by Tim Green
"Listen," Sales continued. "I want him stopped, period. If you help me get him, I won't kill him."
Casey looked at him skeptically.
"If you help me in a way that'll guarantee he goes to jail," Sales added, "then I won't kill him."
"You're lying," Casey said.
"When Lipton told you he didn't kill that girl in Atlanta," Sales said, "did you believe him?"
"Yes," she said, after a pause.
"Why? Because that's what he said, right?"
"Yes," Casey replied. "That's what he said."
"So, I'm saying I won't kill him and I want you to believe me. I won't kill him. If it means you'll help me, then I won't. If that's what it takes, then I'm saying I'll bring him to justice, to the police. Just give me the same deal you gave him. Help me, Casey. I need your help."
"I want you to take me to my car," Casey said after a few silent minutes of contemplation. "I need to go home. I need to sleep. I need to think."
Sales nodded and rose. The mouth of the cave was beginning to fill up with the pale light of dawn.
"I'll take you to your car, Casey Jordan," Sales said. "But will you help me?"
"Maybe," Casey said, rising stiffly, anxious to get away. She was thinking of the computer disk Tony had. Part of her said it would be wrong to use it. Lipton had given her the computer in confidence as a client. But he was a killer. Didn't she have a higher duty to help stop him if she could?
"Maybe I will."
CHAPTER 23
Sales bundled up his things and offered to carry Casey to the car, but she refused. She stepped gingerly on the rough ground, though, and found herself wishing she'd accepted his offer. The cuts on the bottom of her feet opened up again, and as they descended a gently sloping face of bare rock, Casey became aware of how easy it must have been for Sales to follow her trail through the woods.
Sales turned back toward her, looking weary and depressed. "It's not far," he said.
When they reached Casey's car, Sales got behind the wheel.
"I need you to take me somewhere," he explained. "I'll drive. Then you can go."
The long, twisting dirt road seemed to go forever. At its end, it emptied into a decrepit blacktop road that Casey didn't recognize. Their next turn, however, brought them to familiar ground, and Casey realized that they were now less than two miles from where she lived. But instead of heading back that way, Sales turned west.
Casey's stomach dropped, and she blurted out, "You said I could go home."
"You can. You will," Sales told her, taking his eyes from the road. "I need some way to get around, and I've got an uncle out near Lake Buchanan who'll help me. I need a car."
Sales said no more, and despite her uncertainty, Casey fell asleep with her head resting against the window. When the car eventually came to a stop and the engine was shut off, she bolted upright and wiped a line of drool from her cheek. They were parked in front of a dusty, run-down service station at a barren crossroads. As the fine cloud of grit that marked their arrival settled back to the ground, an old man with a cowboy hat bearing a dead horned toad on its band hobbled out through the open doorway. The wiry old man had long gray braids, and his wrinkled hatchet face told Casey he was a full-blooded Native American.
The old man stared accusingly at them through the settling dust, squinting until Sales got out of the car. Then the hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he turned and walked back into the station. Sales smiled wanly at Casey.
"Come with me if you like," he said. "I'll introduce you to my uncle Ben and you can get a drink."
Casey looked up past a faded Phillips 66 sign at the flaming yellow sun and shrugged. Inside, it took her eyes a minute to adjust to the cool, dim interior. There were shelves in the back crowded with an eclectic array of food items. A glass cooler labored noisily against the back wall, sweating in an effort to keep its milk, beer, and soda cold. Sales went to the back and took out two Diet Cokes.
Uncle Ben had planted himself back behind the counter where he could keep an eye on his pumps through a dirty picture window. An old fan blew enough hot air to tug at the ends of his braids. His mouth worked methodically on a bag of sunflower seeds, spitting the shells out into a plastic cup. On the shelf behind him, Rush Limbaugh droned on over the AM static from a little transistor radio with a twisted coat hanger for its antenna.
Sales took two bills from his pocket and slid them across the counter. The old man silently rang up the soda and went right back to his seeds, waiting patiently for Sales to speak.
"This is my friend Casey Jordan, Uncle Ben," Sales said when the transaction was complete.
Uncle Ben looked up sharply at Casey, then inquisitively at Sales. Casey was certain that the old man knew about the trial and her role in it. She briefly averted her eyes in shame. It wasn't just her and Sales anymore. This old man was real, an average person, the kind of person who lived in the place where she was raised. And the way he looked at her was biting. Looking back on it now, seeing it through the eyes of an average person, what she had done to Donald Sales during the trial was so heinous that the ordeal Sales had just put her through barely seemed an appropriate payback. The guilt of actually accusing Sales of an incestuous relationship with his dead daughter and then suggesting that he was the one who killed her shook Casey's convictions to their foundation. Everything she'd always believed in, winning, success, and notoriety, all of that, when she looked into this old man's face, now seemed a sham.
"She's my friend now," Sales told the uncle firmly. "She brought me here."
The old man nodded as if that was good enough for him.
It was true anyway. Casey was his friend. She would be his friend. She wanted to help him. She felt that with sudden certainty. She just had to figure out how far she could go without committing a crime herself. That she wouldn't do.
"The police are after me, Uncle Ben."
The old man snorted quietly, chastising his nephew for thinking that he didn't already know what was afoot.
"I knew you'd be coming," he said in his haggard voice.
"There's a blue pickup in the back for you," he said. His dark eyes were locked on Sales, and Casey had the feeling that the two of them were saying much more than she could understand without the use of spoken words. "It's got a full tank of gas. You need money, too?"
"No, Uncle Ben. Maybe a credit card."
The old man nodded and split a seed with his front teeth before expertly shucking it with his tongue and spitting out the shells. From a drawer he took out a shiny new Mastercard and laid it on the countertop. Sales took it and put it in his pocket.
Uncle Ben narrowed his eyes as a compact car buzzed by and continued on down the road.
"You gonna eat with us?" he said to Sales.
Sales turned to Casey. "Would you like to come to the house and clean up and then eat?"
"No," she said quietly. "No thank you. I have to go."
Sales nodded and led her out of the station into the heat. He handed her the keys.
"I want to help you," she told him quietly. "I just have to figure out how. I can't break the law. I know you see things differently from me, but everything I've done has always been within the law. I'm not proud of what I did in that trial and I'm sorry. But for me to just do things that are wrong to try and make up for it… I don't think I can do that. But I do mean it when I tell you I'm sorry…"
She stared up into his eyes. They were deep wells of emotion, churning with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings that she didn't know whether her words had evoked gratitude or more hatred. Then Sales put his large, rough hand on her shoulder. She could feel its horny calluses through the flannel shirt.
With a gentle squeeze he said softly, "I know you are. I see it. There's nothing we can do about what already happened. What's done is done. But you can help what will be. If you help me find Lipton, it'll make things as right as they can be…"
Casey felt sick. She wanted to help, bu
t she had to think. She took the keys and turned away.
"I don't even know how to get home," she said softly, opening the car door.
Sales pointed east and said, "The easiest way is if you stay straight on that road there. It runs right into one eighty-three. You know how to go from there?"
"Yes."
"I think it'd be better if we stayed together," he told her, "but I have to go to the house. If I didn't, it would insult them and I can't do that. Are you sure you won't stay?"
"Call me in my office tomorrow morning," Casey said. "I need to figure things out and I'll be fine until then…"
Casey wanted a shower. She wanted to put something on her bare injured feet. She wanted to rest. Most of all, she wanted to gather her wits. The bizarre events of the last day had left her feeling as though she were caught in a disturbing dream.
As she drove, Casey found that it was strangely easy to forget about what Sales had done to her. Part of her understood it. He wanted her help, but he also wanted her to know how it felt to be a victim, how his own daughter had felt. Only Marcia Sales's killing hadn't been a game.
Lipton. The thought of him made her shudder. He was a sick killer. She believed now that Sales was right about him. When she hit the highway, Casey dialed information on her car phone and asked for Bob Bolinger's home number. She got it and pressed one for an instant connection.
"Hello," Bolinger said after nearly six rings. It sounded as if she'd just woken him up.
"Detective," she said, "this is Casey Jordan."
There was silence on the other end until Bolinger cleared his throat.
"It's Sunday," he said. "What do you want?"
"I want to know what kind of protection the police can give me," she said.
"From who?"
"From Professor Lipton," she said. "I think he's been following me. I don't know, but I think so."
Bolinger paused again before saying, "Ms. Jordan, are you all right?"
"I'm all right," she said irritably. "Of course I'm all right. If you mean have I been drinking or something like that, no. But I'm not all right in that I think Professor Lipton has been following me, and I want to know what you can do."
"I can't do much, Ms. Jordan," Bolinger said after a long moment of silence. "I can see if someone from the sheriff's department will go by your house a couple times at night."
"I mean something substantial, Detective."
"We don't do that," Bolinger patiently explained.
"What do you mean, you don't do that?" Casey said incredulously. "You told me yourself you were looking for him. Now I'm telling you he's following me. That should be enough."
"Do you see him right now, Ms. Jordan?" Bolinger inquired.
Casey looked in her rearview mirror, even though she knew Lipton wouldn't be there.
"No, not right now," she said weakly. "But I've seen him."
"You're sure?" Bolinger said in a challenging tone.
Casey's innate integrity made her pause too long. Bolinger knew she was talking about shadows.
"I think what happened with Frank Castle has affected you, Ms. Jordan," he said patiently. "I think you should keep the sheriff's number or my number close by and if you see Lipton, or Sales for that matter, you give us a call."
"That's it?" Casey said.
"Ms. Jordan," Bolinger said quietly, "do you know how many people think they need police protection? We're not in the bodyguard business. If we put an officer with every person who thinks someone is following him, even in cases like yours where they have some kind of link to a perpetrator, there wouldn't be a cop left on the street.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Bolinger said. "I'll give you my cell phone number. If you see Lipton, you give me a call."
Casey hung up. It was a long drive back to West Lake Hills. When she got home, she locked the house up tight, took a long, hot shower, and climbed into bed. Typically, Casey slept less than most people. She often read late into the night before she dropped off, and sleep during the day was almost unheard of. But after what she'd been through, despite her anxieties she had no problem at all plunging into a deep, dark sleep.
CHAPTER 24
When Casey awoke, Taylor was standing over her, glowering.
" Taylor?" she said sleepily. The afternoon was gone. From the angle of the light falling through the windows, she knew she'd slept all day.
"Where have you been?" Taylor said in a poisonous tone of voice.
Casey got her bearings and thought of everything she'd been through in the past forty-eight hours. She didn't know how or where to begin.
Taylor interpreted her confusion as a play at deception. He was enraged.
"Goddamn you, Casey!" he growled.
He had discovered the flannel shirt Sales had given her. It was in the laundry basket when he emptied the suitcase from his trip. He held the shirt up for her to see and threw it violently at her face. Casey instinctively flinched away, but Taylor grasped her by the upper arm and yanked her toward him until his face was only inches away, his eyes searching. He'd done plenty of cheating in his day, but he had sworn it would never happen to him in reverse. It was one of the reasons he'd married Casey. He'd never in a million years imagined she would do that to him. The hot flame of hatred and jealousy seared his insides, and he squeezed her hard.
"Let go of me!" Casey shrieked. He had never dared to get physical with her before. No man had. "Let me go!"
Casey struggled to free herself from his grip.
"Where were you last night, Casey?" Taylor demanded, unaffected by her malignant stare.
"Who is he?" he shouted. "Who?"
"You don't even know what you're talking about. Let me go!" Casey shrieked. Finally she snapped her arm free and scrambled to the other side of the bed.
"I know what I'm talking about!" he yelled. "You know! I called here last night. I called here this morning. You were out all night! And now, here you are, sleeping at six o'clock! His shirt was in the fucking laundry bin! Who is it? Goddamn you, Casey! I can't believe you did this to me!"
"You?" she shouted. "You? You who went out to San Francisco to be with that slut of yours! You wouldn't marry her, but she's still glad to sleep with you whenever you get the itch. Well, she's trash and so are you!"
"I wasn't with her!" Taylor shouted, but even to his own ears it sounded false.
Emboldened, Casey hissed, "I know. I had you followed by a private detective."
It was a lie, but she wanted him to know that she knew, and she knew as certainly as if she did have someone following him. "I know what you were doing, and if I had a man," she continued scornfully, "then it's too bad for you. How do you like it, Taylor? How do you like having the person you're married to fucking someone else?"
"You bitch!" he snarled. "It's over. You're just a white trash whore from a hick town. That's all you ever were. That's all you'll ever be! Everyone told me. They told me you weren't good enough and you're not even close."
"Ha!" Casey scoffed bitterly. "I'm not good enough? I'm not good enough? Look at you. You're not a man. A man marries a woman and that's enough. A real man makes his way in the world, and he's too busy doing things to go sleeping around. You never did anything. You couldn't even make it in the world if everything wasn't handed to you on a silver platter. The only way you think you can prove yourself is in the bedroom by screwing around with any woman that would have you, and from what I know, you're not even any good at that.
"Yeah," she said caustically, "you're a real accomplished man, Taylor. I bet you feel real good about all the things you've done with your life."
"Get out," he said flatly. "Get out of my house."
"This is my house as much as it is yours," she said. "You get out."
Casey marched past him, and he raised his hand to strike her. She turned on him and caught his eye with a hateful stare.
"If you touch me again, I'll have the police on you so fast you'll think you were hit by a train."
He
stood there shaking, his hand in the air. Casey waited, her eyes shining with defiance until he slowly brought his hand down to his side. Without a word, she went downstairs and sat in the living room with her arms folded tightly as she listened to the faint sounds of him packing his bags. Finally, she heard his footsteps on the stairs. He walked past the living room without a word and into the garage. When she heard his car pulling out, she took a deep breath and set her jaw.
She felt a great sense of relief, as if she'd just come through a long-drawn-out illness. That's what her marriage had been, an illness. As she thought about the things that had prompted her to marry Taylor in the first place, she realized that her whole life had been sick. Her priorities were all wrong. She had wanted a husband who was rich and privileged, a man who would give her universal social acceptance. She had gotten what she wanted, but she had also gotten a husband who was untrue and selfish and who didn't appreciate any of the truly good qualities she had. To him, she was nothing more than a pretty ornament.
She had wanted to be a famous lawyer, too, and look where that had gotten her. She was recognized by many, but she was also reviled. She had also wanted to win at all costs, and look what she'd done. She'd bludgeoned an innocent father, besmirched his reputation, salted his deep, bleeding wounds. Worse yet, she had almost single-handedly turned a diabolical killer free.
Casey twisted a long piece of her wavy red hair until it hurt.
She felt like she had no one now. Her whole life had been her career. It was such an empty feeling to suddenly face the fact that her husband, the person who was supposed to be closest to her in the world, was emotionally miles away. Casey picked up the telephone. She hadn't spoken to her sister in months. She'd been too busy. She hadn't taken her calls, and she hadn't even thought of her. There was a time when they'd been close, but only when they were little girls. By the time Casey was a teenager, her ambitions had been clear in her head, and her younger sister Shelly's lack of the same were just as evident.