He skidded out under the half-open garage door onto the drive.If he’d been lucky, he’d have caught the perp as he bolted down the side, past the bins, toward the road.Luck wasn’t something the Wittes were known for, though.Instead, Cloister caught a glimpse of a dark figure scrambling up onto the top of the back wall.He kicked over the stool he’d used to climb up and then slid out of sight.
Down into the gully.
Same route the prowler had taken.Cloister clenched his teeth around the anger at whatever deputy had cut the man slack.If itwashim, he was going to have words for Gardner.Cloister didn’t care if the manwasIA.
Not that it mattered at this point, with Kincaid already on Cloister’s ass.
Cloister shoved past the sun-bleached plastic bins lined up for collection day, kicking discarded cans and crumpled takeout containers out of the way, and sprinted across the yard.If the front was neglected, the back was dead.Just bare dirt and an abandoned, toppled-over plastic chair next to a bucket of cigarette butts.
As he reached the back wall, Cloister reached down—he didn’t need to look—and pulled Bourneville’s slip lead off in one smooth tug.The woven rope loop flattened her ears briefly against her narrow skull before it slipped off over her pointed nose.
Cloister used the kicked-over stool as a step, grabbed the top of the wall with both hands, and lifted himself up.Pain scraped through his wrist, sharp and dull at the same time, pinching down into his hand until his fingers went numb.He ground a “fuck” out through clenched teeth—at some point, he’d either get used to it or it would mend, but right now, he was sick of it surprising him—and ignored it as he pulled himself onto the top of the wall.
A quick glance over determined it wasn’t a straight drop, the perp’s trail cut into the loose dirt in dark red, skid marks down the hill, and he turned back to Bourneville.He slapped his knee.
“Hupf.”
Bourneville gathered herself and went up the wall from a standing start.Her paws hit the painted concrete halfway up, and Cloister leaned over to grab the scruff of her neck and hoist her up the last few feet.She didn’t really need the help, but it made him feel like he contributed.
Down in the bottom of the gully, the prowler was a black outline cutting in and out of sight as he wove through the brush.Cloister buried his fingers in Bourneville’s ruff to make sure he had her attention.He could feel the thin, eager whine that rattled in the back of her throat.
“Fuss,” he commanded.
She went.
Her paws hit the path-wide lip of the dirt at the bottom of the wall.Then she lunged over the edge and skidded down the hill, tail whipping as her feet slid and caught and slid again in the loose dirt and sand.Cloister gave his hand a quick shake and swung his leg over the other side of the wall.He dropped down the other side, his knees flexed to absorb the impact as his feet hit the dirt.
He expected the twinge from his right kneecap, where the ugly knot of raised flesh was just what could be seen of the scar from stitching it back down over the bone.It didn’t bother him anymore.As he spat sand out of his mouth and started his skidding sprint after Bourneville, he did wonder for a second if one day it might.
His stepdad walked with a limp when it snowed, and grunted like a pig when he had to lift anything over his head.His grandad had hands like socket nuts in a bag of skin.Hard wear showed after a while.
Cloister had never really cared before.He’d never really imagined a future before.
Now, he thought irritably as he caught his foot on a knot of tangled root and sage, tripped, caught himself, and kept moving, probably wasn’t the time to start.
Momentum kept him one step ahead of a fall as he skid-ran the rest of the way down the incline.He felt it as the slope leveled off, the burn in his thighs as muscle had to take over from gravity.Ahead of him, Bourneville was just a streak of black as she barreled through the scrub, intent on the closing distance between her and the prowler.
Cloister let himself slow to a lope for a second.It was a mistake for a runner; he could feel the lactic acid sting with his body’s resentment of the abuse, but he needed to be the one with a plan.He spat dust out of his mouth—only made it dryer, but still—and squinted as he scanned the desert to try and predict the prowler’s next step.
The man knew the area.It was his hunting grounds.Cloister hadn’t expected to come back here so soon, so he’d not bothered to refamiliarize himself with the area.
Not that he needed to, he realized.The prowler’s getaway plan was parked at the side of the road, a dirt-gray pick-up ready to go.Cloister lifted his hand to shade his eyes, as if that would help him see any better than squinting did.There were bags in the back, tarps and sacks.
Room for a… prisoner.
That was the rule, wasn’t it?Everyone was alive until he found them dead.Cloister had been to enough shrinks to know what that was about—where, and who, it came from.Today it stung.It felt like salt on the old wounds that Kincaid had picked at.
Without thinking, Cloister clenched his hand into a fist.His nails dug into his palm, and the dull pressure pulled up the toy truck.It was yellow in his head now, the only red the splatter of nearly dried blood.He didn’t know, though, if that meant he could trust the memory now or that he couldn’t trust any of them.
It didn’t matter.He shook off the dull weight of the past as he pushed long legs back into a sprint.His memory might have changed, but reality hadn’t.He was 1,000 miles from Montana; there was nothing he could do for Wyatt from here.Miles could still be a different story.
The terrain slowed him more than it did Bourneville.Branches whipped his legs and snagged in his jeans, stones and potholes underfoot jarred his step and threatened to roll his ankle.He’d always been fast, but not as fast as she was.The lean dog’s loping spring ate up the distance, and she drew away from Cloister as she closed the distance between her and the prowler.
Fear and a head start, though, gave the manjustenough time to reach the car.He scrambled up the dusty lip to the road and threw himself into the cab.The door slammed and the rattled growl of the engine as it coughed to life drifted over the distance to Cloister’s ears.
Cloister juggled his options for a second and altered his trajectory slightly.He wasn’t going to catch a truck, but if he could get to the road in time, he might be able to get the license plate.It was better than nothing.
He scrambled up onto the road and turned to see the truck skid out of the layby onto the road, kicking up a spray of gravel and smoke behind it as the driver floored the gas.The license plate was battered and sprayed with the same lumpy black paint that had been applied to Joel’s vehicle.
