‘Cole.’
Something in her voice made his head snap around. Her resolve weakened and ebbed away. She clung to it, forced the words out, staring at the hollow-eyed reflection in the window.
‘It was me.’
‘Say that—’
‘I was the girl in the bar. With Jay.’
He made a choking noise in the back of his throat as if he had the mother of all fishbones stuck in it.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Well it’s true. None of that stuff happened anyway. I did not go into the restrooms with him. What? You think he was screwing me up against the wall? And some guy asked me his name when I was on my way out, that’s all. I didn’t even know it then.’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘What? After you’ve not shut up about how you blame the girl in the bar, how it’s all her fault, how she was happy to take their money and lure him into God knows what, she doesn’t care, she’s such a selfish bitch—’
‘Okay, okay. I got carried away.’
‘You’ve been reading too much into everything to cover up for the fact that you got there too late.’
The accusation was out before she could bite it back. It stunned them both into a surprised silence, like a brick thrown through the windshield landing in the space between them. His eyes told her he knew every word was true. She looked out the window, unable to hold them. Prayed for the darkness to suck her right out, swallow her up. She couldn’t even meet her own eyes in the reflection.
So she closed them, said the few words that would start her down a path she would never again stray from, one which would come to define her and impact on everything she did from that point onwards, and ultimately, years later, would set Evan on his own journey to hell.
‘Please, tell me what’s going on.’
‘I NEEDED AN OPERATION. And I didn’t have the money. So Jay ripped off the drugs to get some cash together. For me. He didn’t tell me what he was doing. The first I knew about it was when I got the call in the middle of the night and him screaming at me to come pick him up.’
Memories of that night, his rage and exasperation at Jay’s stupid, misguided attempts to help and everything it had led to, made him want to lash out, put his fist through the windshield. He looked sideways out the window so that Sarah didn’t see his anger. An SUV was parked in the entrance to a farm track on the other side of the road, two men in the front seats. His heartbeat picked up, adrenalin flowing. Then a quick flash of light in the side mirror. The SUV had pulled across all four lanes. It was sitting right behind them.
The clock on the dash showed 6:02 p.m.
They’d missed the deadline. Less than ten miles to go. It didn’t matter now. The tightening in his gut, the uptick in his heartbeat—and the car behind sitting on his tail—told him he was never meant to make it to the address in his pocket.
With their lights bright in his mirror, the two men were in silhouette. Even so, the shape of a man with a phone held to his ear is easy to identify. He had a good idea what the instructions coming down the line were, too.
‘What about insurance?’
Her voice had the ring of someone who still believed in how things ought to work in a fair world. The innocence of it made him swallow thickly, that he had snatched her from that world, dumped her into his.
‘Not for this.’
‘So Jay put his own life at risk to save yours. And now you’re returning the favor. Giving back the drugs to save him. Which means no op for you.’
The light in the mirror suddenly intensified as the SUV behind flicked its beams onto high, pulled up closer. She shook her head sadly, oblivious to what was going on behind them. And what that implied would soon be going on somewhere ahead of them.
‘Something like that,’ he said.
‘How screwed up is that?’
‘Tell me about it.’
He sent up a silent prayer, hoped she’d leave it at that.
‘Why do you need an operation?’
He smiled to himself, a small smile bereft of warmth or humor. She’d said need—and he’d said needed. Big difference.
‘Because I’m sick.’
A finger jabbed him hard in the ribs.
The SUV’s lights were dazzling him. He reached up, twisted the mirror. Sarah swiveled in her seat, shielded her eyes.
‘Why doesn’t that idiot turn his lights down?’
‘Because he’s an idiot.’
She shook her head, dismissing it as nothing more than another inconsiderate asshole.
‘You were saying.’
‘I have a rare form of cancer.’
She put her hand on his thigh, squeezed gently.
‘I’m so sorry. Surely your insurance covers it. You do have insurance?’
He nodded, an inadequate gesture that didn’t do justice to the emotions he’d spent the past months of his life suppressing. The anger, the disappointment. Then the acceptance, the resignation. Some battles you just can’t win, training and experience that most people couldn’t begin to comprehend useless in the face of a letter that begins, we regret to inform you . . .
‘Yeah. But it doesn’t cover it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You should. You’re a lawyer. They’re the bastards who help insurance companies wriggle out of their obligations.’
He didn’t mean it to come out so bitterly. He certainly didn’t mean her to take it personally. The hurt was in her eyes, nonetheless.
‘I don’t do that kind of work.’
‘I’m sorry. I should never have brought it up.’
‘Yes, you should. You should have told me before any of this’—she waved her arm in helpless frustration—‘shit happened.’
‘Yeah, right. And you’d have believed me?’
‘I don’t know.’
She sounded as exhausted by it all as he was. And she didn’t know the half of it. He glanced over at her. Her face had lost most of its color, ghostly in the light from the car headlights behind. She ran a hand through the butchered mess of her hair, rested her head against the cool glass of the window. If he had to guess, he’d have said she was coming to grips with the full implications of running out on him.
Despite that, she was like a dog with a bone.
‘I still don’t understand why they won’t pay.’
‘They say I went into it knowingly, of my own volition.’
Her head snapped around, eyes bright with anger.
‘Don’t be stupid. Nobody gets cancer voluntarily.’
She glared at him. Challenged him to contradict her.
‘It was as a result of what I did in the military.’ He held up a hand before she could open her mouth—he was fast when he needed to be. ‘And I’m not getting into that.’
Her mouth stayed shut. He made a mental note to hold up a hand more often. Wondered with a twinge of regret if he could’ve driven one-handed all the way, kept it up the whole time.
‘I came into contact with a lot of very nasty substances in some even nastier places. Some people, cynical people, might say without adequate protection. And this is the result.’
She sat upright in her seat, her body twisted towards him. With her hacked-away hair she looked like an indignant carrot.
‘Then it’s the military’s responsibility.’
‘You’d have thought so.’
‘I can’t believe it. You’re saying they aren’t interested either?’
He shook his head. He’d been through this so many times before. He didn’t need it all over again. Not that it mattered what he wanted. She had her teeth firmly into it now.
‘Why not?’
‘You’d have to ask them.’
That earned him another dig in the ribs, harder than before.
‘Why not?’
‘Because they didn’t officially acknowledge what I was doing in the first place.’
Her mouth opened in surprise, momentarily at a loss for
words.
‘So, you were what? Some kind of spy, or whatever you want to call it?’
‘Military intelligence.’
She was quiet for a long while. The mention of spies and Military Intelligence put her in mind of all things clandestine—in particular a dark blue Ford sedan she’d seen on two separate occasions doing nothing. Or following them. And maybe the vehicle sitting aggressively on their tail wasn’t merely inconsiderate.
Cole was still talking.
‘It’s hardly surprising. They’re not about to take responsibility for the consequences of what they weren’t supposed to be doing in the first place. If they do that, people might ask questions. We all know how much politicians hate questions. And the people who ask them.’
He didn’t say anything about the lengths to which they were prepared to go to silence people who refused to stop asking them. She didn’t need to know. And, years later, Evan would discover it for himself.
For now, she simply shook her head at the futility of it all.
‘It’s not right.’
He shrugged, that’s the way it goes sometimes.
‘You think what I’ve told you is screwed up? Wait until you hear the rest of it.’
Chapter 32
JAY STARED AT Gabriel. In the dim light of the car’s interior he couldn’t see his eyes. He didn’t need to, the tone of voice was enough.
‘You sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. You think I misheard? Maybe he said kiss Cole instead?’
Jay slammed his palm into the steering wheel, hit the horn by mistake. They both ducked instinctively, eyes jumping to the side mirrors again as the echoes bounced off the walls of the alley. A light came on in the apartment building opposite as an outraged widow or retiree got up to see what idiot was making that unholy noise on a Sunday evening.
‘Sorry. Does the old man know?’
Gabriel shook his head.
‘No. You know he’d never agree to it. This is Lucas’s idea. To get back at you. I heard him tell the guy on the other end to video it, send it to him. Then he was going to make you watch it.’
Neither of them needed to spell out what would happen next. Lucas wouldn’t be able to let Jay go after that.
‘We’ve got to warn him,’ Jay said.
His hand was halfway to his pocket when the awful truth hit him. His phone. Lucas had his phone. In their desperate rush to escape, they’d forgotten to take it off him.
‘Shit.’
‘What?’
‘Lucas has got my phone.’
‘Use mine.’
Jay shook his head angrily. Gabriel stared at him in silence for a moment before it sank in.
‘You don’t know his number?’
The sound of Jay’s palm slamming into the wheel a second time was all the answer needed.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Nobody knows anybody’s number these days. You put it in once and never see it again.’
‘I do.’
‘Good for you. The only problem is you’ve never had Cole’s number.’
Gabriel’s lips pursed.
‘Don’t talk to me like that. It’s not my fault you can’t remember your own brother’s number.’
Jay wasn’t listening, the car door already open.
‘You stay here. I’m going back.’
He was halfway out of the car when they heard a high-pitched whine coming from the street behind them. The sound of a vehicle backing up. Somebody in the Mustang had spotted the pickup in the alley.
Jay leapt in, started the engine, the pickup already moving as he slammed the door, his head twisted, arm over the back of the seat.
The Mustang appeared across the alley mouth. Stopped dead. Blocking them in. Four guys instantly alert. Trouble is, a two-door convertible isn’t the best vehicle for four grown men to get out of in a hurry. The passenger door flew open.
Jay put his foot to the floor, accelerated hard at the side of the Mustang. Realization dawned in their eyes. There was no way they’d get out of the car before the pickup plowed into them, the trailer hitch coming at them like a giant ball pein hammer.
Over the noise of the pickup backing up the guy in the front passenger seat yelled at the driver.
Go, go, go.
He jerked the door shut, shrinking away from it, the passenger behind him trying to climb into the lap of the guy next to him.
The Mustang started moving. Way too late. It hadn’t gone six feet before the pickup slammed into the rear fender. Metal compacted and buckled, the greater weight and superior traction of the pickup spinning it, shunting it across the road.
Right into the path of an oncoming truck.
Air horns blared, melded with the screech of rubber on asphalt. Lights bright enough to melt the Mustang’s paint job lit up the whole street, reflecting off four terrified faces, arms up in a futile attempt at protection.
The truck hit the Mustang as its rear end swung around still doing thirty. Hit the same fender as the pickup had, spun it all the way through ninety degrees, pushed it down the road with no more effort than a snowplow clearing a block of ice. Still spinning, the Mustang climbed the curb, carried on down the road half-on, half-off the sidewalk, smacked into a fire hydrant.
Everything came to a sudden stop as the hydrant ripped out of the ground, a twenty-foot plume of water gushing from the ground, soaking the mangled remains of the Mustang, flowing down the gutter like a river in flood.
Jay backed the pickup all the way out of the alley to where the Mustang and truck had been moments earlier, left hand down hard, pointing back the way they’d come. Pedal to the metal, a quick glance in the mirror.
Two large, very angry truckers jumped down from the cab. Stalked around to where Lucas’s four guys sat dazed and soaked in their car. Heads needed punching. And the idiot who caused it just high-tailed it back the other way. These would have to do.
Jay smiled to himself. Lucas wouldn’t be getting any backup from that quarter for a while.
‘Wait here,’ he said to Gabriel as he parked in front of Lucas’s building a couple of minutes later.
Luckily for him Gabriel wasn’t paying attention.
Chapter 33
COLE’S WORDS CAME BACK to Sarah.
He had to give it back to them. I didn’t need it.
She knew then what he was going to say. It could only be one thing. Her stomach turned over. She swallowed, her mouth dry.
‘You were right earlier. I did say I didn’t need it. I slipped up, tried to bluff my way out of it. You didn’t believe me, did you?’
She shook her head, the icy hand gripping her insides tightening until she could hardly breathe.
‘I didn’t think so.’
He wouldn’t look at her. She stared at the side of his head. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead. Or on what lay behind—and she didn’t mean the car that was still following them. He coughed a short laugh, life can be such a bitch.
‘I didn’t even get a chance to tell Jay.’
He looked at her then, met her eyes. She wished he hadn’t. She’d only seen—and been party to—genuine, heart-wrenching sadness once in her life. She saw it again that day, sitting next to him in the car, a fleeting glimpse as the clouds sucked the light and life out of the sky and the rain began to fall.
Eyes back on the road, he flicked on the wipers. For a brief moment their rhythmic slap was the only sound.
‘How’s this for a screwed-up ending to a screwed-up story . . .’
She wanted to put her hand on his arm. Put it over his mouth. Put it anywhere, anything to stop him from talking. Stop him now that she’d made him start.
‘It’s too—’
He never got a chance to finish.
The interior of the car suddenly lit up as the vehicle behind accelerated hard. A dazzling white light enveloped them as if the Son of Man had chosen their back seat for his second coming. Crazy patterns swam across Cole’s face as the beams cut th
rough the rain-streaked rear window.
Then they were plunged back into the murky, depressing afternoon gloom as it pulled out to pass.
‘Get my backpack.’
‘What?’
‘My backpack. Quickly. It’s behind my seat.’
‘Why?’
‘Do it.’
She leaned between the seats, hauled the bag out from behind him. Dumped it in her lap. Something hard in the bottom poked into her flesh. Little plastic packets of crystal meth weren’t hard like that. Her pulse quickened.
No. Not now.
‘There’s a gun in there. Get it out.’
‘What’s going on?’
She opened the pack. Thrust her hand inside. Holding her breath as if he’d told her to put her hand into a bag full of rattlesnakes. Her fingers touched cold metal. Then the remembered feel of a chequered grip. Something she’d hoped never to feel the touch of again. Physically or emotionally. Her lips parted involuntarily.
It wasn’t my fault.
The interior of the car seemed to dim further, sounds receding. Cole’s mouth moving, irritation growing in his eyes, the set of his jaw.
She couldn’t hear him.
Heard instead words that had haunted her for as long as she could remember.
I dare you.
The taste of metal in her mouth as if it were only yesterday.
Her cousin Jack, aged fifteen years, four months and twelve days. Herself, two years younger, just turned thirteen. In the basement of Jack’s house. Kneeling on the floor, sitting on their heels. As if preparing to commit seppuku. In Jack’s hand Uncle Bobby’s Beretta M9 service pistol, a short recoil, 9mm semi-automatic.
He said it again.
I dare you.
How much?
A dollar.
Five.
Two.
Okay.
Taking it from him, trying hard to stop the shake in her hand. Wishing she’d held out for five bucks. He’d never pay that. It was heavier than she thought.
Hurry it up, Sarah.
She wiped the barrel on her T-shirt, left a dirty smear on it. Opened her mouth. Felt like her jaw was wired shut. A lump the size of a golf ball stuck in her throat. Heart beating so fast she felt sick.
Cold metal on her tongue, setting her teeth on edge. Front sight sharp against the roof of her mouth, drawing blood. Stomach churning. Needing to pee.
The Road To Deliverance Page 18