Grace wouldn’t meet his look.
“We’re going!” JJ, afraid but excited.
“JJ’s my girl. I don’t leave without her,” Grace said, still not meeting his eyes.
She’s embarrassed, Mick thought, by her quick change of mind.
“Hammond called Gary looking for me,” Grace explained. “Not my boss about why I was sick. Hammond. Like all of a sudden he wants to keep track of me?” She shook her head. “Let’s get moving.”
Suddenly Mick wanted to reason. To figure things out. To have a plan. To be a man. To be in charge. He wanted this action to make sense, to fit into other things. School. Football. His dad. The Stovalls. His thing with Grace. He wanted to know what the bloody hell he was doing. But he couldn’t make it compute. Couldn’t come up with anything to say.
Autopilot. Mick stuffed an empty grocery sack with another shirt and underwear, grabbed his folding money, threw all their stuff in the Bonneville, and they eased out of the alley, turning right on the highway, heading away from the main part of town.
JJ kept watch out the rear window. After a moment said, “We’re clear.”
Mick set the cruise control on the speed limit, recalling the many times he’d fled. Heart racing, mind spinning, eyes locked on the road. One difference. No Dad.
Mick had said he’d never do this again. Portage would be different. The place he settled. A while ago he’d seen a movie about a gunfighter. The man had wanted to start over, start living a peaceful life, but trouble kept finding him. He got killed before he could change.
39
GRACE KNEW SHE WAS OUT OF CONTROL, hyper. It was nerve-racking, watching out for the next attack. JJ had upped the tension running home this morning after seeing Tim Cassel waiting at her work. And Mick’s visit from the sheriff felt like a noose tightening. She might be questioned as a suspect … could they match her description to the California runaway report? She didn’t think so but she didn’t know. And Hammond’s call to the trailer? Like all of a sudden he needed to know right where she was and what she was doing. Why? So he could get rid of her quickly if he needed to?
Her thoughts were all over the place. Run? Stay? She was purely scared for the second time in her life. She seldom let herself remember that first night when her two brothers came into her room and held her down. She’d been so terrified she couldn’t even breathe. After a couple of months that fear boiled into hate. But this? Killing Ev? What if it was someone she knew? And what if she was next? She’d never pictured her own death before. Scream! Run! All she could imagine.
So she ran. Told Mick she was backing her girl, JJ, but, no, it was fear and instinct. Grace didn’t feel safe. She wanted some distance from the mess so she could figure her next move.
Hammond or one of his bunch could have eliminated Evelyn to send a message: Compete with us and you’re history. Or maybe Evelyn learned something from one of her customers and Hammond had her disappeared because she knew something that threatened him. Was that what happened to Ramona? If Hammond thought Grace knew too much after finding the body, would he come after her as soon as the dust settled? Did he kill people himself or give the job to someone like Larry?
But what if those guys had nothing to do with it? What if Ev was killed by a customer? What if Ev tried to make more money by squeezing a local guy who was married? Money for the sex, then more money for silence? Evelyn might have tried that. Or, what if the guy was a tourist or a trucker just passing through and this was just a random one-time thing? Then Grace’s running would make it seem like she actually knew something important when she didn’t.
The bottom line? She needed Mick to get her out of town. She didn’t need him or JJ in her business.
40
ROAD TRIP. They went east to Plains and made a right on the small two-lane toward St. Regis and the 90 freeway. From there they could go east to Missoula and beyond, or west to Idaho. Driving calmed Mick, focused him, and little by little, his brain came back. He’d left his checks under his mattress. Brilliant. Drove off with forty bucks. Like that would buy them gas, food, or a motel.
Gas? Mick looked at the gauge. Half full. He remembered his dad saying it worked but the damn thing was always optimistic. Okay, twenty-gallon tank, so seven or eight gallons left. Fourteen miles a gallon on the highway. A hundred, a hundred and ten miles. Ten bucks for food, the rest for gas. Another hundred miles. They would be somewhere within two hundred fifty miles of Portage before they stalled.
Grace was up front with him.
“Look for a map,” he told her.
She rummaged through the glove compartment. Tire gauge, a ballpoint, shop rag, tattered receipts. She finally found an old one under her seat. Held it up.
“We need to get away from Sanders and Lincoln counties, out of state if we can.” Mick talked loud enough for JJ to hear in back. “The bigger the town, the easier we disappear.” Mick realized his dad had rubbed off on him a little more than he’d thought. Mick seemed to be better at running from the law than he was at most schoolwork.
“You got any money?” he asked Grace.
She shook her head. Mick didn’t believe her. She made some kind of wage at the restaurant, plus her tips. She could be sending her money somewhere, to a sister or mother, but he didn’t think so. He couldn’t picture her with a bank account, never seen her use a card or anything like it. Come to think of it, Mick’d never seen her pay for anything, period. So he bet she had a stash and she was carrying it. He glanced at her purse. She caught him looking and used her heels to push the purse farther under the car seat. Point made. Whatever she had, she wasn’t going to share it.
He glanced at her face. Grace looked like she was in pain. She’d begun hitting her legs with her fists again, grimacing. Mick thought he knew what she was feeling. She wished she’d ditched them, hitched a ride and gone away on her own. Then she wouldn’t be stuck messing with him and JJ and having to deal with what they needed or wanted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mick saw JJ reach up and touch Grace’s forehead like she was checking for a fever. She kept her hand there and Grace quieted. After a minute or so, Grace covered JJ’s hand with her own and a bit later JJ withdrew and sat back.
Grace took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, and handed JJ the map.
Mick heard the paper rustling as JJ unfolded the thing and studied it.
“Are you still mad at me?” Mick asked Grace. He didn’t think he deserved it.
Grace looked at him and then out her window at the mountains, rugged and wooded to the west of the highway.
Mick gave up and tried JJ. “What about it?” he asked, watching her in the rearview mirror. “We got to make an east-west decision at St. Regis. Maybe fifteen minutes or so.”
“West,” JJ said.
“Forget about it,” Grace said. “It’s not you…”
Grace went on talking, seemed like more to herself than to them, voice sounding flat, distracted. “I called in sick because I didn’t want to hear about the dead girl all day at work. A few minutes later, Hammond phones like he needs to find out what I know. He’s never called me at home before. Jon must have spread the whole story, us on the river.”
She hooked her thumb back at JJ. “Eight o’clock this morning. Tim’s Mustang at the recycling center. Him standing out front, waiting. Just luck my girl saw him first.”
Mick nodded. Okay, seemed like running was the right option before anybody got hurt. Had Scott Cassel noticed they were gone? Had he put out a bulletin? Guess they’d find out soon enough.
Still looking out the window, Grace went on. “I’m … not mad.” She distracted herself scratching her knee. Gave up, took a breath. “I’m sick of guys!”
Mick kept his eyes on the road ahead. Kept his mouth shut and tried to ease his grip on the steering wheel. He could feel JJ’s attention behind him.
Grace made a rattling sound. Mick couldn’t tell if she was growling or clearing her throat.
“You’re never s
afe,” Grace said, shaking her head. “Some hard-on wants to do you and then he kills you or you kill him and you run. What kind of life is that?”
Mick didn’t think she was looking for an answer. JJ didn’t reach over to soothe her.
“It never stops. You never get free. Go swimming? There’s a girl’s body…” Grace seemed to run out of energy, leaned her head against her window, put her hand to her mouth, covered it as if that would make her thoughts go away.
* * *
Two hours later Mick exited the freeway at Wallace, Idaho, breathing easier since they’d crossed the state line. At a busy service station, JJ bought gas and snacks with Mick’s money. He and Grace thought JJ might be harder for clerks to remember with her hair up under the ball cap she’d found on the back floor.
Afterward, they took streets that skirted the edge of town where it abutted the mountains and drove north on a dirt road along a creek until they saw ruts leading toward a shady spot to pull off out of sight. JJ and Grace went to a flat clearing between the creek and the car, used their jackets for pillows and slept. Mick continued to sit behind the steering wheel, listening to the engine slowly cool. Threats behind him, he considered what he was about to do. Give up the dream he’d had for years. Act like his dad.
Mick had found a town he liked, made a good friend, got a job. Even the football was going to happen. But he was going to trash all that and run. Why? He didn’t like what he was thinking. Because he liked Grace and he wanted to save her? From what exactly? He couldn’t actually say. Never mind what. He wanted to save her so she’d like him enough to be his girl. How feeble was that? She’d had plenty of chances to like him. But she didn’t. Not in the way he was hoping. She was hard as metal, always several steps ahead of him, did what she wanted, kept her own counsel. Truth, he probably couldn’t save her from anything. And there was nothing he could do to make her like him. She would or she wouldn’t, not the type to swoon with gratitude. He banged his head on the steering wheel as if that could knock out the stupid notions.
What about JJ? Mick needed to understand the backdrop for Evelyn’s killing. Who did what with whom and how were they connected? Would JJ know that? Some of it. She’d recognized Cassel’s girlfriend. In spite of her spaciness, she picked up on things. And Mick? He had one advantage. He knew how to think like a crook.
So why was Evelyn Edmonds’s car down on Highway 200 when her body was in a river fifteen miles away?
41
GRACE GAVE HER SPEECH about Hammond being after her. Thought she’d toss Mick and JJ a bone to knock them off the scent of her money. She needed every bit of it. The more scared they thought she was, the more slack they’d give her. But she’d gotten a little close to the truth with that stuff about men. So close she felt her stomach roll.
The confusion, the frustration she’d been feeling was real, but the farther they got from Portage, the more she worried she’d screwed up big-time. She shouldn’t have run. Should have talked to Hammond when he called. Fed him a story. Said she was there when Jon found the body but of course she didn’t report the death because she was afraid she’d lose her job and her placement.
Hammond would believe her, trust her, if she gave him time to cool down. He’d realize she’d just been afraid and he’d want her close by to find out if she knew more than she was telling about Ev. If he and his guys thought she’d run because she knew something damaging … now that was scary.
So if Hammond thought she was safe, he wouldn’t bother her, but Mr. Highway Patrol or the sheriff? Not so sure. Would one of them pick her up for questioning? What Grace didn’t want was either one going national on her. Putting a search on the runaway database. She’d kill herself before she’d go back to San Rafael. The courier envelopes and her referrals, sending truckers and tourists to Hammond’s gambling houses, brought in twenty a pop. Three hundred for the sex sting. In a few more months she would have had five thousand saved. She could’ve moved on then if she needed to, eighteen or not.
In the last few weeks she’d been seeing Larry Cassel more often than anyone else. Publicly, in the restaurant, she ignored him. People talk. But he found lots of ways to run into her from time to time, offering a cold beer or a tiny bottle of liquor on her way home from work. Earrings. Little treats. The out-there casino trips. He was sort of intriguing, sort of attractive, and he had mega-power. She’d probably call him when they got wherever they were going. Maybe he could smooth things over with Hammond.
So running was probably a mistake and now she had to deal with it, needed to recalculate. Maybe she better go all the way. Go to another city. Set up shop. Use what she’d learned from Ev and Hammond. Pick up where Ev left off but be more careful.
Her neck and shoulders ached. Was she overlooking something? Probably just paranoid.
42
MICK FOUND THE GIRLS several yards away wading in the creek. “Hey,” he yelled over the noise of the water. “This won’t work. We have to talk.”
They dipped hands in the stream, rubbed their faces, and came back to the clearing to dry.
“… think we know something,” JJ was saying as she sat, nodding to her side to include Mick.
“Hammond’s call just freaked me,” Grace said. “Like he thought I was involved.”
“Like what?” Mick asked. “What do we know?” Mick could easily imagine Grace holding things back.
“What about this?” JJ took the jewel from her pocket and showed them.
Mick didn’t know what it was, but Grace seemed hypnotized by it.
“I found it at the river. When I went for a walk. It was near the ban—”
“Did you show that to anybody?” Grace’s voice was shrill.
“No. I meant to tell you before but—”
“It’s Hammond’s. His ring,” Grace said, closing her eyes, picturing. “Or Mackler’s? Or Larry? I think he had one like it.”
Mick put it together. “Hammond, where we found the body?”
“Upriver where I walked…” JJ said.
“You didn’t tell us?” Mick, disbelieving, then angry.
“I didn’t know what it was,” JJ, her own voice rising. “I’d never seen … there were, uh, it looked like somebody, looked like a spot where somebody put a boat in the water. It could have—”
Grace’s cursing cut her off. The girl stood, turned around a couple of times like she was looking for a way out, seemed to give up and sat again. Put her head in her hands.
JJ kept talking, defending her reasoning. “I was going to ask Gary but everything happened so fast I never got a chance. And this morning … it never seemed like the right time. It’s just been in my pocket.”
Mick cut his eyes toward JJ. Saw the pain on her face. Kept from saying he thought she was a dunce.
JJ shook her head and looked up at the sky as if a ghost moon might be out there to help her.
Mick was trying to digest what this ring meant. He’d never seen one before. Who had that kind of ring? Several people, or just Hammond? “This is what I mean,” he said. “Running’s going to make things worse. We need to figure out who did it, get ourselves off the hook.”
Neither Grace nor JJ looked at him.
“I screwed up,” JJ said, “but we never really talked about this till today.”
Grace shrugged. Mick nodded. It was true. Jon telling other people about finding the body had started a gas fire.
Mick tried again. “We could start simple. We tell Hammond we have this jewel from his ring that puts him at the murder and we tell him to leave us alone. Like a standoff.” Mick glanced at Grace to see her frowning. Went on. “I go to the sheriff and tell him I’m innocent and let him fingerprint, make a recording, whatever. Doesn’t matter because I didn’t do it. I never even saw the girl until we found her.”
“You wouldn’t tell him about the ring part?” JJ asked.
“The sheriff? Paint? No. We hide that … No, we put it in an envelope and give it … to Dovey. Like for insurance. She’d
keep it and we’d tell her if anything happens to us, give the envelope to Paint.”
“You guys have no idea how much is going on,” Grace said, disdainful. “Hammond and Bolton? The banker Greer? Mackler at Social Services? There’s big money. Lots of deals. Larry Cassel, too. If they’re messed up with Evelyn at all and they know one of us has major evidence? They’ll get it from us, one way or another.”
“No way, the sheriff—”
Grace interrupted him. “The sheriff? Dovey? They’re fossils. They’re a joke.”
“What deals?” Mick asked.
“Hammond’s a county supervisor?” Grace, tone of voice like teaching a dull pupil.
“Yeah.” Mick was guessing. He didn’t know anything about a supervisor or that Hammond was one.
“That’s how he found out there was going to be new construction on the dam and bought all that property so he could fleece the Army Corps when they had to buy that same land for the staging area.”
Mick looked at JJ. He could see that she didn’t know what Grace was talking about either.
“Hammond and the banker are partners in the card rooms. Have private gambling in Belknap and Plains. Make all kinds of under-the-table money. Sports bets, loans, you name it. Maybe girls, too. Evelyn’s small-time tricking might have been cutting into their business. Hammond got Larry hired as building inspector so he could rake money from construction. They all get kickbacks from local businesses … insurance or something. Patrol guy probably hassles people that get in their way. They got me to—”
Mick interrupted to slow her down. “Evelyn … the girl we found was a prostitute? I thought she worked at the café.” He turned to JJ. “Er, how…? Uh, did you know about any of this?”
JJ shook her head.
Mick, back to Grace, “How do you know this stuff?” He wasn’t sure these weren’t just wild accusations.
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