With the glimmer of an idea beginning to form, Gabe ignored the burning pain in his hip and managed to stand on the balcony wall, propping himself against one of the pillars that supported the glass canopy. Then he tested the main pipe, which seemed solidly anchored to a metal frame that came down from the roof. Whether or not it could hold more than double a man's weight was anyone's guess, but that was what he would be asking it to do.

The knife was gone, and he was hardly mobile enough to go foraging for another weapon. But he did have a weapon—at least a potential one—in his backpack, and he knew damn well how to use it. Carefully, he removed the rope he had used to entertain and educate the stable master's son, Pete—forty feet of excellent lariat cord, purchased in the store where Gabe had gotten his boots. Then he took one end and swung it over the pipe. Finally, he tied that end around his waist and used it and the descending length to test the pipe and lower himself back to the balcony floor.

No problem.

It would be a hell of a throw, but somewhere in a box in his basement were dozens of tarnished trophies that said he could make it.

Spent from the pain and the effort, Gabe sank onto the stone floor of the balcony and waited, trying not to gasp out loud with each breath. It seemed likely that when Carl was upright the two killers would separate again. The knife wound to Carl's leg would have them angry, anxious, and even a little shaken—a recipe for error. All Gabe could hope for now was that one of them didn't come up to the balcony.

He shifted his position and felt a daggerlike pain from his wound into his groin. He was about to check to see if there was an exit hole when he heard noise and sensed movement from below. Peering between the cement balustrades, he could make out a man's form, moving cautiously along the pool. No limp. Then, light through the canopy glinted off his shaved pate.

Crackowski.

Gabe shifted again, checked the knot that fixed the lariat around his waist, then the slipknot he had tied at the business end of the rope. A glance overhead to ensure everything was in place and he gathered in the slack, moved into an agonizing crouch, and waited as, a step at a time, the killer headed toward the spot just beneath where the rope looped over the rain pipe.