“As long as we’re here, could I please use the bathroom?” Jason asked. He figured maybe he could write a message for help on the restroom mirror in soap—along with his license plate number. He’d seen someone do that in a movie once. “Please? I really have to go,” he added.
Vic shook his head, “Nope. Like I said, if you can’t hold it in, pee in your pants. I don’t care.”
The clerk peered out at them—then at Mulroney at the cash machine. Jason wondered if Vic’s young friend was right. Had the clerk recognized him? Was it possible the police were already looking for the fugitives?
But the clerk started reading his magazine again. He only briefly looked up when Mulroney finished at the ATM and hurried out of the store.
Mulroney opened the back door and jumped inside the idling car. “I got four hundred dollars,” he said, out of breath. “The machine only distributed two hundred at a time, max. I put the card in twice.” With a shaky hand, he gave the money and the card to Vic.
“Good boy.” Vic shoved the money in his coat pocket and then he nodded at Jason. “All right, get back on the road—same direction as before.”
Jason took one last look at the clerk, still intent on his magazine. Then he reluctantly started out of the gas station. Without having to stop, he pulled back onto Highway 20. There were no oncoming cars. The ferry traffic had moved on, and now it was as if Jason and his two passengers had the long, lonely roadway to themselves. He didn’t say anything. He heard the wheels humming on the pavement.
“Hey, listen, thanks very much for all this,” Mulroney said, leaning close to him. “I’m really sorry we’ve inconvenienced you. But I promise we’ll pay you back somehow . . .”
Vic snickered, “Yeah, we sure will.”
“I mean it,” Mulroney said, sitting back.
“I know you do,” Vic said. “That’s what makes you so sweet.” He slapped Jason’s shoulder and pointed to a road coming up on the left. “Turn there . . .”
Jason felt his stomach lurch again. Signaling, he slowed down and made the turn. It was part of his job to know the area. The road led to a chemical plant and a lumber mill—and nowhere else. He could smell the acrid odor churning from both facilities. The side road was unlit, and the smooth pavement soon became a gravel road. Along the left shoulder was a gully. Jason listened to the pebbles ricocheting against the underside of the car. On the right, he could see the silhouette of the chemical plant and its smokestacks against the night sky. There were a few lights on in one building, but he imagined the place was deserted at this hour.
“Where are we going?” he finally asked—though he already knew why they’d turned down this dark, dead-end road. He tried his damnedest not to cry. He didn’t want Vic to see his tears.
“I think my pal is right,” Vic said, unfastening his seat belt. He kept the gun pointed at him. “It’s time we started treating you better—I mean, considering that you’ve loaned us money, and driven us all this way, and treated us to your enchanting company. I wasn’t very nice earlier. I figure—if you want a quiet spot to take a piss, you’ve got that coming. No one will see you out here. Keep going just a little farther down this road. You’ll have lots of privacy . . .”
Jason knew his body would end up in that gully—amid the overgrown weeds.
He couldn’t stop shaking. He thought he might throw up, but held it back. Yet he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down his face. “Please, no,” he whispered.
If Vic heard him, he didn’t react at all.
They’d passed the chemical plant and now approached the mill yard on their right. Individual stacks of wood, each about the size of a trailer, lined the other side of a tall fence that bordered the lot. Up ahead was the entrance to the mill. But the gate was closed. The road widened to what must have been a turnabout for trucks. Two crude dirt paths branched off the cul de sac.
Jason realized this was his last chance.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed his foot down hard on the accelerator and jerked the wheel to the left. The engine roared and tires screeched as the car spun out of control. Plumes of gravel and dirt engulfed them.
Vic was thrown against the dashboard, but he still had the gun in his hand. “You son of a bitch!”
Jason reached for his door handle, ready to jump out of the car. Then, all at once, he felt something slam against the side of his head. It must have been the gun butt. He heard a crack. The pain was awful, and he cried out. But—somehow—he managed to open the car door. The vehicle was still moving as he jumped out and tumbled onto the hard, cold gravel. In his panic, he barely felt the impact. He just kept moving. His survival depended on it. Bleeding and sore, he tried to crawl down past some bushes by the road. He couldn’t see anything beyond that. He hoped to lose them in the shadowy overgrowth.
But Jason couldn’t get to his feet. He kept stumbling. His head was spinning, and he couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t just the darkness. The blow to his head had done something to his vision.
He heard the car skid to a stop. The engine was still idling. The door clicked open, and then there were footsteps.
“You prick,” Vic muttered. “You’re just where I want you . . .”
He was coming closer. Jason could hear the gravel crunch under each step.
Breathless, he frantically scurried deeper into the bushes. But the ground seemed to give out beneath his feet, and he fell into the ditch. It knocked the wind out of him. He tried to get up.
He was on his knees when Vic descended on him.
“Vic, don’t!” Mulroney cried.
Jason’s vision seemed to right itself. He could see Vic standing over him—and the gun aimed at his face.
He heard a click.
“Fuck,” Vic growled.
Another click. The gun was jammed.
“Goddamn piece of shit,” Vic grunted. He changed his grip on the weapon and used the butt end to strike Jason in the head again—and again.
Jason went down after the second blow. He flopped into a slimy, freezing puddle of water at the bottom of the gulch.
He thought he was dead.
Vic must have thought so, too.
* * *
Jason didn’t know how long he’d been lying near the bottom of the ditch.
He remembered hearing Mulroney anxiously ask his friend what had just happened. Vic had muttered a reply that had led to an argument. But Jason hadn’t been able to make out the words—until Vic had bellowed: “Just get in the goddamn car!”
Then Jason had heard the Sonata’s doors shut and the car peeling away.
Was that five minutes ago—or an hour? Jason wasn’t sure.
He just knew his head was throbbing. Blood covered half his face, and his whole body ached. His hands were raw—with bits of gravel embedded in his palms and fingertips. He must have hurt his arm, too. Every time he moved it a certain way, the pain was excruciating. He crawled out of the ditch, and then tried to get to his feet, but his ankle gave out and he almost fell.
On his hands and knees, Jason crawled to the driveway. His vision still wasn’t right. Things kept going in and out of focus.
He realized that somewhere along the line he must have pissed in his pants, because he didn’t have to pee anymore. He was wet, cold, and smelly from falling into that dirty puddle, so it didn’t make much difference—except to his dignity.
He glanced over at the mill. Maybe it had a night watchman. Jason screamed for help. If there was a response, he couldn’t hear it. He finally managed to stand up and started hobbling toward Highway 20. But pain shot up from his ankle through his leg with every step. He was dizzy and disoriented. He thought he saw some headlights in the distance. Jason wondered if they were even real, because he kept seeing spots. Still, he trudged on in that direction, stumbling several times. The highway seemed so far away.
He wondered if this would be his fate: to have survived being car-jacked by two killers—only to collapse and die before being rescued. He did
n’t think he’d make it. And if he ever reached the highway, how long would it take before someone stopped for him?
Blindly, he pressed on until the gravel under his shoes turned to smooth pavement. He couldn’t stop shivering from the cold. Nausea and dizziness overwhelmed him. He finally braced himself against a signpost and vomited. He remembered as a kid feeling better after he threw up. Not this time. He felt even worse.
Jason spotted a pair of headlights coming down the road. He staggered toward the yellow dividing line and started to wave his arms—even though the right one still hurt like hell. His head began to spin again. Before he knew what was happening, he collapsed on the pavement.
He looked up and saw the light getting brighter and brighter. He remembered what people who have had near-death experiences sometimes said about seeing a bright light.
He wasn’t sure if the car would stop—or if a car was even there at all.
Jason thought maybe he was already dying.
CHAPTER THREE
Monday, November 27—8:38 A.M.
Leavenworth, Washington
From the front porch, Laura Gretchell watched her neighbor’s SUV head off down the long driveway. Calling Patti Bellini her “neighbor” was kind of a stretch, because Patti lived a half mile away. But the addresses were spread far apart on this rural road, and the Bellinis were indeed on the next lot down.
Laura and her husband, Sean, lived on a vineyard /winery they’d bought four months ago with his inheritance. They’d named the wine brand after Sean’s late father: Gerard’s Cove. Until this past spring, the only thing Laura had known about managing a winery was what she’d picked up from Falcon Crest reruns.
Their three children seemed to have adjusted well to the move from Seattle. Sophie, sixteen, and Liam, twelve, had just caught the buses to their respective new schools about an hour ago. They’d inherited Laura’s brown hair and skinny frame. James, four, took after his father, with sandy-colored hair and a sturdy body. James was in preschool with Patti’s son, Leo. Laura and Patti took turns driving the boys back and forth.
Laura waved good-bye to James and then stepped back inside her three-story farmhouse. Built in the 1930s, the house looked like something from an Edward Hopper painting. With its brick fireplace and coved archways, the living room had that WPA-era feel. The dining room had a built-in hutch and the original art deco overhead light fixture. But the kitchen must have been updated about twenty years ago with black appliances, pale green marble countertops, and cherrywood cabinets. Laura thought it looked “ugly as sin,” as her grandmother used to say. Unfortunately, all those black appliances still worked without a glitch. So it would be a while before Laura could remodel. One good feature about their “nineties kitchen” was the open-concept layout that incorporated the eating area and the family room, which had a big-screen TV, a second fireplace, and a sliding glass door that looked out at the vineyard.
The landscape was kind of desolate right now, but that was normal this time of year in Central Washington. It was off-season. Their wine-tasting room, in a little Ralph-Lauren-type rustic cottage near the main road, was closed until February.
Laura was very much alone there.
Her husband had decided this was the perfect time for a research trip to some French and Italian wineries. Laura had wanted to go with him and have her mother come stay with the kids, but Sean had shot down the idea. He’d said the trip was all business: cheap hotels, a tight schedule, and lots of driving. He’d be gone two weeks.
Laura wasn’t quite convinced he was going to have a terrible time, driving around the French and Italian countryside, touring wineries, sampling wines—with bread and cheese, no doubt. Hell, it would have been like a second honeymoon for them. She really didn’t understand why she couldn’t have accompanied him. But she wasn’t about to beg him to take her. It put a slight strain on things before he left.
This was Sean’s first extended trip since they’d moved here. Laura was still not used to the house—especially now with him gone. He was usually home during the day—in his study up on the third floor—and in season, people worked in the vineyard all day. Now the place seemed deserted and scary. The closest police and fire stations were fifteen minutes away, near downtown Leavenworth. Sean had insisted on keeping a gun in their bedroom closet and a fire extinguisher on every floor.
As Laura locked the front door, it occurred to her that with Patti driving to town right now, there wasn’t another soul within a mile—except maybe the occasional car that sped by on Rural Route 17.
She headed into the family room, picked up the remote, and unmuted the television. The set had been on for about an hour now—the Today show.
Since the move, she’d become one of those people who walk into a room and automatically turn on the TV. She’d never been that way in Seattle. It wasn’t like she was any less busy now. She simply felt lonelier. The vineyard and the winery had been more Sean’s dream than hers. He’d been talking about it and setting money aside ever since she’d first met him twenty years ago. All that time, he’d been with Weyerhaeuser, toiling away at a marketing job he didn’t like very much. Now he was doing what he wanted.
Except for having to say good-bye to some close friends, moving here had proved no great sacrifice for her. In fact, she’d grown a bit tired of Seattle. It had become too crowded, and traffic was a nightmare. They’d lived near downtown on Capitol Hill, where everyone was plugged into their smartphones, ignoring each other, not looking where they were going or driving. A stroll down a crowded sidewalk wasn’t just lonely—it was frustratingly futuristic and even dangerous. Sean, who was pretty conservative, often complained about the aggressive panhandlers hitting him up for money outside the local supermarket and the smell of stinkweed on every corner. Laura was more liberal in her politics, but she had to admit she was pretty tired of it, too.
Maybe things were the same in most cities. Either way, as far as Laura was concerned, the idea of moving to a vineyard in Central Washington didn’t seem too bad.
She wasn’t totally cut off from civilization. Seattle was a scenic, three-hour drive away. Plus, the Bavarian-style village of Leavenworth was a popular vacation destination, full of cute hotels and resorts. A few of their friends had already been there to visit them.
The move didn’t put much of a crimp in Laura’s career either—if she could call it a “career.” She’d been a part-time substitute teacher in Seattle. She used to be a full-time teacher, and she’d loved it. But then something happened not too long after Sean and she had gotten married—and a couple of years before Sophie was born. “The Incident,” she and Sean called it.
It was one of those things that had been building and building. Her big problem student in the third grade had been Donald Clapp, a husky little jerk who was always disrupting the class and picking on this one poor undersized kid named Joey Spiers. Little Joey was an easy target. His clothes were always dirty, and he had some learning disabilities. He never fought back or complained or cried. Maybe Laura was a bit overprotective of Joey. But the sweet, sad boy seemed to have enough woes that he didn’t need Donald’s constant abuse. Laura had repeatedly sent Donald to the principal’s office and even had him suspended once.
Donald’s father maintained she was persecuting his son for absolutely no reason. Mr. Clapp proved to be an even bigger problem than his kid. He was a short, pale man with milky blue eyes, a thin mustache, and a macho swagger. It seemed like the scowl on his face was a permanent affliction. He showed up at the school one day and stood outside her classroom window, staring in at her like a gargoyle. After a couple of minutes, Laura called the principal, Tom Freeman, on her cell phone. The police eventually showed up and escorted Mr. Clapp off the property.
“The Incident” happened a week later—on a Tuesday morning. She’d sent Donald to Tom Freeman’s office yet again the previous day. On Tuesday morning, Laura was relieved to notice Donald was absent. She’d just finished taking attendance when Mr. Clapp
came charging into the classroom. Laura didn’t even see the switchblade in his hand. It all happened so fast, she barely remembered anything beyond the children in her class shrieking and crying. Clapp slashed at her face—three times. Tom Freeman had spotted Clapp earlier running down the school corridor and followed him into the classroom. Tom tackled him to the floor—before Clapp had gotten a fourth slash in.
At the hospital, Sean never left her side. At first, Laura thought Mr. Clapp had blinded her, because one of the cuts was just above her left eyebrow, and her eye had filled with blood. The doctors said it was a miracle no facial nerves or muscles were severed. She had several plastic surgery operations. The scars were hard to miss for the first year. Every time Laura looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn’t help thinking of the creep who had done this to her. She felt like a walking billboard of his handiwork. It was as if she would be stuck having Mr. Clapp in her life forever.
Clapp got ten years for assault. But during his fourth year in prison, he died of cancer. Laura never found out what happened to Donald. And she lost track of Joey as well.
Even with Sean’s support and several months on a psychiatrist’s couch, Laura had a tough time walking into a classroom again. After a while, she managed okay, but couldn’t make herself teach full-time. She was reluctant to become too involved or familiar with any of the kids. It felt safer to be a substitute. She could come in, do her job, and leave.
The scars weren’t so noticeable now. Sometimes if she didn’t get enough sleep or she was extra stressed about something, the mark on her forehead and the two long lines on her left cheek seemed more prominent. But she was almost used to them. In fact, in the last few years, it always surprised her when she caught someone staring. It didn’t really bother her much.
She was still a bit wary of strangers. And sometimes, small confrontations made her sick to her stomach—like whenever someone snuck in front of her in line at the supermarket checkout. Standing up for herself, Laura was always worried some stranger would go crazy on her. That was another reason why she hadn’t minded moving away from the big city.
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