I don’t quit. Not ever.
And especially not where my kids are concerned.
I thought of Detective Rogan then. In some way, this was his fault. He was the one that dragged Matt into the building and put him on the phone with me. If my boy was hurt—if he was even warm from that fire, I swear to God I’ll…
Tears broke through the surface of my bravado. A sob erupted, even though it hurt like hell to cry. In moments I was weeping uncontrollably.
Oh Matthew! Sara!
Who was I kidding? If they were hurt, it was my own damn fault. I was the one that escalated. I’m the one that dared the feds in the first place. I’m the one that put a shotgun to a Sheriff deputy’s head. I was the one that shot the bailiff and probably killed the judge. And I’m the one who set fire to the courthouse when I knew my kids were inside.
If they were okay, they’d probably be better off in someone else’s hands than anywhere close to me. As bad as the foster system had to be, it was a damn sight better than me. Look what I’d become.
“Mary,” I croaked to the air. “Why did you leave me?”
I didn’t blame my wife. Far from it. But there was no doubt in my mind that she was the one who kept me grounded all these years. She kept me sane. All those nights when I’d wake up in a cold sweat, certain someone was coming for me—all those frickin’ nightmares from that God-awful war—she was the one who’d hold me, who could talk me down from anything. Now she was gone, and look what I’d become.
I was unhinged. Free-floating, like debris tossed about by a cyclone—a danger to anyone in my way.
I never meant to hurt anyone.
“Stop it.” I pressed my palms to my eyes, smearing the tears across my scratched and bruised face. “Just stop. You ain’t got time for this.”
I looked at my reflection in the rearview mirror. “Right now you gotta get away from this city. Lose this frickin’ car afore they figure out it’s missing. Just get gone. Get yourself cleaned up. Patched up. And then figure how to get your kids. Can you do that?”
After a moment, the man in the mirror nodded.
“All right then.”
I shifted into gear and pulled back into traffic. My head still pounded, and I still felt dizziness, like my brain had been detached from my skull and was now floating somewhere in my approximate vicinity, with only pain mooring it to my body. I forced myself to drive calm, to stay with the press of the vehicles around me. Easy on the accelerator. Easy on the brake. Monitor the mirrors. Watch the traffic. It was exhausting.
Honestly, I don't know how long I drove that way. Even less where I was driving to. I had no thoughts of a destination, not that I could have imagined one. Just distance. That's all that mattered to me.
At some point, I noticed that the sky had filled with golden light, and the shadows had lengthened on the ground. I found a motel beckoning by the roadside. After passing it, I turned down a narrow alley and drove for a hundred yards before bringing the car to a stop.
I climbed out, carrying the purse with me, and walked to the back of the car. A quick glance around assured me no one was looking. I scrambled beneath the back end of the car, found the gas lines, and pried one of them loose. An acrid stream of fuel began drizzling onto the ground, soaking the pavement. I slid back out and followed the line of gasoline where it rolled forward toward the lowest point in the pavement like some liquid worm seeking shelter. I took the lighter from my pocket, struck a fire, and touched it to the gas. A blue-yellow flame flared out, rushing back toward the pool of liquid reeking beneath the car. In seconds the blaze caught, rushing outward and licking the underside of the vehicle.
I stole down the alley back toward the street. As I reached the corner, a metallic bang and a flash of light told me the gas tank had blown. That’ll get some attention, I thought. I turned the corner, hearing the keening wail of fire trucks in the distance. I figured it’d take them a while to respond, tied up as they were by the courthouse.
I frowned. That was the second fiery explosion in less than twelve hours. I was becoming quite the arsonist. During my stint in the Corps, I’d been responsible for exploding ordinance on more than one occasion, though I’d never specialized in demolitions as such. That being said, I could cause real problems for the locals and fed given enough time. It was something to ponder.
The alley was a little farther from the motel than I remembered, and by the time I’d reached it the fire trucks had arrived. I didn’t stop as they rushed by, and it occurred to me that I might have just injured my chances of getting away. I’d little doubt they’d soon figure out the car belonged to Judge Rawles. I’d fired it in hopes of delaying the inevitable. I couldn’t take the chance that her car had been equipped with LoJack, which would have led the police right to my vicinity with a positive ID. This way, I’d reasoned, they’d have to be sure the car belonged to her first before committing the manpower to searching for me here.
It meant that I might have enough time to patch myself up and get some supplies, and an untraceable set of wheels, before I’d have to scatter.
I reached the corner of the motel’s parking lot just as three cop cars sped by, lights blazing. I quickly became very interested in the side of the road. The vehicle fire must’ve drawn them. I wondered at the response. Shouldn’t they have been busy down at the courthouse? Then again, hours had passed since my pyretic escape. Doubtless they were following whatever leads they could.
How long before that fire was out so they could check the VIN and confirm the Honda belonged to Rawles? For that matter, had they even realized I’d taken it?
There were too many unknowns, and I was over-thinking everything. Overreacting. I had to get a grip—come up with a real plan and stop flying by the seat of my pants. I hurried toward the motel. As I drew near, I saw the sign advertising hourly rates and cable television. The hourly rates I needed. Motels of this sort didn’t ask a lot of questions or look too closely at their clientele. That being said, I had no interest whatsoever in letting anything on the bed sheets come close to my skin.
The cable TV, on the other hand, could prove problematic. Especially if there were an all points bulletin out with my face plastered on it. All I needed was for someone to recognize my mug from a newscast and start dreaming of a Crime-stoppers reward offer.
I studied the wires feeding into the motel from the light poles on the street. Of course, if they couldn’t see the TV, then they couldn’t see any newscasts.
I moved past the entrance, ducking around the corner until I found the cable line where it patched into the box. Using the letter opener, I unscrewed the cap and opened the box. I didn’t give the tangled wires a second thought, but just reached in and ripped them free, then replaced the box and tightened the screw. This done, I went inside.
The motel manager looked frustrated. He was bent over the television set, fiddling with the coaxial wire in the back and didn’t glance up as I came to the counter.
“I’d like a room, please.” I laid the cash out on the counter. He continued to swear at the TV until finally giving it one last slap across the side for good measure before facing me.
He took one look at me and swore. “What happened to you?”
“Rough night. Got jumped.”
“I’ll bet.” He handed me a standard form and a room key. I ignored most of the form, just filling out the contact info with a fake name, address and telephone, complete with an indecipherable signature on the bottom.
“You got cable, right?”
He shrugged apologetically. “Supposed to. Frickin’ signal’s out right now.”
“No problem. Never anything good on anyway.”
“Right.”
I left quickly, catching his reflection watching me in the glass of the door. I felt my heart beating faster again. I didn’t know if he’d pick up the phone or not, but I could only hope that the phones were out, too. It might buy me some time.
Before going to my room, I first crossed the street t
o the pharmacy that glowed invitingly in the twilight. Cart in hand, I hurried to the first aid aisle and picked up rubbing alcohol, bandages and painkillers. For good measure, I grabbed up a shirt, a hoodie, and a pair of sweats from the clothing aisle, a backpack to replace the shredded purse, a couple of frozen dinners, and some bottled water from the cooler. I snagged a disposable cell phone while I was at it.
I paid the cashier and left the shop, but then walked down the street a bit before crossing back to the motel’s side of the road. I still didn’t know if the motel manager had made any kind of phone call. I was hoping he’d kept to what I imagined was standard practice in the business and minded his own, but that didn’t mean I was taking any chances. As I approached the motel, I studied the parked cars in the lot and alongside the street, looking for anyone who might be keeping an eye on the motel. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, though.
Mollified, I climbed the stairs to the second floor and went inside my motel room.
It wasn’t much to look at. A dark, threadbare carpet tried to hide most of the ground-in dirt on the floor, while the floral print bed covering glowed invitingly beneath the lamps mounted into the wall above the headboard. The room stank of stale cigarette smoke despite the plastic signs asking patrons not to light up, and it felt as though a thin patina of grime clung to everything.
It wasn’t exactly the most sanitary environment in which to tend my wounds, but it was all I had.
I chained and dead-bolted the door, and then dragged a chair in front of it for good measure. I put the clothes on the bed and the dinners on the table, and then escaped into the shower with my medicines and towels from the coat rack in the closet.
It took a while for the shower to heat up. The water pulsed in a hard stream from the showerhead, making me wince every time it struck one of the open wounds on my scalp or body. I scrubbed myself thoroughly with the soap before rinsing off again. For a while I just stood there, letting the heat and steam wash over me. The shower was loud, drowning out all sounds from the rest of the motel, and more importantly, the screaming from my own head. I closed my eyes, and all I could see was fire. The explosion under the car. The wall of flame rushing through the attic in the old courthouse. But then I saw something else, too. The look on Judge Rawles’ face when I shot her in the gut. Eyes wide in stunned despair.
How had I come to this?
Chapter 7
I turned off the shower, climbed out and toweled dried off. Taking the alcohol and sloshing it onto a fresh washcloth, I dabbed it onto my wounds, wincing as the antiseptic burned against the raw nerves in my skin. Fresh blood dropped into the sink as I applied the bandages.
Julia Rawles wasn’t the first person I’d shot. Not even the first woman, nor the first civilian. I’d done plenty of house to house searches in Fallujah during the war, and very few of them went the way we’d hoped. Every man in my unit was on edge back then. Despite all the training, we were a hair trigger. It might’ve been the only thing that kept us alive. I remembered one time we entered a house suspected of harboring insurgents and a cache of weapons. IED’s and such. We had a translator with us barking commands in Arabic, but everyone inside started yelling at once. And then this old man reached for his gun, and we unloaded. His woman came screaming at us, arms flailing. Before I knew what was happening I’d shot her dead. Her face carried the exact same expression as the one indelibly stamped on Judge Rawles. The eyes especially. Wide. Surprised. Lifeless.
There’d been kids in the home, too. One of them a screaming baby. Couldn’t have been more than six months old. Reminded me of Matt when he was little. I remember my lieutenant barking at me to shut that kid up or he would. I picked that little kid up and held him, rocking him in my arms while he screamed his lungs out till I finally got him rocked back to sleep. I always wondered what happened to him.
We never did any weapons. Or insurgents, for that matter. Turns out, we’d been given bad intel. We killed that family for nothing.
Experiences like that will trip breakers in your head. It’s like the intensity of it fries your conscience. There’s just no other way to live with the guilt. You can tell yourself you were just following orders, but it don’t make it feel better. The Nazis told themselves the same thing, and the world watched them hang for it.
When I left the service I promised myself that I left all that behind. No more killing. For a year or so, I didn’t even hunt. Took a while before I could pick up a gun again without feeling horrible about it. Going to church helped some. I guess I learned to forgive myself. I reckoned that I’d done my time serving my country, and as bad as it was, it wasn’t the sort of thing that I did out of selfish reasons. I entered the service because I felt like I owed something to the land and people that had given me so much. But after leaving, I figured I didn’t owe them anything else for the freedoms I enjoyed.
Meeting Mary and building a life, starting a family with her—it sorta felt like I’d put the past behind me. It was all long dead, buried and forgotten. Now it was crawling out of its grave, haunting me.
You can’t run from who you are.
That was the realization that tore at my insides. All my promises and reassurances to the contrary, when it came down to it I was just another thug with a gun. I’d taken innocent life with my own hands. What right did I have to demand freedom anymore?
I stared at my sallow reflection in the mirror, marking the dark circles under my eyes, the bruising on my face, the scratches marring my skin. No wonder the motel manager looked at me that way. I felt bone-weary and rubbed raw, like I’d been dragged through the streets. I swallowed some pain killers and washed them down with a handful of water.
I left the man in the mirror behind, got dressed in the new clothes, and heated up my dinner in the microwave. It was supposed to be some kind of sliced chicken with mashed potatoes and veggies. It tasted like salted, soggy cardboard.
All that was left for me now was to charge and activate the cell phone, which I did, plugging it into the wall. But that’s when I made my fatal mistake.
I sat down on the bed, resting my back against the pillows with my feet stretched out in front of me, waiting for the phone to charge. In moments, I was out cold.
***
I came to several hours later. I’d dreamt I was on a train, going from car to car searching for Matt and Sara. But every time I moved to another car to find them, they were further away. By the time I got to the final car I realized they’d gotten off the train at the last station, and now I was hurtling ever farther away from them.
And I was sure on the track ahead of me the bridge was out. I had to get off the train, but the only way was to jump.
I woke up before I found out whether or not I made it.
The clock on the bed stand said seven a.m. I’d been out for nine hours straight, near as I could figure. Everything hurt again, but it was more of a dull ache in my muscles and joints—less the searing pain of raw, open wounds I’d felt before.
I swallowed some more pills and washed them down with the last of the bottled water. My phone was charged and ready for me to use, even though I had no one to call at the moment. I had a mind to ring my mother and let her know I was okay, but I doubted she’d recognize me. Alzheimer’s took her mind away a couple years ago. There was very little left of her that remembered who I was.
I had a sister living in Tomball, outside of Houston. She was probably worried sick over me, but she was also just as likely to tell me to turn myself in, or to “do what was in my best interests” and turn me in herself if I gave her a ring. Couldn’t take that chance.
I stuck the phone in my pocket. The call I really wanted to make I couldn’t. Not right then. More than anything, I wanted to talk to Matt and Sara. Of course, that’d mean that the cops would be listening in, probably trying to ping my position from the cell towers around me or something like that. I was pretty sure the feds had that capability.
Regardless, it was too early to call, and
I didn’t particularly relish the thought of trying to get through anyway. It’s not like they’d given me the number. I’d have to do some negotiating to pull that off, and for that, I’d have to have some leverage.
Something besides turning myself in, that is.
I drummed my fingers on the table, mulling over the only course of action that made sense to me. Somehow, I had to get CPS to release my kids. They wouldn’t do it willingly or legally. I had no way to find them on my own, which meant that I had to get them to bring Matt and Sara to me. Naturally, even if they agreed to do so, they’d try to set a trap and bring me in. So I had to set it up. Control all the variables. Bring the net down on their own heads and get away with my kids safe and sound.
This was not going to be easy.
Before I could do any of that, I had to get a vehicle, change my appearance sufficiently to pass for someone else, and find a secure location from which to plan my escape.
In short, it was time to leave. I packed up my stuff in the new backpack and tossed my torn clothes, the purse, and my trash into the shopping bag and tied it up. I carried it to the door, and moved the chair to one side. I opened the door.
I closed it again immediately, my heart in my throat.
Two uniform police officers were three doors down, talking to my neighbor. I don’t think they saw me, but they were holding a familiar photograph.
I pressed against the back of the door, panting. In mere moments they’d be pounding on the door, asking to speak with me. I yanked the bailiff’s gun from the hand bag and held it against my chest, for all the good it would do.
I was trapped.
Chapter 8
I cracked the door open just a nudge, watching them as I crouched against the wall. It didn’t look like the manager had recognized me, or if he had, that he'd called the cops—not that he could have with the phones knocked out—but that didn’t mean the police wouldn’t find me.
Spilled Milk, no. 1 Page 4