Living with the Dead
Page 53

The man lunged. Hope did the same – diving off to the side as she fired. The bullet caught the man in the side and he spun. Before he could recover, Karl tackled him and the two men went down.
"Robyn!" Hope scrambled up, gun trained on the fighting men. "Get back to the path."
The man wriggled out from under Karl. He sprang to his feet. Karl twisted out of the way. He grabbed the man on the rebound and threw him.
The man sailed through the air and crashed into the undergrowth fifteen feet away.
Robyn stared.
He threw him. Just picked him up and hurled him, like the guy did to me.
"Robyn!" Hope yelled. "The path."
Robyn couldn't move. As the man wobbled to his feet, Karl glanced over, blood streaming from his lip. He swiped at it.
"Hope? Get her out of here."
Hope looked from Karl to Robyn, clearly reluctant to leave him.
"N-no," Robyn said. "I-I'm okay. I'll – "
The man ran at Karl. They hit with a smack that echoed through the trees. Karl's fist connected with the man's jaw with an even louder thwack. The man howled in rage. His face – His face changed. Rippling. Contorting.
Robyn was wrenched backward, almost off her feet. She looked to see Hope clutching her arm, dragging her.
"Come on."
"No, Karl needs – "
"He doesn't need us."
When Robyn resisted, Hope heaved hard enough to make her stumble.
"He can't concentrate with us here."
One more backward glance at the fighting men, then Robyn let Hope lead her back to the path.
 
 
FINN
 
Finn tried Peltier's cell number again and, again, got the message that the customer was unavailable, meaning it was turned off...
The plan had seemed straightforward enough. The woman who'd returned his call was almost certainly the person who'd killed Portia Kane and two officers, and Finn had her here, within a block radius. Sure, it was a block swarming with people, but the crowds were starting to thin and with Damon's ear for music, they'd used the background music to pinpoint where the woman had made the call. Of course she wasn't there when they arrived, but she couldn't have gone far.
Finn knew she wouldn't have left the fair, despite what she'd claimed – that was just for his benefit, making him think "Robyn" was safely out of danger while he hunted for the scarred killer. She was here, and she was staying until she found Peltier.
So he just had to find her. He'd notified the backup team, now in place. But no one had the faintest idea what this woman looked like. Though her voice had sounded young, Finn knew better than to prejudge and had said only that she sounded under fifty. As defining factors went, that didn't help. In twenty minutes, he'd seen one woman over fifty.
He'd told Damon to pay attention to women who seemed to be searching for someone. But as the clock ticked past midnight and families cleared out, half the women seemed to be hunting for a spouse or a child.
Their best hope was that Damon would find his wife, and that would help them find the woman. But there was no sign of her either.
Finally, at Damon's prodding, Finn had called the cell phone while the ghost climbed onto a trailer to search the crowds for a woman answering.
Great idea. Or it would be, if she hadn't turned off the phone. Finn had tried three more times since, to no avail. She wasn't stupid; she didn't want him phoning back for more details or, worse, insisting she meet up with him.
"If Bobby's here, she's hiding," Damon said as he hopped from his latest perch. "Which is smart, and what I'd expect, but it doesn't help us worth shit. I want her safe, but she'd be safer if we caught this bitch."
Finn grunted and kept surveying the crowd. Even if he heard her voice, he still might not recognize her, but he couldn't stop looking and listening. She was here, a cop killer, and this might be his best chance to catch her.
"We'll keep looking," he said.
Damon looked relieved, as if he'd expected Finn to declare the mission impossible and call it off. If this woman killed Peltier, she and Damon could be reunited in death, and maybe a lesser man would want that, but Finn could tell it hadn't entered Damon's mind. His life ended early; he'd never wish the same on the woman he loved.
"Wherever Bobby is, she'll eventually pop out for a look around."
 
They searched for fifteen minutes more. Finn called the cell phone twice, with no answer. As they rounded a corn dog stand, Finn reached for Damon's arm. Two teens turned to gawk at the guy clawing the air.
"You really need to stop doing that," Damon said. "What's up?"
"That girl over there."
Finn started to point, then stopped himself and turned the gesture into an awkward chin-scratch while jerking his thumb toward his target, getting more stares than he had by pointing.
"Man, we need to work on your subtle communication skills," Damon said. "You mean the girl in the cowboy hat?
Yeah, it's damned ugly."
Finn lifted his cell phone, pretending to talk into it. "To my left, outside the fence. Light hair, yellow T-shirt..."
Damon squinted at the girl, then strode over, through people, through the fence, stood in front of her and yelled back, "This girl?"
Finn nodded. The girl – woman, he supposed he should say – was on the other side of the fence, walking toward the fair, coming out of a field beyond. Her strides were short and choppy, as if she didn't really want to be heading in this direction, but had no choice. Her scowl seconded that.
Damon strode back. "She doesn't look like the type to try sneaking in without paying, but if you want to alert security..."
"Do you recognize her?"
Damon looked back at the girl, now marching along the fence line. "Should I?"
"From the photo. The one on Robyn's phone."
"Uh, no, Finn. Sure, they're both blond and about the same age, but that is not the girl in the dress – "
"I meant the one behind her. In the photo."
 
"There was a girl behind the one in the dress?"
"A couple. An older man and her." He jerked his chin toward the girl, still marching, still scowling, still searching for a way back in.