Middle Of Nowhere

   "I'm going to get out of the car now," she announced, having no trouble playing the terrified and wounded stranger. "You're going to drive off and leave me." With her foot, she tried to stuff the handle of the gun back inside, but it wouldn't go, so she covered it again.

   "No, no, no . . ." he said, suddenly aware of his predicament.

   The car idled on the side of the road.

   "This was a mistake on my part," she said. "I should have taken the taxi."

   "A little late for that."

   "You're upset over the loss of your brother. You're

lucky I'm a professional, because I understand that. I've seen men in your condition before. Another woman would report you to the police—"

   He said sarcastically, "And you're not going to!"

   "No, I'm not. That would hardly be fair. It would only further aggravate your mental condition."

   "I do not have no 'mental condition'!" he objected. "I am not no mental case!"

   "Your grief," she said calmly. "I'm referring to your grief over your brother's loss." She would have to turn her back on him to try manually for the door lock, and the car was one of those where the nub of the lock barely protruded when in the locked position, so it was not going to be an easy feat. There wasn't a mastercontrol-lock in her door panel—there was only the one window toggle and it was once again child-locked and inoperable.

   "We got ourselves a situation here," he said, rubbing his sweaty face with an open hand.

   "I'm going to unlock the door," she informed him, "and I'm going to get out of the car. All you have to do is drive away and there is no situation."

   He seemed to be talking to himself more than her. "The thing is, you look so familiar to me, and I been trying to sort that out. And then you go and speak my name like that, and I'm thinking you are a cop, that that's where I seen you. Something to do with Davie. And now you say you won't tell no one, but that's bullshit and we both know it." He hit the accelerator. The rear wheels shot out plumes of mud and the car slowly squirreled back out into the lane nearly hitting a passing car that swerved to avoid them.

   Daphne turned and went for the lock, deciding she could jump at this slow speed. It accelerated quickly. She only had a moment. . . .

   She heard the breaking glass and felt the blow simultaneously. The nauseating smell of cheap tequila engulfed her. One moment she was struggling with that damn door lock. The next, there was only pain, and the dark, blue, penetrating swirl of unconsciousness.

C H A P T E R

51

Waiting for the 9:10 ferry to Bainbridge in the enormous State Ferry parking lot, his cellular voyeuristically held to his ear, Boldt agonized as he overheard the events that led up to the struggle between Daphne and Flek, Daphne's calm pleading that followed and the final crashing of glass that had silenced all discussion. Only the faint groan of the car engine told him the line was still active. He couldn't be sure if the car had been wrecked or if Flek was still driving.

   Movement in his rearview mirror attracted him, or perhaps it was the magnetism of the man he saw there, walking with a limp through the light rain. The passenger door came open and a bruised and battered John LaMoia climbed into the car painfully. He glanced over at his lieutenant—everything below his eyebrows and above his chin a mass of swollen black and purple and yellow-orange skin—and said through a wired-shut jaw, "Couldn't let you have all the fun."

   "Now you've screwed up everything," Boldt said, "because now I've got to drive you back to the hospital instead of boarding this ferry."

   "No way," the man mumbled, his words barely discernable. "Haven't been on a ferry in years." He added, "Don't worry—I'm not feeling any pain, Sarge. Matter of fact, I feel pretty great."

   Boldt's ear adapted to the odd speech impediment brought on by the man's wired jaw. He sounded halfsouthern, half-drunk. Medicated to the hilt.

   Boldt handed him the phone and said, "No talking into it, but what do you hear?"

   LaMoia pressed his other ear shut, though the move was clearly painful. "Eight cylinder. Twin barrel maybe. Bad pipes."

   Boldt was not thinking in terms of a gear head. He had wanted a straight answer. "But it's a car. Right?"

   "You tell me."

   "A car engine. Idling or running?"

   "This baby's on the road, Sarge. Three thousand RPM and cruising." LaMoia added, "What channel is this anyway? SportTrax?"

   "She left her cell phone on."

   "You told me," LaMoia reminded him.

   "But it's still on. There was a struggle, and no one's doing any talking." Boldt spoke frantically. "I made the call to Poulsbo PD from a pay phone. Told them they couldn't use any radios because this guy's a scanner. They have one plainclothes detective over there. He was going to sit on the Liberty Bay Grill with some radio cars nearby as backup. Maybe we've still got a shot at him."

   The ferry lights approached.

   "Finally," Boldt said.

   "No chopper, I take it," LaMoia surmised.