoulder. She washed it carefully, wincing at the cold of the water and sting of the soap. She unrolled the toilet paper and, careful not to touch the sheets, covered the wound.

By the time she reached the cabin, the moon had disappeared. Unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer, she broke her own rule and parked in the driveway. She was turning off the engine when weariness gave way to panic.

A light was showing through the crack between the drapes. A light she was certain she had not left on.

And a figure was moving through the shadows toward her.

Chapter Forty-seven

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” The hoarse voice hurled the question like a rock.

For several seconds, Rachel sat immobilized, clutching the steering wheel, unable to do anything but blink.

The figure reached the driver’s door and shook the handle.

“Rachel! Are you all right?” The familiar voice finally penetrated her numb mind. Hank.

She tried to get out of the car, but her knees buckled.

She felt herself being carried, but beyond that, could not connect with reality except to note that the room was brightly lit.

333

Blue sheep marched across the top blanket of the pile of bedding that covered her. They were very like the blue sheep on the blanket that had covered her childhood bed. But those sheep had been pink.

Rachel rolled over. She was wearing little beyond one makeshift bandage on her arm, another on her leg. Stretching, she was surprised that there was little answering pain from beneath the bandages. Then she noticed the two crushed pillows were stacked against the headboard next to her.

And someone was frying bacon.

“About time,” said Hank from the doorway. “It’s almost noon.”

Over her third piece of toast, wrapped in the blanket of blue sheep, she explained.

Hank’s face grew grimmer with each sentence.

“So I did a stupid thing.”

“Not stupid,” he said. “Insane.”

“But I got the…oh, God, where is it? I tied it up in plastic.”

“Over there.” Hank pointed at the kitchen counter. “It fell out of the car about the same time you did.”

“What does it look like?”

“Morton’s salt.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“Where all the good little clothes go when they die. In the trash.”

“But I don’t have many others here,” Rachel wailed.

“They look like you wore them in the front lines in Iraq.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I didn’t have that much gas.”

His blue eyes glared at her and her flippancy fled. He began clattering dirty dishes into the sink.

Clutching the blanket around her, she crossed the kitchen and put a hand on his arm. “I didn’t expect you back so soon. I should have left a note or something. I’m sorry.”

Suds-covered hands gripped her shoulders. His voice was hoarse and harsh. “I don’t want to lose you.” His hard and insistent mouth gentled when it met hers.

The blue-sheep blanket slipped. She again felt herself being carried. This time, she was connecting very well with reality. “The bacon will burn.”

“I turned it off.”

Her bare toes touched the floor by the bed. Kind, clumsy fingers tugged at the blanket.

Chapter Forty-eight

“Of course, it never entered your mind you could have been killed,” Goldie sputtered. They were in the cabin kitchen dyeing Rachel’s hair.

“You’ll drip that stuff all over me and it’ll never come out.” Rachel’s words were muffled by the towel she was holding at her hairline.

“You should have called me before you left,” Goldie shouted.

“You would have told me not to go.”

“And sure as God made little green grasshoppers I would have been right. That was the world’s dumbest move going down there alone. You not only deserved to get shot at, you deserved to get hit.”

“It wasn’t much more than a scratch. What do you make of the plane being a crop duster?”

“Just goes to show how sly folks can get when they’re huntin’ ways to put their paws on millions of bucks.” Goldie wrinkled her nose. “This stuff smells like it came from a mortuary.”

Rachel lifted the towel and gasped for air. “You think it smells bad up there, you ought to try it down here.”

“I have more sense than to give myself orange hair.” Goldie dabbed at Rachel’s head. “Ooh, I bet that feels good, just one cold drip at a time going down the back of your neck.” She turned to rummage in the drawers next to the sink. “If we had a plastic bag and a rubber band.…What the pink and purple hell are these?” She held up three paper packages marked Terumo ½ cc that obviously held syringes.

Rachel peered from under the towel. “Looks like hypodermic needles.”

“What the hell are they doing in that drawer?”

“Don’t look at me. I may have some bad habits, but shooting up was never one of them. Someone must’ve left them here. Some former guest was a doper? The owner’s a diabetic? How would I know?” Rachel retreated again beneath the towel.

“Put that little orange head of yours in the sink. Well, it ain’t exactly orange any more.”

“It’s supposed to be brown,” said Rachel. “Dark brown.”

“Well, let’s see now. Looks kind of green to me.”

Rachel’s head came up out of the sink, eyes wide.

“That’s a real interesting expression. The white is showing all the way around your eyes.” Goldie rinsed Rachel’s hair and handed her a fresh towel.

“Hank took the stuff I found in the plane to the same chemist who analyzed the others.”

Goldie planted her back against the kitchen counter and crossed her arms, scowling.

With no warning, Rachel burst into tears. “How can any of this be? What’s happened to Pop? And Clancy?”

Goldie put her arms around her until the sobs subsided.

Rachel wiped her eyes with a corner of the towel. “If that number I gave you is some sort of serial number, we can find out who owns that plane.”

The phone rang. Twice, then twice again. Both women froze, staring at the black instrument on the table until it began for the third time—the signal she had arranged with Hank.

Rachel picked it up. “Goldie’s Dye House,” she announced into the receiver, then listened intently. “You’re kidding…but that’s crazy.… No, I’m not going anywhere. Goldie thinks thumbscrews would be a suitable punishment if I so much as open the door.… Okay.” She hung up.

Goldie was looking at her expectantly.

“The lab test. He got them to rush it.”

“And?”

“It’s sodium selenate. The same thing that killed Lonnie, the same stuff that was in Jason’s envelope. And here’s maybe the oddest thing. Selenium killed a bunch of ducks at a wetland over near Salinas. My friend Bruno thinks he’s going to lose his farm because of it.”

Goldie shook her head when Rachel finished explaining. “This gets weirder by the minute.”

They hashed and rehashed things until every possible explanation was limp and tasteless as old chewing gum.

“Selenium has to be an ingredient,” Rachel said, “in whatever Harry Hunsinger was concocting in the lab. And that plane must have been smuggling selenium.”

“Selenium’s not illegal,” Goldie said. “Why bother smuggling it?”

“Because they were using so much of it someone would get suspicious if they bought it?”

“You could be onto something there,” Goldie agreed.

“Maybe we should try to get hold of someone at the water agency. See if they have any idea why someone would be after me.”

Goldie wasn’t sure. “Making drugs, hiding plane wreckage. Too many people at that water agency were in on that deal. Say we call the wrong person and he passes the information along to whoever’s hunting you.”

“Damn,” Rachel said, and was silent a long moment. “But I know someone over there who I would bet wasn’t involved in that scheme.”

“Of course Hank wasn’t,” Goldie said. “But he’s already doing all he can to find out what’s going on.”

“Hank doesn’t have the clout to ask the hard questions. This guy does.”

“Who?”

“Andrew Greer. He’s just been appointed general manager—Jason’s job. Hank and I met him at the Pig. He was with Charlotte.”

Goldie was pouring two glasses of orange juice. “That woman who killed herself? Or didn’t?”

Rachel nodded gravely.

“He’s new? They hired this guy since everything happened?”

“Nope,” Rachel said. “According to Hank, he was manager of human resources or something like that.”

“Then what makes you so sure he’s not mixed up in it?”

“Because he’s black.”

Goldie took a swig of orange juice. “I hate to tell you this, honey. There actually are one or two seriously bad black guys.”

“This Andrew Greer didn’t work in the field, or in the lab. Harry didn’t need him. Aside from that, only about a dozen blacks park in my garage. And most of them are women. One black guy among all those whites—they wouldn’t have trusted him with even a hint.”

Goldie thought about that. “Okay, maybe you should call him, tell him what’s in that so-called warehouse. But don’t tell him where you are.”

“Why should he believe me? Especially when I begin with ‘You don’t know me and I can’t tell you who or where I am.…’”

“Maybe Hank could talk to him.”

“I’d rather not ask him,” Rachel said. “For one thing, he’s been calling in sick. Sort of odd if he suddenly turns up saying bizarre things. For another, InterUrban is Hank’s whole career. If this guy Greer turns out to be a jerk, doesn’t believe him, Hank could lose his job.”

Goldie put her hands on her hips. “So why we discussing this if it’s impossible to talk to this guy?”

“Because there is someone who could talk to him.”

“Who?”

Rachel nodded to Goldie’s raised eyebrows. “You.”