A shot goes off and I duck, but it misses me. I leap over the dead man’s body and fly through the door. I slip on a wet patch on the porch and slide, but another shot goes off and somehow, some way, my body recovers. My heart is beating so fast as I jump down the porch steps I think I might have a heart attack.
I race for the cornfield and my hands part the tall stalks as I enter.
He can’t shoot me in here. He can’t shoot me in here. He can’t shoot me in here.
A shot rings out behind me and I run fast.
He can shoot me in here. He might not be able to see me, but that bullet will find my body if he points it in the right direction.
I zig-zag. I go left for a few rows, then right, then left again. I’m a lot smaller than him, and the corn is tall and thick, almost ready for harvest. So he can’t see me.
But I can’t see him either.
“I know this cornfield, flower,” he calls out. “I know where you’re go-ing…” That sing-song voice will haunt me for the rest of my life.
Oh, God! Please don’t know where I’m going. I don’t even know where I’m going.
But a few seconds later I see what he meant. I stop at the edge of the cornfield, my bare feet covered in soil.
It’s an opening. A very large opening. Why the fuck is there an opening in the middle of a fucking cornfield?
I want to scream it, but of course I can’t, because psycho kidnapper is right behind me.
“I know you’ve stopped running, flower. I know right where you are. I’ve been watching the corn as you ran. I told you. You can’t get away.”
My breathing becomes so loud I’m afraid it will lead him right to me.
“Stay put now,” he calls out, a lot closer than he was before.
I only have one chance. I have to cross the clearing.
I bolt for the other side, but the gunshot rings out as soon as I step into the opening. My leg is on fire and I stumble. He fucking shot me!
I fall face first next to a pipe coming out of the ground. My hands grasp for something—grass, soil, something—to hold on to as the pain rockets up my thigh. My heart is so jacked up I can’t breathe. Please, God, I pray. Do not let me have a panic attack right now. Please! My hand grasps nothing but soil and my arms both reach around the pipe for something to keep hold of. It’s wet here. A puddle of water is pooled up against the pipe and I realize what this clearing is.
An irrigation well.
My arms collapse as the corn parts on the other side of the circle with a crackle of dry husks. He comes out into the area bare of crops and my hand rests on a large steel tool.
A plumber’s wrench. A weapon.
If he’s gonna take me down, I’m bringing him with me.
I wait. I lie very still. Play dead. And wait.
And when he finally stumbles up to me, I take my last chance. My body twists. I grab that heavy wrench with both hands, and I hurl it. Straight at his face.
Time slows down for me as I watch. My vision is blurred with blood. My hands are sticky with it. The fertile ground beneath me is stained crimson with it. I should not be able to hurl a plumber’s wrench with such force, but there it is.My miracle.
My win.
It smashes against his forehead before he can block it with his forearm and then stumbles backwards, still so very, very slowly. His eyes widen for a moment, and then they roll back in his head as he crashes to the ground.
I put the pain away somewhere else and force myself to get up.
I see only one thing. The gun.
I grab it and shoot. His head splatters into a bazillion pieces.
I shoot again, this time in his chest. Large pools of blood bubble up, but it’s not enough. I shoot again, and again, and again.
And then there’s someone else in the clearing with me. And I shoot him too.
Chapter Twenty-Three
SHE points the gun at me and pulls the trigger.
Click, click, click. Over and over again, she pulls the trigger.
The magazine is empty.
“Vaughn,” she screams, dropping the gun. “Vaughn,” she wails, dropping to her knees where blood is pooling. She presses her head into the soil and sobs.
“Grace!” I cover the distance between us in seconds. I kneel next to her and pull her up off the ground. “You’re OK now. It’s OK.” Felicity talks on her phone, trying to tell the FBI where we are. “I’ve got you, Grace.”
Grace shakes. Her body trembles in my arms and I press my lips to her head. Her blood soaks us both now. “We need a fucking ambulance!”
Felicity is still talking on her phone.
I rock Grace in my arms. “Shhh,” I say to quiet her sobs. “It’s over now. He’s dead.”
“I shot you.”
“No, the gun was empty. You didn’t shoot me.”
“But I would’ve!” Her words come out hitched from her crying. “I would’ve killed you.”
“It doesn’t count, Grace. You didn’t. So it doesn’t count. Now be still so you don’t lose any more blood.”
I sit back on the ground and just hold her. The sobs ebb and then her breathing slows. “Grace?” I ask, trying to figure out if she’s losing consciousness or calming down.
“I’m pregnant.”
I’m stunned. “What?”
But when I tip her head up to get more information, she really is unconscious.
A few minutes later I hear the wail of an ambulance. I don’t know how we will get her to the driveway, but then the ambulance drives straight through the corn on what appears to be a narrow access road.