But it wasn’t her the thug wanted. It was her vehicle.
Which made it all the worse.
Turning the key, which was still in the ignition, the car-jacker gunned the van’s engine as if he were thumbing his nose at Christa in triumph. The next moment, he was peeling out of the lot even as she was scrambling back to her feet.
Oh, God, no. No! Robin!
The horrified protest drummed madly through her brain. A big lump had formed almost instantly on her forehead beneath the fringe of bangs she wore, and the gash on her palm was bleeding now. She could feel the stickiness against her fingers. But all Christa could think of was the van that was speeding away from her. And the precious cargo that was still in it.
“Stop him!” she screamed. “Stop that man. He’s stealing my van. My daughter’s in it! Somebody, please help me!” The wrenching plea tore out of her throat, rubbing it raw as if every syllable were made out of bits of glass.
The scream shattered the peaceful morning air surrounding the Sylvan Minimall. The handful of people out early in the huge parking lot jerked to attention, looking in Christa’s direction. One man came running over to her. But for the most part, the others were immobilized, frozen in place by icy, stunned disbelief. Car-jackings and kidnappings just didn’t happen in a quiet place like Bedford.
Except when they did.
“Are you all right?” the man asked Christa.
“No,” she cried, watching the van pull away. “No!”
All right? How could she be all right? How could she ever be all right again? Someone had just stolen her child!
Fragments of thoughts collided in her head. She wanted to run after the van and rip the man apart with her bare hands; she wanted to crumple to the ground and cry. She did neither. Instead, she ran into the convenience store to call the police.
Malcolm Evans had gotten a late start this morning.
For all intents and purposes, for him time had stopped moving toward any real goal three years ago on a Sunday afternoon in May. That was when his world had ended in flames.
But he went through the motions of putting one foot in front of the other, and somehow one day followed another, until they knitted themselves into a week, and then a month and then a year.
It made no difference. Nothing changed.
There was a sameness to them all, especially in Southern California. Some days were cooler, some not, but there were no seasons to indicate the passage of the days, no way to differentiate one from another. Malcolm found himself merely existing. Marking time.
The only thing that entered into his life, that made any difference at all, was his sense of responsibility. It was the thin, steely thread that still tethered him to life. He had a place of business. People brought him their cars to repair. So he arrived early, remained late and went home to a place that would never be home again. It would never be more than just a building to him, walls to keep the rest of the world outside.
Usually, he managed to keep his thoughts in an iron Pandora’s box, sealed shut. This morning, they had slipped out. The memories. The pain. The guilt.
It had almost swallowed him up, that despair, that loneliness that periodically came out to haunt him ever since Gloria and Sally had been taken from him.
This time, the pain had been almost stronger than he was. But Mr. Mahoney was waiting for him to finish repairs on his pride and joy, a twenty-five-year-old car that defied the odds and continued to run long after it should have become a permanent part of some scrap heap. And God knew if he left Jock on his own all day, the kid would be a basket case before noon.
He had to go in.
So Malcolm had forced himself out of bed, basically proceeding on automatic pilot through his shower and a breakfast a Spartan would have described as meager. He ate for the same reason he did everything else in the past three years: out of an ingrained habit.
Malcolm had just pulled into the northernmost entrance to the minimall, the one closest to his shop, when he heard the woman’s screams. The next moment, the van was barreling out of the lot, practically scraping the paint off his car as it passed. The van almost flipped over as it took a turn far more sharply than it should have. Malcolm was so close he could see the wild look on the driver’s face.
It violated something within Malcolm to think that crime with its long, dirty fingers, was poking around a city he had always thought of as unblemished. This was the city he had initially chosen to settle in, the city where he had hoped to see his daughter grow to young womanhood. Grow and flourish.
She could do neither now, but somehow it offended her memory to have someone commit a crime in Bedford, especially in broad daylight. Malcolm reacted without thinking and spun around a full 180 degrees to give pursuit.
Driving was second nature to him. It had been ever since he was twelve years old and had finally nagged his uncle into teaching him the fundamental elements of mastering a vehicle. Of course, then it had been a large, unwieldy tractor, but he had swiftly graduated to his cousin’s car. And then his mother’s tank of a Thunderbird when she had finally been persuaded to give her permission.
By the time Malcolm was sixteen and legally eligible for a learner’s permit, he could make a car stand up and beg and do just about anything he wanted it to. Like a centaur in Greek mythology, he was able to meld with his vehicle and become one with it.
For a while, when he was still in high school, he had entertained thoughts of becoming a stunt-car driver. But the lure of the track had been far too great, and he had taken that road.
And abandoned it.
For the past year he’d been driving a LeMans GTO. He had rebuilt the car from the hubcaps on up. It had begun a healing process for Malcolm, and while he hadn’t healed, as he worked he had at least found his way out of the darkness. He had pored over every metal scrap, every rod, every cable. Every piece within the car was indelibly marked with his fingerprints.
As he gave chase out of the lot, his car revved to life, performing like a long-sleeping servant eager to please its master.
Keeping an eye out for any passing vehicles, Malcolm commandeered the thoroughfare, wishing for the first time in his life that he owned a car phone. He wanted to call the police and give them his location so that they could cut off the car-jacker before he managed to get away.
Not that he figured the police were really far away. Car chases were uncommon in Bedford. He was certain that by now the squeal of burning rubber had prompted more than one citizen to hurry to his telephone to register a complaint with the police.
With any luck, Malcolm thought, a squad car would shortly be approaching from the other direction to serve as a barricade.
Main Street went from one end of Bedford to the other, serving as a direct link between two freeways. Developments sprouted on both sides of the street, and were lined with carefully crafted stone walls and framed by lush, towering trees that coexisted in landscaping the way they never would have in nature. Right now, a section of the long, winding road was under reconstruction to make it even wider than it was. Detour signs littered the area sporadically, making passage difficult.
The car-jacker was headed straight for the construction area. Obviously not a clear thinker, Malcolm thought. While Freeway 5 was directly on the other side of the reconstruction and closer as an escape route, the smart thing would have been to make a U-turn and head for the 405.
Good thing for the little girl in the van that the guy wasn’t smart, Malcolm thought.
The light ahead was turning red. Malcolm knew that wasn’t going to be a deterrent to the car-jacker. The van raced through the intersection as a car coming from the right came to a screeching halt, fishtailing and leaving a trail of tire tracks along the asphalt.
Malcolm