The Long Way Home (2 page)
Quickly, I went through the pockets of his windbreaker first. They were empty. Then, one by one, I went through the pockets of his jeans. In the left front pocket I found a single key on a chain. The key was unmarked, but the chain said, “Harley-Davidson Motorcycles.” I slipped the key into my pocket. I figured that would slow the guy down at least.
I went on searching. In his right front pocket I found a silver money clip with about two hundred dollars in it. Yes, I know the Ten Commandments and yes, I know you’re not supposed to steal. But this didn’t feel like stealing. The guy was a killer, after all—my killer, if he’d had his way. I figured he owed me at least this much. I stuffed the cash into the same pocket as the key.
Just then, the killer groaned and shifted. I tensed, watching him. His hand lifted from the floor and groped weakly at the air. His eyelids fluttered. His bloody mouth moved, his lips parting. He was starting to come around.
I was running out of time. I had to get out of here.
I scooped up the knife from the floor. I slipped the brutal blade under my belt so that it went into my pocket. I pulled down my fleece so that it hid the handle. That’s when I noticed the blood on my hands. It was the killer’s blood, plus some of my own from my bruised knuckles. I turned on the faucet, let the cold water run over my fingers. It stung like crazy, but I forced myself to keep my hands there as the blood washed off. I watched as the red streaks stained the water and swirled with it down the drain.
Finally, I splashed cold water on my face again, just as I had before the killer came in. Just as I had then, I pulled a couple of paper towels out of the dispenser and dried myself off quickly.
And just as I had before, I looked into the mirror. I looked at my own reflection.
I was pale now. My cheeks were a weird gray, the color of concrete, only with spots here and there of frantic red. A line of sweat ran down my temple.
But my eyes were determined.
The killer gave another low groan. He shifted on the floor as he continued to wake up.
I swiped the line of sweat off my face. It was time to go.
I moved to the door and pushed through. I walked down the little hallway that led into the main part of the library’s second floor.
It was pretty much your usual library: one expansive room filled with shelves of books. There were some long reading tables in front of the shelves. There were people sitting at the tables, poring over open books and writing in notebooks. There was an information desk to my right with a librarian sitting on a high stool behind it. The walls were all made of steel-framed glass, big windows looking out at the sky and the buildings of downtown Whitney and Main Street below.
It seemed strange to me that everything should be normal here, everything quiet and peaceful, the way a library ought to be. I thought the whole room would’ve heard me fighting with the killer in the bathroom. But in fact, the fight had happened with hardly a sound. No one suspected.
I glanced at the exits. There were two of them. There was one staircase down to the main floor on my left and another to my right, just beside the information desk. I was about to head for the staircase on my left.
But I stopped before I even took a step.
There was a man loitering there. A small, wiry, olive-skinned man with a thin mustache. He was wearing khaki slacks and a brown jacket. He was leaning against a shelf, idly turning the pages of a dictionary.
I turned to the other stairway. I saw another man—a man sitting at a reading desk near the head of the stairs. He was a short guy, too, but thick and muscular and mean-looking. He had a block-shaped head with short hair and rough skin on his cheeks. He was staring down at a newspaper that lay open on the desk in front of him.
I looked back at the mustache-man near the left staircase. Back at the block-headed man to my right.
They were Homelanders. I knew it the moment I saw them.
They had both exits blocked. I was surrounded.
My name is Charlie West. Until a year ago, I was a pretty ordinary kid. I was seventeen. I lived in a house in Spring Hill with my mom and dad and my annoying older sister, Amy. I went to high school during the week. I went to church on Sunday. My secret ambition was to join the air force and become a fighter pilot, which I thought would be a cool way to serve my country.
I wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but I wasn’t an untouchable or anything either. I had some good friends: Josh Lerner, who was kind of a geek, and Rick Donnelly and Kevin “Miler” Miles, who were both athletes. I was a pretty decent athlete myself. My sport was karate. I was good at it. I had earned my black belt.
What else do you need to know? There was a girl. Beth Summers. I liked her. A lot. A guy I knew named Alex Hauser liked her too. He used to be my best friend, but he’d gotten into some bad stuff after his parents got divorced. We’d kind of grown apart and I guess you could say we’d become rivals for Beth’s affection.
Anyway, that was my life, my ordinary Spring Hill kid life.
Then one day I went to bed and when I woke up, that life was gone. Suddenly, somehow, it was a year later—a whole year had disappeared just like that and I couldn’t remember any of it. Suddenly, somehow, I was in the clutches of a group of madmen who called themselves the Homelanders. They were terrorists, foreign Islamists, out to destroy America, recruiting Americans to help them, people who could move around the country more easily than they could without arousing suspicion.
They told me I was one of them, a terrorist myself. But I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I love this country. You’re free here to do and think what you want, to be whatever you can be. I’d never do anything to hurt America.
I guess the Homelanders must’ve figured that out because they tried to kill me. I escaped and called the police. Which you’d think was a good idea, right? As it turned out: no. As it turned out, the police were after me too. Somehow, during this year—this year I couldn’t remember—I had become a wanted man. I’d been put on trial and convicted of murdering Alex Hauser, my former best friend.
So now, not only were the Homelanders trying to kill me, but the police, led by this very angry detective named Rose, were trying to catch me and throw me into prison.
There was no one I could turn to. My parents had moved away and I didn’t know where to find them. Nobody believed me about the Homelanders—or if they did, they thought I was one of them. And how could I prove I wasn’t, when I didn’t remember anything?
Sometimes, to be honest, I wasn’t even sure myself.
And that’s where things stood. The situation was bad—crazy bad. Some days, it almost seemed impossible. But I’d promised God and I’d promised myself that, no matter what, I would never give in.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Killer in Question
But now here I was, trapped in the library, both exits blocked. I felt fear closing around my throat like cold fingers. I figured there were probably more of these Homelander thugs downstairs, even more of them outside watching the doors. If I tried to leave, they would wait till I got outside and kill me. If I screamed for help, they would kill me right here. There was no way out.
Now the two men saw me. Mustache-Man cast a glance over at Blockhead, and Blockhead glanced back. Obviously, they’d been waiting here, waiting for the blond killer to finish me off in the bathroom. I guess they weren’t very happy to see me come out alive. Well, too bad for them.
I had to think of something. I had to figure out a way to get past them. They were staying cool, staying at their posts by the stairs. They didn’t want any open violence. They didn’t want to cause any trouble in public if they could help it. They preferred waiting for me to go outside.
I thought maybe I could use that to my advantage somehow . . .
I started moving. I walked to the information desk. I walked casually, as if everything was fine.
The librarian was a sweet-faced older lady. As I approached her, she looked up, blinking at me vaguely through the lenses of her enormous glasses.
The block-headed man sitting at the desk kept his eye on me. He was tense. His hand hovered inside his jacket. I was pretty sure he had a gun in there. I was pretty sure if I asked the librarian for help, he would pull the gun out and start shooting.
So I didn’t ask her for help. Instead, I spoke in a clear, calm voice, friendly and relaxed, as if I didn’t even know Blockhead and Mustache-Man were watching.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I said pleasantly.
She was a small woman, barely five feet tall. She looked sort of bulky and shapeless in a dark flowery blouse. Her hair was short and dyed a kind of silvery blonde. Her wrinkled features were kindly but distant, abstracted, as if she were far away inside her own mind.
“Yes?” she said, in a quiet, librarian sort of voice. “Can I help you?”
I reached into the inner pocket of my fleece. I brought out the papers I had there. I chose one quickly from the pile. I handed it to her.
“Could you tell me if you have any books about this case?” I said. “I couldn’t find any in the computer.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the blockhead cast a quick look across the room at Mustache-Man. He wasn’t sure what to do, whether to make a move or not, pull his gun or not.
That’s exactly what I was counting on.
The librarian took the paper from me. She peered down at it through her glasses. It was a printout of a front-page news story from the
Whitney County Register
. “Escaped Killer Thought to Have Joined Terrorist Gang,” the headline read.
There was a big picture of my face in the center of the story. I was the killer in question.
The librarian blinked down at the page for a moment. Then she lifted her eyes to me.
“Let me see if I can . . .” she began to say.
Then she stopped. She saw me. She recognized my face. How could she miss it, looking at my picture like that, then looking up at me? I saw the blood drain out of her cheeks. Her parted lips began to quiver. Her eyes shifted frantically as she tried to figure out what to do.
“Would you . . . ?” she stammered. “Would you excuse me for just one moment please? I’ll—I’ll check on this for you. I think we may have something at one of our other branches. I’ll have to give them a call and ask them. All right?”
“Sure,” I said as easily as I could. “I’ll just wait here.”
Quickly, the librarian turned away and went through a door behind her. It led to a small office behind a large pane of glass. I could see her through the window as she moved to the office desk. She picked up the phone there. She pressed the buttons. As she waited, she glanced at the page in her hand again and then looked up at me through the glass. She forced a smile at me. I forced a smile back.
I didn’t think she was really calling another branch of the library. I was pretty sure she was calling the police. She was telling them to come and arrest me, the dangerous fugitive in her library.
At least, I hoped that’s what she was doing. It was the only chance I had.
Now—as Blockhead and Mustache-Man watched me tensely—I started moving again. I walked away from the desk. Casually, I strolled across the room to the windows. I looked out through the glass at the street below, trying to see how bad the situation was.
It was worse than I thought.
The season was late autumn. The time was early evening. Dusk was falling. The office buildings of Whitney’s downtown were slowly turning to silhouettes against the darkening sky. The grassy triangle of the little park across the street was disappearing into shadow beneath the naked branches of its spreading oak trees. Cars went by— not a lot, but a steady stream of them. Their white headlights flared as they approached. Their red taillights faded into the distance as they drove away.
And I could see them: the Homelanders. Waiting for me. Two hulking shadows in the park under the trees. Two more at the near corner. Two more at the far corner. Who knows how many others? Standing there. Ready. Too many to fight. Too many to get past.
My eyes shifted. I looked down at the street. There were lines of cars parked along both curbs. I moved my gaze over them slowly. I was looking for a motorcycle. I was looking for the Harley-Davidson that fit the key— the blond killer’s key that was now in my pocket. I had only driven a motorcycle once before in my life. The older brother of a friend of mine had let me try it. I had a natural feel for it and by the time I’d driven it a short distance, I was maneuvering the big machine pretty well. I thought if I could somehow get past all those thugs in the shadows, if I could get to the Harley fast, get on it fast— well, maybe then I could use it to escape.
My eyes continued moving over the line of cars. My breath caught. I felt a small spark of excitement and hope. I had spotted the motorcycle.
Then, the very next moment, the spark of hope died. I felt my stomach go sour.
There were two of them. Two motorcycles. One was parked at the near curb, down by the corner to my left. One was parked on the other curb, almost directly across the street from the library entrance and in front of the park. In the gathering darkness, I couldn’t tell whether one or both of them were Harleys that might match my key.
I might—might just—be able to make a mad dash and reach one of the bikes. But how could I tell which bike to choose, which one the key fit?
“Don’t even think about it. You’ll never make it.”
It was as if my own thought had been spoken out loud— spoken in a low, mocking, foreign voice.
I turned and felt a shock as I saw that the olive-skinned Mustache-Man had sidled up beside me. He was so close that, when he spoke again, I felt his hot breath on my face.
“Every way is blocked. Every avenue is covered. If you come with us quietly, perhaps we may be able to work something out.”
Right
, I thought.
Work something out. Like what? A bullet to the brain and a shallow grave?
