WITHOUT REALIZING THAT SHE’D done it, Paula had opened the driver’s door, stepped out into the street.
Just as, ahead, the door of the stranger’s car was swinging open. The driver was stepping out of the car, carefully closing his door. He was a man of medium build. Dark hair, close-cropped. Muscular build, muscular stance, muscular movements.
Kane’s description.
Kane, moving across the street toward Diane.
Paula was moving toward the invisible line that connected Diane and the man, the three of them a triangle.
Kane. Surely it was Kane.
Kane, walking unnaturally. Concealing something along his right side.
A gun?
Paula felt herself faltering. The whistle. She’d left the whistle in the car, on the key ring.
Diane, momentarily frozen, helplessly turning to face the man.
Paula, advancing, closing one side of the triangle. A dozen more steps, and it would be a straight line, with her in the middle.
Kane, his eyes fixed on Diane, advancing. As, behind her, Paula heard the sound of a car, turning the corner into Noe. Headlight beams, sweeping the three of them.
Should she—?
Suddenly Diane made a high, desperate sound, then broke to her right, toward Carley’s building—diagonally toward Paula. Running wildly now. Instantly, Kane lunged forward. His right hand came up. It was a weapon—a club.
“Kane,” Paula screamed. “Don’t. Drop it, you bastard.”
As if he’d been struck, Kane broke stride, turned toward her. The car’s horn blared; headlights glared. Diane had almost reached Carley’s building; Paula, shouting abuses, obscenities, was running toward the girl, to protect her. Horn still blaring, the car was past the three of them. A man’s voice, shouting. Another foul-mouthed driver, gone now. Almost to Diane, Paula turned to face Kane. His back was to her. He was running. He reached his car, pulled the door open, slid in behind the steering wheel. Defeated. Miraculously, defeated. Running.