And yes, they should bag it up as evidence. They might have walked right by it on their way up the sidewalk, but the stench had been overwhelming, demanding further investigation. The only good thing in the night air was the smoky remnants of Alazne’s smudge pot.
“We’ll call Loretta,” he said. “Tell her to get somebody up here. We may be close to having this bastard cornered. Do you want the front or the back?”
“The back,” Creed said, checking the load on his .45-caliber semiautomatic H&K man-eater.
It was damn dark in the back of the house, but Creed was good in the dark, always had been.
Hawkins was reaching for his own pistol when Dylan’s voice came at him from over the radio. He drew the weapon and press-checked the chamber as he listened.
“Roger and out,” he said when Dylan signed off.
“What?” Creed asked.
“Kid and Zach have Lancaster. They’re taking him to Steele Street, and Dylan wants us back at the homestead.”
“So let’s do this.”
They started up the walk to the front door when the man they’d been chasing half the night and halfway around the world stepped out from the side of the house.
They instantly had Conroy Farrel in their sights.
Geezus. J.T.
“Let me see your hands!” Hawkins shouted. Geezus. J.T.
Farrel obeyed, lifting his hands shoulder height, showing Hawkins his open, empty palms.
“She’s inside. Jane. Take her with you,” Farrel said. His voice was calm, his presence commanding every ounce of Hawkins’s attention.
And then he was gone, moving so fast, it was almost as if he’d simply disappeared.
Creed started out after him but stopped in his tracks when the front door slammed open.
“Christian!” Jane called out. “Creed! Don’t shoot! It’s me. Jane!”
“Are you alone?” He kept moving quickly forward with his gun returned to a low-ready angle. Creed peeled off, heading down the side yard.
“J.T. just went out the back door!” she yelled, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Creed break into a run, but that wasn’t going to help. The Jungle Boy was fast but nothing like what they’d just seen.
Jane stepped onto the porch, looking like hell, her hair wild, her dress torn. There was blood on her knee and a bruise on her forehead.
“You can catch him,” she said breathlessly, her face pale. “He’s after someone, J.T. is, but there’s this … this monster, and he, and he killed these men at Mama’s, and he chased me, and J.T.—and, Christian, you have to help him. I think he’s sick, and—”
In two more steps he had his arm around her. She was trembling.
“Are you hurt?”
“N-no, not hurt, just scared. You have to help him.”
“That’s exactly what we’re—” A shot rang out from the back of the house, a .45, and he put her aside with a barked order. “Get down, stay put.” Then he was on the run.
Get down, stay put. Get down, stay put.
Too late.
Monk had seen it all, heard it all, and the moment Farrel had taken off, he’d moved from his downwind hiding place to the witch’s stinking roof. It had cost him, and now he was bleeding, but the night still belonged to him. Christian Hawkins turned on his heels and headed for the back door, following the shot, and Monk dropped silently from the roof to the porch and grabbed the girl.
It’s me. Jane!
He was not gentle with Jane. But the asshole in the backyard had not been gentle with him, skinning him with a .45-caliber slug across his cheekbone.
Too fast. Too fast for them all. From one split second to the next, he was never where someone thought he would be. When he was on the run, no part of him was static.
Keep moving. Keep moving.
Wrenching Jane up from her crouched position, he cuffed her up the side of the head, hard. She went instantly limp.
Just what he needed.
Throwing her over his shoulder, he ran into the night, staying in backyards, leaping fences. A man shouted behind him, and he heard the sound of running feet. Lightning flashed on the eastern plains, followed by a long roll of thunder, and then came the roar of an engine firing up.
Fools.
They would never catch him. He was headed straight into the heart of their fortress, 738 Steele Street, but they would never catch him.
They had Lancaster, the bastards. He’d heard them talking. Conroy Farrel would figure it out soon enough and head to Steele Street,