CHAPTER 66

MAYBE FOUR MINUTES had passed since Carson had first fired the shotgun at Randal in Arnie’s room. Figure none of the neighbors had called 911 for a minute, taking that long to wonder if it had been a backfiring truck or the dog farting. So maybe a call had gone out three minutes ago.

In this city, the average police response time to a gunfire-heard call, when no gunman had actually been seen and no location verified, was about six minutes.

With three minutes to leave, Carson didn’t have time to worry about Arnie in Tibet.

Michael dragged the dresser out of the way, and the door fell into the room. They walked across it into the hall, and ran for the stairs.

Fragrant with evaporating chloroform, Vicky hadn’t cooperated by regaining consciousness. Carson carried both shotguns, and Michael carried Vicky.

When Carson unlocked the back door and opened it, she paused on the threshold, turned to survey the kitchen. “I may never see this place again.”

“It’s not exactly Tara,” Michael said impatiently.

“I grew up in this house.”

“And a fine job you did of it. Now it’s time to move on.”

“I feel like I should take something.”

“I assume you heard Deucalion say ‘Apocalypse.’ For that, you don’t need anything, not even a change of underwear.”

She held the door for him as he left with Vicky, hesitated outside before closing it, and then realized what she needed: the keys to Vicky’s car.

They hung on the kitchen pegboard. She stepped inside, snared the keys, and left without a pang of sentimental regret.

She hurried after Michael, through the darkness along the side of the house, alert to the possibility that the pair from the Mountaineer might still be hanging around, passed him in the front yard, and opened the back door of Vicky’s Honda, so he could load her.

The car was parked under a streetlamp. With all the commotion, surely they were being watched. They would probably need to switch vehicles in an hour or two.

Carson and Michael assumed their usual positions: she behind the steering wheel, he in the shotgun seat, which was literally the shotgun seat tonight, because he sat there with two Urban Snipers that still smelled hot.

The engine caught, and she popped the handbrake, and Michael said, “Show me some NASCAR moves.”

“You finally want me to put the pedal to the metal, and it’s a five-year-old Honda.”

Behind them, Vicky began snoring.

Carson burned rubber away from the curb, ran the stop sign at the end of the block, and hung a left at the corner in a test of the Honda’s rollover resistance.

More than two blocks away, approaching, were the flashing red-and-blue lights of a squad car.

She wheeled right into an alleyway, stood on the accelerator, took out someone’s trash can, scared one of the nine lives out of a cat, said, “That sonofabitch Frankenstein,” and blew out of the neighborhood.