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When they pulled apart, he freed his knife hand and thrust at her. Again, she partly blocked it, but only partly. She felt a shock in her side, and her abdominal muscles contracted in reflex. He tried to pull the knife back, but it resisted moving long enough for her to jab his eyes with her fingers. She felt something soft, and he cried out and drew back, rising partway to one knee.
She balanced on the sand with her other arm. Without thinking, she dug up a handful of sand and threw it in his eyes. He jerked backward. Unseeing, he tried to rub away the sand in both eyes. He swept the knife wildly in Greta’s direction. She rolled away, but not before one swipe of the blade ripped the side of her face. She felt nothing, but warm fluid obscured the vision in her left eye.
She kept rolling and clawed into her pocket for the .32. When she found it and tried to pull it out, the barrel caught on some threads. Balfour was still sweeping with the blade and tried to open one eye. Soon he would see enough to direct the slashes!
In desperation, she aimed the .32 through the sweatshirt pouch toward Balfour and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened! For a split second, she froze.
The safety’s still on! she realized.
She thumbed the safety lever and pulled the trigger again. She felt a tug on the cloth as the round passed through. The .32 had only pointed in Balfour’s general direction. He might have staggered, but she couldn’t tell whether she had hit him. Either way, the shot had served its purpose.
He took off running north along the beach and
was twenty yards away before Greta got the .32 out of her pocket. She could only see out of one eye. She fired twice. It had no effect on Balfour. He kept running, one hand at his eyes.
At thirty yards, Greta tried to steady herself and methodically fired the rest of the clip at the fleeing figure. At about forty yards, Balfour stumbled, almost went down, then recovered and disappeared into the fog.
Greta fell back onto the sand. Less than two minutes had elapsed since Balfour had pulled the knife. The last run of a wave surrounded her. The cold seawater snapped her to attention. Her heart pounded, and she gasped from the intense exertion and fear. She couldn’t hear the waves. The only sound that registered was blood pulsing through her veins.
She lay there several minutes before she recognized multiple pains: the side of her head, near her right hipbone, her left forearm. She looked down with one clear eye and saw a slit in her sweatshirt sleeve. She pulled aside the gap in the fabric to reveal a deep, freely bleeding cut in her forearm. A wave of dizziness washed over her. She had never seen so much of her own blood.
She pulled up the sweatshirt bottom to reveal an inch-long narrow puncture from the knife. It was bleeding, though not as much as her forearm. She lay back on the sand to keep from fainting and reached into her pouch for her phone. She groped . . . and couldn’t find it. Her hand flailed around, as she desperately checked again. Then she jerked her head back and forth to search with one eye for the phone on the sand. Nowhere. It must have fallen out of the pouch while they grappled and was lost in the sand and water.
Get a hold of yourself! she thought. You need help. No one’s here! You’ve got to get back to the main beach access point. People should be there by now, even on a day like today. Move!
She wiped at her closed eye with her other forearm. Clotting blood came away on the sleeve. She wiped again and could see a little out of the eye.
Get up! she silently yelled. Get up, you stupid cow! Don’t just lie here and bleed!
Up on her knees, Greta grasped her cut forearm to close the wound and slow the bleeding. She clamped her arm against the stab wound.
Then she was on her feet, stumbling north.
Goddamn, goddamn, goddamn!! Balfour cursed bitterly, as he staggered up the beach. What a fucked-up mess! He had planned to eliminate the person trying to tie him to Toompas’s murder. Yes, she was a deputy sheriff and big for a woman, but only a woman! Who would have thought she was so strong?
Goddamn bitch. Goddamn, goddamn!
She’d hit him with a gunshot. His leg hurt, but it couldn’t be serious. At least, it didn’t slow him, with the level of adrenaline coursing through his veins.
He was soaked from rolling in the surf, and sand caked his clothes.
I got her, he thought. How bad? The knife hadn’t gone in all the way, and she kept fighting. One of his eyes ached from being jammed with a thumb; the other still had sand in it.
What’s she doing with a gun while out jogging anyway? Damn fuckin’ bitch! Now I gotta run for it! She may be dead or dying or only injured. I can’t take the chance.
He forced himself to calm down enough to process his thoughts.
I can’t go back to check on her—she might still be alive and have more bullets. It’s not as if I didn’t make plans, in case something happened. Something . . . just not this! I’ll grab what’s needed and head out and watch for news. If she’s dead and there’s nothing about me, maybe I can still ride this out.
He kept walking north as fast as he could. He had only gone another hundred yards when his course became obvious. He couldn’t take the chance. Greed had gripped him too strongly; he’d thought he could ride out any investigation for another week or two through the planned fundraiser for the South American “mission.” He’d figured to raise another $50,000 in the campaign organized by the congregation members. There had already been more than $20,000 in pledges. However, he had enough socked away, plus the house and land in Costa Rica.
It was time to cut loose and head to Costa Rica. He had a great house—it was cheap living, good medical care, and an endless supply of young women. Time to go!
Feeling dizzy, he stopped for a second. Which direction was north? He looked around. Wasn’t the fog beautiful how it swirled? He should walk on the beach more often. Were there foggy beaches in Costa Rica?
He started walking again, following an interesting patch of fog that moved gently with the onshore breeze.
