Ridley Pearson - Cut and Run

Then, gone, as he glanced at a wide-eyed Hope.

“Are you hit?”

“No.”

“Get the gun,” he said, sliding it across the floor as he retrieved his own. “Into the bathtub for cover-lock the door- now !” His last words faded behind him as he entered the mouth of the stairs and scrambled down into the waiting darkness.

A locked house proved as difficult to get out of as to get into. The intruder-Rodriguez?-made for the kitchen’s back door, but struggled with the antique twist-knob dead bolt, found it an impasse, and turned. This in the same time it took Larson to descend the steep back stairs.

Larson got off a round-given the angle more of a statement of his presence than a kill shot. The bullet took out an old hand-painted plate in the hutch on the far wall. Splintered pottery rained down, tinkling and clinking as it landed. Larson raced down and into the kitchen but slowed as he reached the door that connected through to the front entry in case the killer planned any surprises.

He heard the front door-a rattle of chains and locks. A loud bang as it thumped the wall, reeling on its hinges. The humph, humph, humph of the intruder running off the porch. And then, as the man hurried away, the crackling of sticks… autumn winds.

Larson, like someone late off the blocks in a track meet, now followed behind as fast as his powerful legs would carry him, as fit and as solid as he’d ever been, the morning training on the river engorging his muscles, arms pumping like pistons as his right hand still clung to the weapon, slightly warmer, it seemed, from his firing that shot. A hundred yards and closing the distance, judged only by the sound of the other, the smudge of gray charcoal that might have been a man obscured in the foggy haziness of night.

Larson made it another fifty yards before his own voice, whispering dryly from the back of his brain, asked about Hope and who was guarding her now, asking how certain he was that there’d been only one intruder. With the killer went a chance to find Penny. And Markowitz. Guilt-torn and fearful, his groin aching, his nerves raw from having discharged the weapon, the smell of cordite still bitter in his sinuses, Larson slowed and reversed directions. He pulled out his cell phone but then thought better of it.

Compromised . Rotem had said so himself. How many other such moles? How many secrets leaking from FATF’s splintered hull? He put his phone away.

His priorities certain now, Larson returned to the farmhouse, intent on getting her out of here. Rotem would have to handle the cleanup. He and Hope would sleep, if they slept at all, in a downtown condominium a friend had been trying to sell to Larson since the middle of summer. He’d say he’d picked up a woman downtown, and if there was ever a time for him to demo the place it was on this night of all nights. He would arrange for the key to be left. See no one. Make contact with no one. There would be no more connection made between Hope and him and the Service. They would go it alone.

Some old dog began barking as a car fired up far in the distance.

Thoughts competing in his head, Larson hurried inside and called out for her.

Blinded by the corrosive chemicals in his right eye, Paolo drove one-handed, covering his bad eye to block the blurring double vision that turned the interstate into a rainbow of stretched lights.

He headed for the motel but missed a turn somewhere and finally exited off 270 south onto Manchester Road, which teemed with traffic even at this late hour. He drove east, past the onslaught of strip malls and chain stores. Spotting a Shell station on his left, he pulled up to the back of it, hoping for a restroom accessible from the outside, only to realize he would have to go inside if he wanted water on his face, and inside meant witnesses and security cameras.

Then he spotted the automatic car wash-three minutes of peace, a chance to collect himself, maybe even water for his face. But getting his car caught in an automatic car wash made no sense. He crossed back into traffic and found a McDonald’s. He pulled the car around to the drive-up microphone, his eye stinging and throbbing, leaking tears like a faucet. He ordered fries-feeling he had to pay for something-and a large cup of water, no ice.

He awaited change at the first window, keeping his head aimed down, and his hand up to screen any sight of him. Dodging the change from the two dollars might make him memorable. Once in possession of his order, he tossed the fries onto the passenger seat and raced the car ahead to a parking space. Hanging out the car door, he doused his eye. As the water hit, he clenched his teeth, the pain hot.

He sat up, switched on the interior light, and aimed the rearview mirror. He saw a red, swelling mass, oozing yellowish fluid. He pried his unwilling eye open between trembling fingers, gathered his courage, and touched the eyeball itself, in an effort to clear it. But the plastic of his contact lens had melted and adhered to his eyeball. Real terror ripped through him. Blind? The end of his career. He’d be relegated to sweeping sand traps on the Romeros’ eighteen-hole golf course.

The fear encouraged more pain, the pain more fear.

He knew he had to extricate the lens. To leave it invited infection, possible blindness, and unbearable pain. Leaning out of the car, he once again splashed his face and eye, once again cringed. He stabbed at it with his fingers, squeezing and pinching, but it was no use. The excruciating pain left him feeling faint. It was glued onto his eyeball. He was stuck with it.

He had to get to the motel. Had to handle the little girl. Had to handle his eye. Still had to take care of Hope Stevens, Alice Stevenson-the mark.

His fear graduated to panic; pain to agony. His world caved in around him. Philippe would recall him. He’d be sweeping tennis courts. He’d be the guy with that face . The mirror showed blisters already forming on the rim of his eyelids, his nose, and the corner of his mouth-anywhere the chemical came in contact with him. The red swelling now included most of the right side of his face. Any such memorable features were impossible for a man of his trade. Anonymity was crucial. He had to fix this before it changed his life forever, and by the look of him, he had to do it fast.

He needed soap and water. He needed the contact lens removed.

Painkillers.

Through shifting, blurring colors of passing traffic, streetlights, and walls of neon, swirls of light, he spotted a building across the street that represented some help: Mason Ridge Veterinary Clinic and Animal Hospital.

He carefully backed the car out of the spot.

For now, the girl would have to wait.

Penny lay in the bottom of the bathtub on top of the towel, her knees taped together. She couldn’t bend her legs and reach the piece of broken crockery hidden in her sock. Couldn’t cut herself free. She’d been here for so long she was beginning to wonder if the man with the scars was ever coming back, or if he’d just left her for good. The tub was slippery. She could rock back and forth but could not get her legs up and out and over the edge, could not get out of the tub.

She’d tried a dozen different things, at one point accidentally rolling over so that she lay facedown on the towel. It had taken her several tries to get back over onto her back. Her flailing efforts reminded her of a turtle she’d had- Cheyenne -and how her mother had made her leave it behind on one of their many moves.

If she could get out of the tub, even taped as she was, she thought she might hop to the door, maybe bang her head against it as someone passed. Do something . But trapped in the tub she felt helpless.