through, switched on the lights. He raced across the three stalls,
behind the cars, to the exterior door at the far end even before the
last of the fluorescent tubes had stopped flickering and come all the
way on.
He disengaged the dead-bolt lock, stepped out into the narrow side yard,
and glanced to his right. No killer. No Regina. The front of the
house lay in that direction, the street, more houses facing theirs from
the other side. That was part of the territory Lindsey already was
covering.
His heart knocked so hard, it seemed to drive each breath out of his
lungs before he could get it all the way in.
She’s only ten, only tea He turned left and ran along the side of the
house, around the corner of the garage, into the backyard, where the
fallen trellis and trumpet vines lay in a heap.
So small, a little thing. God, please.
Afraid of stepping on a nail and disabling himself, he skirted the
debris and searched frantically along the perimeter of the property,
plunging recklessly into the shrubbery, probing behind the tall
eugenias.
No one was in the backyard.
He reached the side of the property farthest from the garage, almost
slipped and fell as he skidded around the corner, but kept his balance.
He thrust the Browning out in front of him with both hands, covering the
walkway between the house and the fence. No one there, either.
He’d heard nothing from out front, certainly no , which meant Lindsey
must be having no better luck than he was. If the killer had not gone
that way, the only other thing he could have done was scale the fence on
one side or another, escaping into someone else’s property.
Turning away from the front of the house, Hatch surveyed the seven
foot-high fence that encircled the backyard, separating it from the
abutting yards of the houses to the east, west, and south.
Developers and Realtors called it a fence in southern California,
although it was actually a wall, concrete blocks reinforced with steel
and covered with stucco, capped with bricks, painted to match the
houses. Most neighborhoods had them, guarantors of privacy at swimming
pools or barbecues. Good fences make good neighbors, make strangers for
neighbor and make it damn easy for an intruder to scramble over a single
barrier and vanish from one part of the maze into another.
Hatch was on an emotional wire-walk across a chasm of despair, his
balance sustained only by the hope that the killer couldn’t move fast
with Regina in his arms or over his shoulder. He looked east, west,
south, frozen by indecision.
Finally he started toward the back wall, which was on their southern
flank. He halted, gasping and bending forward, when the mysterious
connection between him and the man in sunglasses was re-established.
Again Hatch saw through the other man’s eyes, and in spite of the
sunglasses the night seemed more like late twilight. He was in a car,
behind the steering wheel, leaning across the console to adjust the
unconscious girl in the passenger seat as if she were a mannequin.
Her wrists were lashed together in her lap, and she was held in place by
the safety harness.
After arranging her auburn hair to cover the scarf that crossed the back
of her head, he pushed her against the door, so she slumped with her
face turned away from the side window. People in passing cars would not
be able to see the gag in her mouth. She appeared to be sleeping.
Indeed she was so pale and still, he suddenly wondered if she was dead.
No point in taking her to his hideaway if she was already dead.
Might as well open the door and push her out, dump the little bitch
right there. He put his hand against her cheek. Her skin was
wonderfully smooth but seemed cool.
Pressing his fingertips to her throat, he detected her heartbeat in a
carotid artery, thumping strongly, so strongly. She was so alive, even
more vital than she had seemed in the vision with the butterfly flitting
around her head. He had never before made an acquisition of such value,