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They passed safely wide of the east end of the stable, where she had first entered to get theout of the door He was clearly surprised to see her heading that way instead of down to the ocean He sprinted toward her, and he was startlingly quick, but he was no match for Godiva They cae, parallel to that hard-surfaced lane She leaned forward, as tight against the horse as she could get, terrified of falling off, and every hard thud of hooves jarred through her bones Her head was turned to the side, so she saw the house off to the left, the s full of light but not welcoer her hoht at the s seemed, to her, to be demonic fires in the roo across the front laard the driveway, toward her It was low and fast, the size of a , about twenty yards away and closing She saw another equally bizarre figure, alh both creatures were backlit by the house lights, Chrissie could discern little more than their shapes, yet she knehat they were No, correct that She kneho they probably were, but she still didn’t knohat they were, though she had seen the; she knehat they had been people like her--but not what they were now
"Go, Godiva, go!"
Even without the flap of reins to signal the need for greater speed, the th of her stride, as if she shared a psychic link with Chrissie
Then they were past the house, tearing flat-out across a grassy fields, paralleling thetoward the county road less than half a reat haunch ly rhyth that Chrissie soon was hardly aware of the rocking-jolting aspect of the ride; it see
She looked over her shoulder and did not see the two loping figures, although they were no doubt still pursuing her through thethe western horizon fading to deep purple, with the lights of the house rapidly dwindling, and with a crescent ht point above the line of hills in the east, visibility was poor
Though she could not see those pursuers ere on foot, she had no difficulty spotting the headlights of Tucker’s blue Honda In front of the house, a couple of hundred yards behind her now, Tucker swung the car around in the driveway and joined the chase
Chrissie was fairly confident that Godiva could outrun any man or beast other than a better horse, but she knew that the mare was no match for a car Tucker would catch them in seconds The man’s face was clear in her ed nose, deeply set eyes like a pair of hard, black marbles He’d had about him that aura of unnatural vitality that Chrissie soy coupled with a queer look of hunger She kneould do anything to stop her, that he ht even attempt to ram Godiva with the Honda
He could not, of course, use the car to follow Godiva overland Reluctantly Chrissie eht hand to turn the mare away from the driveway and the county road, where they were most likely to reach help quickly Godiva responded without hesitation, and they headed toward the woods that lay at the far side of the meadow, five hundred yards to the south
Chrissie could see the forest only as a black, bristly inally less dark sky The details of the terrain she must cross appeared to her more in ht vision was keener than hers
"That’s ingly to the mare
They made their oind in the crisp, still air Chrissie are of Godiva’s hot breath strea past her in crystallized plumes, and her own breath smoked from her openof hooves, and she felt almost as if she and Godiva were not rider and horse but one being, sharing the sa for her life, she was as pleasantly thrilled as she was terrified, and that realization startled her Facing death or in this case so, darkly attractive in a way and to an extent that she could never have ihtened of the unexpected thrill as of the people ere chasing her
She clung tightly to the dapple-gray, soerously high, but holding fast, flexing and contracting her own round-purew more confident that they would escape The mare had heart and endurance When they had traversed three-quarters of the field, with the woods looain when they reached the trees, not straight toward the county road but in that general direction, and Godiva fell
The round squirrel’s burrow, the entrance to a rabbit’s warren, perhaps a natural drainage ditch--stumbled, and lost her balance She tried to recover, failed, and fell, bleating in terror
Chrissie was afraid that her mount would crash down on her, that she would be crushed, or at least break a leg But there were no stirrups to ensnare her feet, no saddle horn to snag her clothes, and because she instinctively let go of the dapple-gray’s ht over the horse’s head and high into the air Though the ground was soft and further cushioned by a thick growth of wild grass, she s and banging her teeth together so hard that her tongue would have been bitten off if it had been between them But she was three yards away froard
Godiva was the first to rise, scraht, she cantered past Chrissie, favoring her right foreleg, which evidently was only sprained; if it had been broken, the horse would not have gotten up
Chrissie called to the mare, afraid the horse would wander off But her breath was coasps, and the naoing west, back toward the sea and the stables
By the tiot up on her hands and knees, she realized that a lame horse was of no use to her, so shefor breath andbecause she was no doubt still being stalked She could see the Honda, headlights on, parked along the lane more than three hundred yards to the north With all the bloody glow of sunset having seeped out of the horizon, thefigures were out there, though she knew theyand that she would surely fall into their hands within a ot to her feet, turned south toward the woods, staggered ten or fifteen yards until her legs recovered from the shock of her fall, and finally broke into a run
6
Over the years Sath of the California coast was graced by char inns that featured s, beveled glass, and lushly planted courtyards with used-brick ays In spite of the coularly scenic setting that it enjoyed, Cove Lodge was not one of those California jewels It was just an ordinary stucco, two-story, forty-rooular box, with a drab coffee shop at one end, no swi pool Amenities were lin above the arish nor in the artistic mode of somedesk clerk gave hih location didn’tby the dearth of cars in the lot, however, rooms with a vieere not in short supply Each level of the motel had twenty units in banks of ten, serviced by an interior hall carpeted in short-nap orange nylon that seared his eyes Rooms on the east overlooked Cypress Lane; those on the west faced the Pacific His quarters were at the northwest corner: a queen-size bed with a sagging htstands, a television bolted to a stand, table, two straight-back chairs, cigarette-scarred bureau, phone, bathrooht-blanketed sea
When disheartened salese of economic ruin, committed suicide on the road, they did the deed in roo his clothes in the closet and bureau drawers Then he sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the telephone on the nightstand
He should call Scott, his son, as back hoeles, but he couldn’t do it from this phone Later, if the local police becae, exaate the nuether his real identity from the identities of those hom he had spoken To maintain his cover, he must use his room phone only to call his contact number at the Bureau office in LA, a secure line that would be answered with "Birchfield Securities, may I help you?" Furtheristered to Birchfield, the nonexistent firm hich Sam was supposedly a stockbroker; it could not be traced ulti to report yet, so he did not lift the receiver When he went out to dinner, he could call Scott from a pay phone