"I can't."
More footfalls. He was closer now.
But then it occurred to Linda that maybe the sounds were the police. Kathryn and that cute FBI agent.
She winced in agony as she turned to look.
But, no, it wasn't the police. She could see, fifty feet away, Daniel Pell. He spotted them. He slowed, caught his breath and continued forward.
Linda turned to Samantha.
But the woman was no longer there.
Sam had left her yet again, just like she'd done years ago.
Abandoned her to those terrible nights in Daniel Pell's bedroom.
Abandoned then, abandoned now.
Chapter 54
"My lovely, my Linda."
He approached slowly.
She winced at the pain. "Daniel, listen to me. It's not too late. God will forgive you. Turn yourself in."
He laughed, as if this were a joke of some sort. "God," he repeated. "God forgives me. . . . Rebecca told me you'd gone religious."
"You're going to kill me."
"Where's Sam?"
"Please! You don't need to do this. You can change."
"Change? Oh, Linda, people don't change. Never, never, never. Why, you're still the same person you were when I found you, all red-eyed and lumpy, under that tree in Golden Gate Park, a runaway."
Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. "I'm sorry, baby. I've got to do it this way." An absurd but genuine apology. "But I'll be fast. I know what I'm doing. You won't feel much."
"Our Father . . ."
He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn't. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.
"Who art in heaven. Hallowed be--"
And then a tree fell.
Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.
Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.
Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.
Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.
Except once . . .
Daniel slashed at her with the knife but she was too fast for him. He grabbed for the gun, which had fallen to the trail. But the rough branch connected hard again and again, bouncing off his head, tearing his ear. He wailed in pain. "Goddamn." He struggled to his feet. Lashing out with his fist, he caught her in the knee with a solid blow and she dropped hard.