Page 124 of The Unraveling of Julia

Oh my God!Julia recognized him instantly. She thought she hadn’t seen his face that night, but now she knew it was him. It was the man who murdered Mike. Now they were coming forher.

“Call the police, go!” Julia pushed Fiamma into the recessed entrance of the gallery, then took off running. The houses were dark and shuttered for the night. No one was out on the street.

“Help!” Julia shouted, trying to rouse somebody. She raced around the corner. That street was deserted, too. She glanced back. The men were half a block away. Hoodie was fast, the Fiat driver jogged with effort. She accelerated, screaming for help. She didn’t know where she was going.

She tried not to panic. Shutters opened on one window. No onecame out. Ahead was a traffic rotary and a clearing. There had to be people there.

She reached the rotary. Traffic was light. She screamed, trying to flag down a driver. They sped past her. She spotted a parking lot but it was empty. A lighted sign read BOBOLIGIARDINI, Boboli Gardens.

Her heart leaped with hope. It was a tourist attraction. She could find help there. She raced toward the arched entrance, but the gate was locked. The garden was closed. No one was around, not even security. The stone ticket booth was closed too.

Julia looked around wildly in the dark. Behind the ticket office was an employee parking lot being repaired. She spotted a temporary fence of orange netting with sections lying on the ground.

She raced toward the flattened section, ran over the netting, and plowed through a sparse hedge into the garden. It was dark except for decorative lights. There were trees, hedges, bushes, and winding pathways where she could hide.

Instinct told her to keep moving. A gravel pathway bisected the garden, illuminated with bigger decorative lights. She couldn’t go that way. Too visible.

She glanced behind her. The men hadn’t come through the orange fence. She didn’t see them anywhere else. Maybe she’d lost them.

Her mind raced. She got her phone, fumbled to the Find My Phone app, and pressed Contact Courtney. The app would show Courtney her exact location.

She took off running. She prayed Courtney would send the police. There was no time to lose. She accelerated. The elevation steepened. She started running uphill. Her breath came ragged. Her thighs burned.

She looked back. She spotted the men, their shadows racing in front of one of the lights, casting a gargantuan shadow on the hedges. They split up, going in different directions. It was two against one.They would cover more ground, looking for her.

Julia felt a bolt of terror. She prayed the police got to her before the men did. She didn’t scream for help because she couldn’t reveal where she was. She remembered the steak knife in her purse. She pulled it out on the fly.

She ran along the side of the garden, a hedge in front of a stone wall. Her heart thundered. She could see houses outside the wall. She looked back. She’d lost track of the men. She feared they knew the place better than she did.

She kept running along a path that wound left, then right. She lost her orientation. The garden was mazelike, bewildering at night.

She kept going up. There had to be a clearing, maybe a security guard. Her lungs burned, her thighs ached. She tripped on the gravel, then realized her footsteps were making noise.

She ran onto the grass, spotting a huge fountain surrounded with decorative lights. She’d be too exposed that way. She angled across the grass toward a line of trees, racing for cover.

Julia glanced back, terrified. They weren’t behind her. She didn’t know where they were. She ran past one hedge, then another, and there was a corner.

Out of nowhere, the Fiat driver barreled into her, knocking her onto her back. He landed heavily on top of her, sweating, panting, and cursing in Italian.

Julia slashed the side of his face, slicing his ear. He howled in pain. His hand flew to his cheek. Blood spurted from the wound. He exploded in rage, trying to get up.

Julia scrambled to her feet and took off. She sprinted away on a diagonal, raced over the gravel path and back into the grass. She came to a trio of winding pathways. She took the first one and kept runningthis way and that, trying to get away. She could hear the Fiat driver yelling behind her.

She struggled to think through her fright. If the Fiat driver was yelling, Hoodie hadn’t found him. Maybe Hoodie would keep looking for her. She knew how ruthless he could be. He killed Mike without hesitation.

Julia kept going, running across the lawn, scooting around hedges on the left then to the right. The lighting was dim in the center of the garden. She could see a line of tall trees to her right, which oriented her.

She ran that way, faster and faster toward yellow buildings on her left. They were dark, still, and quiet, closed. In the next moment, she heard sirens blaring.

Julia kept going. The sirens didn’t sound far away. She ran through an open field, looking behind her. Hoodie wasn’t following her.

She kept running up. It was getting harder and harder. She staggered and almost fell. Ahead was an open field. There was a massive bronze sculpture of a broken face, as tall as a building, illuminated in the darkness. She raced across the field at an angle, avoiding the lights.

Suddenly Julia heard footsteps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. It was Hoodie, gaining on her in the gloom.

“No!” she screamed in terror, her legs churning. The sirens blared closer and closer. She prayed they got here in time. She had to stay alive until then.

Julia accelerated, desperate. She glanced back. Hoodie was thirty feet away, then twenty. She could hear him panting, then laughing. He was enjoying himself.

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