All Jacked Up (12 page)

Jack did a hands up, said, “Fine,” and stomped off into the verge of the woods. “But if bullets start flying, you’re on your own.”

If bullets started flying, she might jump in front of one, if only to get away from him. She set her backpack on the ground, slipped off her jacket, folded it carefully, and bent to set it on top of the backpack. Brakes screeched behind her, her heart shot up into her throat, and Jack was there before she could even draw breath.

“Need a ride?” a male voice shouted out.

“No.”

“What?” Aubrey straightened up, turned around, and came nose to spine with Jack. He whipped an arm out and tried to keep her behind him, but she wasn’t having any of that. “I want a ride,” she said, ducking around him and stopping short when she got a load of who was asking the question and what he was driving.

An ancient stake truck sat idling in the traffic lane, gray smoke puffing out of its tailpipe, the whole contraption doing a loose, rattling shimmy in time with the throaty chug of the engine. The back was filled with an assortment of junk, old televisions, broken furniture, ceramic garden gnomes—everything but Granny Clampett in her rocking chair, including a gray-muzzled hound dog Aubrey mistook for a statue until she noticed the loops of slobber hanging from its jowls.

The side of the truck proclaimed it Jasper and Son’s Traveling Flea Market in faded yellow letters mostly outlined in rust. Aubrey lifted her gaze to the man leaning out the window. Bright black eyes stared at her from a face that was seamed brown skin on the top and scraggly gray-shot beard on the bottom, except for a set of grinning teeth nearly the same color as the letters on the truck.

“I’m Jasper,” he said, flipping a thumb toward the driver’s side of the truck, “this here’s my son, Jasper Junior. We call him—”

“Junior,” Aubrey said along with him, shifting her gaze to the man in question, who leaned around his father to smile at her. He was the spitting image of his old man, except for the gray beard and the wrinkles. He had the same eyes, birdlike and bright, and the same wide smile. Aubrey couldn’t help but smile back. “Where are you headed?”

Junior shrugged.

“We’ll know when we get there,” Jasper said. “How ’bout you?”

Aubrey looked at Jack, he looked back at her, expression blank. “I guess we’ll know when we get there, too.”

“Well, you hop right on in, ma’am, and we’ll go there together.” Jasper climbed down from the truck and held the door open for Aubrey. He gave Jack a long, steady look, not seeming reassured by what he saw but apparently willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for Aubrey’s sake. “Your friend ain’t gonna fit in the cab with us. He can climb on in the back.”

Jack looked at the bed of the truck and the dog shifted, snuffling at the air in their direction and making eager doggie noises.

“Don’t mind old Bessie. She’s whining because she’s getting company and she can’t wait.”

“She’s whining because Jack is scowling at her.”

Jack turned slowly. His expression had Jasper taking a step back and Aubrey smiling.

“Look at it this way, Jack, at least she won’t talk to you.”

He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You should ride in the back with me.”

“No way. It’s going to be cold and windy, and the springs on this thing don’t look all that modern—no offense, Mr. Jasper.”

“Just Jasper, and I ain’t offended, ma’am.”

Jack tightened his grip, pulled her over, and leaned down, whispering, “They didn’t stop because of your face.”

No, they stopped because she’d been backside up, laying down her coat. She knew that perfectly well, but trust Jack to remind her. She might not be God’s gift to mankind in the looks department, but she made the most of what she had. “You know what, Jack? I don’t care if they’re planning on having group sex in the cab of that truck. I’m not walking any more today.”

“Now hold on there a minute, little lady. Me’n Junior don’t hold with that kind of talk.”

“You see, Jack? They don’t hold with that kind of talk. I’m sure their motives are perfectly innocent.”

“’Course they are. Junior’n me’ll do just ’bout anything for cash—’cept that sex talk. We’re just out to make a living.”

Jack took his time smiling, let it come slow and easy as his eyes cut to Aubrey’s. “So you would have stopped for me?” he asked, his gaze still on her.

“Yep.”

“Well, isn’t this interesting? These guys want to be paid, and you happen to be fresh out of cash. I guess that means I get to sit in the front, and you ladies can take the back.”

“Only seems fair,” Jasper said. “He pays, he gets the good seat.”

And the good seat would be the one between the two sweaty junk collectors? Aubrey locked eyes with Bessie and made a split-second decision, half turning so she could reach into her bra and come out with a twenty-dollar bill. She handed it over, collected her things, and climbed up into the cab before anyone could protest the seating arrangement or the payment.

A couple of minutes later Jasper clambered in after her, Junior put the truck in gear and they chugged off in a deafening roar and a cloud of exhaust. Aubrey couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder, smiling at what she saw.

Jack sat with his back braced in the front corner of the truck bed. Bessie lay with her head in his lap, soulful brown eyes gazing up at his face, a trail of slime snaking down to pool between his legs. He met Aubrey’s eyes through the window, giving her a you’ll-pay-for-this-later look.

She smiled. Apparently Jack’s scowls were like the flu. She’d been exposed to them so often over the last two days that she’d built up an immunity.

Of course, the flu bug had a pesky habit of mutating, kind of like their predicament. There was sure to come a point in time where Jack felt free to carry through on one of his threats—after they figured out what she knew about Pablo Corona. If. Even supposing they managed to pinpoint what she knew about Corona, there was nothing saying she had to admit it to Jack.

That much, at least, was in her control.

As traveling companions went, Bessie wasn’t so horrible, Jack decided. As soon as he’d hoisted himself into the back of the truck and gotten settled, she’d dropped her muzzle on his thigh and looked up at him with her sad, brown, pet-me eyes. She didn’t talk, and she didn’t purse her lips and look at him in a way that made him feel stupid. Or do anything that ended in a maiming for him. And she knew how to take a hint. When he didn’t show any interest in rubbing her mangy hide, she heaved a huge doggie sigh and slunk off to loll in the sometimes sun by the tailgate. And it only took her two hours. He’d been with Aubrey for two days and she still didn’t get it.

He was her only hope. He’d explained it to her in every way there was, he’d reasoned, he’d yelled, he’d gotten shot, for Christ’s sake, but did she face up to reality? No, she climbed into the cab of the first truck that came along, with two strange men who’d probably cut her throat as soon as look at her. They seemed harmless, sure, but they’d do anything for money. Wasn’t that what Jasper Senior had said? Okay, they drew the line at sex, but they hadn’t ruled out murder. And yet there she sat between them, happy as a clam with no way of escape. And there he sat, close enough to touch her and yet completely helpless if anything happened. And when Aubrey was involved, something always happened.

No sooner had the thought sneered its way out of his subconscious than he heard Aubrey talking right through the closed windows of the truck. No words carried to him, but the tone of her voice came through loud and clear and what it shouted was Trouble.

Jack flipped around, not caring that he looked like a kid at a candy store, nose and hands plastered to the window in the rear of the cab. Aubrey was still sitting between the Jaspers, watching Jasper Senior fiddle with the radio. No, not a radio, Jack realized. It wasn’t a CB, either. It was a police band, and it didn’t take a genius—or a librarian—to figure out what it was. It didn’t even take Aubrey looking over her shoulder, uncertainty in her eyes, to tell Jack she was listening to an APB on the two of them. And he didn’t need to see Jasper turn up the volume to tell Jack there was a reward being offered for his arrest. A reward the Jaspers were planning to collect.

Junior hit the gas, and the truck farted out a noxious black cloud and shuddered its way up to a speed that wouldn’t break any laws but ran the risk of shattering the sound barrier. As if Jack needed any more proof of their determination, they took the next turn off the parkway practically on two wheels, blasted through a red light, and chugged off toward the closest police station with no intention of stopping between point A and point B.

Jack pounded on the cab’s rear window until Aubrey twisted around and looked at him. The indecision on her face made up his mind for him. He didn’t stand much chance of getting her out of the cab of the truck as it was. Add in the fact that she’d probably fight him and it would be stupid to stick around and let himself be arrested.

One look at the ground rushing by the side of the truck had Jack rethinking his decision to bail out of a vehicle, even one as sluggish as Jasper and Son’s Traveling Flea Market. While he was weighing the potential for pain and injury against the certainty of incarceration and death, Jasper Senior figured out that his windfall might try to fly the coop. He slid the rear window open and yelled, “Sic ’im, Bessie.”

Before he finished bellowing her name, Bessie transformed herself from slobbering, lovable hound dog to Cujo. She lunged at Jack. Jack bolted for the side of the truck, fresh out of other choices. Bessie’s teeth scraped along his left shinbone, catching in his pant leg just long enough to turn his feetfirst exit into an uncontrolled headfirst sprawl. At least Bessie had the good sense to let go before he towed her out after him, which was the best thing he could say about the experience.

He hit the gravel shoulder on his hands and knees, skidding a little way before he tucked his head under and rolled into the underbrush. He came to a stop about twenty feet off the road with no time to tote up the damage. Brakes were squealing, horns blaring, and gravel sprayed against metal, the Jaspers backing up along the shoulder, coming back to recoup their reward money.

Jack jumped to his feet and stumbled into the forest, settling into a shambling run until he thought he’d put enough room between himself and the road before he collapsed onto the soft mossy ground behind a deadfall. He lay there, staring up at the trees and the blue sky, and for the first time in his life he didn’t care if the bad guys caught up to him.

Just as long as they didn’t bring Aubrey Sullivan along.

A long counter in the lobby was fronted by ancient wooden benches and manned by a bored cop. Behind the counter sat a couple of desks that looked like they’d bounced off the back of a truck in 1945, piled high with papers that could have come from the same era. And behind the desks was a little room with a folding table and wobbly chairs where they interrogated their prisoners.

Okay, prisoner was probably too strong a term since they swore Aubrey was in protective custody, but interrogation was pretty close to what they’d subjected her to for the last five hours. The table was littered with vending machine food wrappers and paper cups. There weren’t any handcuffs in sight, but a deputy sheriff, complete with the good-old-boy twang and men-are-the-master-race attitude, had been asking her the same questions over and over, despite the fact that the answers never changed. And they wouldn’t let her leave.

“Just Jack,” Aubrey said, making a little pile of the remains of what they’d laughingly called lunch. For that alone she ought to withhold cooperation. But there were so many other reasons, starting with the generally crummy way they’d treated her and ending with sticking to her own agenda.

Jack had infected her with cynicism, or maybe it was the armed invasion at the library and the vehicular assault at Larry’s One Stop that made it so hard to trust people. She didn’t know exactly how she’d gotten into this situation, but one thing Aubrey knew, she was the only one she trusted so she was the one who’d have to get herself out of it. “He said his name was Jack.”

“You spent two days with him and that’s all you learned?”

Deputy Sheriff Morrissey’s tone implied she was dim-witted. Like repeating himself for five hours and getting the same results wasn’t. “He kidnapped me at gunpoint,” she said, aiming for reasonable and knowing she was falling short when Morrissey’s eyes narrowed. Too bad. After what she’d been through she deserved to be a little pissy. “He stole my car and dragged me . . . here.” She looked around the room, making her opinion of the place clear. “Sorry I didn’t get his life story somewhere along the way, but he wasn’t exactly eager to share and I was sort of busy fearing for my life.”

“Right, because some guy forced you off the road and then chased you over a waterfall.”

“And then we walked out of the forest and hitched a ride with Jasper and Junior—”

“Who heard the APB on his police band and brought you to us. But not before your friend jumped from the back of a moving truck. I know.”

“He’s not my friend. And if you know all that, why do you keep asking me what happened?”

Morrissey got to his feet, bracing his hands on the table. “Because you spent two nights with this guy, but you claim you don’t know anything about him.”

“I know he had a gun and he didn’t use it on me.” And there it was, Aubrey thought, the reason she’d felt compelled to keep the little she knew about Jack to herself.

Despite their personal contention, Jack hadn’t harmed her, so what would she gain by making more trouble for him than he already had? Besides, she had no idea what his plans were. Jack probably didn’t know what his plans were. From what she could tell, he’d been making it up as he went along. Not that she had to worry about that anymore. Jack liked to solve his problems with whatever firepower came to hand, but he wasn’t about to go Terminator and invade a police station—which was a shame since it was probably the only thing that would shut Morrissey up.

The big mouth in question retrieved his chair and put it to use, deep-sixing her hope that he was finally ready to climb off the interrogation treadmill. “Okay, so he didn’t hurt you,” he said. “All the more reason for you to ask questions.”

“Just because you ask a question doesn’t mean you get an answer.”

“Yeah.” Morrissey ran a hand through his hair, going for sympathy, looking all worn out.

Worn out, hah. He had no clue. “You’re getting answers,” she pointed out. “When you word the questions differently, you still get the same answers, so I have to wonder why you haven’t given up by now?”

“I think you’re holding something back.”

“Why would I do that?” she demanded, patience all used up. “And why are you treating me like a criminal? I’m the one who was kidnapped. I’m the one who was shot at!”

“You’re the one who’s supposed to know something about Corona.”

“Except I don’t have any idea what that is, which I’ve told you a dozen times now.”

Morissey gave her a blank look. The average adult needed to hear something eight times before he remembered it. She needed to hear it once. Apparently Morrissey was the one who balanced her out.

“Look,” she said, “Corona must think I know something pretty big if he wants me dead. If I knew what it was, don’t you think I’d tell you so you could arrest him and get him off my back?”

“I think you’re afraid, and you don’t know who to trust.”

Well, if that was true—which it was—Morrissey wouldn’t be her first choice.

“Tell me what you know, Aubrey,” he said. “Let me get you some protection.”

Up until now Morrissey had kept everything pretty casual, aside from the occasional blank stare or head shake she was used to getting from people. This time he was sitting forward, hairy gray-shot brows beetled, eyes intense. He really wanted her cooperation.

Aubrey really wanted some sleep. “If I know something about Corona, it’s a complete mystery to me, and I don’t think my memory is going to improve anytime soon. Not under these conditions anyway.” She folded her arms and sat back in the chair, staring off toward the door. He wasn’t the only one who could use body language.

After a few seconds she heard him sigh. His chair scraped back and he came around the table, contorting himself into her field of vision. When her gaze cut to his, he turned for the door. “C’mon, I’ll get you some dinner.”

“Hallelujah.”

The look he shot her over his shoulder told her if she didn’t mend her attitude, she’d be getting bread and water.

“Wait a minute,” she said as he passed the lobby and headed into the bowels of the building. Aubrey stopped where she was, in sight of the front door. “Where are you going?”

“Protective custody.” He came back, curled a hand around her upper arm, and towed her down the hall toward a stairway at the far end.

“I’ve been shot at, abducted, chucked over a waterfall, and subjected to wildlife and nature.” She dug her feet in and wrenched her elbow out of Morrissey’s fist. “And now you expect me to sleep on a prison cot? What kind of protective custody is that? Why aren’t we going to a hotel?”

For some reason—like the fact that she’d ended her tirade in an ear-splitting shriek—all the cops came running. That was exactly two more cops, including the sheriff himself, called in, presumably, because she was part of such a high-profile case. Sheriffs had to be elected, after all.

“You’re safer here than anywhere else, Miss Sullivan,” the sheriff said. “Until we can get you back to Washington, D.C.”

“Take me back tonight.”

“You’re not going anywhere tonight.”

She would have ignored Morrissey and headed straight for the front door if not for the fact that the sheriff and the other cop were making like sheepdogs, herding her down the stairs and through a brown steel door. Beyond the door were three cells surrounded by cement block walls and iron bars. Each cell had stainless steel fixtures and a cot with a gray blanket and a doily of a pillow. Only the center cell was empty, which meant three out of the four walls were skinny iron bars with big spaces between them. Pretty effective at keeping criminals inside, not so good for anything involving the toilet bowl.

Thankfully she’d visited the little girls room not too long before. And, much as she wanted some sleep, she didn’t plan to impose on Morrissey’s hospitality any longer than she had to. She went inside, making it clear she wasn’t happy about the situation. When Morrissey reached for her backpack, that became more than an act.

She hugged it to her chest, edging by him and backing into the cell. “If I have to stay here, I’m keeping my stuff with me.”

“Why?” he asked, coming in after her.

“Why not?”

He reached for the backpack again. She twisted it out of the target zone. “I might need some of my . . . things while I’m here.” She glanced over at the toilet. Sure enough, by the time she looked back, men who were trained to face down loaded weapons in the hands of rednecks likkered up with moonshine were easing fingers beneath collars that were suddenly too tight and not looking at her, brought low by the mere intimation that she might be having her period. She should have felt at least a little guilty, but hey, she had to suffer each and every month, might as well get something out of it besides cramps and bloating.

“Let her have it,” the sheriff said, backing away with a complexion roughly the color of ripe strawberries. “She’s here for protect—” His gaze darted to the backpack and away. “She’s not a criminal.”

“But they are.”

Aubrey looked to her left, where a man was hanging half on, half off the cot, snoring softly. The guy on her right was wide awake, sitting on the cot with his back braced against the wall, taking it all in with a sneer on his face.

“It’s not procedure,” Morrissey said.

“Mackey is drunk, just like every other Saturday night,” the sheriff said, eyes on the snorer. “And even if he wasn’t, he’d still rather sleep here than in the park.”

“What about him?”

They all looked at the guy in the other cell.

“Just keep away from him,” the sheriff said to Aubrey. “And don’t listen to anything he says. He hasn’t been innocent since before conception. His rap sheet is longer than your average rattler and just as nasty.”

“They’re all misunderstandings,” the snake said, giving Aubrey the kind of smile he might have used on Eve. “Name’s George, and this is just another example of abuse of authority.”

“Now you’ve gone and hurt our feelings, George,” the sheriff said. “And after we saved you a hotel bill.”

“Gee, how can I ever thank you.”

“By leaving Miss Sullivan alone. Otherwise we’re going to have a different sort of misunderstanding.” The sheriff jerked a thumb at Morrissey, indicating he should leave Aubrey’s cell, and when he did, he shut the door before she could stop him.

“Wait.” She fisted her hands around the bars and shook, rattling the whole cell and making the drunk mutter and roll over. “Why do I have to be locked in?”

“Wouldn’t be protective custody otherwise,” Morrissey sneered. “For example, if George over there got his hands on the keys there’s no telling what he’d do if you weren’t safely locked in there.”

“If he got his hands on the keys, probably he’d unlock my door and then I’d find out,” Aubrey observed blandly.

The sheriff laughed, giving Morrissey’s shoulder a shove. “C’mon, Einstein,” he said, “let’s go hide the keys, just in case.”

And they were gone. The younger deputy came back about a half hour later and stuffed some plastic-wrapped sandwiches through the cell door, spouting a lame apology about how she’d have to make do with vending machine food as there wasn’t anything open in Hicktown this late at night. So much for Morrissey’s promises.

She retrieved the sandwiches, dented from where they’d dropped on the floor. Not that the dents lowered their appeal all that much. Tuna had never been her favorite.

“Southern hospitality ain’t what it used to be,” George piped up from his cell.

Aubrey ignored him, which didn’t deter him in the least from launching into the sad story of Horace George’s life—which should have had something to do with being named Horace, Aubrey thought. Apparently, though, it had do with the fact that no one had ever understood him, from his parents with their boring middle-class life to the authorities without the vision to see that he was meant to be
somebody
. “Maybe I have to do something now and then that’s not quite aboveboard,” he finished, “and maybe I don’t enjoy it, but I’ll never get where I want to go working nine to five.”

“Doesn’t sound like you had anything to complain about growing up.” Aubrey pulled her backpack into her lap to riffle through it. She had to dig all the way to the bottom before she pulled out what she needed, dumped the sandwiches inside, and zipped it shut. “There’s nothing wrong with a steady job, either. Millions of people do it and build up a nice nest egg for their retirement.”

“Yeah, and lots of them die before they can enjoy it. Me, I’d rather not squander my good years so I can sit in a rocking chair and congratulate myself on having enough money to buy prescription drugs and food in the same month.”

“And this is what you have to show for all your hard work?”

Funny, George’s reaction to the look she shot him was a lot like Jack’s, heavy on the scowl. “On second thought,” he said, “sometimes it’s not such a hardship to do what I do.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“What’re you up to?” George asked, sidetracked from his sob story by the fact that she’d gone to the cell door, slipped her hands between the bars and was fiddling with the lock.