Two

Santa Barbara, California

Liz stopped on the lawn outside the psychology building to stretch. As she pulled one ankle and then the other behind and balanced freestanding, she admired the July sky and savored the soft ocean air against her skin. The temperature had been hovering in the low seventies, perfect, while the Weather Channel reported an oxygen-sucking heat wave blanketing New York and Washington. Moving to the West Coast had been one of her smarter decisions.

Her life was far different from that dark time when she had discovered her parents were assassins. She figured she was as happy now as she would ever be, and she had Grey Mellencamp to thank, because he had been right all those years ago. It was a pity he had died so soon after delivering his fatherly advice. She would have liked to tell him how much he had helped her.

As soon as she ended her stretches, she speed-walked toward the university’s Marine Science Institute, feeling light and powerful, as if she were about to begin a match. Her other sport was karate-d, one of the few leftovers from her previous life in intelligence. She gazed around, passing the usual sports cars with their tops down, the trash cans topped off with foam cups from the Mesa Coffee, and the students in their eye patch–size swimsuits, sitting out on dormitory patios, enthusiastically risking melanoma. Few palm trees decorated the campus. Instead, sycamores, magnolias, and exotic eucalypti stood here and there, country-club elegant.

When she spotted the squat marine lab building, she broke into a trot, running downhill past it onto a spit of sand that edged the university’s big lagoon. She saw no one on the rocky cliff that towered ahead, which was just the way she liked it. Beginning to sweat, she loped up a sandy ridge to the dirt path that cut along the cliff’s narrow top. The breeze whispered through her hair. Her quad muscles rippled.

Savoring the clean salty air, she looked right, where wild grasses and scrub trees and bushes welded the soil to the rolling slope that spread down to a blue lagoon so protected from the elements that hardly a wave showed. On the far side lay the campus, where a few students were visible. They disappeared into buildings, late for classes. Abruptly, the university was deserted—a perfect still life of simple modern buildings and manicured trees from some architectural photographer’s prized album.

As she settled into her usual slow, steady gait, she gazed left at the ocean, which extended in a blaze of turquoise out to the Channel Islands some twenty miles away. Here on the ocean side, the vegetation was far different, not thick and upright and hardy as it was on the lagoon’s slope, but sparse and gnarled from fighting to grow out of rock crevices where it was exposed to harsh sea winds. She could hear the roar of the surf far below—at least fifty feet—but she could not see it from the trail.

The cliff continued along the campus for miles. Every year, a handful of people died from falling off it during drunken parties or while bicycling, hiking, or running. The media would cover the tragedy, and people would be careful for a while. But as time passed, the sense of danger faded. They resumed old habits. Became careless. Until someone else was killed.

She tried to shake off a sudden feeling of uneasiness. There were still occasional moments when she felt as if her past were catching up with her, and she was overcome with despair. But that seldom happened out here, where the peaceful lagoon spread on one side and the timeless ocean on the other. Where the clear sky and the warm sun and the joyful calls of seagulls reminded her how good life was. She usually ran this high trail between the two bodies of water as if she were invincible.

But not today. She was nervy, wary. She did not understand it. Ahead, the path was empty, but she heard people behind. She glanced back, mindful of the rutted trail. There was another runner, tall and muscular, dressed in sunglasses, a baseball cap, and jogging clothes. Ordinary-looking. Behind him was a bicyclist, crouching low over his handlebars as he sped toward them, adjusting gears.

She listened to the rhythm of her feet, felt the measured beat of her heart, tested all her senses while she reminded herself to stay composed.

Soon the bicyclist whizzed past on her right, through the wild grasses on the lagoon side, off-trail. Relieved, she slowed to avoid breathing the billows of dust from his tires as he hurtled back onto the dirt track and roared onward. Next, she felt the movement of air that told her the runner was about to pass, too. She moved politely left to give him room. He did not move to the right.

Instead, he stayed directly behind, his speed increasing, his footsteps closing in. A chill shot up her spine, followed by anger. What in hell was he thinking! And then she knew. From the back of her mind, from a time and place she had worked hard to forget, she understood that she had been monitoring him all along, because he had been pacing her. He did not pass because he wanted something else.

She burst ahead, escaping. Her feet were light, her speed explosive. Her muscles sang. Vegetation passed in a blur, but his pounding gait told her he was fast, too. She dared not look back. She might trip, fall off the cliff.

She leaped off the beaten trail, risking tangled grass and loose rocks, aiming toward the gentle slope down to the lagoon. But with a suddenness that sent fear rushing through her, she felt his hard, hot exhalations on the back of her neck. Desperately, she tried to accelerate again, but she had nothing left. This was her top speed. She would have to fight.

As she started to turn, he slammed his arms around her waist, wrenched her off her feet, and swung her around toward the cliff’s ocean side.

Above her, the sky tilted. Panting, she rammed her right elbow back. He grunted in pain. She had connected with his pectorals, muscular and resilient, but she had not hit him hard enough to really hurt. He was taller and far stronger. She twisted from side to side and briefly saw his face with her peripheral vision. Heavy jaw, hollow cheekbones, thick, short nose. Ray-Ban sunglasses. His lips were a thin, neutral line.

Frantic, she slashed her other elbow into his shoulder and punched a fist back over her shoulder at his throat. Too little, too late. Like a big, bored child, he flung her from his arms and staggered back to safety.

Her balance utterly gone, she sailed helplessly through the air. Her mouth opened, her arms windmilled, and a primordial scream erupted from somewhere deep in her belly. She did not recognize the sound, and then it was gone, lost in the roar of the surf pounding far below.

She landed at the cliff’s edge. Unable to stop, she plunged feet-first into a terrifying void of bottomless space. She jerked frantically around and grabbed clumps of pampas grass, which held for a moment on the sheer cliff and then pulled away, roots and all. But they slowed her inexorable slide, and she was not in free fall. Not yet.

Head spinning, terror threatening to paralyze her, she clutched at outcroppings and scrub while her feet scrambled for something to brake on. Nothing she grasped held for long, and sharp rocks jutting from the cliff’s face ripped her T-shirt and shorts as her slide continued. Hundreds of cuts, scrapes, and puncture wounds riddled her hands, arms, chest, belly, and legs. The more she sweated, the more they hurt and burned, distracting her.

She almost missed it: a spindly tree battling to grow from a crevice. As her feet, legs, and waist rushed down past, she seized it with both hands. Miraculously, the tree held. She dangled there, trying to press into the rocks. There was nothing beneath her feet. The breeze was icy against her wet skin.

Time froze. She was in pain, discouraged, exhausted, and vividly aware that one misstep, one long, smooth stretch of cliff without handhold or toehold, or one second of inattention could lead to her death.

As she tried to fight the fear, to summon the energy to go on, a voice sounded in her mind: You can do this. She repeated the words, and then she knew: Yes, there was one problem she could do something about—herself. She needed to focus.

Her feverish nerves quieted. Concentrating, she dismissed her aches and bruises. She craned to look up but could not see the top of the cliff. There was no way she could climb back up anyway.

The tree gave an ominous creak, its roots loosening.

She forced herself to remain calm and gazed down. It was a straight drop, some thirty feet now, and there was no one down there on the beach to call to for help. The surf was heavy, but at least there was sand directly beneath, not boulders.

She searched for a toehold and finally spotted a shallow lip about ten feet below. Focusing, she bent the scraggly tree over and patiently worked her fingers along the trunk as she lowered herself.

Finally, the toe of one running shoe found the narrow shelf. Almost immediately, the roots broke free in a shower of sand and rock.

She released the tree. As it fell, she swayed, caught her balance, and flattened into the sheer face, suddenly overwhelmed by pain. She hurt everywhere. Breathing deeply, she blocked it from her mind again.

There was another little ledge lower. Carefully, she eased her way down from outcropping to spindly bush to clump of grass. Progress came in inches. When she reached the ledge, she collected herself and saw a third place below where she could put both feet. With small goals, the impossible was achievable.

When she reached that ledge, she looked down again. Fifteen feet remained. A towering wave rolled in and crashed onto the sand, sending spray up against the cliff, almost reaching her. She decided that was too good a sign of a doable distance to ignore. She analyzed the drop, bent her knees, flexed her body, and stepped away from the cliff.

Heart pounding, she plummeted straight down through the ocean air and landed in a crouch in the sand, sending seabirds aloft in flight. Their sharp cries of complaint rose and disappeared. She stayed there, fingers dug into the sand, motionless, panting.

Finally, as glossy white surf spent itself near her feet, she wiped an arm across her hot face and forced herself to think. It was illogical, impossible, that she had been a target of opportunity for some random madman. No, that bastard had been following her. He had tried to kill her—and had come very close to succeeding. But why here? Why now?

She shuddered, feeling again his steely grip around her waist, her helplessness at his well-planned attack. At last, she stood up, brushed the sand from her hands, and began walking back. Soon she was overcome by restlessness. Then a fiery bolt of outrage shot through her. Furious, she ran. Had the past caught up with her at last?