Read Tinkerbell on Walkabout for Free Online Page B

seems to be suffused
with dim and flickering light.
    I bolt through the junkyard gate on a rush of adrenaline,
then sprint in the direction of the parts shack, where I hope I’ll find July. I
zigzag, straining to see the bulk of the little building. If Lee isn’t asleep,
he will have seen the lights go out. I pray he doesn’t take it into his head to be a hero.
    I’m almost
past the cottage before I see its boxy silhouette in the gloom. July is nowhere
in sight. I hear a car engine and imagine the old Caddie creeping along the
back row to the music from Jaws , drawing ever closer to the Le Baron.
    Head down, I scurry across the clearing where Perry had been
working on the old Electro-Glide. It’s still there, sitting on his workbench
under a tarpaulin. Diving into the nearest row of cars, I head for the back of
the lot.
    Within sight of the drop spot, I dodge behind a crumpled
pickup. The Cadillac is sitting right in front of the old Chrysler, its trunk
wide open.
    Two men are moving around the LeBaron. I recognize Coop as
he rounds the rear bumper and turns his face back into the light from the
Caddie’s parking lights. He bends to the trunk latch and my stomach flip-flops.
    “Son of a bitch !” Coop straightens, taking swift
inventory of the lot. “Someone’s
messed with the car. There’s
something broke off in the lock.”
    One of the other guys sidles up to him. A flashlight winks
on.
    “Perry?”
    “Perry knows what’s in the trunk, moron. Someone else has
been here. Maybe they’re still here.” Head rotating like a radar array, he
steps out from behind the car, drawing his gun.
    I’m close enough, and the light is just good enough, for me
to see that it’s a Glock. Possibly the gun that killed Bob Wray. I think
longingly of my little blue Taurus, tucked away in the Petersen’s gun locker,
and wonder how Goldilocks would have fared if the three bears had carried
sidearms.
    I sidle back along the pickup truck, then hunker over and
run. I’ve barely covered three yards when I collide with someone. We fall in a
tangle of arms and legs.
    Training kicks in and I ball up like a pill bug and pop to
my feet again in defensive posture. July faces me across a tiny arena defined
by a pack of leering grilles, her gun aimed at me.
    “ Damn it, Gina—!”
    She’s
silenced by a shout nearby.
    “Less talk. More fleeing.” I bolt toward the parts shop,
thinking of the workbench with its concealing tarp.
    We serpentine through the cars, the sounds of pursuit
closing. Flashlights slice through the ground mist. Why aren’t these guys
speeding away in abject fear? What’s in that car trunk that makes it worth the
risk?
    The parts cottage looms so suddenly it brings me up short. A
second later, a flashlight beam lances over my shoulder and splashes on the
shop’s bright blue front door. A guttural yell and a warning shot follow it.
    The workbench is a no-op. Plan B, then. I let momentum carry
me into a painful collision with the front of the building. My head grazes the
frame of the single front window; my left elbow makes solid contact with one of
the panes, shattering it. I make a flailing grab through the jagged hole into
the interior of the shop—grasping at straws, and giving my new leather jacket
lots of character in the process.
    “Hands behind your heads!” The male voice is sharp.
    I pull my arm out of the broken windowpane. Shards of glass
fall to the ground with tiny, thin explosions. Hands on my head, I peer through
the shattered window into the dark room beyond and pray that Bob was as
consistent as he was orderly. I try to breathe evenly, and not imagine being
shot in the back.
    “Hey,” says a second male voice about ten feet behind me.
“It’s a woman!”
    Someone approaches me from behind, stops about three feet
away, and says: “Turn around.”
    I do. A flashlight beam hits me full in the face, making me
wince and blink.
    “This one’s a girl, too.” He takes a step closer, then pats
me