After scanning the creek bed, she shined the light down the arroyo wall directly in front of her, examining something. Tracks, Letty thought. She was looking at the place Letty had gone over the side. Then the woman turned, and the flashlight went out, and the woman fired a shot down the arroyo, past Letty, and then a dozen more shots, quickly, spraying them down the creek bed, first one way, then the other.
One came close enough that Letty could differentiate between the crack of a slug breaking the sound barrier ten feet away and the boom of the shot itself. She didn’t move.
The shooting stopped, the light came back on, scanning the creek bed. Then it began to fade in a stuttering way, as if the woman were running away from the creek bed but shining the light back toward it as she ran. Letty waited, heard what sounded like the building door closing, then a car started. She got up and began to walk again. On the way, she called Kaiser.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I was afraid to call, afraid I’d give you away. I saw the muzzle flashes, there were so many that I figured he didn’t know where you were . . .”
“It was a she . . . and I’m good. I’m in the creek bed, heading east,” Letty said. “When I cross that road, the road going north, I’ll come up and run along it.”
“I’ll come down there. I’ll pick you up.”
“Don’t let her see you. She’s got a .223.” Letty clicked off, worried that the lighted face of the phone would pinpoint her.
In the pale moonlight, Letty could see the rim of the arroyo wall above her. Another hundred yards and it curved slightly to the north. When she could no longer see the glow of lights from the shack, she turned the flashlight on and began to run. The bottom of the arroyo was studded with water-worn stones the size of her fist; she’d been lucky not to twist an ankle.
She’d gone only a short distance when her phone vibrated again: Kaiser. “Where are you?”
“Still in the creek.”
“You gotta run. She’s turned her truck down the creek bed, she’s behind you and I think she’s coming in your direction.”
“I’m running.”
Another hundred yards and a culvert pipe appeared ahead of her. She looked back but couldn’t see headlights; the truck’s lights would still be behind the curve in the creek bed.
At the culvert, she climbed the bank onto the north road, turned off the flashlight, and began running hard. Down to the southwest, she could see the light from the back window of the building, and along the line of the creek bed, the glow of headlights coming her way. No way that the Jeep could get out of the creek bed without going back, but the headlights were closing on her.
She ran faster. Another minute, a few more hundred yards, and Kaiser was there, waiting in the Explorer, lights out. Through the open passenger-side window, he said, “I’ve taped over the interior lights. Get in.”
She climbed in the passenger side, breathing hard, and pulled the door shut and he asked, “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Scared?” He stepped on the gas and they accelerated down the moonlit track.
“Give me five minutes,” Letty said. “I didn’t have time before.”
“Been there and done that,” Kaiser said. He was looking in the rearview mirror. “Was it worth the trouble?”
“Yeah. I got some stuff. I got two new names. A guy named Terry Duran, for sure—I’ve got his address and phone number. And I got a book by a woman named Jael, wearing a mask. Vic’s in the shed. Our friend Victor Crain. Not much else in the place except a .223 hidden under a shelf. The person shooting at me was a woman driving a tan Jeep. Jael? Maybe. I couldn’t see her. It’ll take a while for her to get out of that creek bed. There’s not much space to turn around—she might have to back out,” she said.