Author's Website: http://www.geocities.com/ifirstcametochicago

Disclaimer: Victoria Metcalf, Harding Welsh, Jack Huey and Louis Gardino belong to Alliance Communications; I have borrowed them with no intention of disrespect, or hope of personal gain. All other characters are my own creation, and are not intended to represent any actual persons, living or dead.

Author's Notes: Special thanks to the many people who provided me with advice, support and encouragement during the long creative process for this story, especially Jo, Courser, Janice, Magnes and Laurie.

Story Notes: Spoilers for Victoria's Secret. This story is a thriller--not recommended for the faint of heart.

She went to him, of course.

(He's been shot, my God, what kind of heartless monster do you take me for?)

Jumped down from the moving train, twisted her ankle as she hit the platform, sprawled headlong onto the cold, hard concrete. Scrambled to her feet, cursed and kicked away her shoes--the heel of her left shoe had snapped off when she landed--and rushed to his side with a cry of almost animal anguish. Fell to her knees beside his still form. Gathered him up in her arms, her long dark hair spread like a curtain across his pale cheek as she gently lifted his hand and placed the tips of his callused fingers in her mouth....

The train rattled over a switch as it rolled clear of the platform and slipped slowly out of the train shed and into the cool Chicago evening. Victoria's hold on the steel grab-bar tightened as she swayed and regained her balance beside the open door, watching his broken form recede in the distance. The cops were with him now--surrounding him, shielding him, protecting him.

She was still on the train.

"I'll go!" Louis Gardino touched Jack Huey on the shoulder and pointed toward the station, a simple enough message between two men who had been partners for six years. Huey nodded and called over his shoulder for some uniformed officers to help secure the scene. He had his cell phone out to call for an ambulance even as Gardino sprinted the length of the platform and burst through the automatic sliding glass doors of Amtrak's passenger waiting room.

Unlike the vast, echoing concourse above--where a growing throng of curious bystanders were still whispering about the gunfire, the cops, and the suitcase full of money--this modern, carpeted waiting room resembled a busy regional airport more than an aging big city train station. Tourists, bored business travelers and weary commuters scrambled to get out of the grim detective's path as he barreled through the room, threading his way past rows of crowded chairs, dodging luggage and small children in his way. He roughly grabbed the first blue-suited Amtrak employee he could find, waved his shield in her face and demanded, "Get me somebody who has the authority to stop a train!"

Dylan Gelder adjusted his footrest to the position he liked, then put his seat back a notch and leaned against the cool window to watch the train's progress through the vast tangled spiderweb of tracks that spread out across Chicago's South Side. This was a magic moment in every journey, as the hectic pace of the station retreated in the distance, replaced by the gentle side-to-side motion of the train, the low buzz of conversation, and the efficient work of the train's crew.

Rail travel is ill-suited to those who pace their lives by the clock. If Dylan's only concern had been getting back to school quickly, he could have taken a plane. He preferred to allow an extra day for the trip, indulging his passion for railroading, enjoying the roomier seats and social atmosphere of the train. There would be railfans to meet later in the lounge car, over a friendly beer and perhaps a game of gin rummy or hearts. His calculus textbook lay ignored on the empty seat to his left; for the time being he occupied himself by watching the lights of the city and listening to the occasional burst of radio traffic that crackled through the headset of his Bearcat scanner.

"Amtrak Forty, departing Chicago Union Station. Clear signal."

"Highball, Amtrak Forty!"

Dylan smiled at the old-fashioned railroad term, one that recalled the days when a ball mounted high on a pole told the engineer that the train was cleared to proceed. Highball, Amtrak Forty: All is well.

As the train accelerated in the yards south of the station, Victoria stepped away from the open door and pulled her lockback knife from her pocket. She then reluctantly removed her ankle-length sable coat, spread it out, fur-side down, on the floor of the train's vestibule, and gratefully patted the dark blue canvas tote bag that was loosely stitched to the coat's lining on the left side. With her luggage still holed up in that damned locker, and her purse and its precious contents--

(The diamonds!)

(Damn it, woman! Lock it down!)

--with her purse and its precious contents scattered across the platform, this canvas bag and the emergency supplies inside were all she had left to her name.

She snapped open the razor-sharp blade. She had planned this for speed; the stitches holding the bag to the coat were few and the threads parted at a touch. She tossed the bag to the opposite side of the vestibule from the open door, closed the knife, picked up the coat and returned to the open door.

The train had picked up speed. Within the city it would probably never top more than thirty miles an hour, but from the open doorway thirty miles an hour was unnervingly fast. The tracks below her feet divided and consolidated again and again, a dizzying, mesmerizing pattern of switches and sidings. The vigorous breeze of the train's motion whipped her long hair across her face, and stole the warmth from her skin.

During her ten years in an Alaskan prison she had learned to sequester her emotions, to pack them into an especially private part of her soul along with other weaknesses like conscience and self-doubt. Once every month or two, when she had found brief moments of complete privacy, she had allowed her feelings to inflame body and mind with years of pent-up love and hate, fear and rage. Once done, she then shut the door on this inconveniently vulnerable side of her psyche and returned calm and controlled to her guarded life in an overcrowded community of degenerates, savages, and junkies.

Now was one of those private times. Shivering with cold and grief, she clutched the silken soft fur to her chest and buried her face in its warmth. For precisely twenty seconds she allowed hot, angry tears to flow freely into the fur; then she placed her grief in lock-down and calmly tossed the sable coat through the open door to disappear into the darkening night.

Too many people had seen her wearing it.

Too many people had seen her.

"Ow!"

A sharp pain told Huey that he had just knelt on a diamond. He shifted his weight to the left and picked up the tiny stone, then dropped it into the velvet drawstring bag with the others. He scrambled forward another foot or two, and pinched up two more diamonds from a crack in the pavement near the platform edge.

"How many did you find?"

"Twenty-six." Huey sat back on his heels and glanced up at Lt. Welsh, then pointed at the black leather purse that lay in the shadows ten feet away. "According to the ID in the purse, her name is Valerie Pond. Her ticket's in there too."

"She left it behind?"

"Yeah. She's on that train with no ticket to ride." Huey handed over the bag of diamonds and stood up, placing one hand in the small of his back and rotating his shoulders to stretch muscles that had stiffened while he was on his knees. "Ahhh.... How's Fraser doing?"

Welsh's voice was grave. "The paramedics are working on him."

"Ray's going with him." It was a statement, not a question. Huey looked past the lieutenant; a hundred yards down the platform an Emergency Services crew was carefully maneuvering the wounded Mountie onto a backboard, while Vecchio anxiously supervised.

"Yeah. They'll do the preliminary inquiry on the shooting at the hospital." Welsh peered into the bag of diamonds, and asked, "Is this all of them?"

Jack stared hard at his lieutenant. A flippant reply was on his mind, but under the circumstances, he kept it to himself. "I have no idea how many diamonds she had. There... there could be more." He glanced to the left, and Welsh followed his gaze.

Together, the two men slowly leaned out over the edge of the platform. A foot below, creosote-soaked wooden ties were anchored in oily crushed-stone ballast. Between the tracks and the platform, bits of half-decayed garbage lay beside puddles of stagnant water. Huey thought he could just make out a few glints of sparkle in the shadows--but those sparkles were just as likely to be shards of broken glass as precious stones.

"Please, Lieutenant. Please don't ask me to...." Huey's heart sank in despair. "This is my best suit, and the shoes.... Can't we just get some uniforms to search down there?"

"Now let me get this straight. There's a murderer on one of our trains?" Sgt. Porter nervously loosened his shiny navy blue tie as he watched Detective Gardino pace back and forth across the cluttered Amtrak Police office with the tight-strung energy of a caged lion. "I mean, what makes you so sure he's on a train?"

"It's a she, not a he," Gardino snarled. "And I know because I saw her!"

"Okay, okay! No need to get testy." He sat down at his cluttered desk and called up the list of recent departures on his computer. "Which train is she on?

"The one that just left!" Gardino stopped pacing, and glared at the young Amtrak cop. For every second they stood here talking about it, that train was gaining speed and distance.

"Do you have any idea how many trains leave this station every hour?" He glared at the detective. "Which track?"

"Uh...."

"Oh, now that's very helpful," Porter added sarcastically. "North side of the station, or south?"

"South. Track eighteen," answered Lt. Welsh, as he entered the office. He held out a broad hand in greeting. "Lt. Harding Welsh, and you are...?"

"Jeremy Porter." The sergeant leaned over and shook the lieutenant's hand, relieved to be talking to someone of higher rank and calmer disposition.

"Are you the one who's going to stop the train?"

Porter's wide, ruddy face paled noticeably, his pulse quickened and his stomach tied itself into a tight knot. He cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice steady and authoritative. "Okay, let's see... track eighteen. That's train number forty. No problem--we'll alert the crew and you can take her off at the first stop."

"And where's the stop?"

Porter checked his watch. "Should be about half an hour from now, at Hammond-Whiting."

"Hammond... Hammond INDIANA!?" Gardino spun around and slammed his hand against the doorframe in frustration.

"Yes, Indiana! Where did you think it wa-- oh, God. It's a jurisdictional thing, isn't it?"

Welsh shook his head with irritation, and punched the speed dial on his cell phone. "Elaine? Get me the commander of the Indiana State Police in Lowell. And fax everything we have on Metcalf to them!"

Victoria closed the heavy steel door and retrieved the tote bag from the floor. She quickly picked off the broken threads and then slipped the straps over her shoulder; with its dark color and simple design it could pass as a casual purse.

Privacy was what she needed most. The restrooms in these old single-level trains were usually located at the front end of each car, so she passed through the diaphragm between the coaches and hit the kickplate on the automatic door of the rearmost coach with her toe.

The door slowly slid open and she found herself in one of Amtrak's older cars. The floor was carpeted in well-worn burgundy, the seats and curtains were done in a soft, no longer fashionable blend of warm red, burnt orange and cream. Gentle indirect lighting bounced from the carpet-covered overhead luggage racks upward to the ceiling, and small pin lights attached to the seats picked out the narrow aisle. The car was about three-quarters full of long-distance travelers, many of them young children, and a low buzz of animated conversation filled the air.

Near the back of the coach, the conductor was busy taking tickets. Tall, sturdy and golden blond, he resembled a Viking warrior. He had shed his blue uniform jacket, and his short-sleeved white dress shirt contrasted with tanned biceps the size of Virginia hams. His navy blue and red striped tie ended several unfashionable inches short of his waist. Someone must have said something funny; he threw back his head and laughed heartily, showing a mouth full of large, yellow teeth. His two-way radio was hooked on his belt at his left hip--quiet, for now.

She was in luck; this car had one regular and one handicapped bathroom. She gave a polite half-smile to an elderly gentleman who was getting a cup of cold water from the dispenser, then slipped into the handicapped bathroom before any more of her fellow passengers could notice her. Once inside, she locked the door behind her, took a quick inventory of the contents of the tote bag--at this precarious moment, her only possessions--and reviewed the status of her plans.

Plan A, plan B and plan C were all in tatters. No going back there.

Plan F (Come with me!) was bleeding back on the platform, shot--no, not dead please God!--shot by his own damn partner who had somehow managed to slip out of the clutches of plan D. Now she had nothing left but plan E.

Escape.

She pulled an elastic band out of the bag and quickly bound up her bountiful hair into a loose ponytail, then wrapped a second elastic band even tighter around the hair about six inches below the first. The long fur coat and her long dark hair were her most distinctive features; the coat was already gone, the hair would have to go.

She drew the knife again, then held the ponytail tightly in her left hand as she sawed through her hair between the first band and the nape of her neck, making no attempt to be dainty or artful in her self-barbering. Just as she finished the job, the train hit a rough spot on the tracks and jerked sharply to the left; the knife sliced the back of her right ear down to the earlobe, drawing a swift welling of blood. "Judas Priest!" she hissed, dropping the knife and the severed ponytail into the steel sink. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the dispenser, blotted up most of the blood, then quickly removed both earrings, biting her lip as she pulled the metal through the open wound.

Just to the right of the wash basin was a spring-hinged flap labeled "WASTE." She pushed the flap down with one finger and stuffed the bloody tissues into the tiny trash can, wondering whether she should risk putting the hair in there as well. The shorn hair could betray her utterly, if it was found; better to get it off the train entirely. She briefly toyed with the idea of returning to the vestibule and opening the door again, but the risk of being caught in the act by a member of the crew was too great. Passengers weren't supposed to be operating those doors--someone could get hurt, falling from a moving train.

(Ben!)

(Not now, Victoria! Concentrate!)

The train swayed to the right and she briefly lost her balance, banging her knee on the toilet as she caught herself on the grab-bar. Inspiration struck simultaneously with wild hope--could she be so lucky? A coach as old as this one might have a toilet that flushed directly onto the tracks. She lifted the lid and looked down as she stepped on the flush pedal--and was rewarded with a rush of cool air and the loud rattling of the steel wheels on switches. Peering through the open drain, she could barely make out the wooden ties flashing by underneath the train.

Holding the severed ponytail over the open toilet, she cut through the two elastic bands and dropped the hair into the bowl. There was no time to be dainty or squeamish, so she used her bare hands to stuff the hair down through the opening onto the tracks, then carefully swept around the bowl with her fingers to take care of any loose strands. She washed her hands thoroughly, pulled a fine-toothed comb through her rough-cut bob, then carefully checked every surface and corner of the bathroom for stray hairs. These she wrapped in a damp paper towel and tossed into the trash.

She almost disposed of the earrings in the same manner--but they were eighteen-carat gold and she might need them to pawn. She rinsed the bloody hoop in the sink, then wrapped them both in a tissue and dropped them into her bag.

Her own reflection in the mirror startled her. Freed from the constraints of length, the hair that remained framed her face, auburn highlights forming a wild halo around her head. The bruise on her left cheek was dark purple now, and there were dark circles under her red-rimmed eyes. With a damp paper towel she gingerly wiped away the track of drying blood on her neck, trying not to disturb the sticky scab that was slowly forming on her ear. She really would be better off with some antiseptic ointment and a clean bandage, but these supplies she didn't have. The crew had access to a first aid kit--could she risk drawing attention to herself?

(No.)

She had a small leg-sheath in the bag, one which would satisfy to hold her three-inch knife open and ready. She strapped it to her right leg, just below the knee, and checked to make sure that her full wool skirt hid knife and sheath completely.

Next she pulled out the elements of her disguise. A wide elastic headband helped to tame the unruly mass of short curls that remained. Her favorite frosted-blonde, shag-cut wig went on next. A quick wipe with a tissue removed her wine-red lipstick; she replaced it with a frosted pink gloss--slowly, slowly, as the train constantly rocked and bucked beneath her feet. The angry bruise on her left cheek was a particular concern. She had nothing to cover or conceal it with; her cosmetics case was still in the locker at the station. Except for the cheap tube of Venus Pink lipstick there was no makeup in the emergency bag.

Her mind raced with sudden panic--did anybody other than Ben know about the bruise on her face?

Sherrine Harper leaned through the door of the sleeper compartment and smiled at the elderly couple within. "Tickets, please."

A glamorously striking woman of thirty-nine, Sherrine had only been an assistant conductor for three months--a position she had earned after months of rigorous testing and classroom instruction. Her trim, athletic figure and coffee-colored complexion somehow managed to make the ubiquitous Amtrak navy-blue blazer look fashionable. She wore little makeup, and kept a simple, close-cropped hairstyle under her uniform hat; her only extravagances were her long, delicately painted nails and a pair of oval-shaped cloisonn earrings in shades of royal blue and gold.

The silver-haired passenger held out the envelope from his travel agent, and Sherrine took it long enough to slide out the thick book of tickets. She glanced quickly at the itinerary, long enough to gather information for some small talk. "Mr. and Mrs. Dowling. Chicago... Philadelphia... Orlando. You kids going to Disneyworld?"

Mr. Dowling grinned and squeezed his wife's knee. "It's our 50th anniversary gift from our kids."

An annoying squawk sounded from the two-way radio on Sherrine's belt. She held up a finger to ask the Dowlings' pardon, as the radio demanded, "Amtrak Forty!" Sherrine listened but did not respond; the engineer would do that.

"Amtrak Forty."

"Forty, Amtrak Police at CUS want to speak to you."

Conductor Sam Anderssen answered this time. "Give me two minutes and patch it through on channel two."

"Copy that, Forty."

Sherrine quickly punched the tickets for the Chicago-Philadelphia leg of the Dowlings' journey, then detached the stubs and slipped them into the envelope with the remaining tickets. "There you go--have a great trip." She kept her voice level and calm, but her heart was racing; she knew that Amtrak Police back at Union Station wouldn't be calling the train unless there was a serious problem.

The radio squawked again. "Harper? Respond, please."

She pulled the radio off her belt, and thumbed the call button, "Sam?"

"Meet me in the dining car."

"Will do, Sam." Burning with a mix of curiosity and apprehension, she slung the radio back on her belt, slipped her ticket-punch into its pouch, and headed back toward the diner. Their usual practice was for Sam to start each trip in the rear coach and work his way forward, Sherrine to start in the lead sleeper and work her way back; when she finished with the two sleepers she would pass through the diner and the lounge and lift tickets in the front part of the first coach. They'd usually finish with the tickets and settle into their makeshift office in the lounge car well before the Broadway Limited reached its first stop in Hammond-Whiting.

On this trip, the tickets would just have to wait.

Tickets.

Victoria's usual approach to making preparations--plan, replan, plan again and overplan--had led her to obtain tickets for this train in three different names. Her purse, the one that Ben had torn from her hands at the station, contained a single coach class ticket to Philadelphia in the name of one Valerie Pond. That matched a complete set of identification for that same mythical person, complete with two functional credit cards--Mastercard and American Express.

Her suitcase, left in the locker at the station, held two first class tickets to New York City for Elizabeth and Benjamin Metcalf--along with a very real Alaska driver's license, other identification and credit cards belonging to her late sister and, most precious of all, a valid U.S. passport.

Her emergency bag, the one that had been stitched inside her coat, contained a single coach class ticket to Pittsburgh in the name of Jocelyn Miller. She'd been stingy with Jocelyn, though--the only identification she had in that name was a Missouri driver's license. Her money-belt contained exactly two hundred dollars, cash. She pulled up her sweater now and retrieved the ten crisp twenties, and slipped them into Jocelyn's lime-green nylon sports-wallet.

After spending a conspicuously long five minutes in the bathroom of the rearmost coach, Victoria knew she had to emerge and find a seat without being noticed by the Viking. He had only just begun to collect tickets in this coach when she came in; there was no way he could be finished back there yet--especially if he'd continued to talk and laugh with the passengers. She certainly didn't want to be searching for a seat under the conductor's nose, so she decided to go back through the vestibule and look for a seat in the next coach forward. She took a deep, calming breath, put on a nonchalant face, opened the door--

--and walked straight into the Viking. Or he walked into her. Whichever it was, he was in a world of hurry.

"Excuse me, ma'am."

"No, no, excuse me."

He punched the door control, and strode through the vestibule on his hurried journey forward. Victoria leaned briefly against the doorframe, then followed at a more leisurely pace.

The forward coach was much newer, with a calming color scheme of cool blues and purples. The Viking quickly disappeared through the forward door into the next coach, never pausing to speak to a single passenger, much less take a ticket. Victoria slowly followed him up the aisle, holding onto the seat-backs for balance, searching for an empty window seat on the right-hand side. By the time she had made it halfway through the car, she had resigned herself to an aisle seat--and a decidedly unwanted neighbor.

Better to be near the center of the coach, next to an emergency exit. She paused at the selected seat, and gently cleared her throat.

The passenger in seat thirty-seven looked up, momentarily startled. He was a young man, barely finished with the awkward growth of adolescence, stringy black hair hanging down limply to his shoulders. He was comfortably but shabbily dressed for travel in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a white tee-shirt. He hooked one finger around his headphones and pulled them away from his ears, letting them fall down around his neck.

"May I?" Victoria asked. It was just a formality, a matter of rail passenger etiquette. The boy had no right to refuse.

"Sure." He scooped up the heavy textbook that had been occupying the aisle seat, and slipped it into the faded red backpack at his feet. Victoria sat down gratefully and stuffed her makeshift purse into the elastic-web pocket on the seatback in front of her.

The young man held out his right hand in an offer of fellow-passenger companionship. "Dylan."

Victoria chose not to shake hands. "Jocelyn," she said quietly.

"Are you going far? I'm headed all the way to Philly, back to school."

Victoria didn't particularly want to make friends. She stared at her seat-mate briefly, then turned her attention away and closed her eyes. Dylan took the hint. He pulled the headphones back over his ears and returned his attention to the passing view, and the official radio traffic on the scanner.

". . . Male, approximately thirty-five years old, GSW to the back. No exit wound. Pulse one-ten and thready, BP ninety over forty."

"Sixty-two, is the patient conscious?"

"Negative, County. Patient lost consciousness at the scene. GCS is a seven."

"Sixty-two, what's your ETA?"

"Five minutes."

"We'll be ready for you."

"Hey, Lazio. How's it going?" Sherrine clapped the lead waiter on the shoulder as she emerged from the narrow hallway that skirted the kitchen and entered the seating area of the dining car. Lazio had just finished setting out the green vinyl tablecloths on the fourteen tables; now he was balancing a tray full of salt and pepper shakers, sugar and sweetener packets in plastic caddies, and small bud vases, each containing a single yellow silk rose. Conductor Sam Anderssen was already seated at a table at the far end of the car, his usual affable mood replaced by a grim intensity. He had placed his radio upright in the center of the table and was tapping his tortoise-shell Waterman pen impatiently against a spiral-bound notepad.

She took her seat opposite him, and asked, "Why have we slowed down?"

He shook his head, then picked up the radio and thumbed the call button as he held the mouthpiece about two inches from his chin. "Dispatch, this is Amtrak Forty. We're ready for you," he said, then placed the radio back on the table. Sherrine reached for the matching radio on her belt and turned the volume down. No need to conduct this conversation in stereo.

The dispatcher's voice was clipped and authoritative. "Amtrak Forty, I have patched through Sgt. Jeremy Porter, Amtrak Police at CUS. With him we also have a Lt. Walsh--"

"Welsh, Sam. The lieutenant's name is Welsh." Porter's voice crackled across the radio from Union Station, only a few miles away. Sam made eye contact across the table with Sherrine, and raised an eyebrow quizzically. The left corner of her mouth twitched in response, but neither of them said a word.

"Sam," the dispatcher continued, "the lieutenant tells us that he believes you have a fleeing murder suspect aboard your train."

The conductor stared at the radio and inhaled slowly, then picked it up and replied. "Dispatch, please repeat that last message."

"You have a murder suspect aboard you train, Forty."

"How certain are we about this?"

The dispatcher responded, "Lieutenant, do you want to field this question?"

A new voice now came over the radio. Gruff, weary, the lieutenant said, "Her name is Victoria Metcalf, also known as Elizabeth Metcalf, also known as Valerie Pond. She murdered a man here in Chicago. Not two minutes before she jumped on your train, she was in the middle of Union Station, shooting at my men. She is armed, desperate, and extremely dangerous."

"And what makes you so sure she's on my train?"

"I saw her with my own eyes. That good enough for you?"

Sam sighed. "Thank you, Lieutenant. Yes, that's quite good enough for me."

Sherrine touched Sam's hand and silently mouthed, "Hammond-Whiting?"

"Dispatch, are the police going to meet us at Hammond-Whiting?"

"Affirmative, Forty. Chicago PD and Indiana State Police will coordinate--they'll be waiting for you at the station."

Both conductors glanced down at their watches. Sherrine kept her silence, Sam spoke: "We're going to be there in less than twenty minutes."

The dispatcher answered, "Every signal between you and Hammond-Whiting is hard yellow. You can slow down to twenty or even fifteen, but that's only gonna buy the police a few more minutes."

There was a long pause before Welsh replied, "We'll take every minute we can get."

Sherrine glanced back toward the kitchen. The chef, his two assistants, and all three waiters were standing silently in the aisle, listening to every word.

Three cars to the rear, Dylan Gelder was listening too, with a mix of horror and excitement. He sat quietly in his seat, but his pulse had quickened and he felt a surge of adrenaline as he heard the story unfold through his scanner. Now he knew why the conductor had barged through the coach without collecting their tickets--and why the train was creeping through Chicago's South Side at such a snail's pace. All around him, passengers were oblivious to the real-life police drama that was about to unfold.

"...long, curly brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a long black fur coat."

"Kinda hard to miss somebody riding a train in a fur coat."

"She boarded the train at the door between the last two cars--"

"Who was on that door?"

"Nobody. Larry called in sick, so Charlotte moved Stewart up to the 4011 sleeper."

"Which means--"

"Which means that we only have one attendant for three coaches. There was nobody on that rear door."

"Maybe Miguel saw something from the 4031 door."

"I don't think anyone on your crew would have seen her. There wasn't anybody left on the platform when she boarded."

There was a long silence.

"Lieutenant, I was the last person on that platform, and I was there right up until the moment the train started moving. Now, I do recall seeing a woman matching your description on the ground, having a fairly loud argument with a young man. That woman did not board this train."

"She boarded after the train started moving."

"No she didn't!"

"Yes she did."

Another silence.

"Jesus H. Christ. Are you trying to tell me that she boarded after we started moving?"

"That's what I said."

"We started rolling with a goddamn door open?"

"Right."

"With a door open and unattended?"

"That's what I saw."

Another silence.

"Amtrak Forty, hard yellow, Grove." That was the engineer, calling out a signal. The dispatcher repeated it: "Forty, hard yellow."

"Sam, listen to me. We need your help to make this arrest go smoothly and quietly--to minimize the danger to the other passengers. We need you to find her. The Indiana troopers need to know which car she's in, and which seat."

"A thirty-three year-old woman with long dark hair, a black fur coat, traveling alone in coach with no ticket. That shouldn't be too difficult."

"Keep us advised, Sam."

"Amtrak Forty."

The exchange finished, Dylan pulled the headphones from his ears. Beside him, Victoria sat still as death, her "Jocelyn Miller" ticket almost crumpled in her right hand.

"CHIEF, PLEASE PICK UP THE IC."

Sherrine could hear her own voice waver slightly over the public address. Her hands trembled too, as she stood in the vestibule between the diner and the lounge and waited for the Chief of On-Board Services to answer. From the gentle swaying motion of the train beneath her feet she could tell that they had slowed to a virtual crawl, buying the Chicago PD and the Indiana troopers the few extra minutes they needed to prepare an ambush in Hammond. Impatient, she lifted the intercom handset and repeated, "Chief, please pick up the IC!"

A voice crackled over the line. "Yeah, Sherrine. What do you want?"

Sherrine turned off the public address, so she could speak to the Chief privately. "Charlotte, we have a security problem in one of the rear coaches. Is Miguel the only coach attendant on duty?"

"That's right. Larry called in si--"

"Please grab Miguel and meet us in the diner."

"Right now?"

"Yes, right now!"

"Does this have something to do with why we have two coaches full of passengers still clutching their tickets?"

Sherrine bit back the answer she wanted to make. "We'll explain everything as soon as you get here."

"On our way."

She put away the intercom handset and returned to the diner. The conductor was still sitting rock-still in his seat, staring angrily at the radio. "Sam?" He blinked, and then glanced up at her, his face barely softening. "They're coming."

"Seventeen years."

"Sam--"

"Seventeen years with a clean safety record. And now I got a lieutenant from the Chicago PD saying we rolled this train out of CUS with an open, unattended door!"

"Oh, Sam." Sherrine knew how passionate Anderssen was about safety regulations. "Let's get this woman off the train first. Then--then you can start knocking heads."

The door at the rear of the diner slid open, admitting Chief Charlotte Yamora and coach attendant Miguel Lopez. While Sam was the supervisor of the train's operating crew, Charlotte was the head of the service crew--car attendants, steward, waiters and cooks--and would stay with the train and her crew for the length of the Broadway Limited's journey to New York and back again. Sam, Sherrine and the engineers would detrain at Toledo long before dawn, and a new operating crew would take over for them.

Miguel stood quietly near the door, but Charlotte sat down beside Sherrine. "I sure hope you're going to tell me what's going on. Why aren't you lifting tickets? People are starting to ask."

Sam grimaced. "Yamora, we have a killer on board--and we gotta find her."

The woman was sitting still as stone. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her teeth clenched; a tightly-contracted jaw muscle quivered under the ugly bruise on her pale cheek. Her juanty, carefree hairstyle and frosty pink lipstick seemed to be locked in a stylistic war with her conservatively tailored sweater and skirt. Dylan wondered at that, noting the crust of dry blood just visible where her earlobe peeked out from under her short blonde hair, and the fresher trickle of blood creeping down the side of her neck.

"You're bleeding."

Victoria was startled out of her reverie, heart racing, her right hand instinctively groping for her knife. The boy was staring at her, his expression a mix of concern, curiosity and young male lust. His eyes were gray.

He blushed. "I think it's your ear--"

She relaxed slightly, moved her hand away from the knife, reached up and touched her ear. She found the warm, sticky trail on her neck; her fingers came away stained with fresh blood. The boy's stare was patient but insistent, unwilling to overlook or look away.

(Great. The last thing I need right now is a nursemaid.)

"I caught my earring in my sweater."

"Oh."

"You don't happen to have a Band-Aid, do you?"

"Uh, no. They have a first-aid kit--"

His hand was halfway to the overhead call button before she caught his wrist. Her grip was vise-tight, as pinched and strained as her voice. "No, really, it's nothing."

Dylan winced from the force of her tight hold. For a brief moment he tried to pull away, but her fingers tightened even more. Then he relaxed, let his arm go limp--and the woman let go. He gave the released hand a shake, then flexed the fingers and tried to ignore the tingling numbness. "Sorry."

She mumbled, "No. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... It's nothing. I'll be fine."

He pulled the earphones back into place, turned away from his un-companion and stared out into the night. He could still feel the warmth of her proximity, the infuriating, tantalizing closeness, the cold tension that easily communicated itself across the inch or two that separated them. He leaned away from her, resting his cheek on the cool window. The scanner squawked.

"Amtrak Forty, hard yellow, Archer Avenue."

"Amtrak Forty, hard yellow."

The train rocked slowly from side to side as it crept through the South Side.

"What are you listening to?"

Dylan jumped when she touched him on the shoulder. He turned around--and saw a different face. No longer tense, or angry, she was offering him a gentle, friendly smile. With one perfect, wine-red fingernail she pointed at the unusual radio on his belt.

"Uh... it's a... a scanner. For listening to, y'know, official stuff. Train talk, mostly--the crew an' the dispatcher."

"Does it pick up other things?"

"Um... yeah. Police, fire, stuff like that."

"So what's going on out there?"

Dylan brightened, enjoying her interest. "Didya notice that we're going real slow? An' how the conductor barged through here without taking our tickets? Well, the dispatcher's got every block between here and Hammond-Whiting on a hard yellow. Y'know, a yellow signal, like in 'slow down and prepare to stop'? I've been listening to the conductor talking to the dispatcher, and--"

There was something about her eyes. The way they widened, pupils dilated, nostrils flared. Dylan could sense the excitement and apprehension in her face, in her shoulders, in the way she leaned forward to catch every word....

(Oh, dear God.)

(The police are looking for a woman--a woman who boarded the train after it started moving.)

"--and they... they... got a c--car accident on--on one of the grade crossings up ahead. They're trying to move it now, but we're probably going to be running late for the rest of the trip." Having committed himself to the convenient lie, Dylan found the longer tale all too ready to trip off his tongue. "'Cause once we're late, y'know, the host railroad lets the freight trains have the right of way. That's where the money is, see? All the profit is in freight. Passengers are just government-mandated charity, as far as the railroad's concerned. So we'll probably end up sitting on a siding every time another comes by, 'cause once you're running late it just gets worse, and worse, and worse...."

Victoria let him babble.

"Hey, kid!" A portly businessman across the aisle had overheard. "You hear anything about when they're gonna start serving dinner? I didn't get any lunch today, 'cause I knew I'd get a chance to eat once I got on the train."

"Uh... well, they don't talk about the food service on the radio. Sorry."

"Figures. God only knows when we get to eat! My wife told me I should fly to Pittsburgh--said she had a bad feeling about this train."

The vestibule between the first and second coaches was barely big enough to hold the two conductors, Charlotte Yamora and Miguel Lopez. The four of them had just finished taking tickets and studying the passengers in the forward coach, and they squeezed into the relatively private space between cars to confer.

"What about the woman in seat eighteen?" Sam asked. "She's got the long brown hair."

"But not the fur coat," Sherrine countered.

Miguel shook his head. "Nope. 'S not her--she's with the two kids in twenty-one and twenty-two."

"You sure?"

Miguel answered that question with a withering look. Of course he was sure: it was his job to know. He'd found a place for the family to sit together when they boarded.

Charlotte frowned. "How about forty-three?"

"She's a little old, don't you think?" asked Miguel.

Sam vetoed that one. "Not her. She's a regular: Mary Lundgren. Lives in Cleveland, has a sister in Chicago, makes this trip every month or so. Makes the world's greatest peanut brittle."

"That doesn't mean--"

"Yes it does." Sam glared at his assistant, who was new to the route and didn't know the regular riders the way he did. "It's not her."

"Okay...." Charlotte punched the door control for the next car. "One coach down, two to go."

"They're in place? Yeah. Yeah. How soon can our people be in Hammond? Okay, thanks Elaine."

Lt. Welsh snapped his cell phone shut and glanced over at Sgt. Porter. "The Indiana troopers are ready at the station. We got three squad cars on the way across the line from the 21st District, they should be there in five or ten minutes. So where's the train?"

Sgt. Porter walked around his desk to the detailed city map on the wall beside his desk. He traced the line of tracks south of the station with his thumbnail, coming to rest just south of Archer Ave. "Right now they're passing Comiskey Park, moving at a crawl. If we're ready to go in Hammond, I'd like to ask the dispatcher to have 'em proceed at track speed--thirty-five miles per hour where they are right now, increasing to forty-five in about five minutes."

"Why?"

"They're about to enter the CSX freight yards. If your woman gets it in her mind to jump, this would be the place to do it--find an empty boxcar or intermodal. Literally thousands of places to hide or escape. If the train is moving at speed, she'll have less time to be tempted, and jumping'll look less appealing."

"At track speed, how soon will they be in Hammond?"

"The CSX dispatcher has cleared the board, so they could be at the station in about... oh, about ten minutes." Porter chuckled and admitted, "It might be the best time Forty's ever made."

Welsh frowned. "I'd almost rather give my people enough time to get in place--and we still don't know where on the train she is. We're cutting it too close."

Gardino cleared his throat. "Can't we--you know--can't we stop the train before it reaches the freight yard?"

"No," Porter answered abruptly. "Very bad idea. If the train stops, she might get nervous, paranoid enough to jump or do something worse. There are a few hundred potential hostages on that train, remember? Even crawling along this slow has gotta be makin' her itchy." He paused to scratch his chin.

Louis laughed bitterly. "Well, we certainly don't want to make her itchy."

"No, we don't." Welsh pressed his lips together and glanced again at the map, then at Porter. "Give the order."

The boy was staring at her again.

Was it the bruise, the blood? Was it something he heard on that damn scanner?

Or was it just hormones?

Victoria hadn't missed the sudden stammer in his voice when she asked him what he'd been hearing on the scanner. He had choked on the truth, sudden panic in his eyes--but he had also bravely concocted a plausible lie, then spun a tale like a house of cards around it. She didn't believe a word of it: if there was an accident on the tracks, the train wouldn't be poking along--it'd be stopped.

"Tickets, please."

Startled, Victoria looked up warily at the trim black woman in the conductor's uniform. One well-groomed hand with elaborately painted fingernails reached out, waiting.

Dylan pulled off his headphones and started to root around in his backpack. Victoria silently handed over her limp, slightly damp ticket. The young assistant conductor glanced at it, then studied Victoria, then glanced at the ticket again. Her hand shook as she punched it twice, tore off the stub and handed the stub back.

"Enjoy your trip."

The Viking was working the opposite side of the aisle, just slightly behind his assistant. There was no sign of his earlier bonhomie; he punched tickets in grim silence. Two members of the service crew followed the conductors, carefully scrutinizing the small paper seat checks that were tucked into the railing above each pair of seats, identifying each passenger's destination.

Dylan found his ticket and handed it over. She punched it twice, but hesitated slightly before handing the stubs back. "Y'all traveling together?"

"No," the boy answered quickly.

"No," Victoria answered in chorus.

The young conductor swallowed nervously, but did not reply. She passed the ticket stub back to Dylan, and moved along to the next passenger. "Ti--tickets, please."

Dylan put his headphones back on, leaned back and closed his eyes. Victoria stared straight ahead, wheels of thought turning, turning, turning....

The crew members quickly finished their survey of the passengers, then regrouped in the vestibule between the last two coaches.

"4032, seat thirty-eight," Miguel said emphatically. "It's gotta be her."

"Are you sure?" asked Charlotte, glancing forward through the small window in the door of the 4032 car. "Her hair is all wrong."

Sam grunted his agreement. "Yeah. We're looking for a woman with long brown hair."

"I don't think she's really blonde," Sherrine said. "Did you see her compexion, how dark it is? Her eyes are brown, so are her brows and eyelashes. She's no more blonde than I am."

"And her hair?" Sam asked.

"Either a cheap wig, or a really bad dye job."

Miguel handed the conductor an index card, scribbled at the beginning of the trip with the numbers of unoccupied seats. "See? I never gave her a seat check. That seat is supposed to be empty."

"So, maybe she changed seats and forgot to bring her seat check with her."

"So where is it? Ticket says she's going to Pittsburgh; did you see a seat check for Pittsburgh over an empty seat anywhere on this train?"

Charlotte shook her head. "She doesn't have a fur coat."

Miguel said, "She's got no carry-ons either. Who rides a train all night and doesn't bring a carry-on?"

Sam frowned. "There was a duffel bag in the overhead--"

"Nah," Miguel replied. "The duffel belongs to the guy in seat thirty-seven. I'm tellin' you, she's got nothing."

The door from the rearmost coach rattled open; the crew members crowded aside to allow a young mother and her three rambunctious children to pass through the vestibule and forward into the next car--probably headed for the lounge. Sherrine waited for both doors to slide closed before adding, "Her face is bruised, and there's blood on her sweater. Whoever she is, she's in trouble."

"She did not pass me when boarding the train. I never saw her before!" The young coach attendant had no doubts. "Believe me, I'd remember a beautiful woman like that, especially if she was beat up. She was not in that car or in 4031 when I gave out the seat checks--"

"And she wasn't back there either," Sam added, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the rearmost coach. "But I've seen her before--yeah! She was coming out of the handicap bathroom in 4033!"

Miguel snapped his fingers. "Why would she move to another car just to use the bathroom?"

Sam pulled out his radio. "Dispatch, this is Amtrak Forty."

"Amtrak Forty, go ahead."

"We think we've identified her. She's blonde, though."

"They're looking for a brunette."

"I know. But we're sure it's her--and we think she's wearing a wig. Tell the police she's in the second to last car of the train, number 4032. About the middle of the car on the right--seat thirty-eight."

"Car 4032, seat thirty-eight. Forty, you are cleared to proceed at track speed. Indiana State Troopers are ready to meet you at Hammond-Whiting."

From the locomotive, the assistant engineer repeated the dispatcher's instructions. "Amtrak Forty, proceed at track speed. Clear, Pershing Avenue."

The dispatcher echoed, "Amtrak Forty, clear, Pershing."

Sam closed his eyes in a moment of concentration--or perhaps, prayer--then returned the radio to the clip on his belt. "Okay, people. We got two hundred forty-eight passengers who didn't kill anybody. Let's get back to work."

(Second car from the rear. Seat thirty-eight.)

(She's blonde.)

Dylan tried to peer at the woman beside him from the corner of his eye, without turning his head. He was pretty sure there was. . . yes, there was. A single strand of curly brown hair clung to a clot of drying blood on the neckline of her sweater.

He glanced up, to the seat number plate on the luggage rack directly across the aisle.

(Seats thirty-nine and forty.)

An icy frisson crawled up his spine. He could feel his ears burning under the sponge-padded headphones. He glanced again at the woman in seat thirty-eight--

--and she was staring straight back at him. "Is something wrong?"

He felt his face grow hot--blushing, dammit. He stammered, "N-n-no."

She frowned. "Good."

She had felt his prying eyes, the heavy weight of his stare. She had born it for as long as she could, then turned her head and opened her eyes--and yes, had caught him looking straight at her.

(He knows. Oh yes, he knows everything--he must have heard about me on the scanner.)

It was in his face, in that expression of horror mixed with pity that she knew so well. It was the look that had made prison visits from her sister so unbearable, the stare that squeezed all the joy out of her reunion with Ben.

(He knows, all right. He knows, and now he's sitting there, trying to figure out what to do about it.)

Her fingers crept quietly along her right leg, reaching for her knife.

Dylan sat frozen, resembling nothing so much as a wild rabbit caught in a predator's gaze. His physical paralysis was a self-preservation strategy, keeping him safe while allowing his mind to race.

He had absolutely no idea what to do. Internal voices quarreled: Get up nonchalantly and move to another seat. Hit the call button to summon the coach attendant. Wait for the conductor to return and yell for help. Enlist the aid of nearby passengers....

...Keep stone silent and mind your own business.

The rhythm of the train's passage, the "clickety-clack" so familiar even to children who never set foot on a real train, accelerated with each passing moment. The train was speeding toward its rendezvous with the law in Hammond-Whiting.

(How much longer? Five minutes? Ten? When the police show up, what will she do?)

He felt it first as a gentle nudge, an almost imperceptible touch to his thigh. The pressure increased--and then he felt the sting. He held his breath and opened his eyes: the woman was staring straight ahead, pointedly ignoring him. But her hand.... Her hand rested on the outside of his left thigh, long tapered fingers just concealing the slim blade of the knife that was pricking his skin even through his heavy jeans.

She lowered her eyes, long dark lashes making her seem demure and innocent. "Open the window," she murmured, and punctuated the command with the slightest motion of the knife.

He didn't move. He didn't speak. It was all he could do to control his bladder.

"Open the window!" she hissed.

Somehow he managed to turn his eyes to the window--which was also one of the car's emergency exits. It would be so easy: pull the red handle, remove the rubber gasket holding the pane in place, open the way for her to jump. From a thousand miles distant, a detached part of his brain admired her foresight: she had chosen a seat beside an escape route, knowing she might need to make an unscheduled departure. From another far away vantage point a different part of his brain gibbered in horror, knowing what could very well happen if she tried it. He could see her falling head-first, ten feet straight down to the trackbed--with steel wheels flashing past, efficient as guillotines, quick to sever any stray limbs that might fall on the tracks.

He found his voice, or at least a whisper. "Are you out of your mind? You can't just jump out the window--you could break your neck, you could die--"

The tip of the knife jabbed harder into his leg. He wondered whether he really felt blood trickling down his leg, or if it was only sweat. Silently Dylan screamed for help, but the conductor strode past them without even a glance; he walked straight through the coach to the forward door and was gone.

Victoria gratefully watched the Viking disappear through the forward door, then wondered where the young assistant conductor with the painted fingernails was hiding. She leaned out of her seat to glance backwards down the aisle--no sign of her.

(Viking to the front, African Princess to the rear. Me in the middle like a trapped hare.)

But the boy was right. Using the emergency exit was too risky, especially with the train moving so fast. The window was smaller than she had expected, so there was no way to go but headfirst; even if she managed it, her unwanted nursemaid could easily grab her by the legs before she could win free--and she'd then end up flopping helplessly along the train's side until the Viking could come help haul her back in. No, she needed to make a clean getaway.

(Take charge, Victoria! Stop reacting, start acting.)

She pulled her canvas bag from the seat back, and whispered, "Get up." When he hesitated, she gave the knife a twist and repeated, "Get up, now!"

He stood. She jerked her head sideways, toward the aisle, and he nodded. She got up and edged into the aisle, and he followed; the knife remained hidden but close, never more than an inch away from his side. Once in the aisle, she turned around and gestured toward the rear, motioning for Dylan to lead the way. She rested the point of the knife a few inches above his right hip, and breathed, "Move!"

Together they walked the length of the car. To their fellow passengers, they may have seemed a bit stiff, oddly discomforted and tense, but their fellow passengers weren't actually paying them any attention. She half-expected Dylan to make a run for it, and had absolutely no idea what she would do if he did--but he didn't seem to be willing to test her. At the rear of the car, he firmly pressed the control for the automatic door, which slowly rattled open.

She struck. Rammed him from behind and shoved him roughly into the vestibule, then seized him around the neck with her left arm while bringing the knife around to his right ear. He never resisted; in fact, he relaxed almost limply in her arms.

The assistant conductor was waiting for them. She had her radio out and ready, and barely took a moment to assess the situation before calling for help. "Sam! She's back here, wi--"

"Drop it!" Victoria opened a small cut on the boy's neck, opening the negotiations with a high bid. "Drop it now!"

Dylan moaned. Sherrine released the call button, and slowly, deliberately, placed the radio on the vestibule floor. It was a small concession, as the conductor was already on his way. The radio, still turned on, told the story.

"Sherrine? Sherrine! Dispatch, Amtrak Forty! The suspect has moved to the rear of car 4032, she's threatening my assistant!"

"Where are you?"

"Open the door," Victoria demanded. "Open the damn door!"

Sherrine hesitated, then reluctantly reached for the locking latch at the top of the right-hand door--the same door through which Victoria had boarded the train only fifteen minutes earlier.

"We're clear of the CSX yards. Should we stop?"

The door swung open, admitting a swirl of dried leaves, paper debris and dust raised in the train's wake. Sherrine held tightly to the steel grab-bar and braced her feet as the train swayed. Track speed was forty-five here, and Chicago's South Side was whipping by at a frightening pace outside the open door.

"No. Maintain speed, I'll alert the police in Hammond-Whiting!"

"Move away from the door!" Victoria ordered.

Sherrine nodded, then slowly worked her way across the vestibule, closing the space between herself and the killer. There would be a brief moment when they passed one another, when they would be close enough to touch--

Her hand flew out with unexpected speed, grabbing Victoria's knife-hand at the wrist and twisting hard. Victoria had to either let go of the knife, or let go of Dylan. She chose the knife--and Dylan spun free and tumbled across the tiny space, knocking Sherrine's radio out the open door. He caught himself on the grab bar, and hauled himself back to safety.

Victoria and Sherrine remained locked in a test of wills, wrestling arm-to-arm for the knife. Through the window of the coach Victoria caught a glimpse of the Viking--fighting his way down the aisle, shoving the gawking passengers out of the way. She estimated that he'd arrive in less than a minute, and then the game would be up.

She lifted her left foot and stamped hard on the assistant conductor's shoe with her heel. Sherrine gasped and reflexively loosened her hold on her opponent's wrist; Victoria broke free and swung the knife down in a forceful arc, burying the three-inch blade in Sherrine's side.

(Freedom!)

Victoria took two running steps. Even as she launched herself into the air, Dylan made one last, valiant, meaningless act of courage, bracing his feet against the doorframe and grabbing her by both arms.

Her momentum was sufficient to carry them both into the darkness.

Porter's pencil punched a hole right through the map. "Right there."

Welsh barked into his cell phone, "Metcalf jumped off the train, and she's got a hostage. Last seen near Stewart Avenue and 60th Street!"

The shriek of steel-shod brakes filled the night as Victoria and her unwanted companion fell from the train, twisting in an awkward aerial dance. Dylan was on the bottom when they hit the ground, and the force of the impact broke his grip on her arms; she clung to him all the more tightly--she had no idea why. She almost immediately lost her blonde wig, snagged on a twisted length of rusted wire as they tumbled together across the rough stone ballast of the trackbed. Jagged rocks and the rusted remains of mysterious debris tore through her clothing and gashed her exposed skin once, over, twice, over, three--

"God damn it all to hell!" She lost her grip on Dylan's arm as he plummeted over a retaining wall at the edge of the right-of-way, her own elbow wrenched by the sudden force of his fall. Gasping in pain, she made one more half-roll and found herself face down to the ground, scrabbling with fingers in the sharp gravel and debris as she, too, dropped over the edge.

There was nothing solid enough to hold onto. Her arms and face were scraped raw as her own weight and momentum pulled her inexorably down, down, down. She kicked at the concrete wall, half in frustration, half in the hope that she might by some miracle find a toehold, a ledge, a step. Soon her hands no longer felt the loose stone ballast; she hung full-height from the wall itself, her bloody fingers clutching at the crumbling concrete, her feet still pedaling the empty air.

The train shuddered to a stop with a final scream of metal on metal, then fell silent a fair distance down the tracks. Victoria tried frantically to see how much farther she had to fall, but she couldn't see straight down without releasing her fragile hold on the decaying wall, and the shadows she could see told her nothing. She turned her face to the darkening sky--only to get an eyeful of the loose sand and pebbles that were raining down from under her fingers.

She listened. The last echo of the squealing brakes had stopped ringing in her ears, but she could still hear the low rumbling of the locomotives and--

Footsteps?

Voices?

Sirens?

A chunk of concrete broke loose under her left hand. She shifted her weight to her right hand and slowly pried it loose--it was about the size and weight of a small apple. Inch by agonizing inch she teased the prize out of the wall, then carefully let it fall into the darkness as she held her breath and listened.

Thud.

A soft landing, then. Relatively soft, anyway--not concrete or asphalt or more stones. Grass, maybe, or dirt. How long had it taken to fall?

(How far away is the ground?)

(How much longer can I hang here?)

A loud report echoed from a a few blocks away to her left--a gunshot, or a car backfiring. The sound startled Victoria enough to make her lose her fragile fingerhold on the wall; she dropped another six feet, hit the ground hard and off-balance, twisted her ankle on the uneven ground, then pitched backwards into a sloping field of tall weeds and garbage. Her right hand landed hard on a broken brick, opening a jagged gash in her palm.

Sirens. There were definitely sirens, and they were coming closer.

She scrambled to her feet, cursing the heel that had snapped off her left shoe in the fall. She looked around to get her bearings; the feeble glow of two streetlights showed a residential street of sagging, ill-tended houses, cracked and buckled sidewalks, and junked cars. Fewer than half of the houses showed any signs of habitation, and the air was perfumed with wood smoke, diesel fumes and urine. She began to limp toward the street, grimacing with every step.

She only managed a few steps before she sprawled headlong over a large, soft obstacle that lay partially hidden by the tall weeds. In the dimness she could just make out a lock of stringy black hair against a torn, white t-shirt.

It was Dylan.

She knelt beside him, rolled him over onto his back and gathered him up into her arms. His eyes were closed, his wide mouth slack. There was warm, wet blood in his hair. She rested her hand briefly on his chest, then carefully reached across to retrieve his wallet. The credit cards should be valid for a few hours, at least--and 'Dylan' could be a woman's name as easily as a man's. Almost as an afterthought, she slipped the scanner from the leather case on his belt. Then, with all the tenderness of a mother with a sleeping child, she bestowed a soft kiss on the young man's forehead.

"Thank you kindly," she whispered.

She gently laid him among the weeds, got to her feet, and limped away into the welcoming darkness.