Iris Johansen - Blind Alley

Aldo cursed and leaped to his feet. “Whore. I told you not to bring anyone. Did you think I wouldn't kill him?” His knife plunged down toward Toby.

“No!” She leaped forward but Trevor was already there, knocking Aldo to the ground and then rolling sideways to protect Toby.

“Stop! Lay down your weapons.” Joe's voice. Joe running out of the forest toward them.

Aldo was cursing as he struggled out from under Trevor. The next moment he was on his feet and running toward the cover of the trees.

“Okay, Jane?” Joe asked, and when she nodded, “Eve and Gunther will be here in a minute. You stay where you are, Trevor.” He took off after Aldo with the four policemen on his heels, guns drawn.

Jane fell to her knees, her anxious gaze on Toby. Aldo's knife thrust had not gone home, she realized with relief. “It's okay, boy. Everything's going to be fine.” She crawled the few steps toward him and started sawing through the ropes binding him. “No one's going to hurt you again.”

“You shouldn't have run at Aldo,” Trevor said in frustration as he got to his feet. “Why the hell didn't you give me a few minutes more? I'd have had him.”

“He was going to hurt Toby.” She didn't look at him. “No one hurts my dog.” But someone had hurt him, she thought in agony as she looked at the wounds on his leg. They appeared shallow but one was still bleeding. “Give me something to wrap around his leg. Everything I have on is soaking wet.”

“I don't have time for canine first aid. I have to get out of here before Quinn gets back. I've no desire to end up in jail while Aldo is running free.”

“After you give me something to wrap around Toby's leg.” She glared up at him. “Take off your sweater.”

He gazed at her in disbelief and then started to laugh. “You look like you're freezing. You need it more than he does.” He pulled his sweater over his head and tossed it to her. “Anything else?”

“No.” She turned back to Toby. “If you go south over the hill, you'll find a drainage pipe that will take you to the highway. I'll tell them you went north. It may buy you enough time to get away.” She wrapped the arm of the sweater tightly around the dog's leg. “Go.”

“I'm going.” He stopped as he turned to leave. “May I ask why you're helping me?”

“I don't want you in jail either.” She stroked Toby's head. “I can't be sure Joe will catch Aldo. No one else has been able to do it all these years. If Aldo gets away, I want everyone in the world to be on the search. You may be everything Eve suspects you of being, but you want to catch him. I saw that tonight and you know things. . . .”

Toby turned his head and licked her hand and it nearly broke her heart. “Poor boy . . .”

She glanced up at Trevor and added fiercely, “I'm going to catch him, Trevor. He's not going to hurt any animal or woman again. Now get out of here so that you can help me do it.”

He smiled and slowly nodded. “By all means.” He ran south through the trees.

She could still hear Joe and the policemen crashing through the forest as she held the compress over Toby's wound. They might catch him. Lord, she hoped they did. Anyone who would torture a helpless animal was a total monster. On one level of her mind she had understood how evil Aldo must be but it had taken this cruelty to make it sink home.

“Let me look at it.”

She turned her head to see Eve standing a few feet away. “The bastard didn't sever any arteries. I think he's going to be okay.”

“I wasn't sure you were going to be okay.” Eve turned to Gunther hurrying behind her. “It's okay, Mac. Go on after Joe and the others.”

He nodded and took off at a run.

Eve dropped to her knees beside Jane and looked down at Toby's leg. “When I saw him lift that knife, I nearly had a heart attack. And then when he didn't kill you, I wanted to murder you myself.” Her hands were shaking as she tightened the compress. “Why didn't you tell us, dammit? Don't you ever close us out like that again.”

“He said he'd kill Toby. He's my dog. I was stupid. I should have kept him inside. It never occurred to me that he'd go after Toby. My fault. He's my responsibility.”

“And you're our responsibility. How do you think we'd have felt if he'd killed you?”

“Terrible.” She met Eve's gaze. “But you'd have done the same thing.”

Eve's glance fell away first. “Maybe. It was Trevor who tackled Aldo? It was pretty dark, but I thought I recognized him.”

She stiffened. “Did Joe?”

“Probably. And he must have realized he was helping you.”

“He saved Toby.”

“But then he ran away.”

“He knew Joe would still have arrested him.”

“As he should do.”

“He saved Toby,” she repeated. “And he'll do us more good out of jail.”

“How do you figure that?”

“He wants Aldo.” She stroked Toby's head. “And I don't care about forging documents and impersonating a police officer and all of that stuff. If he can find him, then that's all that matters.”

“Maybe it will be a moot point if Joe catches Aldo tonight.”

“I don't think he will.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Just a feeling. I don't think it's his time.”

“I hope you're wrong.”

“Me, too.”

“Where's Trevor?” Joe was striding toward them, his expression grim. “Which way did the bastard go?”

“Aldo?” Eve asked.

“We lost him for the moment. He had a motorboat parked beneath the trees. I sent an all-points bulletin out. We may still pick him up.” He looked down at Toby. “How is he?”

“We'll have to get him to a vet right away but I think he'll be fine.”

He turned back to Jane. “Which way did Trevor go?”

She hesitated. She hadn't realized it would be this difficult to lie to Joe. “North.”

She felt Eve's startled gaze on her face. That's right, she must have seen Trevor take off toward the drainage pipe. She looked Eve in the eye. “North,” she repeated.

She waited.

Eve was silent a moment and then looked down at Toby. “I'll need a couple men to lift Toby on a stretcher and get him to a vet.”

Jane felt relieved and guilty at the same time. It was bad enough to lie to someone she loved, but now she had pulled Eve into the deception.

“I'll get Mac to arrange it.” Joe turned away. “I'm going to be busy.” He strode toward the policemen standing at the edge of the glade.

“Thank you,” Jane whispered.

“Don't thank me.” Eve gave her a cool glance. “I did it because I agreed with you and I didn't want to put Joe on the spot by asking him to go along with a lie.” She looked over her shoulder at Joe and then smiled. “And the point may not even be applicable. He's splitting up the force and sending some of them south. You should have known Joe was too sharp not to read you. We may be having to do some explaining.”

Jane sighed resignedly, her gaze on Joe, who was gesturing with his usual dynamic forcefulness toward the south. “Well, I did my best. Trevor's on his own.”

“I'm sure he doesn't expect protection from anyone.”

“I didn't do it for him, I did it for me. I may need him.”

“Don't talk like that. I know you're upset about Toby but you leave Aldo to Joe and the department. You're out of this, Jane.”

“Tell that to Aldo. He doesn't think I'm out of it.” She gently stroked Toby's head. “And I know I'm not. I just have to wait until the next time comes around.”

“Next time?”

“He'll come back. He'll always come back. Until one of us is dead.”

“How can you know that? This attempt may have discouraged him.”

Why am I so positive? Jane wondered. The words had come from her lips and mind with absolute certainty.