risk of stepping on a copperhead or rattlesnake is significant this time of year, especially in the darkness under the canopy.
Halfway through the ring of trees that surrounds the pool, I hear music. The truck’s radio. It’s Creedence, the music of Max’s youth, and the last thing Jet would choose. Confident that the music will mask my approach, I push harder through the brush. Another thirty seconds’ struggle takes me to the edge of the trees, where ten feet of muddy ground separates the woods from the water.
It felt like night under the trees, but here twilight still diffuses through the clouds, and the water picks it up like a mirror. A hundred yards across the pool, the running lights of Max’s truck shine like red beacons. The tree line on the far side looks black, but staring through the dusk I see two figures silhouetted against the white paint of the truck. For a moment I’m confused; then I realize Max and Jet are standing on a little pier that juts out at an angle from the far bank. If it weren’t for Max’s truck parked behind them, I wouldn’t have seen them at all.
It’s unsettling to find Max and Jet where she and I spent so many hours together. They appear to be facing each other and standing close together. I can’t hear their voices, only John Fogerty singing “Someday Never Comes.” A waxing gibbous moon is rising in the southwestern sky. What are they doing here? I wonder. Did she want to be close to water, so that if she can’t steal his phone outright, she can destroy it?
As I stare through the dusk, a sharp cry cuts through the music. The smaller of the two figures runs down the pier and vanishes against the trees. The larger follows, but only at a walk. A sound that must be Max’s voice rolls over the water, and then he disappears as well. My heart starts to pound again. If they get back into the truck and drive down the hill, I’m screwed. I can’t possibly get back to the Explorer before they reach it. Risking exposure, I step out of the trees and crouch in the mud, squinting through the darkness.
At first I see nothing. Then Jet darts across the whiteness of the truck. Max follows, and suddenly I’m watching a shadow play staged against the backdrop of his F-250. As the song fades, Max bellows something. Three feet away from him, Jet screams back. He moves forward, reaching. Jet lets him take hold of her, pull her to him. They spin in a circle. I can’t tell if they’re arguing or kissing. Dizzy with confusion, I feel relief as Jet violently shoves him back, removing all doubt. They’re fighting. I’m rising to my feet when Jet ducks down, then pops back up and raises her right arm as though swinging a tomahawk.
I gasp in disbelief as she drives her arm forward.
Max staggers back, wavers on his feet, then drops to his knees. Jet draws back her arm again, but Max topples over onto his back. Jet falls to her knees and starts grabbing at Max’s body like she’s going through his pockets.
What the hell has she done? Has she killed him?
Shaken from my trance, I start racing around the pool, but I haven’t covered twenty yards before Jet raises her arm again, preparing to slam whatever she’s holding into Max’s motionless head once more.
“Jet!” I scream. “Don’t! Jet . . . ? STOP!”
She freezes, probably looking my way, but it’s too dark to tell. For a second she kneels motionless, like a cave woman in some museum diorama. Then she scrambles to her feet and jumps into Max’s truck. The engine roars, and two seconds later, she’s backing through the woods as though fleeing a forest fire.
If she races down the hill road at full speed, she’ll slam into the Explorer. My only chance of stopping her is to cut her off at the road, and I’ve got maybe twenty seconds to do it. I charge into the trees, bulling through the brush without regard for consequences. Thorns and branches tear at my face and arms, but my only concern is avoiding the trunks.
I burst from the woods as Max’s truck rounds the curve above me, accelerating with a roar. Seeing no alternative, I run to the middle of the road and start windmilling my arms like a sailor waving off a fighter jet during a carrier