“Maddocks?” came a whisper. “Are you there?” A shape with a headlamp and flashlight emerged from the trees.Angie.
The shot was instant. Bark shrapnel exploded and pinged off the metal railing.
“Kill your lights!” he hissed. “Get down!”
She did, but not before another shot zinged across the platform as she dived. Then all fell silent. He could hear her breathing heavily.
“You okay?” he said.
“Where is he?” she said as she scrambled across the wood floor of the platform to where he crouched in the corner.
“Opposite side of the gorge.”
“And Ginny—with him?”
The act of having to voice it hammered home the sick reality of the situation, made the horror of the nightmare all the more bleak.
“He’s suspended her from the trestle bridge. Just above the rising water.”
Angie wriggled herself up into a sitting position beside him, her breath misting, her shoulder pressing against his as he pointed out where Ginny had been strung. She’d been running and Maddocks could feel her warmth. It released a faint fragrance of flowers and something soapy fresh from her skin. Never had a woman’s touch, her scent, felt more human, more welcome than Angie Pallorino right now. To have an ally suddenly meant the world.
“What in the hell are you doing here anyway?” he said.
“I’m your partner.” She unhooked coils of rope from her shoulder as she spoke. “I left almost right after you. I got your back—and that ERT team is not going to be able to get in here.” She shrugged out of the pack on her back, opened it. “We’re going to have to do this on our own.”
“Angie, you’re not—”
“Shut the fuck up, okay? They’re not going to risk killing a helo full of men in a doomed attempt to save one detective and his daughter, and you know it. They’re fully aware Addams is out there somewhere. They know they can track him for days with dogs, bring in military equipment, man trackers. They’ll get him in the end, flush him out. Or he’ll die in the wilderness. They can afford to wait for the best possible conditions. We can’t.”
He stared into her eyes, dark and glistening in the faint light of dawn beginning to lighten their world as they approached the shortest day of the year. And at that moment Maddocks believed he loved her. Wholly. And he did not want to—could not—risk her life. He wasn’t even certain Ginny was still breathing.
As if reading his mind, she said, “She’s alive, Maddocks. She is. You havegotto believe that. And we’re going to save her. This is how—” Before she could finish, another shot rang out. They both ducked instinctively.
Crouching together, faces close, breath misting around them, they listened, waited. A swath of thick mist blew in again, buying them a few moments. Not only was the tide rising, but the light of dawn would soon make them sitting targets each time the shroud lifted.
“I know this place,” she said, digging back into her pack. She took out a tangle of carabiners. “I used to hike and camp here when I was at college. And when I was a kid, my dad—” She hesitated, her fingers working fast to separate the carabiners. “Joseph Pallorino used to bring me here. We’d pump for shrimp, collect clams from the mud flats when the tide was out. I know how fast it comes in.” She got up into a crouch, met his gaze. Intensity crackled off her.
“Are you a strong swimmer?” she said.
“Strong enough.”
“That’s stronger than I am.” She handed him a coil of the climbing rope she’d brought, along with a link of carabiners.
“You go down. Use thevia ferratacable that runs off the end of this platform. Hold on to the cable and kick your feet into the cliff sides in order to work down to the water. Just above the high tide level you’ll reach a wide slab of rock that runs all the way to the bridge. It’s been scoured out by years of tidal action. If you can get down there, work your way along that platform to a point several meters before the bridge, where you will find an iron ring that someone drilled into the rock years back for some kind of moorage. At least I hope it’s still there. People used to tie rafts to it when the water was low and calm. If you can hook your rope into that ring and secure the other end to yourself, you can feed yourself out into the water and hold yourself against the currents. The rope should be long enough for you to reach Ginny.” She scrambled to her feet and hooked her pack onto her back, then scooped up the other coil of rope.
“I’m going out onto the trestle bridge. I’ll try to cut Ginny free from the top. There’s a path around the back of this knoll that leads there.”
“He’ll pick you off the second the mist clears.”
“He’ll pick you off going down the cliff face, too. Pray the mist holds. I’ll try to provide a distraction from the top while you get out there at the bottom. Here.” She handed him a whistle from her pack. “Two sharp blasts and I’ll know you’re under her. The instant you blow that signal, I’ll try to sever her loose from the top. Give me your rifle.”
“Angie, I can’t let you—”
“Stop,” she whispered, pressing her gloved fingers to his lips. “Please, stop. And focus.” Then she said, “Maddocks, I’ve got nothing else. Ineedto do this.” She paused. “I need to try.”
And he heard the subtext. She’d lost one partner. She’d lost the toddler. She’d lost Merry Winston, whom she felt she’d needed to protect. She’d lost her own identity. And she could not bear losing again.
“I’m going to do it with or without you, Sergeant James Maddocks, you hear me? But I could use that rifle. I can put it to better use from up on the trestle than you can while you’re neck-deep in rapids.”
