Chapter One

City Lady Country Killer

I led Rita to my barn. She said her car was gas. I bet that I could get her car moving with some fuel and a jump. I opened the big door and started my ’87 GMC. It was two shades of brown, 4x4, and had a five-gallon jerry can strapped in the bed. I flipped the switch for the headlights. Rita looked at the dashboard like it was alien. I rolled the truck out into the rain and headed west on highway XX.

The radio was static, but picked up pieces:

…southbound on 87 is still backed up…

…storm of the century… seek shelter…

…killings in Lincoln Square…

The wipers struggled against the rain. The headlights illuminated the tunnel of the corn.

“Just a little further,” Rita said.

“You’re from the city. Uptown?”

“Downtown. Descartes Building, apartment thirty-two oh-two.”

“We’ll head there after this.”

“My husband is home with some friends-”

“It’s usually the husband,” I said. Lighting punched down nearby.

“The husband?”

“Who else would have access to your bin?”

“The maid maybe. But I’d be surprised if she knew there was an under to the bed.”

“Descartes, that’s the kind of place to have an elevator man. And security. And a front desk.”

“What if it is?”

“Makes it a lot harder for someone you don’t know to sneak in.”

“But not impossible.”

“Nobody is climbing up to the thirty-second floor.”

“It could have been the building staff.”

“You have trouble with them?”

“No.”

“Your husband’s name?”

“David York.”

“What’s he do?”

“Land development. There it is.”

There was a shadow on the road. I slowed down. A bolt of lightning hit a tree, and the sound was as loud as a canon. The GMC shook.

What had been small Porsche was a charred skeleton. Glass was everywhere. It was smoking.

“Oh shit,” Rita said.

A glint caught my eye. It could have been a piece of glass, blown five hundred yards from the vehicle.

I grabbed Rita’s neck, and forced her head down.

Bullets slammed into the windshield. The rear window exploded.

Rita screamed.

More shots drummed against the engine block. The radiator began to hiss and spit. Rain whipped into the cab. Lighting hit again.

“Holy Jesus Christ!” Rita yelled.

Staying low, I put the truck into reverse and hit the gas. The truck threw loose bits of road. A shot winged the mirror and another whizzed over my head.

The tires caught and sent us backward. The shots grew further apart. I flicked the headlight light off and used the remaining mirror to keep us on the road. I risked a look.

Lightning hit. A ghoulish figure stood between the rows of corn. He wore a poncho and his rifle was twice as long as he was thick.