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Temeke followed the blonde past the Mercantile towards Dina Nelson Road. The red baseball hat hadn’t thrown him for a second and he sprinted along that country road, hearing only silence and wishing like hell he had Malin with him.
Weapon checked and holstered, he felt an eerie strain in the air as if the sun had suddenly set, leaving a darkening sky above him and rolling clouds. It was beautiful, but it was threatening too.
He called Malin, told her he was following the suspect on foot and that he needed immediate assistance. She said she wouldn’t be far behind.
No, he wouldn’t wait for backup. That was insane. Not when he rounded a corner and he could hear the sound of boots slogging up a dirt lane that intersected the end of the road. Gun drawn, both hands on the pistol grip, he followed her north under a thick canopy of cottonwoods.
Years of police work had taught him how to pinpoint and isolate the source of a sound, and he moved slowly, balancing on the balls of his feet. Still no sign of her.
The bushes on the side of the street were so high he couldn’t see over them and every step along that sandy road was a dangerous one. He heard the huff of his own breath and wondered if she could hear it too.
Gabriel, Gabriella... whatever it was she called herself today, a girl beaten by her father because she wasn’t a boy.
Beige hat, red hat. She was crazy to be out here on her own. Believing being Gabriel would help her forget and take away her guilt. Believing she could outsmart a man in a Kevlar vest and a Glock in his hand. Decades of tracking suspects left him in a state of constant motion and he would never give up.
He stood before a slight bend in the road, keeping his gun at low ready. The wind hurled sand flurries across his path, brown leaves racing and rolling, branches groaning above him. The north side of the sky was layered in dark clouds, rippling towards the southern horizon which was bathed in an eerie amber light.
Storm’s coming, he thought, as he braced himself against the spiraling dirt devils, focusing on the snaking road ahead and the distant figure he thought he saw. A flare of lightning branched in the gray and flickered again like the glowing filament of a light bulb.
Had she summoned these demon winds?
From warm sunshine to peals of thunder in less than twenty minutes, Temeke had to wonder. He was conscious of the tart scent of rain as it began to tap against the surface of the road, and better still, a boot print in the dirt.
The natural cambers and bends made it impossible to get a sighting, but she had to be only fifty yards ahead walking along the side of the road and too exposed to think she was being followed.
There were potholes and spidery cracks in the dried mud and a ghostly pall on the lane that wasn’t there a moment ago. He froze when he saw a red baseball cap, blown off by the wind and bobbing along the grass verge toward him.
His body tensed with the sound of scuttling leaves, but only for a second. He stooped and lurched for it, hooking the muzzle of his gun through the snapback. Temeke’s instinct wasn’t to touch it. There was a small bag in his pocket, not large enough for the cap, but big enough to cover his hand. Without touching the visor, he slipped it into his cargo pocket.
His pulse began to spike as he set off again, this time half running, half walking, back aligned with the hedge and grip tightening on the Glock. The steady percussion of thunder reminded him the storm was overhead now, lightning forking in a blinding flash.
With each silent step he advanced by inches, feeling the burn in his muscles. Was she armed and hiding? Because if she was, she had a better firing position. Never expect the usual, he thought. It would kill him every time.
The scent of damp wood alerted him to an old slatted barn up ahead. He approached it from the northeast corner, estimating a building of about thirty feet wide and fifty feet long. There was a four foot gap between the sliding doors and a wide aisle where pools of water had collected from the rain.
Temeke slipped into the shadows and pressed his shoulder against the stable wall. He paused and listened to the drumming rain against the roof and the occasional hoof stamping against the kickboards. Each stall had a row of bars above a sturdy five-foot wall and a door that led out to individual runs. He counted five horses inside, ears flicking forward and back, and nostrils twitching.
His trained ear caught the sound of a shoe knocking against metal and he squatted behind a tower of empty water troughs.
A pained yell.
Temeke fought a rush of nausea. It wasn’t the whinnying horses that bothered him, or their intermittent kicking and strutting, as if they would break out of the stalls at any moment and trample him underfoot. It was the sound of a human voice.
He duck walked up the aisle, one step at a time, arms extended. To his left was an open tack room with feed bins and buckets, and on the right a cloud of dust floated above a straw bale. Something had recently brushed against it. He traversed his weapon 180 degrees, peripheral vision studying the dim outline of the stalls and the bars above them.
Then a thin grinding sound, like wheels riding along a steel rail. Temeke dropped deep into his calves, leveled his weapon and ignored the throbbing in his legs.
The sound was coming from an opening in the wall about ten feet beyond the straw bale. He waited three minutes, rose up into a crouch and edged around the corner. He found himself in a short corridor where a sliding metal gate separated the main barn from a circular lunging pen. Lighting flickered feverishly through a domed glass ceiling and a layer of clouds hovered directly above.
He spun inward, saw a female fifteen feet away kneeling in a thick bed of sand, head lowered as if she was praying. She didn’t seem to hear the words “Police!” Kept swaying back and forth and chanting something he didn’t understand.
There was enough light in the sky to see the wig discarded in the sand beside her, hands pushed down between her thighs as if she was cold.
Temeke shouted again. This time she heard him, head raised for only a moment. He could make out the rounded cheekbones, the red hair and mouth slightly open.
“Go away,” she moaned.
“Lily, it’s me. It’s OK.”
“It’s too big now.” She tapped the side of her head with a knuckle. “It hurts so much. Please... go away.”
“Lily, I’m here. Let me help you.”
“No, no, no... Stay back!”
It was the irony of it all that would come back to haunt him. The very book Alice bought ‒ to empower, to encourage ‒ had damaged none other than her own precious sister.
“I meant what I said,” she shouted. “Either you open the door and let me in or I’ll‒”
Temeke didn’t hear the response that interrupted her. He heard whispers and then two voices, one taunting, the other pleading.
“I’ll scream,” she said. “You know how loud I can scream!”
She sounded out of breath, chest rising and falling, forehead glistening with sweat. One hand dropped to her thigh, fingers opening and closing as if she was flexing a cramping muscle.
“You said I could see Alice. You said, you said, you said!”
Temeke crept forward a little, feet wading through sand. And then he saw the terrible thing she clasped, barrel, slide and trigger in a rugged shade of gray.
When he was halfway across the space, she pushed the muzzle in her mouth.
When he was five feet away, she fired.
