“Well, of course there is not, stupid.” The satisfaction on Patsy’s face at calling someone else the hated word told Hayley she was already dead to the crazed woman. “I buried him and made sure the ground didn’t look as if it had been disturbed.”
“Oh, the ground has definitely been disturbed,” Hayley goaded. After years of working with a bow, Patsy’s upper body strength beat hers all to hell, so no way would she take the other woman in a physical fight. Her only hope was to shake Patsy up enough to create an opportunity to get away. “There’s a shallow grave there. But no body.”
“What?” Patsy took a step toward her. “Bullshit.”
“Dead bodies are hardly something I would lie about, Pats.” Please, please, let the nickname reach her.
The other woman’s face didn’t soften an iota, but she did stride over to the log. And—oh, God!—actually turned her back on Hayley.
Who hesitated only a nanosecond before striking the back of Patsy’s head with her rock.
Unfortunately, she pulled her punch at the last second. It wasn’t smart, but, dammit, until this moment she had never struck another soul. Too bad her squeamishness cost her the chance to knock out Patsy the way she’d intended.
It did cause the other woman to stagger and fall over the log. Patsy bobbled her bow and with her feet still on this side of the log and her forearms slapping flat in the dirt on the other side, it tipped her quiver almost upside down. The arrows scattered on the ground in front of her.
Hayley lunged, reaching over her former friend’s back. The bow had skittered too far away to grab, but she swept up all but two of the arrows before Patsy recovered. Something she did too damn swiftly, jabbing back an elbow.
Since Hayley was all but plastered against the other woman’s back the intended jab mostly slid off her side. It did, however, drive home the fact she was out of time and had better do something to up her odds if she wanted to escape this nightmare alive. She smashed her rock down on the hand Patsy had planted in the dirt to push herself up.
Patsy howled and cradled her fingers in her other palm. “You fucking bitch!”
“Really? That’s supposed to hurt my feelings? You just admitted you’re a stone-cold killer.” She made a grab for the arrow still within her reach, but missed it. Knowing it was time to use her one and only advantage, she shoved upright.
And ran like hell.
She stuck to the paths. Some were overgrown, as if the current crop of school kids didn’t mess around in the woods the way they used to. Even partially obstructed tracks were faster than breaking trail through the bush and trees, however. And the farthest from Patsy she could get, the happier she would be.
She knew these woods a lot better than her former pal did but not with a wide enough margin to allow herself to get cocky. Patsy had never liked tramping through the wilds the way she and Kurstin had, but neither was she dead clueless. Hell, for all Hayley knew her old high school chum had spent the past decade hunting and target practicing in this very spot.
Pushing her body harder than she’d ever done, Hayley felt her left butt cheek throb like a rotten tooth and her traitorous heart pound so hard she could barely breathe. She wouldn’t be kicking up the burners any time soon to disappear down the trail in a blur of spinning legs like a cartoon roadrunner.
Still, if she could get to the train trestle without being nailed to a tree by Patsy’s remaining arrows, she had a decent chance of getting away. Patsy had always hated crossing the trestle. How many times had they teased her about making turtles look speedy as she inched her way across it?
Hayley rounded a curve in the path and was only a few additional twists and turns in the path from reaching the rails leading to the trestle when a mound of rags piled against one of the massive Douglas firs suddenly stirred. Slapping a hand to her chest, she skidded to a halt as something besides the need to escape penetrated her brain. Wait...what? Was that—?
Off in the distance she could hear Patsy hot on her trail. Okay, not quite hot. But sure as hell too close for comfort.
“Help. Me.” The voice was faint, hoarse.
Hayley jumped as if a skeletal finger had scratched down her spine. “What the f—”
The bundle of dirty clothing moved again. A man lifted his head.
She took her first really good look. And said flatly, “You.”
Because, of course it was Ty Holloway. Who else would it be? As if things were not bad enough, she suddenly felt thrust into the middle of a new-age morality tale. He was clearly in rough shape, gravely injured and weak. And a really big part of her wanted nothing more than to save herself by sacrificing him to Patsy’s madness. She didn’t owe this guy a damn thing.
And yet—
That nasty, bloody hole in his chest was because of her. Because he had had the temerity to broadcast the story of her moral dilemma in a way that brought her national attention. Having already thrown aside her nonviolence policy in order to strike Patsy with a rock—twice—she kind of wouldn’t mind beating the shit out of Ty for the public spectacle he had made of her life.
But did he deserve to die for telling a truth she had not wanted told? Kurstie seemed to see something in the guy—something she sure as hell could not. Or at least her friend had before he’d screwed her over as well.
She swore and squatted to get a shoulder under his armpit. Seeing the arrows still clutched in her hand, she said, “Here,” and shoved them into Ty’s. “Don’t drop these, we do not want Patsy finding them.” Then she wrestled him to his feet.
“Come on. I know you’re injured and, given how hot you feel, are probably running a fever. But you have to move your ass if you don’t want us dying here. Patsy isn’t far behind and she still has two arrows left.” And hopefully a hand too crippled to shoot straight.
But she wasn’t betting their lives on it. “Move it, Holloway!”
He groaned but did his best to comply.
His best wasn’t very good, and it promptly became apparent she needed to change her strategy. She had no idea how much blood the man had lost, but he was clearly too weak or in too much pain to do more than force one foot in front of the other.
She would give him this: he was not a whiner. But what had been a race between her and Patsy now became a game of hide and seek.
She kept them going toward the trestle but managed to get Ty off the trail and out of sight when she heard Patsy getting too close. Putting a hand over his mouth, she muffled his harsh breathing as Patsy stormed by muttering less than sane-sounding threats.
Hayley dredged up every hidey-hole she could remember between here and the trestle and hoped to hell they still existed. But her plan for her and Ty to follow as soon the Patsy was far enough ahead, hide out when the other woman backtracked, then try to get farther ahead of her again wasn’t feasible. Ty was in no shape for a game of Hide and Seek. A short while later, when Hayley heard Patsy headed back this way, she could do little more than hope a new plan occurred to her. And fast.
Patsy had once again moved some distance past them before she figured out what Hayley was doing. And, oh shit, demonstrated she could still adjust when she suddenly sang out, “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
Hayley felt Ty shiver next to her. She didn’t blame him; she had goosebumps-on-goosebumps of her own. If Patsy’s voice was anything to go by, the woman had tripped straight into crazy town. She had always been so logical-minded. But the chaotic manner in which she was chasing them through the woods was purely reactive. She’d certainly shown no sign of working through the logistics.