I raised my head to see who was standing above us. And gasped. The man was tall with dark hair flecked slightly with gray and his skin was pale, like he'd never been in the sun.
My eidetic memory kicked in and in my mind's eye I began to go over all of the people we'd tracked down over the years. The mental images stopped when I remembered Chief Vick's briefing from the day before. The department had been shown video footage from a camera in a gas station. The blurry image showed a man with dark hair and pale skin wearing a ski mask and a black sweatshirt robbing the place at gun-point. The instant the Chief had mentioned his name - Robert Goodard - I realized that I had put his brother behind bars the year before. Both Goodard and his brother had been wanted in Santa Barbara for years.
I tried to remian calm, tried to pretend that a pistol wasn't 3 inches from my nose.
"Goodard," I said, my voice raspy from coughing. "Funny meeting you all the way out here. I was just on my way to find your secret hideout."
"Shut up, Psychic," Goodard said coldly. "I've been looking for you for months. Putting my brother in jail through a serious wrench in my plans. You have no idea what I am up to and you never will because I am going to kill you."
I took a shaky breath. "Look, dude, you said it. I have no idea what you are up to. So why don't you let Gus and I go and ou go back to whatever your doing."
"I don't think so. Get up."
Goodard gestured with his pistol, and I reluctantly started to stand. Gus grabbed my arm when I stumbled, a concerned look on his face.
"Move," Goodard demanded, pointing his gun at our backs and forcing us to walk.
I was painfully aware of my bare feet as we stumbled forward into the trees. I was still lightheaded from my close call in the quicksand and I would have fallen again, but Gus grabbed my arm and held me up as we went farther into the dark trees. The sun was going down and I suddeny realized that nobody knew where we were.