He glanced over his shoulder and found the couple in the throng. The woman's grip tightened on the man's arm. Their eyes met. Her head tilted to the left, toward a side corridor, and they veered that way, still talking, as if they'd been heading in that direction all along. He remembered that Internet chatter about hitmen teaming up to find him, and his gut tightened with an unexpected jolt of pain. So it was true. And this was who it was.
"But not for long, Jack," he murmured. "Not for long."
By the time the usher arrived, a crowd had gathered at the bathroom door. Two men argued over the best way to open it--credit card or a hard shoulder shove.
Just open it! Grace wanted to scream, but the words jammed in her throat and all she could think about was Cliff's laugh and David, slumped on the garage floor, dead from a heart attack, just minutes after he'd kissed her good-bye. A split second, that's all it took, and your world was shattered.
"Oh, God, please, please, please," she whispered under her breath.
/> The usher arrived--two ushers, and two security guards, and two men in suits, guns flashing under their coats as they loped down the hall. Security? Armed men? What about paramedics? Where was the paramedic? Was there a doctor here? There had to be a doctor in this crowd, all these people, standing around doing nothing while Cliff was--
A hand closed on her arm. She looked to see a red-haired young woman crouching beside her. The same woman she'd almost crashed into earlier. Her husband was off to the side, scanning the crowd. Looking for his wife? No, his gaze touched hers, but moved past.
"Cliff," Grace whispered. "He's--he was in the bathroom. I knocked. He's not--"
She couldn't finish. As the young woman tugged off her glove and took her hand, genuine anxiety flooded her eyes. The woman opened her mouth to say something, but just then, the bathroom door swung open. Through the crowd, Grace caught a glimpse of a fallen figure and a shock of white hair. She gasped, but the sound came out as a whimper.
She slammed her wheelchair forward, into the legs of the person standing in front of her. The young woman leapt to her feet and started clearing a path. Then someone grabbed her shoulder. She reached to push the hand off.
"Gracie?"
She stopped and, for a moment, couldn't move. Then slowly, she looked up. Cliff was leaning over her, face tight with concern.
"What happened?" he asked. Then he saw the figure in the bathroom. "Did someone--?"
She grabbed his hand and pulled him down to her in an embrace.
"I thought--" she began. "Where were you?"
"The bathroom was locked, so I used the main one. Helluva lineup, too."
She hugged him again, then looked for the young woman, to thank her, but she was gone.
* * *
THIRTY-FOUR
As Jack led me to the foyer, I breathed deeply, struggling to ground myself, but the air seemed so thin I could barely find oxygen. If there was a floor beneath my feet, I couldn't feel it. The blood roaring in my ears drowned out all sound around me.
I felt...nothing. Numb. Distantly aware of my feet stumbling on the carpet, Jack's fingers tight around my arm, my hip scraping against the wall, bumping along in a cushion of shock.
I'd failed. In the same building as the killer, less than a hundred feet away, and I hadn't stopped him.
"Might not have been him," Jack murmured, lips close to my ear, hand still around my arm, supporting me. "Old guy. Maybe a slip-and-fall. Heart attack."
I shook my head.
"Don't know that. We'll check. But we don't know."
"Dollar bill," I managed to get out. "On the floor."
Jack's lips parted in a curse. My chest tightened and the world pitched sideways. His fingers clenched around my arm, but I barely felt the pressure, as if he was holding me through a down-filled parka.
I saw his lips move, but heard only the pound of blood in my ears. I saw myself running, running through a forest, heart pounding so hard I thought it would burst, pain lashing through me. Running for help. Helpless myself. Couldn't stop him. Couldn't--
I ricocheted back so fast I gasped. The fog cleared, and something else took its place--something so hard and so dark that I dipped into darkness again, blinded. But not by shock, but by rage.
This wasn't over. He'd succeeded, but he hadn't won, hadn't escaped. I wasn't thirteen and I wasn't helpless.