Flashback - Page 100

“Shit,” Sloane said. “I can probably only handle three of them. Four, tops.”

“Stop it, Sloane,” Chloe said. “This is serious.”

“Whatever. Do you think I’m not? I’m not going down without a fight.”

Lynch pulled out his automatic and popped in the ammo cartridge. “We’re not going down at all. But we need to get away from these buildings. They’ll be the first things targeted. Is there a back door here?”

Chloe nodded. “At the end of the hallway.”

“Let’s use it. I want to be at the top of the hill by the time that boat gets to shore.”

They ran from the building and scrambled up the hillside, a task made more difficult by the darkness. They finally reached the top and turned to face the water.

“I don’t see it,” Chloe whispered.

“It’s out there,” Lynch said. “They’ve just cut the running lights.” He raised his binoculars and scanned the area. “Straight ahead. They’re about to reach shore. They’ve seen our boat.”

Sloane stepped forward, watching as the boat tied to the landing and the half-dozen men jumped off. “He’s one of them, isn’t he? The man who killed our mother…”

“We don’t know that,” Kendra said. “We can’t be sure yet.”

“And we can’t lose focus,” Lynch said. “Our goal right now is to get you off this island alive.”

But they could tell the sisters weren’t listening. They were staring straight ahead, jaws clenched and eyes narrowed, passing their own binoculars back and forth as they watched the men gathering.

One of the men switched on a battery lantern, and the others took their places around him.

Kendra turned to Lynch. “Do you recognize any of them?”

“I see Krebb. He’s the one with the white hair. He doesn’t usually go into the field. He prefers that others do his dirty work. We must be scaring the hell out of him.”

“Good,” Sloane said.

“And I see our friend with the blue hat from Catalina,” Lynch said. “He’s still wearing that hat. We were being watched there.”

“Give me those,” Kendra said to Lynch as she grabbed his binoculars. She trained the glasses on one man at a time. “Okay, I think we might also have the guy who attacked me in Sloane’s condo.”

Sloane turned toward her. “Wait. You were in my condo, and some guy attacked you in it?”

Kendra kept the binoculars trained on the men. “Yes. I was going to tell you about that.”

“When?”

“Soon. We’ve been keeping fairly busy since we arrived on this island.” She focused more precisely. “The guy standing next to Krebb is missing his right front tooth. The same one I knocked out.”

“Nice work,” Chloe murmured.

“Thanks. We recovered it near Sloane’s dining room table.” Kendra gasped as a chill ran through her.

“What is it?” Lynch said.

Something kept Kendra from wanting to immediately say the words out loud. How did you tell these young women who had been searching most of their lives for their mother’s murderer that he was standing here before them? “Rod Wallace. We told you that he’d made another appearance in San Diego lately.” She turned to Chloe and Sloane. “The Bayside Strangler is here.”

“Which one is he?” Chloe asked as her fists clenched. Even in the darkness, Kendra could see her face flush with rage. “We haven’t even seen a picture of him. Point him out to me.”

“The one with his arms crossed, standing directly across from Krebb. Lynch and I encountered him in my building garage a few days ago. He bragged about who he was and… what he’d done.”

“Are you sure it’s him?” Lynch said.