Within ten minutes, Detective Flynn had an APB out on the Pontiac, driven by a young woman with shoulder-length blondish-brown hair, gray eyes, weight around one fifteen. Well, not just gray eyes, Dane thought, they were pure gray and large, with dark lashes. But she was thin, still too thin, although she looked better than she had when he’d first met her. Good God, it was just last Tuesday. And she was wearing a pair of dark brown slacks and a light brown sweater, he’d checked. Purse? Her purse was black leather, just like her short boots. Size seven and a half, yes, that was her exact shoe size. It was important to be accurate for the APB, and so he mentioned that her eyebrows were a dark brown, nicely arched. Jesus, he was losing it. She was about five-foot-eight-inches tall—well, maybe taller because she came nearly to Dane’s nose. Every officer in the LA area was alerted, in great detail.
She’d taken all her clothes—all the clothes he’d bought her. He discovered very quickly that he’d never been so scared in his life. She was out there alone and she didn’t have any idea how to protect herself. She had his car and she had his gun. She wasn’t helpless, thank God. He was going to tie her down when he found her and not let her up unless they were handcuffed together.
His healing arm itched. When his cell phone rang ten minutes later, he nearly fell over in his haste to get it.
Nick left the Pontiac three miles from the Holiday Inn, in the middle of a long row of cars parked in front of an apartment complex. She locked it and left the keys on top of the front driver’s-side tire. Obvious place, but given Dane’s resources, the chances were that the police would retrieve the car before a thief decided he was hard up enough to steal it.
His SIG Sauer felt heavy in her purse. She’d checked the clip. There was a full fifteen rounds in it. Other than that, she had twelve dollars and Dane’s AmEx. She didn’t quite feel like Rambo, but it was close enough.
It wouldn’t be dawn for several more hours. No one had followed her from the Holiday Inn. It was dark and she was armed. With each passing minute there was more distance between her and both the bad guys and the good guys.
She saw some kids in baggy pants on the corner of Pickett and Longsworth. They were probably dealing drugs. She didn’t even pause, just turned quickly and walked to the east. The freeway wasn’t more than a mile away and she’d flag down an eighteen-wheeler. She’d gotten to San Francisco riding high above the ground in big trucks and keeping company with at least a half dozen truck drivers. She’d even learned how to operate a CB.
If she ran into a nut this time, she had the SIG Sauer. She flagged down a really big Foster Farms truck heading up I-5. A beefy guy named Tommy stopped because, he told her, he had to make it to Bakersfield, and he’d been driving without a stop for too long and was dead on his feet. Would she mind singing and talking to him until he let her out? She didn’t mind at all.
He got her as far as Ventura County. “Hey,” he said, “I think we sing a pretty mean ‘Impossible Dream.’ ”
An hour later, a smaller supply truck loaded with linens and bathroom supplies for one of the big ski lodges picked her up and began the climb to Mt. Pinos.
It was cold in the Los Padres National Forest, but down at Bear Lake elevation there wasn’t much snow on the ground, just a white veil, and the air was clear, as it had been yesterday.
The driver dropped her off in front of Snow House, a small lodge where she could wait until the stores opened. She wasn’t about to take a room. She knew they’d be tracking the card, would realize soon enough where she was.
Things had to happen soon or Dane would get to her. She sucked in a nice deep breath and walked into Snow House.
Her husband was driving up from LA a bit later, she told the desk clerk, and was meeting her here. This was where they’d spent their honeymoon and they wanted to come back. She was just here first. No, she didn’t want to check in just yet. She’d wait in the lobby area, near that roaring fire. They didn’t seem at all suspicious.
When the stores opened, she smiled toward the clerk behind the counter and walked out. She visited a small boutique, bought a cheap parka and gloves, and went to a general store at a filling station.
An hour later, she hiked to the Lakeview Home for Retired Police Officers.
She began to wonder if her great plan was going to lead to anything. She had to try it. She believed that Captain DeLoach had more answers than he’d given to them before. Now she was alone, and she knew she could get him to talk.
At least she prayed she’d get the old man to talk.
She walked straight to Captain DeLoach’s double-paned sliding doors, and tapped on the glass. No answer.