The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [121]
Just another minute, she told herself as she lowered her face to the floor to seek out any pockets of fresh air that might still linger. Just another minute and the frame that the bolt is attached to should be burned through. . . .
A piece of ceiling fell, and Dina knew she could wait no longer.
She sprang forward, using all of her remaining strength to charge the door.
Mercifully, it gave way. Her lungs tortured by acrid smoke and her head pounding from effort and lack of oxygen, Dina crawled forward from where she landed when she’d blown through the burning door, then lay in the grass, gasping for fresh air, until the buzzing in her head subsided. She pulled herself up, stood on shaking legs, and looked back as the shed fell in upon itself.
“Why can’t you just die?” The question was presented softly, matter-of-factly, with a touch of curiosity but absolutely no emotion.
Dina turned to look upon the face of her captor.
Her half sister.
Sarah stood less than six feet from Dina, a small handgun in her right hand, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth as she slowly raised the hand holding the gun.
Driven by sheer instinct and the will to survive, Dina lowered her head and drove into the woman, who, on contact, was thrown backward. She landed on the ground with Dina astride, stunned, the wind knocked from her lungs. Dina grabbed the woman’s wrist, searching for the gun, but it was gone, apparently thrown into the high brush.
Dina sprang to her feet, her thoughts on reaching the Jeep. It was farther away than she’d remembered, and she prayed with every step that the keys were still there.
Breath coming in ragged spurts, sweat running in dark streaks down her sooty face, Dina ran on shaking legs without looking back.
The first shot took her completely by surprise.
The second grazed her left shoulder with startling sharpness and left a trail of heat in its wake.
But still Dina ran. A third shot hit the ground to her right; a fourth pinged loudly off the Jeep’s front bumper.
Dina reached the Jeep and pulled herself into the driver’s seat, her right hand seeking the keys in her purse even as it shook almost uncontrollably, but yes! There they were. She need only start the engine.
Clutch, she reminded herself. Remember the clutch. . . .
The car jerked ahead and stalled.
Another shot struck the passenger-side door. Dina ducked, wondering just how many bullets had been in that small gun. . . .
She turned the key again, then downshifted into neutral, held the clutch, and gunned the engine. In what Dina would later recall as a sort of slow motion, the Jeep lurched forward.
And struck the figure that had seemed to come from nowhere directly into the path of the accelerating vehicle.
The thud had been unexpected. The tires bumped as the Jeep ran over some solid thing, and it was a moment before Dina realized with sickening clarity exactly what it was that was tangled beneath the vehicle.
“Sweet Lord.” Dina jumped from the Jeep and crawled on her hands and knees to the body that lay between the front and back wheels and looked into the upturned face, the blue eyes that stared into her own. “Sweet Lord, she’s still alive. . . .”
“Okay, this is number seven,” Simon said as Betsy pulled up a long straight driveway as directed by Jude and sat in front of the rambling Queen Anne–style farmhouse. “And it looks as if someone is still living in this one as well. We haven’t done so well in tracking down these deserted places.”
“There are five more on the list, Betsy, so turn around and head back out to the left.” Jude appeared to study the landscape, as if trying to remember something. “Take the next right,” she said, pointing to the upcoming intersection. “It seems I did hear about a property that was coming up for sale on Henderson Creek Road, but it’s not on the list.