Dina Santorelli (33 page)

"Lightning
knocked the power out." Tony's voice came in quick, shallow mouthfuls. "Locks
must've opened."

"Who
did this?" Bailino asked, gesturing toward Tony's chest wound.

"I
don't know... I... got him... in the leg..." Tony pointed toward the house.

"One
guy?"

Tony
nodded.

"Where's
Joey?" Bailino asked.

Tony
pointed toward the river, and then his arm fell to the ground. His breathing
was coming in short puffs now, the raindrops making his eyelids flutter until
they stopped and water pooled around them.

Bailino
continued walking toward the river. About ten yards down, a body lay motionless
in a small ravine. Diluted blood streaked down Benny's face, the driving rain
cleaning a gunshot wound above his right eye. The river ahead roared, dotted by
raindrops, but Bailino saw no one else.

He
stood very still, listening, and then walked in measured steps back to the
cabin, his trained eyes exploring every inch of the terrain. The glass doors were
still open. Off to the side, he glimpsed a man limping over the pebbled
driveway toward the front of the house.

Bailino
grabbed Nurberg's shoulder and flipped him onto his back. Nurberg went down
hard onto the gravel as Bailino kicked the gun out of his hands.

"You
a cop?" Bailino pointed his gun.

Nurberg
nodded. He was clutching his inside upper thigh, which was bleeding heavily.

"Albany police?"

Nurberg
nodded again.

"How
did you find this place?"

Nurberg
hesitated. Bailino cocked the hammer of his pistol and held it in the center of
his forehead.

"I
got a lead." Nurberg's voice was hoarse. He looked toward the driveway, where
his car was now blocked by a white Ford Flex. There was no sign of Edward.

"Look
at me, please," Bailino said. "So you got a lead?"

"Yeah,
and when I got here, I heard gunshots, and... I thought somebody was in
trouble, and... I called it into the station right away."

"I
see," Bailino said. "So the police are on their way?"

Nurberg
nodded. He kept his eyes steady on Bailino, whose hulk was sheltering him from
the rain with the exception of a stream of water that was dripping off the
handle of the gun, right near his mouth.

Bailino
looked at his wristwatch. "They're taking their sweet time to get here, no?"

Nurberg
glanced toward the empty country road, which, on a good day, probably saw one
or two cars pass by. He looked back at Bailino, the gold cross around his neck
glistening.

Bailino
stared at the young officer lying on the ground trying to be brave and to remain
calm in the face of his lie. "Son, I'm afraid you picked the wrong day to be a
hero," Bailino said and shot Nurberg in the head.

Charlotte was shivering.

The
extended time in the frigid river had brought the little girl's body
temperature down, and, with the rain-dampened air, there was no escaping the
chill. Jamie tried lifting Charlotte's sopping wet T-shirt, thinking the
skin-to-skin contact would help the little girl retain heat, but that only
seemed to make her tremble more, so she just held her little wrinkled body
close.

The
roar of the river had quieted as the rain stopped, and Jamie, from behind the
cover of a large rock, peeked out, her hand slipping on the moss. She couldn't
fathom how far the rapids had dropped her from the cabin. Miles, maybe? It had
taken her longer than she expected to cross the water, having underestimated
the difficulty of swimming with a screaming child. It had been an arduous trip
trying to make sure the little girl was able to get enough air into her lungs—Jamie
had to lift Charlotte in and out of the water in order to attain any kind of
speed stroke. As they made their way across, the only way Jamie could lift her
own body up enough to fill her own lungs with air was by dunking Charlotte at
the same time, and the sound of the little girl's choking sobs, while
distressing, told Jamie that Charlotte was at least breathing. They alternated
like that for some time, and it became harder to lift the little girl as
Jamie's muscles became fatigued. At some point, she just let the current take
them until she regained some strength and managed to bob her way to the other
side.

Jamie
searched the small waves for the subtlest splash, but all was still—the eerie
calm after a vicious rainstorm. There was no sign of Joey, who dove into the
river behind them just after Tony opened fire with his revolver. For what felt
like hours, but Jamie was sure was only a matter of minutes, the splash of
Joey's strokes followed hers, stroke for stroke, one after the other. He had
gotten so close to them at one point that their fingertips grazed, but Joey
wasn't a confident swimmer, and when he made a move to grab her, she was able
to kick off him and use his body as a launching pad to propel her and Charlotte
farther ahead. It was only as Jamie sat there on the cold, muddy riverbank that
she realized that it was because Joey jumped into the river that the gunfire
had stopped. By diving in after them, Joey probably had saved them.

It
was getting dark. Jamie thought it better to travel by night, but the reality
of nightfall in a place without streetlights and street traffic hit her, and
she realized that she wouldn't be able to see a thing. She picked up Charlotte and started to walk; the cuts along the soles of her feet stung as they scraped
against the underbrush. It would be slow going without proper shoes, and the
mosquitoes were having a field day with her bare arms and feet. Plus, there
wasn't much time—she could no longer make out the tree trunks and branches that
had sheltered her for the past few hours, and everything was turning black as
clouds continued to cover the sky, leaving no signs of a helpful moon. Jamie
walked faster, holding one hand in front of her to keep from bumping into
things, and felt the flutter of bugs brushing past her palm. The sounds of
cracking branches were everywhere, as if she were being followed, but she
convinced herself otherwise and kept going. The trill chant of crickets and the
screaming of mating frogs, who called to one another from all parts of the woods,
created an unsettling soundtrack to the dark, blank screen before her.

Just
take it one step at a time
, she told
herself.

Soon
Jamie stumbled upon a clearing and solid ground. It was a road. She picked a
direction and just start walking, carefully navigating her steps to make sure
she stayed on the pavement. She walked for about ten minutes, when headlights
appeared from behind, and she ran off the road to hide, terrified that it would
be
them
. It dawned on her that by doing so she was letting potential
help get away, but she couldn't take the chance. Bailino would kill them both
this time if he found them, she was sure of it. Or at least kill her. The car
came and went without seeing her, and Jamie returned to the road and kept
walking.

Charlotte was unresponsive and limp, her arms dangling down,
her head remaining in the crook of Jamie's neck. Jamie worried that she was
dehydrated.

"Charlotte," Jamie whispered, her small voice breaking the silence. "Charlotte, honey, are
you okay?"

The
little girl said nothing, although Jamie thought she may have felt her head
move. She needed to get her to a doctor. Up ahead, a car was coming. The
headlights were picked up by small reflectors positioned along the sides of the
road, and Jamie realized she was at an intersection. She crouched down just off
the pavement, and as the car came closer, its blinker, signaling a right-hand
turn, acted as a slow strobe light illuminating the area. She watched the small
red taillights go on their way and stood in the center of the intersection box,
trying to remember what she had just seen: To the left, there appeared to be
nothing but barren fields; to the right, in the direction the car was heading,
the road cut through the brush back toward the river, probably over a bridge—Jamie
had floated underneath two on her way downriver. There was no way she was going
that way. She decided to keep walking straight ahead.

The
curved outline of a parked automobile came into focus, and as she walked toward
it, she noticed several vehicles parked on the side of the road, illuminated by
a light source coming from a one-story building. She walked up to the first car
and pulled on the door handle. Locked. She tried the next. Also locked. The
building itself looked a little run-down, but Jamie saw a lantern hanging from
the ceiling inside, appearing as a beacon in this darkened, empty place, and,
with Charlotte wrapped in her arms, she ran toward it.

It will be a miracle if
the garage doesn't get audited
,
Reynaldo thought as he placed another receipt on top of a pile on the counter.
He reached his hand into the manila folder labeled "tax stuff," his
sophisticated system of keeping track of the year's tax-deductible
expenditures, and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper. He smoothed it
out and saw that it was a Sunglass Hut receipt from the previous summer. There
was a note scribbled in red ink in the margins:

Rey,
I REALLY need these to see when the sun is out, or else I cannot work. —Pedro.

He
threw the receipt into the garbage.

Doing
the taxes each year reminded Reynaldo of his papa, who, although an honest man,
was deathly afraid of the IRS—just signing his name on the tax forms would
yield a forehead full of sweat. When Reynaldo was about eight or nine years
old, his father had walked into his bedroom one day and asked him if he'd be
interested in assisting him with his yearly tax prep.

"Why,
Papa?" Reynaldo had asked.

"Because
you're good in school," he'd said.

Being
good in school was the ultimate compliment that his father, who dropped out in
the sixth grade, could bestow, and Reynaldo basked in the opportunity to make
his father proud. And he'd been doing the taxes ever since.

Reynaldo
looked at his watch. He had gotten to the garage later than he'd hoped because
Pedro had decided to take Nada to McDonald's before dropping her off at home to
get ready for her date with Ricardo. Reynaldo didn't understand either one of
his brothers. Neither one seemed to have developed any kind of respect for each
other, or for women, or for the business that financed them and enabled them to
carouse around town for years. And as much as he complained about them, he
worried too. When he got back from his vacation, he was going to sit down with
both of them and discuss some changes that he wanted to make, including the
implementation of a new work schedule that would better equalize the business
responsibilities between them. They'll love
that
, Reynaldo thought with
a smile as the front door to the office swung open.

Jamie
practically fell into the small room and shut the door behind her, pressing her
back against it. It was warm inside; she was grateful for it and almost didn't
notice Reynaldo standing stunned behind the counter.

"Can
you help us?" she asked.

In
her arms, to Reynaldo's immense surprise, was Charlotte Grand.

"Do
you know this little girl?" she asked.

Reynaldo
nodded, looking at the wet, filthy, bruised woman standing in his office. "What
happened to you?"

"I
need to call the police," Jamie said.

A
pair of headlights flashed across the front windows. "Don't move," she said,
adjusting her body so that she was unnoticeable from the outside. "Pretend I'm
not here. Look at your papers."

Reynaldo
did as Jamie told him. He moved his head down until the headlights were gone.

"Can
I use your phone?" Jamie asked.

"The
power is out," Reynaldo said, motioning to the lantern hanging above them.
"It's running on battery."

"Do
you have a cell?"

"Yes,
but the service has been touch and go for the last couple of hours," Reynaldo
said. "I can drive you to the police station."

Jamie
had an overwhelming desire not to leave, to stay in this warm, dingy office in
the middle of nowhere with this tall man with the long, curly hair and the kind
eyes until the power came back on, but she knew Bailino would be looking for
her, and she had to keep going.

Reynaldo
sensed her indecision. "You're safe here," he said, coming out from behind the
counter.

"Please,
wait..." Jamie held out her hand.

"Okay,
okay. I'm staying here." Reynaldo put his hands in the air. "I'm not going to
hurt you. I'm not."

The
tears poured from Jamie's eyes, the kind of powerful tears that a child who has
been trying to be brave cries after an ordeal is over. She held up Charlotte. "I don't think she's okay anymore. I think she's sick." Jamie sucked in air.
"She hasn't been moving. I don't know what to do."

"I'm
coming over, okay?"

Jamie
nodded.

Reynaldo
slowly approached and put his hand on the little girl's chest. "She's breathing
all right," he said, "but you're not. Let me take her."

"I'm
not letting her go."

"But
I know her."

"But
I don't know you," Jamie said. "Please, if you're going to drive us, we need to
go now. Where's your car?"

"It's
right outside. By the curb. I'll get it and bring it to the door..."

"No,"
Jamie said. "Please don't leave me."

"I
won't," Reynaldo said. And he meant it. "We'll go out together."

"Wait,
I'm not ready." The thought of going back outside frightened her, and she began
to choke.

"Are
you all right? Do you want something to drink?"

"Yes,
if you have..."

"What
would you like?"

"Anything."

Reynaldo
ran to the back of the room and stooped down to open the small fridge he kept
stowed under the counter. It was Nada's job to keep it stocked for the
customers, and, against his better judgment, he hoped that it would be. He
swung the door open and found a half-used quart of milk, a leftover cheese
sandwich, and an unopened can of Yoo-Hoo.