by J. Thorn
"So am I."
"Oh fuck you," Kara said, and this time he knew she was going to hit him. But he didn't move, and the strike didn't come. Inside she turned, cursed under her breath and walked a few steps, then turned.
"This is typical you."
He shrugged. "I don't know what to say to that."
"Say nothing. Go home. Check yourself into a mental hospital. Do something other than this."
"I can't."
She stepped close again, the fury making her face ugly. "No, you can't, can you, and the last thing you'd ever consider would be getting help. It's far easier for you to fuck up everybody else's lives."
Finch folded his arms. "Look, I'm sorry. I told you I wasn't letting this go. I tried to talk some sense into Claire but—"
"Talk sense into Claire?" Kara raged. "How could that happen when you don't have any sense yourself? Think your age and experience makes you wiser? Sorry, Finch, but you're still a kid, a goddamn brat with a temper and everybody has to pay for it but you. Finch the Almighty versus the World."
That annoyed him, and this time she couldn't hang up on him before he got to defend himself. "Hey, I've already paid for it, all right?" he countered. "I lost my brother. You got Claire back, so don't tell me what I should or shouldn't do, or what's wrong with the way that I feel because you haven't a fucking clue."
She smiled bitterly. "Danny. I know you loved him, Finch, but if it weren't Danny, it would be some other cause. Someone or something needs to be destroyed because God forbid you should look in instead of out for a change. Well," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Do what you have to do, I guess. But sooner or later you're going to run out of mirrors to shoot at. Then what will you do?"
"Wow...watching Oprah again, are we?"
She shook her head. "I don't know who you are, Finch. Not sure I ever did. But I recognize this part of you, and I should. It's why I left you. That was something else you destroyed."
"This isn't about me, Kara."
"Really? You sure about that?"
"Yeah."
She nodded slowly, a grim smile on her lips. "I'm sure you believe it too." She stepped past him, headed for her car. "Stay the hell away from Claire," she said without looking back. "Or I'll call the cops. And don't think I won't if it means protecting her from you."
He opened his mouth to reply, but the glare she threw him before getting into the car dissuaded him, leaving him standing alone on the street. Only then did he find his voice.
"I'm not the bad guy," he said, and wondered who he was trying to convince.
After a moment, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Beau's number. "Hey," he said, when Beau answered. "We're leaving."
"Now?"
"Now."
"Why?"
"I just spoke to Kara."
"And?"
"And I don't trust her not to put the kibosh on this whole gig just to piss me off."
"Savin' your life would piss you off?"
"You going to be ready to go, or what?"
"Give me an hour, okay? I'm standin' here with my uncle Leroy. Negotiatin' the acquisition of the tools we'll need."
"Remember, John Kaplan's footing the bill so don't feel obliged to be frugal."
"Got it."
"I'll pick you up at your place in an hour."
-29-
They were in the park.
Pete didn't know what had gone wrong, or when, but the world in which he moved now was not one he recognized, or liked very much. It seemed everyone he loved had died, or was hurt, or walking through the same nightmare as he was, as if mere contact with him was enough to drag them into the dark. He didn't want that for Louise, but it was already too late. In the time it had taken her to take care of her "private matter" at the pawnshop, it seemed she'd grown older. She looked sick, tired and old, and he knew it was his fault.
"You drive real good," she said now, easing herself down onto the park bench beside him. "I've seen it, I know. Sometimes I think your daddy taught you to drive before he taught you to walk."
The mention of his father pained him, and it seemed from her feeble smile that it pained her too. Pete wished she wouldn't mention his Pa. He wished she wouldn't mention anything but getting to the girl, so he could be sure what was coming next. So there was a set plan. Because something about her now didn't sit right with him. It made him uneasy, because he couldn't tell what it was. Had she called the police on him, or changed her mind about taking him to see the girl? She must have. Why else would she be talking about him driving?
"You can get yourself a car," she said. "In that lot over there. I know the guy runs it. But I wanted to talk to you first."
"What's to talk about?" he asked. "We should just go before the police find us. If they do, I ain't never gettin' to the girl, and those folks who hurt my Pa'll get away."
"I know that," she said, and winced as she took her hands in his. Light snow drifted down around them. She was shaking from the cold. Pete drew close, hoping the heat would be enough to warm them both. The park was empty but for the bare snow-laden branches of oak trees and narrow concrete paths rimed with frost.
He looked down at her fingers, her clothes. "You're bleedin'."
"No," she said. "It's not my blood."
"What did you do?"
"There's no time. You're gonna have to go soon," Louise told him. "It isn't safe around here anymore."
"You're comin' too," he reminded her, the fear already seizing his heart. He could tell by the look on her weary face what she was saying, but refused to believe it until the words took away the choice.
"No, I'm not."
"Why?"
"All you need to know is that I love you, and I would go with you if I could, but I can't. It's too late. Too much has happened, and I need to go where the road is takin' me. Unfortunately, it ain't the same road as yours."
"How do you know?"
"I just do. Trust me on this, okay? Have I ever lied to you?"
He shook his head.
"Okay. Then please just do this for me. I'll catch up with you in a few days time if I can. And here," she said, withdrawing Red's gun from her pocket. "Take this. You might need it, but I sure hope you don't. Hasn't exactly brought us much luck, has it?"
He did as she requested, though the weight of the gun felt ugly and unnatural.
Sirens pierced the chill, icy air and she flinched, looked around. Quickly, she turned back to face him, her eyes wide and imploring. "Here," she said, digging into her coat pocket. Into his hand she stuffed a large wad of bills. Pete had never seen so much money in his life. "Take this, and get yourself a ride. Guy's name is Mike. He was a regular of mine when I worked in the Overrail. Tell him Louise sent you. Tell him your story. He'll believe you. You got an honest face. People like him...they recognize honesty, seein' as how they got so little of it themselves." She gave him a weak grin, and shivered.
Panicked, Pete grabbed her coat. "You left me before, 'member? Please...don't do it again. Come with me. I can't do this by myself. S'why I came to find you."
She hugged him lightly and stroked his hair. "We're outta time, Pete."
The sirens increased in volume, and over her shoulder Pete saw a cruiser swing into view at the far end of the street, lights flashing. "They're comin'." He felt Louise nod, then she pushed him away.
"Hurry, now, but don't run. You don't want to draw them on you, okay?"
"They'll follow me."
"No. They won't. The only two people around here who've seen you with me are dead. You won't be involved."
"Why can't you come with me? I don't understand."
"Because I didn't do things right. I never have, and like always, I gotta face the music now."
"No, you don't. Come with me. We can—"
"If I go, they'll come after me and dog me for the rest of my days. I don't want that, for either of us. If I stay, they won't bother with you. There'll be no reason to."
Tears in h
is eyes, "Please come..." he said, one last time, but knew it would change nothing. The pain in her eyes hadn't been there the first time she'd left him. It was there now and he knew it was because this time it was for good. He would never see her again, and the thought almost crippled him. But the police car was close enough now that he could hear its tires sizzling through the slush, so he bent low, kissed her, and without another word, crossed the street. As he walked, he looked down at his fingers, at the smudges of blood on the tips. It reminded him of the night they'd found Claire. He had held his hands out to the rain to cleanse them, and afterward it had made him feel bad, as if he'd washed a part of her away. Though it was snowing now and he could simply reach down into the slush to clean them, he closed his hands instead. This blood he wanted to keep for as long as he could because although Louise had said she'd never lied to him, he knew now in his heart that she had, just this once, and only to protect him from the hurt.
It's not my blood.
As he started to turn the corner into the car lot, he cast a final glance back at her, and saw that she was rocking slightly.
In his head, he heard her singing him to sleep.
*
Despite what she had told the boy, Louise did not believe she had ever found her road. She had only found the end of the one she had stumbled blindly along her whole life. The wrong one. It saddened her to think of so many squandered chances and wasted possibilities. She could have been something, had always known she was meant to be something and had tried her damndest to show the world what she was made of. But in the end, she realized she would not be spoken of in the same breath as Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, or Joyce Brant, because none of them had been thieves and murderers. Her singing voice would not be remembered, only the violence, the death, and her frantic attempts to set a boy on the road that might turn out to be his own eventual end, simply because he'd asked her to. It was all he wanted and she had agreed, partly out of guilt, and partly because she'd wanted him to follow his goal to its finish, no matter how misguided a goal it might prove to be.
She began to hum, a sweet melancholy tune that had been with her since her mother had sung it to her as a child. The name seemed so important now, but the fog in her mind obscured it. As her vision grew dim, she raised her head, and wondered if the snow had grown heavier, or if her time was almost at an end. The cold was gradually giving way to warmth, and that at least was good. It allowed her to be calm and focused in whatever time she had left.
She heard the squeak of brakes and the whoop-whoop stutter of the siren as the police car pulled up alongside her. More wails rose in the streets and alleys, a thousand echoes like dogs howling at night. Doors cracked open. Holsters were unclipped, guns drawn. She did not acknowledge those sounds, or the voices that barked at her, filling her ears with commands. She was dying, and had no use for them.
"Ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to stand, real slow."
Louise smiled, and opened her coat.
Momentary silence, then someone said: "Get the medic. Now."
She shook her head. Too late.
Steam rose from the slash in her stomach where the pawnbroker had dug his boxcutter into her. The sudden shock of it had made her muscles tense, including the one in her trigger finger, and she'd left Rag with a bullet in his shoulder. The pain had made even the simplest of tasks seem monumentally difficult, and she feared grabbing fistfuls of money and padding the wound would deny her the time she needed to get back to Pete and set him on his way. She should have died quickly—the wound would not stop bleeding—but she'd refused. She had left the boy once before. She would not do it again. Not until she'd seen him off.
It seemed only right.
She laughed at that, but it was short and made her double over with pain. Nothing in her life had been right, and it had culminated in the sheer wrongness of the past few hours. She had killed two men, and lost the one she'd been betting on to free her. And her son, a boy who was not her blood, but shared her heart, she had sent away, to fight for all that remained.
"There's a gun in her pocket," a man said gruffly.
Arms grabbed her, stopping her from sliding to the frozen ground as her heels failed to find purchase on the slick concrete. But still the mirth leaked out in airless chuckles, trailing from her in clouds that swept around the hard faces of the men, diffusing them, making them unreal.
"Take it easy. She's hurt bad."
Maybe, she thought, this was my road. Maybe it was all I was supposed to do. Ain't that a kick in the head?
She didn't know, and was too tired to think about it any longer.
"Can you stand, Ma'am?"
Tired of trying to keep myself together.
All that was left were the colors.
The gray.
Tired of trying to hold myself in.
The white.
"She's passing out."
The red.
Then nothing.
PART THREE
-30-
Elkwood, Alabama
October 2nd, 2004
"Sheriff McKindrey?"
McKindrey jumped, and put a hand to his chest, though the only thing he was likely to suffer today was heartburn after the burritos and refried beans he'd put away not an hour before. Still, the jolt had been enough to remind him that three beers combined with the soft chuckling of the water in the creek had made him drowsy, and persuaded him there was no need to be on his guard. Hell, even if a catfish nibbled on the bait currently floating around out there on the end of his line, he wasn't going to be fussed, and the slight chill to the breeze hadn't been enough to penetrate his languor. To him, the act of fishing was simply that: an act. The peace and quiet, the ambience, and of course, the beer, were the real draw. He was seldom bothered by anyone down here, but just as he'd been about to doze off and let the folding chair accept his weight, he'd heard feet crunching upon the dry earth of the bank, and then the voice.
He scratched his head and wondered how it was that a Podunk next-to-dead town like Elkwood always managed to have something somewhere that needed attending to, usually when he was in no mood to do anything other than get drunk.
Annoyed, he sat up in the chair, felt it wobble beneath him and stamped his feet down on the grass to stabilize himself. It wouldn't do to end up flat on his ass in front of someone who might have urgent business. He craned his neck around and squinted at his visitor.
Quickly, he rose.
"Yes?"
Strangers meant trouble. In all his time in Elkwood, he had yet to see one that wasn't. Even if they themselves weren't the source of it, it wasn't long finding them. And when that happened, McKindrey ended up with stress headaches and high blood pressure, which frequently left him short of breath and sweating like a hog in a heat wave, though Doc Wellman had liked to pin those symptoms on his excess weight. Whatever the culprit, he grew sensitive to sound and his bowels got a mind of their own whenever he found himself forced to weather the scrutiny and interminable questions from severe looking troopers, investigators and officials, all of whom looked at him like he was some dumb yokel who liked to sit around all day chewing chaw and diddling his sister. True, he supposed he wasn't as well-educated as some of the suits who showed up to throw names like Quantico at him—which McKindrey thought sounded like a college for grease monkeys—but nor was he a fool. He'd had his share of learning, and abided by the belief that most of what he'd kept and valued in the way of education he'd come by out in the world, not sitting in a snug chair listening to some professor waffling on about numbers and theories. But he never said as much to the stern-faced men with their square, clean-shaven jaws, funeral suits, and slick-backed hair. They thought him a buffoon and that suited him just fine. Better that than to have them suspect he knew more than he was telling.
The man standing on the bank appraising him did not look like any official he'd ever seen, and he wanted to believe that was a good thing. But the expression on the guy's face told him that might be a p
remature assumption.
"Catch anythin'?" the black man asked. He was tall—very tall; the Sheriff put him at about six-six—and well built. His head was shaved bare, and he wore sunglasses that reflected McKindrey's perplexed face back at him. He was dressed in blue jeans, a black belt with a silver buckle, and a white shirt, open at the collar. He was smiling, but it didn't put McKindrey at ease.
"Nothin' I want," McKindrey said flatly. "Help you with somethin'?" While he waited for an answer, he mentally reviewed the proximity of his weapon, which he'd taken to removing before he sat down so the weight of it didn't make the holster chafe his thigh.
"I hope so."
"How'd you find me?"
"Lady at your office said you'd be down here." He grinned. "She sure was nice. Pretty too."
McKindrey made a note to reprimand Stella as soon as he got back, assuming the man wasn't here to rob or kill him, in which case he wouldn't be getting back at all, at least not in one piece. That Stella was his wife didn't make a lick of difference. If anything it meant she should be even more cautious about who she sent after him.
Making his impatience clear, he said: "So, what is it you need?"
"Answers."
"'Bout what?"
"About a family that lived around here up until a few months back."
McKindrey remembered where he'd left the gun, and now that he knew what the black man wanted, it suddenly became very important that he retrieve it. He could see it resting on the ground next to his cooler twelve feet or so away, its barrel on the rim of his hat, the handle in the grass.
"Which family would that be?" he asked.
"I think we both know the answer to that," the man told him. "What you might not know is what's goin' to happen to your cracker ass if you try to pick up that gun over there."