Angela’s scream was cut off abruptly as the trail gave out underneath her and she tumbled down the slope, her phone flying out of her hand. After some dizzying rolls, she ended up lying behind a hulking camper shell scabbed over with rust, at the bottom of the hill from where she’d returned to the car to retrieve her phone. Would it hurt you to watch your step, Angela?
Sucking in a breath, she lay there a moment to assess. As the dizziness subsided, she chided herself. It seemed as though she’d sustained nothing worse than a scraped elbow and having the wind driven out of her.
Sitting up, she hauled herself to her feet and began searching for her phone. Thick grass and clumps of dead leaves made the search more difficult. Something flickered in the trees to her left. She froze. Tank? Her breathing seemed loud in her own ears. Another crack of branches.
A deer and her baby meandered out, chomping up mouthfuls of grass. Letting out a relieved sigh that startled the deer into retreating, she bent over, trying to figure out which direction her phone had taken as it sailed through the air.
Scooting nearer to the pile of worn wood pallets stacked some sixteen high, she continued to hunt, still on the lookout for Tank. This time it was a sound from the trees on her right. She froze, peering around the pallets until her eyes finally made him out. A man, cap covering his head, crouched behind a screen of bushes. He appeared for a moment and then shrank back into the foliage, too far away for her to see his face. Was it Tank Guzman?
She wanted to call out to him; deep down in her gut, she knew he was not a threat. Julio’s brother could not have attempted murder or be guilty of stalking Lila. Firm as her convictions felt, her feelings had proven unreliable recently, and she did not want to be stupid, either. She was not about to make contact with him alone. Finally spying her phone half-hidden under a clump of grass, she bent to retrieve it. Quickly she typed in a text to Marco.
Someone in the bushes near the car. I—
A shadow fell across her face. She turned. It was too late to move as a heavy body crushed hers to the ground from behind. The air rushed from her lungs as a hand pressed the back of her head into the grass and dead leaves, fingernails digging into her scalp. Debris filled her mouth as she tried to scream. Grit peppered her eyes.
Was it Tank? Had he circled around while she summoned help?
“Stop,” she tried to say, but her voice was silenced by the press of earth. The soil caked her lips.
She felt a knee poke hard into her back, and her attacker pulled her jacket up and over her head. Cool air bathed her skin where her shirt rode up, arms trapped. Fear cut at her like a razor. His weight pressed the oxygen from her lungs, and her body was frozen in horror.
Help me, she tried to yell, but nothing would pass her lips. She heard the snick of a knife being removed from its sheath; out of the corner of her eye she got a glimpse of a watch on the man’s tensed wrist.
A knife. He was going to kill her.
The knowledge kick-started something inside. The urge to fight for her life nearly choked her. No, no, no. She shot out an elbow behind her, but the man slammed it away, sending sparks of pain through her arm.
Then she felt the point of a blade between her shoulders. He leaned close and put his mouth next to her head. She could see nothing but smothering blackness, but she felt the warmth of his breath through the denim of her jacket.
“Now you’re going to die,” the voice said.
She felt the knife slice into her skin, the sting of the cut, the warmth of blood welling up.
I’m going to be killed, here in this field. I’ll never see my sisters again. Or Marco. Or Dan.
Terror ballooned inside and let loose a wave of strength she did not know she possessed. Jerking back, she slammed her head into the man, and she felt him reel back as her skull connected with bone. Then she was running, sprinting, fleeing without a backward glance over the grassy field, back up toward the road where she would find the others.
In the distance, she heard a voice shouting. “Angela. Where are you?”
Dan. If only she could get to him. Behind her she heard feet pounding over the uneven ground. She slipped, tripped over a hidden length of pipe, went down as hands grabbed her again.
Too winded to scream, she wriggled and struck out wildly with her feet, but now he had her by the hair. Again he reached for her jacket, fingers clawing at her back, to cover her head so he could finish the job.
She bucked and jerked, desperate to preserve her life, but it was too much, he was too strong and her adrenaline was giving way to paralyzing fear that deadened her every limb.
Oh, God, she thought, don’t let him take my life.
He’d succeeded in covering her head again and she heard the knife being pulled free from the sheath. Then there was a brief moment when the point began to sink into her flesh.
She closed her eyes, tears springing loose from under the lids. She tried to kick out one more time, but her strength was no match for his.
“Angela,” she heard Dan shout, nearer now.
And then the weight was lifted from her back as the guy took off. She wanted to raise her head, identify her attacker, but she found she did not have the strength. An odd whimpering sob was all she could manage. The ground vibrated as Dan made it to her side, Marco and Donna right behind him.
“Angie,” Donna said. “Oh, Angie.”
She felt gentle hands on her, helping her sit up. Dan was on his knees, peering into her eyes, his hands running over her arms.
“What did he do to you?” he croaked.
She could only stare in horror.
“Ambulance and police on their way,” Marco said. “Tell us what happened, Angela.”
She found she could not speak over the chattering of her teeth. Dan crawled around behind her. “Small knife wound on her back, shallow. No...signs of further injury.”
Donna clutched her hand. “You’re all right now, sis. You’re safe.”
She did not feel safe. Except for the fingers clutching hers and Dan’s big hand on her shoulder she could not feel anything at all.
“When I get hold of Tank,” Marco said slowly. “He’s going to pay for what he did to you.”
“I’m...I’m not sure it was him,” she finally managed. “I never saw his face.”
“We were chasing him,” Marco said. “He was right ahead of us. Easy to double back. It had to be him.”
“Tank has no reason to kill me. He wanted my help.”
“Could be he changed his mind about talking,” Donna said, wiping the dirt from Angela’s face with her sleeve. “You’re digging around too much, unearthing things that might incriminate him.”
“I don’t think it was him.”
She saw the look Dan and Marco exchanged. And in a moment all her fear turned to anger. She shook off Dan’s hand and got to her feet, wobbling, rubbing her jacket sleeve across her face. “It wasn’t him. I don’t care if you believe me or not. Tank didn’t do this to me.”
“Angela—” Marco started.
Dan held up a palm. “Okay. Let’s say that’s true. Who else could it have been?
“Harry Gruber.” The name came instinctively to her lips. “It could have been him.”
Thinking about Harry with his bloodstained shirt caused her knees to tremble even more violently, and Dan and Angela insisted she sit and wait for the ambulance.
“I’m going to look around again,” Marco said. “See if I can find anything the guy dropped or left behind.”
“I’ll go, too, in case you need backup,” Donna said. “Angie, are you going to be okay?”
She managed a nod. “Yes, go.”
Dan did not try to make conversation. He sat next to her, with his arm around her shoulders. Her mind tried to make her body believe what had just happened. She’d been attacked. Someone had tried to kill her. Had it really occured? Was she in the grip of a nightmare?
But there was Dan, his warmth anchoring her to the real world, assuring her that the experience was real...and over. Before long, she found her head sagging onto his shoulder as she cried, great gulping sobs that sounded inhuman. He stood for a moment to take off his jacket and wrap it carefully around her. Then he eased down, reached for her hand and held tight until the ambulance arrived.
* * *
At the hospital, Dan made sure they cleaned and bandaged Angela’s wound properly and checked for signs of shock and head injury before they ordered him into the waiting room. When they finally allowed him to see her again, he offered so many comments to the on-call doctor that the man looked at him in exasperation.
“Did you want to put on my coat and take over?”
Dan mumbled an apology. He was racked with guilt that he had not arrived sooner to get the monster off her. As it was, if he’d been a moment later...
He swallowed and looked to greet Lieutenant Torrey. A nurse came in to clean up after the doctor. Violet, the same one who had been there when Lila ran from the hospital the day before.
“My guys are looking for physical evidence,” Torrey said, “but there isn’t much. Can any of you positively ID Tank Guzman as the man you were chasing?”
“Marco and Donna had never met him. The only person who saw him was Angela.”
“But I couldn’t see his face,” she said. She’d convinced them to allow her to get dressed again, he noted. He didn’t think there was any chance she was going to follow the doctor’s orders and rest there for a few hours.
“And once again Guzman doesn’t have the guts to show up and explain himself,” Torrey said. “Just like he did after Lila Brown almost got blown to bits.”
The nurse flicked a startled glance at Torrey, but he didn’t notice. His cell phone buzzed, so he stepped outside to take the call.
“Violet,” Dan said to the nurse. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Returned to work yet, Dr. Blackwater?”
He felt his cheeks warm, and suddenly he was looking out the window. He felt Angela watching him closely. “Yes, yes, I intended to start a couple of months ago, but I hurt my hand in a bicycle accident.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said. Was there an echo of judgment in the tone? Or was it a product of his own discomfort at his extended leave?
He shook the thoughts away. “You’ve been here a long time in Cobalt Cove, Violet.”
“Going on thirty-five years now. Almost ready for retirement.” She grinned. “Good thing, too, my insteps aren’t going to make it too much longer. Just need to add a little more to my nest egg.”
“I hear you about the feet.” He smiled back. “So do you know the Guzman family?”
Her look grew cautious. “My kids went to school with Julio and Tank. Good boys. Iona did her best raising them without a husband to support her.”
“Do you know Lila Brown, too?”
“She didn’t grow up here. Moved in as a junior, I think. Had it bad for Julio, but Iona didn’t approve.”
“Why?”
“Lila was a party girl. Lived with her older brother. Never did know what happened to her parents. She was into drinking and having a good time. Got kicked out of school for truancy. When Julio’s grades started to suffer, Iona blamed Lila and made Julio’s life miserable until he broke it off with her, or at least that’s what he told his mama.”
Angela looked thoughtful. “Did Lila have a relationship with Tank also?”
Violet looked away. “Gonna have to ask Iona that.”
Angela’s face went slack. “Iona lives nearby then?”
“Sure does. She’s at a retirement home ’bout thirty miles from here. Assisted living. She had a stroke after Julio was killed.”
The stress of a soldier’s death rippled through so many lives, parents, siblings, spouses, friends. He shot a look at Angela, pale and staring. Navy chaplains, too. What sort of mess had Tank gotten involved in this time? He prayed it would not result in another tragedy being laid on Iona’s doorstep. How much grief could one heart hold?
He looked at Angela, sitting up now, arms wrapped tightly around herself. She was only a few feet away from him, but it might as well have been a universe. How much grief could one heart hold?
Plenty, he thought.