You Can't Escape (9781420134650)

by Bush, Nancy

  She aided him from the passenger seat and could see how much his helplessness bothered him. “Stop fighting me,” she had to tell him as they hitched their way toward the woodshed door and then moved slowly along the planks that had been laid down on dirt, a makeshift walkway to the back door. Chunks of firewood were stacked to the ceiling on both sides and the only illumination was from the series of pane-less windows that ran along the southern exposure. Now there was only darkness beyond so Jordanna used her free hand to hold her cell phone, its flashlight app on.

  “Woodstove,” she explained as they neared the door to the house.

  “I did a story in Rock Springs once,” he mused, though his voice was tense from the effort of walking. “Animal cruelty.”

  “Mr. Purdy’s horses,” Jordanna said.

  “That’s right. He was a hoarder. More stupidity than out-and-out cruelty. He didn’t realize he was starving them.”

  “You defending him?” she questioned as she shoved her shoulder against the sticking door. She didn’t have keys, but unless her father had changed things, this door only needed an extra hard push for entry.

  “Of course not,” he said as the door gave. “It was a criminal act and it was lucky the horses were found when they were. But hoarding’s a mental disease. Used to be categorized with obsessive/compulsive disorder, but it’s a whole ’nother thing.”

  “You researched it,” she said.

  “That’s what I do.”

  It was cold in the kitchen, and when she hit the switch nothing happened. “No electricity. Goddamn you, Dayton,” she muttered.

  “Who’s Dayton?”

  Jordanna didn’t answer as she helped him to the couch. He sank down with a sigh and immediately closed his eyes and laid his head back.

  “I’m going to unload the car.”

  He didn’t say anything as she returned to the car and started making the trips through the woodshed to the house and back again. She’d changed back into her Nikes when she’d replaced the plates, and now she yanked out her suitcase, trudged upstairs to her old bedroom, then switched into jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt and a light jacket, her arms breaking into gooseflesh at the drop in temperature as night descended. Dressed again, she hauled the rest of the boxes of her belongings inside, making a half dozen trips back to the car, feeling her arms quiver from weariness. No surprise there. She was on an emotional roller coaster herself. The fear and thrill of sneaking through his house and helping him to her car—she’d left the wheelchair in the parking lot—and then sliding the RAV behind the empty building, putting on her plates again, and driving to Rock Springs, all the while keeping one anxious eye on Jay Danziger, was taking its toll.

  She’d purposely taken a circuitous route, heading into the heart of Portland and around the city before turning further east and finally south toward Rock Springs. Danziger had roused himself about halfway through the journey and looked out at the countryside as they clipped along the two-lane highway that led to the town, the landscape growing more rural by the minute. They weren’t all that far from Portland in distance, but it was a world away in almost every other respect.

  “Where are we going?” he’d asked.

  “Home,” she’d answered after a moment, and though she felt his eyes on her, she hadn’t turned to look at him.

  “Where is that?”

  “Rock Springs.”

  “It’s a pretty small town, right? What’s the population?”

  Jordanna had had no interest in talking about herself and answered with, “How come your wife hasn’t contacted you? Whatever shape your marriage is in, you were hospitalized.”

  “Why don’t you want to talk about Rock Springs?”

  “Because I want to talk about the Saldanos, and the bombing.”

  “Because you want a story.”

  Jordanna had really, really wanted to deny it, but he wasn’t an idiot and, well, there was truth in that. “Maybe. But I think you’re in danger, and so do you or you wouldn’t be here, so let’s lay our cards on the table.”

  “There’s nothing to say I haven’t already said. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “And the Saldanos are angels. All suspicion against them is a load of bull, corporate envy, blah, blah, blah.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “If you’re having second thoughts, we can go back.”

  “You know I can’t go back.”

  “Do I? Tell me, how would I know that?”

  “You’re the one who came to the hospital wild-eyed and trembling.”

  “I wasn’t trembling,” she protested.

  “Yeah, you were.”

  “I was scared for you. I was there,” she admitted. “Across the street. I saw the explosion.” He’d stared at her then, a kind of reassessing that made her want to shrink inside her skin. “I was doing my own research on the Saldanos, and that included you. Sorry. It did. And after the explosion, I was scared out of my mind, running on gut emotion. I wanted to see you, make sure you were okay. So, I dressed up like Carmen. I’d seen her take off in the town car with bags. Figured she was on a trip and I had a window of opportunity. But I wanted to make sure you were safe because something’s rotten in Laurelton and it has to do with the Saldanos. You know it, and that’s why we’re here together now.”

  Her impassioned speech sent him back into silence. After a few moments Jordanna said, “Tell me more about this arrangement you have with your wife. I don’t get it.”

  He hesitated so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he finally said, “Carmen brought me divorce papers about three months ago and I signed them, but she wanted me to stay on the premises with her for a while, until she was ready to come forward, tell her family and friends. I said okay. I was working on a story and I didn’t much care. Neither one of us really wanted to tell Max and Victor. I told her she could be the lead dog on that. Before she left for Europe, she said she was going to take care of things when she got back.”

  “You think there’s any chance she doesn’t know about the bombing?”

  “She might know, but it’s more likely that if she’s heard I’m alive and recovering, there’s no need for her to come back. She asked me to sign the papers. She wants it over, too. She said she was living with a ghost, that I wasn’t there for her, and that’s not something you do to Carmen Saldano.”

  “Why did you marry her?”

  “She was sexy and attractive and she was Max’s sister. We were together a lot. It seemed like the right fit.” He gave her a look and said, “I see you think that’s not enough. I’m guessing you’re single.”

  “People get married for a lot of reasons,” she’d answered with asperity.

  “Well, those are mine.”

  “So, you don’t think we’ll have to worry about her?”

  “Max is the one I have to worry about. He’s the one who’ll wonder where I am.”

  “If that bomb was meant for you—”

  “I’m not going to contact him. I’m off the grid. In your hands. I just need some time to put things back together in my mind.” He’d then closed his eyes, making it clear the conversation was over, or at least that’s what Jordanna had thought, but after another ten miles he’d asked, “How long were you watching the Saldanos?”

  She’d thought about all the days and nights she’d kept tabs on Danziger’s whereabouts, how she’d dogged him, her idol, as she’d written her fluff pieces and dreamed of being a true investigative reporter. And a lot of that time had been because she wanted to be the one to break the story on the Saldanos. “A while.”

  “That’s specific.”

  “Long enough to know that you started out investigating them, but then you got sucked in.”

  He shifted in the seat. “Sucked in?”

  “Did you just start turning a blind eye to their corruption?”

  “They’re not corrupt.”

  “You’re the only one who seems to think that, and you damn near got yo
urself blown to kingdom come because of it.”

  “If they wanted me out of the way, they wouldn’t bomb their own building.”

  “It’s exactly what they would do. They’ve got more money than God, so they can afford to blow some stuff up when they need to misdirect the investigators.”

  “They didn’t do this,” he’d insisted.

  “They’re all guilty as hell,” she’d responded recklessly. “I’ve tracked them . . . and you . . . and whatever they’re selling, it’s not just benign import/export items. You were investigating them before you married into the family. What happened? Did you finally find them out?”

  “You’re way off base.”

  “You need to say that with more conviction.”

  “It has to be a competitor,” he answered. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Are you talking to me? Or, are you trying to convince yourself?”

  “They’re not murderers,” he’d flashed. “And they’re not drug dealers, either, no matter what fantasies you want to believe. They’re decent, hardworking people.”

  “Who tried to kill you.”

  “Someone bombed them,” he said. “I just got in the way.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, but I can tell even you don’t believe it, not completely.”

  “I don’t know what the hell the bombing was about,” he growled.

  “There. That’s at least honest. If you trusted them like you’re trying to make me believe, you’d be with them right now, not some wannabe investigative reporter who’s taking you to parts unknown. You’re scared for your skin, Mr. Danziger, and I, for one, believe you have every right to be. . . .”

  “It’s Dance,” he’d said through his teeth.

  “What?”

  “It’s what everyone who knows me, calls me.”

  “Well, I don’t know how well we know each other . . . Dance, but okay.”

  “You kissed me.”

  “What?” she repeated, surprised.

  “When we were getting off the elevator.”

  “As Carmen! I wanted her to think I was Carmen. You know that.”

  “We know each other okay. That’s what I’m saying.”

  After that, the conversation had pretty much ended until they’d gotten to the house. Now, Jordanna trudged back a last time from the car, carrying the microwave into the dusty kitchen and placing it on the counter. She thought about kissing him on the cheek and it made her gut tighten a bit. She’d done it so naturally.

  Oh, sure, the voice inside her head told her. You wanted to. You’ve wanted to do something like that for ages, following him around like a lovesick dog.

  “Shut up,” she said aloud.

  “What?” she heard him call from the other room.

  “Nothing,” she yelled back.

  Pushing thoughts of him and the kiss aside, she silently vowed to head into town as soon as possible for more cleaning supplies, as what she’d brought wasn’t going to fill the bill by any means. She plugged the microwave in even though there was no electricity. She could feel the chill deepen and with a sigh went out to the woodshed and hauled in chunks of oak and maple. There was a stack of old newspapers, a rusted can of lighter fluid, and a box of long wooden matches near the back door. How long any of it had been there was a question she didn’t ask herself as she carried the wood to the stove in the living room, where Dance was asleep still in his sitting position, his head thrown back against the cushions. She returned for the other items, then knelt on the floor in front of the stove and loaded it with wood, newspapers, and a spurt of lighter fluid, then touched a lighted match to the whole thing. The lighter fluid would smell for a bit, but she wanted the fire up and running as fast as possible because the nights were still cold.

  Dance had surfaced as if pricked by a pin when she brought in the first pile of wood and his face had darkened. “What’s wrong?” Jordanna threw over her shoulder as she headed back toward the woodshed.

  “We didn’t refill my prescriptions,” his voice called after her.

  “I’ll do it tomorrow. Okay?” she yelled back.

  “Yep” was the faint reply.

  When she finished with the wood, she brought him a blanket, which he ignored, then set about putting the fire together. Once it was going strong, Jordanna carried the blow-up bed into the only downstairs bedroom, the one-time sitting room that had been converted for her mother at the end of her life. Out of habit Jordanna sniffed the air as she had when she was a little girl. She hadn’t liked the medicinal scent overlaid with floral aromas that hadn’t fooled anyone, least of all her. But apart from a dusty, unused smell, the room was fine. There was no bed any longer; that had been removed years earlier. Now, she pushed back the occasional chairs and a couple of rickety tables that her father hadn’t taken with him when he’d remarried, apparently, and laid the mattress on the floor. She plugged in the battery-operated inflation device and waited while the mattress filled. Then she returned for the bag with the bedding, dragging out the mattress pad and sheets, and made up the bed.

  It was slightly warmer by the time she returned to the living room. “I’ve got your bed ready,” she said to him, his face all shadows and planes in the orange glow from the woodstove. “The furniture here is only what my father left, so it’s a blow-up mattress.”

  “I heard,” he said.

  “I know it’s going to be hard to get up and down from the floor, but otherwise the bedrooms are upstairs and I haven’t looked to even see if there are any beds up there. I’m guessing not.”

  “Where are you going to sleep?” he asked.

  She looked from him to the couch he was sitting on. It wasn’t much more than a love seat and its worn velveteen surface was covered with dust. She slid by that and said, “We have well water. The pump’s attached to a back-up generator, so I’m hoping for the best. If not, I can call Clancy. He should get us going.”

  “Who’s Clancy?”

  “Mike Clancy’s a friend.” That was reaching a little, as the Clancys had been friends with the Winterses as a family. Jordanna had burned more than a few bridges, and she wasn’t certain Mike was in her camp any longer or if he would help her. “His family does all kinds of service repair work and he can figure out how to put things right around here.”

  “Who’s Dayton?” he asked again.

  “Dayton’s . . . the owner of this house.”

  “A relative,” he guessed.

  Jordanna rubbed her nose, getting dirt on its tip. She sensed it immediately but thought, To hell with it. “My father,” she admitted.

  “You’re not a close family.”

  “Not since I shot at him with a .22 rifle.”

  She could see him straighten to attention. “Did you hit him?” he asked after a tense moment.

  “Yep.”

  “But he’s still alive.”

  “I hit his shoulder. Not for lack of trying. I’m just a so-so shot.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “Because he deserved it,” she snapped. Now that she’d opened the door, she wanted to close it.

  He chuckled and she squinted at him through the darkness.

  “What’s so funny?”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re amused that I shot my father? That’s why you’re laughing?”

  “Maybe you’re cut out for another line of work.”

  “Okay, fine,” she bit out. “Think what you will.”

  “What’d your father do?”

  “NOTHING.”

  “I just want to make sure you’re not going to try to shoot me later,” he said, a note of faint amusement in his voice that made her want to throttle him.

  “I’m trying to help you. That’s all. That’s all there is. If there’s a story in it for me, great. If not, fine. This’ll be over soon enough.”

  “That sounds kind of ominous,” he said slowly.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go all Kathy Bates on you. T
ie you to the bed and smash your ankles. What I want is to bring down the Saldanos with your help. But first we’ve got to get you on your feet, and if that means a lovely four-day, three-night stay in Rock Springs, or whatever it takes, so be it.”

  With that, she left him for a trip to the pump house with her phone flashlight to see if she could get the water flowing.

  Dance felt weary all over. He’d tried very hard not to let Jordanna know how tired he was. He didn’t want her to see how weak he truly felt, which made no sense really, since she knew the extent of his injuries, but it seemed important anyway. Now, while she was away and he was sitting in the dark with just the woodstove throwing out faint orange light, he wondered why he was fighting so hard.

  He was cold, despite the fire, so he picked up the blanket and pulled it around his shoulders.

  The hell of it was she was right. In his hazy memories, he saw the audiotape and the look of surprise on Max’s face. Surprise because of guilt? Or surprise that he’d been duped by his father because Victor Saldano maybe knew about the smuggling? The tape was from an old-school recorder that one of the employees had hidden in his pocket, and on it were three voices chronicling a deal with someone in Mexico. The informant was one of those guys that were on the hustle, so Dance had initially dismissed the tape. But he needed to be sure, so he’d made a copy, put the copy in a safe deposit box, then brought the tape to Max.

  “Where did you get this?” his friend had asked him before he even listened to it.

  “A source.”

  Max had looked at him with disappointment. “You’re gonna pull that source shit on your family?”

  “Listen to the tape,” Dance had answered.

  “Is this the only copy?”

  “Yes.” The lie had come out automatically, and then he and Max had stared each other down.