CHAPTER 46

IF THIS IS YOUR FIRST VISIT TO THE REDEEMER’S LAW PROJECT, YOU ARE COMING INTO THE STORY ALREADY IN PROGRESS. YOUR EXPERIENCE HERE WILL BE FAR LESS CONFUSING IF YOU USE THE CHAPTER INDEX ON THE RIGHT TO GO BACK TO THE INTRODUCTION. OR AT LEAST TO THE PROLOGUE.

CHAPTER 46

Matt’s world slowed down as Simon turned loose his hold on Diedra. The space between her body and his finger-tendrils as he released her struck out at Matt like a physical blow, only a few millimeters, scarcely significant, but the distance screamed her death.

Simon stood in the way, and as Matt shoved him Simon swung around, his face already distorted into a gigantic leer. With a snarl Matt stabbed the Glock forward into Simon’s shoulder and blew the younger man away from him.

That action took less than a second. Matt leaned over the roof’s edge in time to see Diedra slam into the concrete ledge below, as he’d prayed she would if Simon dropped her.

He screamed as she slid bonelessly over the edge.

# # #

Brenda Jorden tried not to let her hands shake on the steering wheel of Ned Fields’ car.

She still heard the faint ringing from where she’d slammed the phone down—that, and Derek Stamford’s words.

This was your idea from the start. I’m sorry it’s blown up in your face, but there’s really nothing I can do.

Nothing I can do. Smug, condescending bastard. Probably twirling his cane while he talked.

She kept just under the speed limit. No use in attracting unwanted attention. She doubted Stamford would send the group after her directly now, since there wasn’t really any need to. Without their direct support, he’d look for her to crash and burn on her own.

She’d be disappointed to have to smash his expectations. Underneath the passenger seat rested a mid-size gray overnight bag. Inside sat 65,000 dollars in tens and twenties, along with two alternate ID’s, complete with passports. Brenda Jorden was a survivor. How many times had she proven that? How many times had life thrown its absolute worst shit in her face? She couldn’t remember. Fields wasn’t in quite as good a position—with no hope of moving him, she’d left him there on the floor of Scott’s room. At least he was breathing.

But Fields was so not her problem.

A couple of months, maybe a year. She’d be back in Derek Stamford’s life.

Long enough to end it.

Pine trees flashed by her on both sides of the road. On the horizon to the east was a glow of pink.

She’d just begun a mental list of prioritized actions for when she reached safety when a battered tan Jeep Cherokee rammed into her from behind. She fishtailed in the road and the Cherokee hit her again, harder this time. Her right rear tire caught the curb at a bad angle and blew out, and she lost control of the car entirely. It jumped the curb, rolled down a steep embankment, and jammed nose-first into a dry drainage canal.

She stayed just conscious enough to hear a car door slam somewhere above her. Then her own door opened, and a deep, slightly Texan voice said, “Agent Jorden.”

She couldn’t quite see Garrison Vessler through the gas and dust from the deflated airbag, but she plainly felt the sudden, intense cold near her face, and screamed as the ice took her.

# # #

Without hesitation Matt vaulted over the wall and plummeted after Diedra.

One hundred eighty feet.

He saw her there below him, and beyond her the pavement rushed up like an enormous gray fist. A detached part of him knew what she’d look like if she hit. Not like in the movies, where the jumper lies on the pavement as if asleep, maybe with a tiny, harmless pool of blood around his head.

One hundred thirty feet.

Not like that at all. If Diedra hit the ground from this height she’d be unrecognizable. Every bone in her body pulverized, every bit of flesh torn and ruptured.

Ninety feet.

Tears streamed from Matt’s eyes as the rushing air found its way through the fabric of his mask. He had to reach her. Had to.

Fifty feet.

He stretched, reached out as he fell. Tried to angle his body to slip through the air faster.

Oh God. The momentum. “So what happens if you take a running start?”

He hadn’t even thought about it. What would happen to their fall if he took them out of shadows at ground level? Would their velocity transfer, smash them to bloody bits even if he did catch her? How could he compensate for it? How could he channel it?

Twenty feet.

He’d have to redirect the energy somehow, send the force of their fall away, take it and shove it away from them. ...How?

There, right below him, Diedra was right there.

He had no idea how.

Ten feet.

Matt’s hand closed around Diedra’s left ankle six feet off the ground.

An explosion of sub-zero cold froze solid the pavement and the earth below it and sent sheets of ice skittering sixty feet up the sides of both the LaCroix and the building where Simon had stood. A sudden, sharp peal of thunder crashed out, and fierce winds rushed to converge where Matt and Diedra disappeared. All the windows in the walls facing them exploded savagely outward, sparkling and frozen.

Then, before the first piece of glass struck the earth, something very like a bolt of lightning smashed out of the air and into the ground where they would have crashed. It coruscated blood red and brilliant gold, and in the microseconds of its duration gouged a pit twelve feet deep and seven feet wide through the ice and the concrete and into the earth.

Bits of glass, some molten and flowing and some sheeted in ice, rained down around the crater. The pavement at its rim burned long after the power discharge faded away.



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