A lightning strike hit the big fir trees on the far bank as I reached up to pull the curtain closed. The flash lit the river like molten silver, the trees like huge arrowheads, and brilliantly illuminated a canoe against the bank of the Siletz behind our condominium. One man was climbing out of the canoe; another man was already on the riverbank holding the canoe steady. Both wore ponchos and rain hats. Then it was completely dark again, and I was left with was the afterimage of the lightning strike burned into my retinas.
I went over to Bonnie’s side of the bed and pushed her shoulder gently.
“Bonnie. Get up. Right now. We’re leaving.”
“What time is it?”
“Time to go. Now!”
She slid her legs out from under the comforter and put her feet on the floor.
“Can I at least brush my teeth?”
“I think there’s someone coming from the river. Don’t turn the lights on. Just put your shoes on and go to the front door.”
Bonnie had her coat and shoes on within a few seconds. I slid the pistol into my waistband and aimed Julian Silver’s shotgun at the sliding glass door. Blood was pounding in my ears. I heard the noise of Bonnie’s suitcase clunking as it hit the doorframe of the bedroom, and then everything was quiet again.
I pulled on my shoes and coat and followed her to the front door. The only light in the room was spilled from a night light in the bathroom between the kitchen and bedroom. We could see each other’s shapes, but not much more.
“Are you ready to go?” I whispered. “You have your purse?”
“It’s in the suitcase.”
“I’m going to get the car. Wait here. If they break in before I pull the car up, come running. Okay?”
“Okay.”
I looked out the peep hole in the front door and didn’t see anyone outside. I strapped the gym bag containing the cash over my shoulder, then stepped through the door into the weak light of the parking lot with the shotgun held across my chest. I clicked off the safety on the gun and walked across the parking lot towards the space where I’d left the Chevy.
As I approached the car, I saw the shape of a man emerge from the darkness and stand between me and the car. There was enough light in the parking lot that I could see he held a semi-automatic pistol against the side of his leg.
“Hey,” he said. “You guys were really quiet. I didn’t hear anything.”
I ignored him and kept walking until he was almost within arm’s reach. A moment of shock registered on his face as he recognized me and he started to bring his gun up. I slammed the stock of the shotgun across his face hard, and he bounced off the car and went down, his pistol clattering on the pavement.
I opened the back seat door and laid the shotgun across the seat. I tossed the gym bag in and then grabbed the unconscious thug by the front of his down vest and pulled him away from the car.
Then there was a low booming sound, and I saw Bonnie running towards me with her suitcase trailing behind. I took the suitcase from her, threw it in the back seat, and we climbed into the front. The car was parked nose-out, and I started the engine, dropped it in drive, and jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor. The only exit from the parking lot required me to go directly past the front door of the condominium that Bonnie and I had just left, so there was nothing for it but to head back towards the killers we’d just escaped. The engine roared as we closed the distance to the front door of the condominium. The car launched past the doorway as the two hitters stepped outside, guns held chest high. I clipped the first of the men with the front fender of the car, knocking him back into the second shooter and bouncing them both off the front wall of the condominium. I turned on the headlights as the car fishtailed onto Highway 101 and we sped south. Ours was the only car on the road. No cars behind us or in front of us, just two souls heading into the darkness with the devil chasing close behind.
Chapter 29
The clock on the dashboard showed 3:10 in the morning as we drove out of Lincoln City. I turned on the dome light, pulled the phony driver’s license out of my wallet, and looked at the address of the safe house that Eric had given me. Bonnie looked up the location on the map.
“Del,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“It’s just a ten minute drive.”
“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. At this point I’d rather it was a thousand miles from here.”
“Do you want to just keep driving?”
“No. We’re here. Let’s check it out. The car’s pulling to the left, so if we stop there I’ll have a chance to see why.”
By the time we reached Gleneden Beach, the car was pulling much harder to the left and the front wheel was making a grinding noise. I didn’t want to stop on Highway 101 where we’d be easy to find, so we turned off the highway and headed towards the beach, following the residential road towards the address on my license. It was 3:30 in the morning when we arrived.
The safe house was completely dark except for a single bulb over the front door. The neighbor’s houses were dark, as well.
I shut off the headlights and lifted the shotgun from the back seat. I went over to peer into one of the windows and could only make out vague shapes of furniture through the glass. It was cold, the wind was blowing off the ocean hard enough to add a bite to the cold, and the sound of the surf was constant.
The front door was locked. I walked around the side of the house onto the deck that wrapped around the back of the house. A set of stairs nearly as wide as the house led from the deck down to the beach, which sloped away to the surf across a few dozen yards of sand. In the moonlight, the crests of the waves breaking on the beach shone silver. I tested the sliding glass door on the deck. It was locked. I continued walking around the house, looking for a way in. Bonnie was standing in the driveway when I finished circling the house.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I don’t think there’s anyone here.”
“Can you get inside?”
“Not without breaking a window.”
“Do you want to call Eric and tell him we’re here? Maybe there’s a key hidden somewhere.”
“No. I don’t want to call Eric.”
Bonnie went to the car. She retrieved her purse from the suitcase and got out the keychain that had Eric’s cabin key and car keys on it. She walked past me to the front door, slipped the key into the lock, and turned the key. The door opened and she went inside.
I followed her in with the shotgun hanging at my side.
“How did you know that the cabin key would work on this place?” I asked.
“I didn’t. But I thought it might, since it would make things simpler for Eric if he needed to get into either place in a hurry.”
“You are one smart lady.”
“And you are one lucky man,” she said. She wrapped her arms around me and we kissed in the entry hall of the safe house. “Why don’t you get the car into the garage and bring in the bags, and we’ll find a bed and try to get some sleep, okay?”
I nodded. There was a doorway off of the entry hallway that I assumed opened onto the garage. I leaned the shotgun against the wall, opened the door, and groped inside of the darkened doorway for a light switch. I found it and turned the light on.
There garage was wide enough for two cars. A large coupe with a car cover on it was on the far side the garage. The size and shape of the car under the cover intrigued me: bigger and wider than most new cars, with a flat hood and long, sloping back. I grabbed a corner of the car cover and then peeled it all the way back, letting the cover fall to the garage floor.
My Ford XL that I’d left behind in El Paso, Texas stood before me. I ran my hand across the hood. Memories of the times that I’d spent with my brother Bricklin working on the car; taking it to drive-in movies and ripping down country roads at 120 M.P.H. came flooding back. I had the same sense of my world coming apart that I’d had when I killed Julian Silver at the rest stop. Bonnie came into the garage and sto
od beside me.
“Are you okay? I thought you were going to pull the car into the garage and come to bed.”
“Bonnie, this car is the one I had in El Paso that Eric said to leave behind because it attracts too much attention.”
“Maybe he was planning to surprise you with it, like a birthday present.”
I laughed. “I’m surprised it’s here, all right.”
She looked puzzled. “Isn’t this a good surprise?”
“Definitely. My brother and I built this car together. It was all I had left of him.”
She nodded and then put her hand on my shoulder. “Does that mean you think we can trust Eric now?”
“I’m still in shock about the car. Eric didn’t say anything to me about shipping it up here. Ask me about it tomorrow morning.”
Bonnie took me by the hand and led me out of the garage and up the stairs to the master bedroom. The west-facing wall was all glass, with a panoramic view of the ocean and the short strip of sand between the house and the water. Each time a wave would crash against the beach, the bedroom would reverberate with a sound like distant thunder.
“Do you think we’ll be safe here?” Bonnie asked.
“I thought we’d be safe in Cannon Beach, and thought we’d be safe in Lincoln City. I have no idea at all. I hope so.”
Bonnie nodded and went into the bathroom. I went back downstairs, let myself into the garage, and pushed the garage opener button. I held the shotgun in my hand as the door went up, then stepped towards the Chevy SS we’d driven from Lincoln City.
In the distance, I saw a car’s taillights disappear over the hill that insulated the safe house from Highway 101.
At that moment I felt that I knew the answer to Bonnie’s question about whether we were safe there, but I didn’t want to believe it. The taillights could have just belonged to one of the neighbors heading out early, but in my heart I thought that we’d been followed to another new killing ground by wolves that wouldn’t rest until they’d taken us down. I decided that it was time to stop running from the wolves, and start hunting the wolves instead. Somehow the wolves knew how to find me, wherever I hid. The only way to stay alive was to turn the tables. But how? I didn’t know where Marco lived, or how many killers were on his payroll.
I pulled the Chevy SS into the garage beside the Ford XL and put the garage door down. With the illumination from the garage lights, I could see that there were dents on the left front fender of the SS from where I’d clipped the hit men in Lincoln City. The left front tire was completely flat and had a cut on the sidewall. I’d need to fix that to drive the car, but I was too tired to do anything about it. I put the garage door down and headed back inside.
Chapter 30
The smell of fresh coffee and bacon worked their way up to the bedroom. We’d stayed in bed until nearly noon, and rain slapped against the windows of the master bedroom with enough force that a walk on the beach seemed like a bad idea. I stood at the window and watched the surf pounding on the beach. The tide was high and fast, with waves crashing high up the beach before sliding back out with a speed that was shocking. Then the next huge wave would come in and the process would start over again.
I brushed my teeth and went downstairs to the kitchen. Bonnie had turned the heat on in the house and started a fire in the wood burning stove in the family room. It was probably 80 degrees in the kitchen. The rain was blowing sideways against the big double glass doors that gave the view onto the deck, but it felt tropical in the kitchen. Bonnie was at the stove with her back to me. She was barefoot and wearing one of my tee shirts.
I walked over to Bonnie and wrapped my arms around her from behind. She was grilling several large slices of ham in a frying pan.
“Breakfast is almost ready, good sir,” she said. “I thought that the smell of ham might get you out of bed.”
“I came downstairs because I missed you,” I said. “The breakfast is just a nice byproduct of my hunt for the woman I love.”
“You said it,” she said. “You just told me you loved me.”
“Did you have any doubt?”
“I just wanted to hear it,” she said. She turned in my arms, facing me now, and tipped her head back. We kissed.
“I’m tempted to carry you back upstairs, honeymoon-style,” I said.
“Are you having impure thoughts again?”
“I thought I told you,” I said. “I’m plagued by impure thoughts in your presence.”
She looked at me with those jade green eyes. “I don’t mind,” she said. “As long as they’re just about me.”
“Always,” I said.
“Well then,” she said. She turned the burner on the stove off. “Would you like to carry me upstairs?” She gave me the crooked smile.
I felt the tightness in my chest, heard the hoarseness in my voice when I told her I loved her. I had that profound sense of good luck, the swirl of lightness in my head, all the aches and pains and sadness letting go of me, if only for a short while. She felt light as a feather, the skin of her bare legs hot against my arms, as I cradled her and carried her up the stairs to the master bedroom, her cheek against mine and her lips kissing me under my ear, telling me to never let go.
Chapter 31
The kitchen in the beach house was well-stocked, with enough food to last for at least a week. If we didn’t want eggs or milk, there wasn’t really any reason to venture into the nearby coastal towns, so we stayed in the house that day and went for an occasional walk on the beach when the rain relented. I kept the pistol I’d taken off of Julian Silver tucked into the waistband of my jeans, but otherwise we might as well have been on vacation.
That evening I went out to the garage and sat in the Ford XL. I’d been thinking about telling Eric that we were staying at the safe house, and that I appreciated him taking care of my car. I put my hands on the steering wheel, turned on the headlights, even opened the garage door and started the engine up to let it run for a minute. The sound of the 429 cubic inch engine idling in the garage brought with it a wave of memories of my time with Bricklin, of our times in college when the car had seemed like all we needed to meet girls, find our place in the world, and grasp the happiness that eluded us since our parents were killed. I reluctantly shut the engine off, and then left the garage door up so the garage could air out for a few minutes. I tilted my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, remembering when Bricklin and I had sanded the entire car down before having the candy apple red paint applied. We’d taken the body panels down to the bare metal with sanding blocks, corrected the rust spots, and filled in the door dings before driving over to a professional body shop to have the primer, paint, and clear coat applied.
The sound of Bonnie’s voice calling my name brought me back from my reverie. “Del. Are you out here?”
I jerked awake and got out of the car. Bonnie was standing in the doorway with a glass of red wine in her hand.
“It’s cold out here, Del,” she said. “Do you want to come inside and sit with me on the sofa? We can watch the moonlight on the surf.”
I pushed the button that put the garage door down, turned off the lights in the garage, and followed her back into the house. She had a fire going in the fireplace, and we sat on the sofa and enjoyed the view of the beach, watching the waves crash relentlessly against the sand.
As beautiful as it was there, I felt a sense of unease in the house, and while she was getting ready for bed I moved a few things into the Ford XL in case we were ever in the car and had to make a run for it: Julian Silver’s cell phone, half the cash from the gym bag, and the sawed-off shotgun I’d carried into the bar in El Paso. I slipped everything under the carpeting in the trunk, snugged up against the back seat. Unless someone knew that car as well as I did, or dismantled the car to search it, they’d never know I’d hidden things where I did.
Bonnie was waiting in the doorway to the garage when I closed the trunk of the car.
“I thought you were coming to b
ed,” she said. “Is something wrong?”
“No. I’m just making sure that we’re ready if we have to make another run for it. In either car.”
“Did you see someone?”
“No. I think we’re okay for now.”
She nodded, and I followed her upstairs to the master bedroom, turning off the lights behind me as we went.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that would be my last night with Bonnie.
Chapter 32
The next day was blustery and cold, with a blanket of grey clouds overhanging the coast. Bonnie and I had stayed inside all day. We’d eaten dinner at the table in front of the big glass window before I’d put on my winter coat and headed outside alone for a walk on the beach. I wanted to clear my head before I made a decision about whether to call Eric.
Evening was approaching and the wind was blowing from the west, carrying with it the smells of the ocean, of decaying vegetation, and the sharp scent that often indicates imminent rainfall. None of the other dozen houses on the small stretch of beach had any lights on. It was the middle of the week in wintertime, and I reasoned that that the houses were vacation homes used on weekends or during summer. I’d pulled the hood up on my coat to stop my ears from stinging from the bitter wind, and I was walking at the high water line where the sea grass started to grow out of the sand. Chunks of ragged sea foam bounced and rolled down the beach like disembodied souls. Waves that thundered against the beach rushed back out as quickly as they’d come, producing giant muddy barrels of spinning undertow which sucked at the water’s edge. Occasionally one wave’s exit would perfectly coincide with another wave’s arrival to produce a surge which rose out of the water like an animated wall before crashing down with a sound like a thunderclap. The surge that those waves produced sent me sprinting above the high water mark to stay out of the water’s path.