“I mean,” Parker whispered, “I can try. But...” She held up a hand covered in blood.
One of the tweakers had shot accurately after all.
73
Yet again his ex and daughter had gotten away.
As the two triggermen burned the camper of the private eye, or whatever the man with the motorcycle was, the three had escaped north on foot, through the woods. The two pursuers would be searching the surface roads to Millton. Merritt himself was following on foot, trying to pick up their trail in the forest.
Where are you?
Goddamn it, Allison!
He found he was moving quickly, not paying attention to the noise he was making. He supposed that stalking your prey required silence. But he didn’t care. He had a gun, he had ammunition and he was mad.
No sin is worse than betrayal.
Looking at the ground, he saw no sign of anyone having passed by. Maybe there were broken branches and overturned stones that were a road map pointing him to where they were. But he’d been a city detective. He could read concrete and asphalt and hardwood and carpet and smears revealed by alternative light sources. Not this, not here.
Still, there could be little doubt where they were heading—northto Millton. Any other destination would have meant a trek of twenty, thirty miles. And the path he was on was the straightest line to that dingy town.
Where was it exactly from here? He pulled out his phone and loaded the map.
It was because he was looking down that, as he walked out of a stand of pine saplings, he nearly ran into a pale young man hugging a garbage bag in his skinny arms.
Both stopped fast.
Merritt moved first, drawing the pistol and aiming.
“No!” the kid cried. “Not again.”
No idea what that meant.
“Drop the bag.”
He complied, looking around. A desperate gaze in his eyes.
It meant he’d have kin or friends nearby.
Keeping that in mind.
“Turn. Your back to me.”
He did and Merritt pulled a gun from the kid’s back pocket. A revolver. An old Colt. Embarrassing for a drug runner, having a piece like this. Any cooker or supplier worth his salt would have at least a Glock, if not a big showy chrome SIG.
“Walk forward. The bushes.”
He headed into a cul-de-sac of foliage.
“Stop.”
He stopped.
“Can I turn around?”
“Why not? If you want to.”
The boy had the wild eyes of a sometimes user. “It’s my daddy’s property you’re on. Private.”