by Alex Kava
He checked his Rolex. Less than an hour until he had to be in court. He thought about Grace Wenninghoff turning down his deal. He had Carrie Ann Comstock ready and willing to identify Jared Barnett as the convenience-store robber and the prosecutor hadn’t taken the bait. He wondered if he shouldn’t have played such hardball. Wenninghoff surely wouldn’t have hesitated had she known who he was ready to finger. But he couldn’t sound too anxious, too willing to hand over the man he had spent the last year and a half getting out of jail.
And God knows, Carrie Ann wasn’t exactly the most reliable witness, let alone liar. Jesus! She couldn’t even get down the details of how she was supposed to know Jared Barnett, the simple story he had made up for her. Every time he showed her Barnett’s photo she kept saying she had seen him in her apartment building hauling out some huge bag of trash late one night. The stupid crack whore couldn’t get anything right. It was just as well that Wenninghoff had passed.
His cell phone interrupted his thoughts. He pulled it from his jacket’s breast pocket and sighed when he recognized the caller ID, the same number from last night.
“Max Kramer.”
“You got everything ready?”
“There’s no way I can have a new ID made that quickly for one of you, let alone all three of you. You need to give me a couple of days.”
“I don’t have a couple of fucking days.”
Max noticed something different in Barnett’s voice. The calm-and-collected, but angry, tone seemed a bit frantic. Could it be that the bastard was feeling a little vulnerable?
“I need at least another twenty-four hours,” he said, not able to contain his smile.
“Forget the IDs. Just get me the fucking money.”
Max sat up in his chair. The minute he thought he had control, Barnett took it back. It was like a fucking chess match, a chess match with a madman. “Okay,” he said. “Where are you? How am I supposed to get it to you?”
“There’s a truck stop off the interstate. Take this down. Are you getting this down? Because I’m not gonna fucking repeat it.”
Max grabbed a pen and started jotting on his desk pad. Yes, the calm-and-collected Jared Barnett was beginning to crumble. He could hear it in the crackling sound as Barnett unfolded and folded some kind of paper, perhaps a map. “Go ahead.”
“It’s about fifty miles west of Grand Island. I can’t remember the name of the fucking truck stop, but the exit is for Normal.”
“Normal what?”
“Normal, Nebraska, you stupid bastard. Bet you didn’t even know there was a town named Normal in Nebraska, did you?”
Max rolled his eyes. He wanted to tell Barnett that Normal was the last place he’d expect Barnett to be. It was too fucking ironic, and he wondered if Barnett had chosen it on purpose.
“Have the money at the truck stop by two p.m.”
“By two?” Max said. “How the hell am I supposed to get the money there, let alone by two?”
“You’re a smart guy, Kramer. If you could get me out of jail for murder, surely you can figure this out.”
“Okay, I can probably wire it somehow. You’ll need ID to pick it up.”
“Have it wired in the name of Charlie Starks. And don’t screw this up, Kramer. I’m getting fucking tired of screwups.”
Max wanted to tell him that he was the one who had a right to be sick and tired of screwups. Barnett was the one who got himself into this mess. If he had stuck to the plan, none of this would have happened. Instead, he told him, “I’ll try to have it there by two.”
“Don’t try. Have it there. You set me up, Kramer, and you go down with me. You get that?”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be there.”
Max waited for the click. He swiveled his chair back around to his desk. He could probably find the name of the truck stop online, and he flipped his laptop computer on. He could probably make the wire transfer online, too. He knew his wife’s money market account number by heart. While he waited for the Internet connection he punched in a number on his cell phone.
She answered on the third ring. “Grace Wenninghoff.”
“Grace, it’s Max Kramer. As an officer of the court I have some information that I feel obligated to tell you.”
Yes, obligated, he thought. No one could fault him for turning in a client whom he had helped and sacrificed for. Not when that client was now on a killing spree. Forget about anyone finding fault with him. He’d probably end up being a fucking hero for being the one to turn in Jared Barnett.
CHAPTER 63
9:20 a.m.
Melanie couldn’t stand it. Jared had been gone too long. Where the hell was he? And what the hell was he doing? She continued to pace the room, to wipe her sweaty palms on her jeans until her hands felt raw. She didn’t want to think about that baby, those sleepy eyes, those chubby cheeks. No, Jared couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
She heard a car door, and instead of racing to the window, she froze. Charlie heard it, too, only he was watching her, waiting to read her. So was Andrew Kane. What did they expect of her? What the hell did they want her to do? She didn’t get them into this mess. This wasn’t her fault.
The door swung open and now everyone stared at Jared. Melanie examined his eyes, his mouth and then his hands, looking for signs. Would she be able to tell? What was she supposed to look for? Was she expecting to see blood? More fucking blood?
“We need to get out of here,” Jared said. When no one moved or responded, he picked up Charlie’s backpack and tossed it at him. “Let’s move. Now.”
“What did you do, Jared?” Melanie asked, not able to include “baby” in her question, almost as if she didn’t want to know, but still giving him a chance to make things okay again. She ran her fingers through her hair and noticed her hands were shaking. Would things ever be okay again?
“I took care of things,” he said as if he had simply completed an everyday task like taking out the garbage. “I got us another fucking car. Even switched the plates already. But we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
When still no one moved, Jared took on his careful voice, even allowing himself a smile when he said, “I picked up some McDonald’s for us. It’s all in the car, so come on. Let’s go. I want to get to Colorado before nightfall.”
Charlie shut off the TV and slung the backpack over his shoulder. Melanie couldn’t help thinking the boy’s stomach would override his brain each and every time. But instead of being angry she wanted to smile at his innocence, his simplicity. She checked the bathroom before following Charlie out. She stopped again at the door when she noticed Jared wasn’t helping Andrew. Her brother stood at the foot of the bed, waiting, and then she realized he wasn’t waiting to help Andrew up. Jared was waiting for Charlie and Melanie to leave. He wasn’t planning on taking Andrew Kane with them. That’s when she noticed the white nylon cord he was pulling out of his pocket and wrapping around his fists. And suddenly her stomach fell to her knees again, just as it had when she saw that baby in the back seat.
“Keep his hands tied up,” Melanie told Jared, pretending that’s what he intended to use the cord for. “I’ll drive.”
“Go get in the car, Mel,” Jared instructed, his voice now distant and cold. “I’ll be right there.”
She caught the author’s eyes when he glanced up at her, and she realized there was something different in them. Maybe resolve. Certainly not panic. It was almost as if he knew exactly what Jared had in mind, as if he had expected it. In his desperation he had promised to help her and Charlie. She knew he probably only said it in the hopes of saving himself. He probably would have found a way to trick her, to set her up, to hurt Charlie. She’d hurt herself before she’d let Charlie get hurt.
“What’s the holdup?” Charlie was suddenly in the doorway behind her, looking over her shoulder. “I thought we were in a hurry.”
She didn’t turn around, but already smelled the sausage and knew he had started breakfast without them.
“Jare
d was just getting Andrew up,” she said, avoiding Jared’s eyes. “Charlie, why don’t you help him, so that we can keep him tied up in the back seat. I’m driving.”
Charlie scooted in around her, and she could feel Jared’s anger. Still, she avoided looking at him. Before he could protest, Charlie had Andrew on his feet and shuffling out the door.
CHAPTER 64
10:33 a.m.
Pakula asked for the third time, “You think Kramer’s fucking with us?”
“If he’s involved,” Grace said as calmly as she had both times before. “And we know he has to be somehow involved because he wants us to catch Barnett.”
Pakula let out another sigh. He pulled his tie loose, hoping that would help him breathe. It didn’t. “I don’t know. It feels too easy. Tell me exactly what he said.” He expected Grace to get impatient with him, but instead she started at the beginning.
“He said he got a call from Barnett, asking for help. Barnett told him that he only meant to rob the bank but things went wrong. He wasn’t about to turn himself in. He didn’t want—”
“He said Barnett said that exactly? That he wasn’t gonna turn himself in?”
“Yes, and that he didn’t want to go back to jail.”
Pakula couldn’t believe how calm she was, when he felt like a wet rag. Why the fuck was it so hot again?
“He said he knew Kramer would never be able to get him off this time,” she continued, the details the same as the last time she told him. She didn’t even need her notes. “That all he needed was some money. And then he told Kramer to wire the money to the Triple J Truck Stop on Interstate 80, west of Grand Island, just off the exit for Normal, Nebraska.”
“How much money?”
“He asked for twenty-five thousand dollars. Kramer said he has it ready to be wired if and when we tell him to.”
“And this morning was the first time he heard from him?”
“That’s what he said.”
“But he has to know we can check that out.” Pakula didn’t trust this asshole any more than he trusted Barnett. Were the two of them setting up something? A distraction, perhaps, while Barnett headed in the opposite direction? “You think he’s on the level?”
Grace filled her arms with the stack of files from his extra chair, looking for a place to set them so she could sit down. He grabbed them from her, a little embarrassed that he hadn’t thought to do it himself. He put them in the corner and let them slide into a mess. Then he sat in his own chair so he wouldn’t tower over her, even though he wanted—needed—to be up and moving.
“At first I was skeptical. But Max Kramer has no idea we have the locket. He can’t possibly know that we suspect him of anything.” She shook her head as if she couldn’t believe how slimy the guy might be. “There was something in his tone, and I can’t even explain what it was, but he almost sounded self-righteous about this, like, of course, he had no choice but to do the right thing. I mean, give me a break.”
“So he probably thinks he’ll be able to milk this, too?”
“Maybe.”
The phone rang and Pakula stood to answer it even though it was right at his elbow.
“Pakula.”
“I’ve got a SWAT team assembled and ready to meet us there.” It was Sanchez—he didn’t need an introduction. “The Black Hawk will be ready for us in about twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“We don’t have much time. Are you ready to go or not?”
“I’ll be ready,” Pakula said and Sanchez was gone.
He looked down at Grace and wiped the sweat from his head as he grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. “God! I hate helicopters.”
CHAPTER 65
10:40 a.m.
Highway 281N
Andrew knew from watching the road signs that they were headed in the wrong direction again. They were on Highway 281N. Colorado was west, not north. Jared kept the map laid out in his lap. He gave Melanie directions, left or right, but not much more. And neither she nor Charlie asked. Neither of them seemed to mind letting Jared be in complete control again.
He leaned his head against the back seat. How stupid he had been, thinking either of them were strong enough to take on Jared. Back at the hotel, the way she manipulated the situation, the way she got Jared to take him along, made Andrew think Melanie had grown a backbone. Now he realized he was wrong. She had eased back into her role as accomplice as if everything was back to normal.
She had the radio turned up, listening to Rush Limbaugh after fiddling with the dial, preferring talk radio to the morning’s livestock and grain prices. It was already turned up when the news brief began, and yet she reached for the dial to turn it up even more.
“We have new information on the Amber Alert that was issued this morning. At around seven-thirty a white Ford Explorer was taken from a Texaco gas station north of Hastings, off Interstate 80. The young mother had left the engine and air conditioner running for her fourteen-month-old baby while she went inside to pay for her gas. Someone drove off with the SUV and the baby. Now, law enforcement officials are saying that the alleged car thief may not have realized there was a baby in the vehicle when it was stolen. We’ve just been alerted—and this is just coming in as I’m reading it off the wire, so bear with me—that the Ford Explorer has been found. An anonymous tip was phoned in after the Amber Alert was issued. It’s uncertain who called in and told law enforcement officials where they could find the vehicle. The SUV was found in a retail-shopping parking lot with the engine and air conditioner running and the baby…”
The announcer hesitated as if not prepared to read the rest on air, and Andrew expected the worst. He could see from Melanie’s face that she did, too.
“The baby is fine. She appears to be just fine. She was found still strapped into her car seat and fast asleep. Again, I repeat, the SUV that was reported stolen earlier this morning has been found. The Amber Alert has been—”
Melanie snapped the radio off. But before she moved her hands to the bottom of the steering wheel, Andrew could see that they were shaking.
CHAPTER 66
12:22 p.m.
Melanie was tired of Jared bossing her around again. This way and then that way. Right then left. They were backtracking and still headed in the wrong fucking direction, and she knew it. And it wasn’t about keeping off the interstate or confusing law enforcement officials. No, Jared had something else planned. She could feel it. And he wasn’t telling her again. Just like he wouldn’t tell her about the baby. How hard would it have been to tell her the baby was okay, instead of simply saying he had taken care of things?
She glanced over at Charlie, sitting next to her reading another comic book. He was quiet and content, no sign of this morning’s outburst. She didn’t want to think about that again. It only made her angry, angry that Jared would involve Charlie in this. It was Jared’s fault. All of it. The entire mess. She knew she should be relieved that Jared hadn’t killed that little baby. Only a monster would do something like that, a monster like her father. And, no matter how angry she was with Jared, she knew he wasn’t any more a monster than she was.
She looked up in the rearview mirror and Andrew Kane’s eyes were there to meet hers. He was watching her, studying her as if trying to figure her out. Maybe he was grateful she hadn’t let Jared kill him back at the hotel. Maybe he simply wondered what would happen next. She ignored him and looked, instead, for patrol cars. Most of them would have been busy this morning looking for a white SUV and not a black Toyota Camry. They were sticking to the two-lane highways, although from the signs she knew they were approaching the interstate again. After driving north and away from it, here they were again driving south toward it.
“We have to make a stop,” Jared said suddenly. “I want you to get on the interstate and head west.”
“I thought we were avoiding Interstate 80.”
“There’s a truck stop. It shouldn’t be too far.�
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“You’re hungry again?” It couldn’t be much after noon yet.
“No, we’re not eating there. I need to pick something up.”
“What can you possibly pick up at a truck stop?”
“Just do what I fucking tell you to do, Mel.”
Her face burned. Her hands balled into fists around the steering wheel. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes ahead. Sometimes he reminded her of her father, and this was one of those times.
CHAPTER 67
1:40 p.m.
Triple J Truck Stop—East of Normal, Nebraska
Pakula watched from the tinted windows of the TV-repair van. His knees still felt a little unsteady but he was glad to be back on the ground. And he was glad he wasn’t in charge. All this firepower made him nervous.
He was used to Omaha—a river valley with lots of hills and trees and buildings. Out here, where the landscape couldn’t be much flatter and there were wide-open spaces where you could see for miles, there wasn’t anywhere to hide. He thought for sure Barnett would be able to spot something: the reflection of a rifle scope or even a black boot on the rooftop of the deserted gas station across the road. There weren’t any fucking trees. Just the parking lot, a long expanse of concrete surrounded by flat pastures of grass.
They didn’t even know what kind of vehicle Barnett was driving now. Although they did know from Kramer who was with him—his sister and seventeen-year-old nephew. And hopefully—Pakula prayed—Andrew. He had reminded Sanchez several times about Andrew and asked what precautions were being taken. Did the SWAT team know they had a hostage? Had they seen pictures of Andrew as well as Jared? How would they know the difference between the two? How could they guarantee they wouldn’t make a mistake?