4th of July - James Patterson [81]
I noticed a few hardy souls jogging or meandering far ahead and behind us, so I let Martha off her lead. She trotted after a little flock of plovers, making them scatter, and I headed south at a moderate clip.
I’d only gone about a quarter of a mile when the rain started to fall. Soon, the intermittent drops thickened, pockmarking the sand and firming my running surface.
I turned to check on Martha, running backward long enough to see that she was right behind a man in a hooded yellow slicker, maybe a hundred yards back.
I put my face into the slanting rain and was hitting my stride when Martha’s yipping bark grabbed my attention. She was nipping at the heels of the guy behind me. She was herding him!
“Martha,” I shouted, “that’ll do.”
That was the command to return to my side, but Martha totally ignored me. Instead, she drove the guy at a right angle away from me, uphill toward the grassy tops of the dunes.
That’s when I realized that Martha wasn’t fooling around with him. She was protecting me.
Son of a bitch.
I’d been followed again!
Chapter 127
I YELLED OUT, “HEY. Stop running and she’ll back off,” but neither dog nor man paid any attention. Finally, I charged after them, but climbing the crumbling twenty-foot-high incline was a little like running under water.
I bent low, clutched at the sand, and at last pulled myself up to the grassy plateau of the Francis Beach campground. But the driving rain plastered my hair to my face, and for a moment I was completely blind.
In the time it took to drag the hair away from my eyes, I felt the situation slip out of control. I looked wildly around, but I couldn’t even see the guy who’d been tailing me. Damn it! He’d gotten away again.
“Mar-thaaaa.”
Just then, a smear of yellow shot out from behind the restrooms, across my field of vision—with Martha still close on his heels. The guy kicked out at her but failed to shake her off as they cut across the picnic grounds.
I pulled out my nine and yelled, “Freeze. Police.” But the man in the slicker veered around the picnic tables and sprinted toward a multihued pickup truck in the parking lot.
Martha stayed on him, growling, grabbing on to his leg, keeping him from getting into his vehicle. I screamed “Police!” again, and I ran with my loaded gun in front of me.
“On your knees,” I ordered when I got within range. “Keep your hands where I can see them. Get down on your belly, mister. Do it now!”
The guy in the slicker did what I told him, and I approached quickly as the soaking rain pelted down on us. I pulled off his hood, keeping my gun pointed at his back.
I recognized the yellow hair instantly, but I tried to deny what I saw. He lifted his face toward me, his eyes seeming to throw off sparks of fury.
“Keith! What are you doing? What’s going on?”
“Nothing, nothing, nothing. All I was doing was trying to warn you.”
“Is that so? Why didn’t you call me on the phone?” I panted.
My heart was pounding: ba-boom, ba-boom.
My God. I had a loaded gun in my hand—again.
I kicked Keith’s legs apart and patted him down, finding a nine-inch-long Buckmaster hunting knife in a leather sheath at his hip. I removed the fearsome knife and tossed it aside. This was getting worse by the second.
“Did you say ‘nothing’?”
“Lindsay, let me talk.”
“Me first,” I said. “You’re under arrest.”
“What for?”
“For carrying a concealed weapon.”
I stood where Keith could clearly see both my gun and the look on my face that showed I would use it.
“You have the right to remain silent,” I said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. If you don’t have an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights?”
“You’ve got me all wrong!”
“Do you understand your rights?”
“Yeah. I get it.”
I fished inside my jacket pocket for my cell phone. Keith twisted, as if he were about to make a break for it. Martha bared her teeth.
“Stay right where you are, Keith. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”
Chapter 128