The Road to You (36 page)

I hoped I could do my part with a different kind of delay tactic. “Is this what happened before?” I asked the cop, working hard to come across as respectfully afraid of him and a touch impressed. “Two years ago? Were you the one who set up the explosion?”

“I was.” He smiled like he was proud of it. Like it was one of his life’s crowning achievements. Good. That meant this was probably the best strategy under the circumstances. Knowledge was power.

I bobbed my head contemplatively. “But why?”

He threw an annoyed glance in Donovan’s direction, who had just unlocked the box and was sifting through the old insurance cards and a few car-related papers stuffed inside, pulling each item out and laying it on the dash, one at a time.

“Because that little prick was gonna talk,” he told me. “Hal Chaney. The driver. He wanted more money. He’d done jobs for us in Chicago and St. Louis, but this was the farthest south he’d gone for a delivery. He was starting to understand the scope of our operation. And when your brothers got ahold of him, they just inflated his already enormous and greedy ego. Made him think he was owed more than he was getting for the tiny job he was doing.”

“So, you destroyed his truck and killed him before he could rat you out,” I said. “Right?”

“Right.” He shoved me aside, reaching into the car and grabbing a handful of papers off the dash. “What the hell is this? A receipt for a new tire?” He crumpled the thin yellow sheet and tossed it onto the pavement.

“But the driver’s body wasn’t found,” I said, watching in desperation as the cop threw more of Donovan’s papers on the ground. We were running out of time. “Did you bury him out here?”

Sebastian grunted in anger and frustration and smacked Donovan’s bicep with the side of his gun. “Those documents damned well better be in the trunk,” he threatened. Then, to me, “You ask too many questions, little girl, but you know what? There are a few things it pleases me to tell you before you die. Number one, you can stall all you want, ain’t nobody gonna find you out here until it’s too late.” He sent me a villainous look.

“Number two, I put that bastard’s body in the trunk and took it back with me to Chicago. It’s where I lived at the time. Getting promoted to chief out here was my prize for a job well done.” He patted his badge. There was that unmistakable pride again.

“And number three,” he said, pulling me in front of him so I was standing next to Donovan behind the Trans Am. He pointed the gun at both of us and motioned for Donovan to unlock the trunk. “I’m gonna enjoy seeing the life drain out of your bodies, the way it did with Hal and with that stupid fuck, Jeremy.”

Next to me, Donovan’s motions stilled. He turned slowly to face Sebastian, betraying no particular emotion, but his silence all but screamed the pain he was feeling.

The cop laughed. “Oh, now you’re taking me seriously, huh, big guy?”

“You?
You
killed my brother?” Donovan whispered.

Sebastian grinned. “Sure did. My buddy Rick wrestled him to the ground right about there.” He pointed to a patch of pavement seven or eight yards away. “And I shot him in the head. Dead and gone in under a second.” He snapped his fingers to demonstrate just how fast.

I fought to keep my knees from buckling under me. Sadness, regret and a tidal wave of anger swept across my body and left me gasping for air.
Damn that evil bastard! How can hateful people like this exist in the world? How can Jeremy be gone?

All of those feelings of helplessness I’d felt before the trip came rushing back. I wished I could believe Sebastian was lying about killing my brother’s best friend, but none of his nonverbal tells indicated that. I glanced at Donovan to see how he was handling this news, my heart reaching out to him, even though I was too afraid to make a move and touch him.

Donovan swallowed several times before he spoke again. “Where’s his body? You take him back to Chicago, too?”

“Nope.” Sebastian nodded once in my direction. “Her brother did a number on Rick, snatched Jeremy and took him somewhere.” He shrugged. “Never did get that sonovabitch Gideon. He drove away with a few cracked ribs, a bullet in his side and two tires that were going flat by the second. But, by the time I could get up off the gravel and get into my car to chase him, he was already gone.”

“Off the gravel? Did Gideon punch you?” I asked.

“Aw, now don’t you go getting any bright ideas, missy. You ain’t gonna take me by surprise like that. Not this time.” He shot one bullet into the air and I jumped half out of my skin. “Now, both of you turn around and
open the
goddamn trunk
.”

Scared as I was, I understood something critical in that second: Sebastian didn’t want to shoot us.

Not because he had a soft spot of humanity anywhere in his cold, evil body, but because if there was any proof our deaths were caused by anything other than internal injuries from a car crash and burns from an explosion, there was no way the incident could possibly be ruled as “accidental” by the handful of investigators and evidence technicians that would come later.

Someone honest—at some point—would notice gunshot wounds on our bodies. The paramedics, the trustworthy members of the fire department or the police force, certainly the coroner wouldn’t miss those, even if we were badly burned.

And Sebastian didn’t have the luxury of just removing our bodies from the scene because, after what had happened in this exact spot two years ago, it would be viewed as too coincidental. Draw too much notice in Amarillo. As would a second mysterious disappearance of two siblings from the same two families back in Chameleon Lake.

So, because he had to be careful about how he killed us and because he needed us to be alive and relatively unharmed before he trapped us in our car…we had at least one small temporary advantage.

Before I could in some way signal this realization to Donovan, he opened the trunk and motioned to where the last five of the Crescent Cove fireworks were carefully wrapped and stashed in that box. Grabbing my tote, he pulled out the package Andy Reggio had left for us and handed it to me to hold up to show Sebastian, then I saw him unwrap and stuff all but one of the leftover firecrackers into my bag.

“We’ve got your papers,” he called to the cop. Then, to me, “Here,
I’ll
give them to him, Aurora.” He snatched the envelope out of my hands and thrust the tote at me. “Get in the car.”

I took my bag, surprised Sebastian wasn’t objecting but, even though his gun was still trained on us, he was several feet away, listening to something. A buzzing sound in the distance that took me a few seconds to identify.

Motorcycles.

“Get in the car,” Donovan said again, his voice low and urgent. He pushed me toward the open passenger side door.

Sebastian glanced over at us, fury washing over his face when he saw that I’d moved from the spot he’d placed me, but we could all tell that the motorcycles were fast approaching.

This distracted Sebastian. He instinctively lowered his gun and, for a moment, hid it from view. No doubt contemplating the consequences of being seen out on a deserted road with two people who’d likely be reported dead fairly soon.

It wasn’t a long reprieve, but it was long enough for Donovan to jump in the Trans Am—trunk still wide open—and start the engine.

We heard Sebastian swear and shoot at our car, bullets hitting the open trunk door and one smashing through a side window as the cop came sprinting toward us.

Donovan hit drive, spinning gravel and running into the red gasoline can, knocking it over.

“Here, take this!” he shouted at Sebastian, flinging the envelope out his window toward the cop but holding it upside down so most of the papers escaped into the safety of Donovan’s lap instead of leaving the car.

Sebastian reflexively grabbed for the envelope, but it took him only a split second to realize it was empty. Before he could react, though, the motorcyclists—the same two guys we’d seen back by the Cadillac Ranch—buzzed by on their bikes.

Wearing bandanas, helmets and lots of leather, their features weren’t easy to distinguish, but I could tell that one biker was white and the other black. They both lifted their hands in a friendly wave to all of us as they drove slowly past.

Sebastian apparently ceased to care anymore if anyone heard his gunshots. As Donovan tried to get his car back to the road, Sebastian tossed the envelope to the ground and fired again at us, this time managing to get a shot through the front windshield.

I saw Donovan wince, blood leaking through the sleeve of his shirt. His left shoulder. The one closest to the window. Even so, before I could blink, he had his lighter out and he lit the cherry bomb in his hand, lobbing it at the cop, and getting close enough to make Sebastian stumble backward when the powerful firecracker exploded. He pressed the lighter into my hand. “Light one and throw it near the gas spill.”

I pulled out the first firework I touched from inside my tote—a very illegal quarter stick—and did just what Donovan told me. The gasoline fumes made it detonate even before it hit the pavement and, boy, was that explosion impressive.

From my side window, I could see that the motorcyclists had stopped their bikes and were turning them around.

Sebastian gasped and ran toward his squad car, trying to rescue it before the blazing fire followed the trail of spilled gas and reached his engine.

“Now light one for me,” Donovan said, having managed to turn the Trans Am around far enough to get onto the road, headed in the direction we came. Back toward Route 66. “And hang onto the steering wheel after you do. As soon as I’ve thrown it, light another, okay?”

“Okay.” Breathless, I followed his instructions exactly.

Even with a wounded arm and using his non-dominant hand, Donovan had good aim. He threw the first lit firecracker at Sebastian’s front tires, taking one of them out, and the other at the cop himself. It didn’t burn him to a crisp the way I would have liked, but it did singe the driver’s door enough to get him to swerve to the other side of the road.

By the time we reached the Route 66 intersection, we could no longer see Sebastian behind us and the magnitude of what had just happened was only beginning to be absorbed by my whole being.

My mind had known for several minutes that we were in grave danger, but my body was only just starting to understand. As much as I tried to stop it, I was visibly trembling from the top of my head to my toenails.

“He almost killed us,” I cried.

“Yeah, I know,” Donovan said. “How many fireworks do we have left?”

I peered inside my tote, my hands shaking so hard I could barely keep it open. “Just one.”

“Okay.” He looked steely, determined and…bloody.

I leaned forward just far enough to see how much blood had been coming from his left shoulder. It was dripping everywhere. “Oh, God, Donovan! We have to get you to a hospital right—”

With his other hand, he waved me off. “It’s just a flesh wound, Aurora. Relax.”

“But you’re bleeding—”

“Yeah. That happens when someone shoots a .357 Magnum at you.” He turned onto Route 66 heading westward and sent me a grim half smile. “I’ll be fine. It’s mostly from the broken glass. I’ll be even more fine once Sebastian is out of the picture forever.” He studied me in silence. “Are you okay?”

“No! He almost
killed
us!” I repeated. “And why are we going west? It’ll be miles before we get to another big city, and we need to take you to an emergency room.”

He shook his head. “No, we need to get the hell away from Amarillo. I’m not going back from where we came.”

“But we still have the key to our room at the Cactus Flower Inn,” I said, which for some irrational reason seemed important to me. There were so damned many loose ends in my life.

Donovan just laughed humorlessly at this. “If you’re really worried about that, we can mail it back to them from Albuquerque.”

“Albuquerque? Jesus, Donovan! We can’t go that far. That’s got to be almost
five
hours
from here. I really, really want you to see a doctor right now. I mean it. And then I want us to head toward home. It was a very bad idea continuing on this far. I’m so sorry.” I choked back a sob and the profound guilt of responsibility. “Please, if you won’t turn back on Route 66, at least go north.”

I grabbed the atlas and flipped frantically until I saw a map of the Texas panhandle. “Th-There’s a good road coming up. See? Route 385. We can take it north up through Oklahoma, Colorado, Nebrask—”

“We could, but we’re not going to,” he said. “I didn’t want to take this trip. You know I didn’t, but—”

“Donovan, I said I’m sorry, and I really am, for
all
of this. I should’ve listened to you. If we’d just stayed in Chameleon Lake, it would’ve been safer. It would’ve been—”

“A lifetime of never knowing the truth,” he finished for me. “Stop apologizing, Aurora, and hear me out. I didn’t want to go on this trip when you first suggested it. Once we started, I didn’t want to stay on it any longer than a few days. But I’m glad we did. I’m glad you talked me into it—your first instincts were right. And, in spite of everything, I’m glad we learned all that we have so far.”