She opened her mouth. “Rafe?” she called softly, sliding one clenched hand inside her coat pocket.
“Rafe?”
The knife came swiftly. Slicing down on her. Cutting through her coat and piercing the skin at her left shoulder. Tasha screamed. Shocked. It pulled back and stabbed again and she stumbled away.
“Rafe!” she screamed and heard a moan.
Then her attacker was on her and she was rolling with them in the mud. Rolling and rolling. Fighting. The last thing Tasha remembered was the knifeblade held high above her, glinting in the yellow light.
Denny had to take a whiz really bad. Damn, motherfuckin’ coffee. Went through you like you had no pipes. He pulled into the rest stop as the faintest sign of daylight, more like just a little less of darkness, started moving over the hills.
He pulled his rig into a spot designed for RV’s and big semis and leaped from the cab, race walking to the men’s room. He was peeing by the time he got the damn zipper down and he let out a huge sigh of relief.
Finished, he looked at his reflection and ran a Nancy Bush
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hand through his thinning hair. “Fuckin’ A,” he said to his receding hairline. Making a face at his craggy mug, he headed back outside. A little lighter. Little better. He’d be in Astoria in an hour or so, depending on the snowpack in the Coast Range. He was just about back to his rig when he heard something. Something like a groan. He glanced around. There was a beat-up Dodge pickup in the lot and he realized its passenger door was ajar.
“Hey,” he called.
No answer.
Squinting at his watch he went to the door and pulled it wider. No one there.
The groan was louder.
Coming from beyond the pickup. Circling the vehicle, he checked the field opposite. Something there. Movement of sorts.
“Hey,” he called again as he walked cautiously toward it. Wouldn’t do to be some kind of wild animal searching for food scraps. He could do without that encounter.
Something on the ground.
Something with clothes on . . .
And then it rose to its feet, a bloodied figure, towering over the prone body on the ground. Denny’s heart nearly exploded from his chest.
“Holy shit.”
“The baby,” the figure said, clutching its chest. Denny stepped back; he couldn’t help himself, as the figure before him staggered toward him then fell to its knees. A man. Now turning to once again bend over the limp mound on the ground.
“Hey. Hey, man,” he said, reaching out a hand. The mound on the muddy grass was a woman, 470
Nancy Bush
pregnant, her belly exposed like a white mound with black marks across its crest. Bloody marks. From knife wounds scored across the skin.
“Oh, Jesus.” Denny pushed the man away who fell over without resistance, his eyes staring at the sky, blood dampening his chest.
Denny dragged his eyes back to the woman. She was breathing shallowly. Alive. Barely. And the baby? Whoever had tried to cut the poor little thing out had not succeeded.
Sending a prayer to the man upstairs, he ran for his truck and cell phone.