The boat was moving below the pickup, turning slowly with the water. The line had changed its note.
Leah reached the winch control. The chock still pressed against the flatbed's rear tire, but a hairline crack beneath it had shed a grain of concrete. She looked underneath, then at the pickup's upper wheel. It was moving again, barely, rubbing a fresh dark arc beside the first scrape.
She took a short breath and made a limited adjustment. The winch motor labored, the chain gave a single sharp sound and the wheel stopped. She released the control at once. More pull was not an answer she could keep using.
“Mark it,” she told Kit.
Her daughter moved her toe to a new patch of concrete, well clear of the tire. She did not reach for the cable.
“Still?” Leah asked.
“Still,” Kit said.
Walt called her name. She could hear how much breath it took him.
“Talk to him,” she told Kit.
Kit looked toward the broken window. She had wanted a job. Now she had one that required something besides a steady eye.
She moved along the same upper approach Leah had used, staying on the shed side of the loaded line. “Walt.”
He turned his head. His face had lost its usual shapes, the confidence around his mouth, the amused crease beside one eye. He looked like an old man in a place he hadn't meant to be.
“Tell her to get me out.”
“They're coming.”
“I don't need a goddamn parade.”
“I know.”
“Look at the door. Look what it's done to me.”
Kit stopped. Leah saw her swallow. She wanted to call her back, give her something easier, and knew she had sent her because there wasn't anything easy left.
“I can see it,” Kit said. “I can see you.”
He looked away. His hand moved below the window. Leah's attention snapped to it.
“Walt. Hands where we can see them.”
He swore at her. Then he lifted one hand, the fingers spread. The other stayed braced against the seat.
The siren was nearer. Another sound joined it, lower, a different vehicle. The marina woman waved from beside the office, pointing toward the entrance. Gordon had got the spectators back behind the fence. He stood with one hand on the gate as if holding it could restore the boundary that had failed when Walt drove away with his boat.
The pickup's horn sounded, one long unbroken note. Walt had leaned against it without meaning to. He tried to move, cried out, stopped. The sound went on.
Leah couldn't think through it.
“Walt. Off the wheel.”
He shifted. The horn cut out. In the sudden quiet she heard him breathing, heard water moving, heard Kit say something softly.
“He says it's in his other leg now,” she told Leah. “The pain.”
Leah nodded. She could not make that better. She wanted him to have a complaint she knew the answer to. Cold room, bad food, a seat that didn't fit. Pain was supposed to belong to people who could be helped by doing more of the thing you were already doing.
Kit turned toward Gordon. “Have you got a clean towel? Anything he can use on his head?”
Gordon looked at her, then went to a box beside the repair shed. He came back with a white towel still folded, the sort a boat owner kept for guests who didn't understand how expensive damp could become. He held it out.
Kit took it. She returned by the upper approach, without crossing the line, and held the towel toward the broken driver's window. Walt reached for it himself. Their hands touched. He closed his eyes, and for a moment she could have been passing him a drink.
Then his hand tightened on her wrist.
“Get me out.”
Kit went still.
“Let go,” she said.
Walt didn't seem to hear.
Kit bent her knees, kept her weight away from the edge and said, very clearly, “I can't help if you're pulling me.”
He looked at her hand inside his. His fingers opened.
She moved back. Leah let herself breathe again.
Kit stayed where he could see her. When he looked down, she said his name, and he lifted his head again.
The first police car stopped beyond the entrance. A second came behind it. Doors opened, voices rose. Leah saw a uniformed man take in the gun report before he took in the truck. He told everybody to keep their hands visible, to step back from the pickup.
Kit raised hers. Leah raised both hands, the swollen right one still in its glove.
“The winch is holding the upper end,” she said. “The ground moved. I adjusted once. Somebody needs to watch the rear of my truck.”
The officer looked at the strain between the vehicles, the pickup's position, Walt's face. He didn't tell her she was safe. He didn't tell her she was free to go. He moved to where he could see into the cab and kept speaking to Walt in short plain sentences.
Leah heard the gun mentioned. Heard Walt say, “On the floor.” Heard the officer tell him not to reach. Then another vehicle filled the entrance, blocking the view of the road completely.
There it went. The last piece of open road she could pretend still belonged to her.
Kit looked toward Leah. She had seen it too. They did not speak.
Firefighters came into the apron carrying equipment. A woman in a helmet stopped beside Leah, looked at what she had done, then at the pickup.
“Who set this?”
“Me.”
“How long's it been holding?”
Leah tried to count. The minutes had no size anymore. “Since before the call. It moved once. I adjusted. It hasn't moved since.”
The woman asked another question. Leah answered what she knew and said she didn't know where she didn't. It felt strange, giving a professional account of a thing that had begun with stealing money. The firefighter took the information without seeming to care whether Leah had a clean reason to know it.
“Stay with that until I tell you,” she said.
Leah nodded.
A firefighter carried blocks to the upper wheel. Another brought a braced support down from the shed side and called for a second set of hands. They worked around the loaded cable without stepping over it. The woman beside Leah watched both vehicles while the others made room at the cab. The officer stayed where he could see Walt, one hand lifted to keep Gordon back.
Walt watched the firefighters approach.
“They'll cut it?” he asked Kit.
“They'll get you out.”
He shook his head. “My leg.”
She looked toward a firefighter, caught his attention and repeated it. The man went to the window and spoke to Walt, crouching so he didn't have to look up. Kit stepped aside when asked.
The injured hand throbbed inside its glove. Leah curled it toward her stomach. The firefighter beside her noticed the covering at her wrist.
“You hurt?”
“Caught my hand before this. It's swelling.”
“Tell me if that changes.”
Leah nodded. Her left hand rested on the rig's side panel, clear of the controls. She could feel the engine through the metal.
From the pickup came a metallic groan. Walt cried out. The sound went straight through Kit. She took a step toward him and stopped herself when the firefighter lifted a hand.
Leah watched the rig, the pickup, the people between them. She stayed exactly where she was needed.