Nick of Time (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen

O
nce they were past Stafford, the traffic on I-95 South was a breeze. The Toyota turned out to be a piece of crap, so Brad changed out cars one more time, this time taking a Chrysler Sebring—an old guy's convertible, but a convertible nonetheless. That was the one promise that Brad had made to himself. The less time he could spend cooped up with a roof over his head, the better. He missed the Mustang, though.

Nicki had fallen back to sleep, curled up on the passenger side with the seat tilted all the way back. As much as he craved her company to keep himself awake, he let her sleep on, envying her.

So, how
did
the cops catch up so quickly? He thought he'd been careful. It had to have something to do with the credit card, but for the life of him he couldn't put it all together.

Now that he'd put some miles on his escape, he needed to get off the interstate, and onto some thoroughfares where Virginia State Troopers didn't grow like bushes along the side of the road. In Fredericksburg, he slapped his turn signal and veered off onto Route 17. It would still take him south, and from there to his final destination, but it would take a lot longer, especially as he got into the nightmarish tangle of highways around Norfolk and Virginia Beach. Still, it was safer than the interstate. He just had to take extra care to watch the speed limit signs.

He hated this new paranoia. Until last night, he'd allowed himself to build up a sense of invulnerability, but the events at the Ritz had unnerved him. In one night, he'd undone months of evasion. Instead of having a whole world to scour in search for him, they were down to a hundred-mile radius. The pressure had increased a thousandfold.

The cops would flood news outlets with his picture, and they'd make it sound as if he was the worst criminal ever to walk the planet. They'd lace every report with warnings to consider him armed and dangerous.

Oh, that it were true. If he had the means to defend himself, maybe he could relax a little.

Nicki asked, “Do you know where we're going?”

He hadn't realized that she was awake. When he turned to look at her, he saw that her eyelids were still closed.

“South,” he said. “All the way south. I've been thinking about it. My original plan was to hit the Outer Banks and just jump from place to place, but things are a little hotter than I'd hoped.”

“I'm tired of being a prom queen anyway,” she said, her eyes still closed. “Now I'm ready to be Bonnie Parker.”

Brad smiled. “Turning tough, are you? How are you feeling? You don't look so good.”

Nicki sat up straighter. “I think I'm gonna look worse before I look better, too. I left my meds back in the hotel room.”

Brad's head shot around to look at her. “All of them?”

She nodded.

“We'll get you more, then.”

Nicki smiled. “We've got time.”

“How much?”

A shrug. “I don't know. I've never done this before. Everything is a matter of degree. I'll be okay, just a little slow until I get them.”

Brad's head swam at the notion of finding a replacement prescription. Maybe he really was going to need that gun.

“Don't sound so panicky,” Nicki said. “Honestly, it's not a huge deal for a couple of days. Maybe even a week. We really do have time.”

“Then why do you look so bad?”

She laughed and opened her eyes. “Well, let's just say the last few hours have been more stressful than my average day. If I rest, things will right themselves eventually. The meds just speed things along.”

She kept a careful eye on Brad's face. This was the part of being with her that he couldn't have thought about. She was a
cripple,
not the fun-loving travel companion he'd been looking forward to. She was holding him back—she had to be—and part of her wondered when he was going to just pull over and let her out of the car.

“Tell me what you're thinking,” Nicki said. “I need to know.”

Brad cleared his throat. “Well, if you really have a couple of days to work with, I was thinking that we could wait till we get down to the Florida Keys. There's a lady down there, the mother of a guy I knew from the joint. She moved there after her son was killed, but she promised me once that I'd always have a home. From there, I'll be able to find somebody who can help us. It's just not practical to go walking into a pharmacy and hold the place up for a prescription, you know? Especially not now, when we're trying so hard to disappear again. I go to a place like that, and ask for drugs like yours, and then all of a sudden they can track us on the map like we had a homing beacon on the car. I just don't think—”

“Brad, relax,” she repeated. She hesitated before tossing out the Big Question. “Do you want to drop me off?”

This time, when he looked at her, there was pain in his eyes. Maybe even a little panic. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I don't want to slow you down. It's got to be easier for one person to hide than it is for two.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I want to know what
you
want. It would be easier, wouldn't it?”

She was shocked to see that his feelings were hurt by her question. She thought she was doing the noble thing.

“Well, yeah, it's
easier,
but so what? I've done this by myself for a long time. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to be without you anymore.”

“But I'm sick.”

“I know that. You gonna be less sick if you're by yourself?”

Nicki scowled. “You know what I mean. I'm worried that I'm going to keep you from getting away.”

Brad shook his head in wonderment. “You really don't get it, do you? This is where I was going
to,
Nicki.
You
are where I was going to. I never in a million years thought you'd go along with this, but you did. I'm here now, and we're together, and I'm not going to let a little pressure from the cops change any of that. That's what I keep telling you. Why won't you believe me?”

Nicki heard the words but the message didn't make sense to her. He could have
anyone
.

“Unless you're anxious to get away,” he said, mistaking her silence for uncertainty. “Unless you're scared.”

Nicki scoffed, “I'm dying. I got past scared months ago. When you've got no future, I'm not sure what there is to be afraid of.”

Brad smiled. “I couldn't have put it better myself,” he said.

* * *

Deputy Darla Sweet stepped through the doorway to the Dairy Queen and adjusted her Sam Browne belt, trying to look confident even as she felt awkward as hell. Gisela Hines—the sheriff's wife—had called her at eight-thirty this morning to request this meeting, and now that she was here, Darla felt that she'd made a terrible mistake. Whatever was going on in the Hines house was strictly a family affair, and the less she knew about it, the happier she'd be.

All the way over here, Darla had recited the words she wanted to use to extricate herself from this mess, but as valiant and strong as they sounded in the car, she knew that she'd never be able to say them aloud. If she had a brain in her head, she would tell Gisela to talk to a counselor, not a cop.

Darla and Gisela had only met once before, at a courthouse Christmas party, but there'd be no problem recognizing her. Born and raised in Panama, Gisela Hines had an exotic beauty about her that set her apart from the heavily cosmeticized locals of her age. Closing in on fifty, her olive skin had the smoothness of a teenager's, her eyes the dark intensity of a thoroughly lived life.

As Darla scanned the room, she saw Gisela waving from the back right-hand corner. She had a cardboard tray of food in front of her, but seemed not the least bit interested in eating.

“So, how is Jeremy?” Darla asked as she took the bench opposite Gisela. “Last time I saw him, he was expecting a pretty rough time at home.”

Gisela toyed with her meal. “Frank was very angry. They had a terrible argument.” The decades she had spent in this country had worn away all but the slightest trace of an accent.

“An argument or a fight?” Darla remembered the flash of rage.

“Do not think badly of him, please. It is not his fault. He is just a boy.”

Darla was confused. “Don't think badly of Jeremy?”

“He is a good boy. Used to get good grades, but that Peter Banks, he is a bad influence. I don't know why he insists on hanging out with such trash. He knows what it must look like. He knows that his father must win elections to have a job.”

Darla's jaw dropped without her realizing it. “Mrs. Hines, perhaps—”

“Call me Gisela, please.”

“Gisela, are you aware of how close Sheriff Hines came to striking Jeremy yesterday?”

Gisela waved it off as if it were unimportant. “That's what I am telling you. That is the influence of Peter Banks. That is not Jeremy's fault.”

“I'm not suggesting that it's Jeremy's fault, Gisela. I'm not even sure you and I are talking about the same things. Jeremy is only a boy.”

Now it was Gisela's turn to look confused. She scoffed, “Jeremy is a young man. He is strong. There is no little boy left.”

“Of course there is,” Darla said, and then she lowered her voice. “He's only eighteen. Emotionally, he'll be a boy for another five years.”

“But he knows right from wrong. He
should
know right from wrong, yet he smokes drugs with his friend. I'm telling you, before Peter Banks came into his life, Jeremy had no problems at all. Good grades, nothing but bright prospects for his baseball scholarship.”

Darla opened her mouth to say something more, but stopped herself. “Mrs. Hines—
Gisela
—why did you ask me to meet you here?”

The other woman's gaze broke away from Darla's. Apparently, they had gotten to the part she wasn't comfortable with. She took a deep breath and talked to her hands. “Essex is a small town,” she said. “People talk, and this thing that happened yesterday at the park, that is the kind of thing that can be very damaging.” She raised her eyes. “Damaging to Frank, damaging to Jeremy, and even damaging to you.”

An alarm went off in the back of Darla's head. Was it possible that this little woman with the charming accent was threatening her? She rattled her head, as if to fix a loose connection. “I don't think I follow what you're saying.”

Gisela leaned into the table, lowering her voice even more. “I know how cops talk among themselves, how rumors spread a little at a time. You mention something to another deputy, and then he tells his wife, and pretty soon, everybody knows what is happening.”

“You're afraid that I'm going to tell people about Jeremy?” Darla asked. “Is that what you're afraid of?”

“It is interesting to talk about, no? It is the kind of thing that might come up in the squad room. Certainly, it's the kind of thing that the newspapers would like to hear: Sheriff's son caught in drug ring. I would ask you not to spread that kind of rumor.”

Darla allowed herself a wry chuckle, even though none of this was remotely funny. She leaned back in her seat, away from the table, and ran a hand through her hair. “I don't know where to begin,” she said. “First of all, none of what happened yesterday could possibly be turned into a
rumor,
because it's all true. Jeremy did in fact get caught smoking pot—though I would hesitate to call that a drug ring—and he did in fact get a pass, courtesy of your husband. I presume that's what you're worried about, right? The fact that the people of Essex might draw the conclusion that there are different legal standards, depending on who you are?”

Gisela looked ashamed that she had ever brought it up.

“Okay, well, it's true,” Darla said. “I've always known it's true within the department, but now I know that it's true on the streets, as well.”

“It is the influence of that other boy,” Gisela said again.

“Who cares, Mrs. Hines? I mean really, at the end of the day, who gives a flying shit why a teenager does something stupid? They all do stupid things. It's their job. No one cares.”

The other woman looked around and lowered her voice. “My husband has enemies. They will care. They will try to ruin his job.”

Darla wanted to argue the point, but sensed the fruitlessness of it. It had been her experience over the years that parents in power think that their kids are under far more scrutiny than they truly are. “Let's not forget about the baseball scholarship,” Darla baited. “That's very important, too.”

“Yes, exactly.” Gisela missed the irony completely.

“Why am I here? What do you want from me? Is it just to be quiet about what I saw yesterday?”

Gisela nodded triumphantly. “Yes, that's it exactly. I want you to be quiet. To not tell anyone what you saw.”

“What did Sheriff Hines do to Jeremy last night?” Darla intended the question to catch Gisela off balance and it worked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how badly did he beat him?”

Gisela squirmed in her seat. “My husband does not beat my son,” she said.

“I don't believe you. I saw for myself how terrified Jeremy was of getting caught yesterday. I saw the fury in his father's eyes. Does he beat you as well?”

Gisela's jaw dropped, her face a mask of horror. “How dare you?”

“Tell you what,” Darla said. “I'll keep quiet about what happened yesterday if you promise to go public about what happened afterward. Is that a deal?”