“Talk to me, Oz.”
I got to my feet and paced as I spoke, laying out what I saw as a number of options on how to deal with this. He sat there, listening intently, but he stayed quiet, even after I was done.
“So?” I asked.
His jaw moved as if he were chewing a piece of cud, his eyes unblinking. Then he turned to me and said, “I think we both know what has to be done.”
I hugged him, and then I left to go pick up Mackenzie from school. We went out for ice cream, talked about her day at school. She asked if I thought Nicole had already made it to heaven. It was all I could do not to break down right in front of her. But I couldn’t do that to her. “I think she’s smiling up in heaven,” I said.
“You don’t think she’s sad?”
“I think she’s sad that she’s not here with us, but happy that we have each other and lots of good friends.”
She nodded and finished her ice cream. I told her that she would need to spend some time at Tito’s place because I’d be gone a while. I told her to ignore any stories from the mean girls at school and to know I love her and would soon be back in her life.
After all, you can’t tell a little girl that you’ll be gone for forty years.
We grabbed Mackenzie’s things from the apartment, and I dropped her off at Tito’s loft. Before I left, I gave Tito a cell phone, and we shared information on how he could reach me. Then my daughter gave me a hug that I’d never forget. She held me so tightly I wondered if she’d ever let go. I didn’t want her to let go. But when she did, and the door shut, tears streamed down my face. Mackenzie was my hope. She was the reason I’d made the decision I had.
I drove back to the apartment and parked my Cadillac in its normal spot. It was just after six o’clock. My time of freedom was nearing its end.
9
As I’d hoped, Gartner Automotive was empty. Steve, the owner, and his employees had clocked out, locked up. I used my key to get into my office and a different key to unlock the old metal cabinet—the only thing still in the office that belonged to the original owner, Ray Gartner. Ray was Steve’s brother, and he’d left in a whole lot of hurry when he felt like he would soon be killed by some goons hired by Calvin Drake. He’d suggested I do the same. After I refused his advice to also leave town, he’d handed me the keys to his PI business—literally and figuratively. Said he would be off the grid and would not be coming back. Ever.
I pulled open the bottom file drawer and found a gray backpack.
Ray had a similar backpack. He called it his SHTF bag—Shit Hit The Fan. Slowly, over the last few months, I’d created my own version of the SHTF, although with Mackenzie in my life, I never thought I’d use it.
Damn, life can be cruel.
I huffed out a breath, unzipped the bag, and checked the contents. It was all still there. Three thousand in cash, all small bills, a library card that used the name of someone I’d read about dying in a car crash in Wyoming—the generic name of David Lee—four worn baseball caps, each with the bill bent at different angles, three pairs of sunglasses, makeup, a variety of packaged snacks, the classic burner phone, a beard trimmer, and a baldhead cap.
I heard a metal clang. My heart vaulted into the back of my throat. I quickly swung myself around in the swivel chair.
It was Steve, standing at the doorway, holding a tire iron.
“What are you doing here, Steve?”
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me. I thought someone had broken in.” He lowered the tire iron, ran his forearm across his forehead. “Didn’t see your car in the lot.”
I paused, my eyes locked onto his. Then he shifted his sights to the backpack, his face void of expression.
He knew something was up.
I’d made the decision not to rely on the slow wheels of justice to figure out who was messing with my life. I couldn’t take the chance that, once they put me in jail tonight, I would see Mackenzie only during monitored prison visits for the next forty years. I’d had only a few hours to ponder my options, and on one level, it saddened me to believe that a system which I’d once held in high regard was now one I could not trust with my own life. Not if it was going to negatively impact Mackenzie’s life. She’d lost her mother to a brutal murder. Nicole’s death, while not as severe in her eyes, would surely bring about more abandonment issues. But for her to have to see me go to prison…that just might be the end of Mackenzie as we knew her and loved her. I couldn’t do that to her.
As much as I wanted to bring Nicole back from the dead, it wasn’t possible. But I could seek justice for her murder. I was taking matters into my own hands for the two women in my life. It was obvious why it mattered with Mackenzie. As for Nicole, she was still in my heart, still planted deeply in my mind—I couldn’t imagine how she’d ever not be in my life. To hell with how everyone else would view it.
“I saw the news, Ozzie. Shit, man, I’m so sorry about Nicole.”
I nodded.
His eyes went back to the backpack and then to me. “Is there something you need to tell me?”
“Nope.”
I reassembled everything in the backpack and zipped it up.
“Ozzie, what’s going on?”
I glanced at Mackenzie’s wall, the far wall of my office, filled with eight of her best pieces of art, sketches, paintings, all framed. Then I looked back to Steve. “They think I did it.”
His head shook with no rhythm, and his eyes bugged out. “What the fuck?”
“The DA’s office has evidence that shows I hired somebody to kill—” I stopped short and stared at Mackenzie’s wall a few more seconds. Positive thoughts to somehow mask the deep-seated pain. But something I couldn’t cover up was this growing pit of anger toward the person who did this to Nicole, even toward the system that was forcing my decision.
“You didn’t do that,” he exclaimed.
I said nothing. Tried to keep my thoughts off the despair of losing Nicole and onto the one life that I could still impact: Mackenzie’s.
“Hey.” He waited until I turned to face him.
“You didn’t do it, right?”
Another gut punch. “No, Steve. I didn’t have my wife killed. What the…?” I said, shaking my head.
“Sorry, man. It’s just…you know. I had to ask. It was stupid. Of course, you didn’t. So, you’re just going take off and vanish…maybe find Ray out there in never-never land?”
I scoffed. “If I bump into Ray, it will be by accident.” But, damn, I sure could use his help. “I’m going to find out who killed Nicole and see if there’s any way I can allow Mackenzie to keep one parent around.”
He used the tire iron to scratch his chin. “Is this the right decision? I mean, you know, they’ll eventually figure out the truth. And while they’re doing that, you’ll be out on bail.”
“No bail. That’s what the DA told my lawyer.”
“Fuuuuck,” he said, looking like he’d been force-fed a pig’s foot. “Well, crap then. I guess you’re making the right move.”
I slung the backpack over my shoulder, and I tossed him the keys.
“You might need these someday,” he said.
“Maybe, but I can’t have anything on me that connects me to this life. Not for now.”
A single nod.
I walked past him and patted him on the shoulder. “You never saw me, okay?”
“Saw who?” He winked.
I walked toward the front door.
“Hey, Oz.”
I flipped around. “Yeah, Steve.”
“I don’t know where you’re going. Probably not anywhere close, I’m guessing. I think I can help you.”
Five minutes later, I was revving the engine in what Steve lovingly called Mutt Three, a puke-green two-door that kind of looked like an old Chevy Nova, or maybe a cousin of that make and model. He and the boys created their “used” cars from scraps of various car parts.
“This is the old-school version of a hybrid,” he said over the grum
bling engine. “Parts are from Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, and Chevrolet. Oh, some of it was made from scratch right here at Gartner Automotive.”
“Won’t they be able to track the plates back to you as the owner?”
He grinned. “That’s a Gartner part. Looks pretty authentic, if I do say so myself.”
I smiled back, shifted the car into drive. “What about your boys? Won’t they know that Mutt Three is gone and start asking questions?”
He spread his arms. “Can’t call the cops. They’ll just think someone stole it. But they’ll then want to quickly replace it. It’ll give them a new side project.”
“I owe you, Steve.” Adding him to the growing list.
“No, you don’t. I just want to see you back in that office soon. Find the motherfucker who took Nicole from you, and then you do what you think is best.”
Steve’s brand of justice. We were basically talking the same language, although I knew the goal was to be with Mackenzie, not actually commit a crime that would put me behind bars. Still though, if I came face to face with Nicole’s killer, I wasn’t sure what I would do…or what I wouldn’t do.
“I hear you.”
“Be safe, my friend.”
I punched the gas and quickly realized this car was rear-wheel drive only—it fishtailed across the crushed gravel and dirt. I checked my rearview and saw Steve quickly covered in the haze of dirt. I waved a hand out the window and drove Mutt Three away from Austin.
10
The gas mileage on Mutt Three ranged between that of a Hummer H2 when I was going downhill with a wind at my back to that of a fifty-foot RV. I thought back to just a few weeks earlier, when my friend Ivy Nash and I were tailing a suspect, and I’d complained about the lack of punch in the Toyota Prius, a more typical hybrid.
One man’s treasure is another man’s trash, I suppose.
I stopped twice for gas before the sun rose—the second stop, somewhere east of Chattanooga, Tennessee. I went into the bathroom, which was located at the side of the building. I went inside to get the key, but I wouldn’t be bringing it back inside. I planned to just leave it on the ground when I was done. I’d never dyed my hair before, not even with lemons like a lot of my classmates in high school. I was a natural blonde, so when I finished and looked in the mirror, I almost flinched.
“David Lee,” I said to myself, turning my head in both directions to make sure I’d left no blond patches.
The official name of the color of my hair dye was “Chestnut Brown.” I started to turn away from the cracked mirror but stopped. I was riveted to this person. It was as though some unknown twin had made an appearance after twenty-eight years.
An evil twin. I would have laughed out loud had I not been so tired. I removed my rubber gloves and tossed all the garbage in the trash can. I kept my blue baseball cap in the pit of my arm—I couldn’t wear it while my hair was wet with dye—and opened the bathroom door.
I ran right into a man in uniform, shades of green. He was a sheriff or police officer.
“Oh, sorry, sir,” I said, averting my eyes.
“What the hell, son?” His accent was definitely on the Southern side. He’d used two syllables to pronounce “hell.”
“Wasn’t watching where I was going.” I briefly glanced at him as I backpedaled away. The man had a gut on him that would put Buddha to shame. He was smacking his lips and wore a grimace, as if he’d just had some bad fish. Then I noticed droplets of brown covering his face. Shit! My wet wavy hair must have whipped some of the dye into his face and in his mouth.
Double shit!
He eyeballed me. “What were you doing in there, boy?”
“Just taking care of business,” I said, turning around, walking toward the front of the building. As I made it around the corner, I spotted another officer walking out of the gas station, balancing two coffees in a cardboard tray and a stack of hotdogs.
Multiple hot dogs before dawn? Tennesseans were taking the term “meat-eater” to a completely new level.
I veered left—my car was on the far side of the pumps. The black-and-white cop car, a Ford Mustang no less, was on the near side. As the second cop made it to his car, he swung his sights in my direction. He set the tray of coffees on the top of the vehicle and pulled his cell phone up to his ear, apparently responding to a phone call. I got to my car and took a quick peek in between two pumps—he was staring right at me while talking on his phone.
I slid into the front seat, dropped my hat next to me, and started the car. One more quick glance to my right. The man, with his phone still at his ear, walked around his car holding up a hand to me. Had the other cop called him, or had he already run a check on my car and was now getting feedback that my car didn’t exist?
His partner had already gotten a decent look at me. I could feel my chest tighten as if someone was putting me in a corner and about to force a straightjacket on me. I quickly went into prediction mode: cop comes around to my side of the car, asks me my name and where I’m heading. I’d give two quick answers, but then that would only lead to more questions and the need for him to see a license and proof of insurance. I had neither. Then, he’d ask for me to get out of the car, maybe with one hand on his sidearm. I’d either jump out and engage in some type of physical altercation—which could injure one or both of us—or I’d take off, and he might shoot at the car. With any luck, the car wouldn’t suffer any damage that would impact its ability to continue moving at top speed.
Option number two, please.
I revved the engine, threw the gear into drive, and peeled out of the gas station, spraying dust and gravel into the cop’s face.
“No disrespect, sir,” I said into my rearview. If he’d yet to take down my license plate, I wanted to create a smokescreen to keep that from happening.
The Mutt Three hit fifty miles per hour in less than five seconds. The power of the G-force made my cheeks peel back. I zipped onto the highway and continued increasing my speed. No cars around, so I needed to create space and then find a hiding spot.
I reached a top speed of a hundred ten miles per hour. I kept it at that level for almost ten miles. Then, without a car in sight in either direction, I spotted an exit, dropped back to sixty, and veered onto the frontage road. I took a right at a stop sign and then drove until I found another road that spiraled into the hills. I took it—still no cars anywhere around me. I slowed to less than ten miles an hour, edged the car off the road, and circled behind a cluster of thick underbrush and trees. I killed the engine, rolled down the window—yes, cranked it manually—and listened as best I could while I watched for any signs of car lights. It was pitch black in every direction except up. The sky was sprinkled with stars.
I considered all those stars to be a good sign and thanked each for helping me get past my first close call. I’d learned two big lessons. One, hunger doesn’t stop a cop from doing his job. Two, it’s more inconspicuous to blend in with the crowd than trying to avoid every other person in my path. From now on, I’d drive where and when the volume of cars and people were at least close to peak levels.
I caught a couple of hours of shut-eye, knowing it would be impossible not to dream about Nicole.
11
Apparently, I’d mastered one of my lessons with tremendous success. I was surrounded by more cars than anyone could ever desire. I was sitting—not driving, but sitting—on I-95 just south of Springfield, Virginia. Where’s that, one might ask? Ten miles away from the beltway that circled the nation’s capital. I had a buddy who was in the radio business, and he’d once told me they considered this time of day “afternoon drive time,” when they had the possibility for the highest ratings of the day.
I suspected the road engineers were secretly being paid off by radio companies. This was ridiculous. I was watching my gas-tank needle visibly dropping as Mutt Three rumbled and rattled all of three miles per hour for at least ninety minutes straight. It had been a long day. Lots of driving, but a lot of time for me to think
.
When I’d woken, I decided to be extra cautious and headed due south for Atlanta. If any agency or multiple agencies were comparing notes on my whereabouts, I wanted them to think my ultimate destination was south. Pick a spot—maybe Florida, where I’d jump on a boat to the Virgin Islands. Sounded like a viable plan for someone who was guilty of murder.
Instead, I did a quick loop around Atlanta, stopped for more gas—I wore my black-and-white cap with a flat bill while I was outside of the car—then cut Northeast through Georgia and South Carolina before jumping on I-95 in Richmond. Ever since that point, I’d been moving slowly. Tortoise speed, once I got to Fredericksburg.
I yawned and decided to crack the window. Outside of the tainted wafts of exhaust—most of it probably originating from my so-called hybrid vehicle—the air still had a chill to it. The sky was gun-metal gray. I wondered if a storm was imminent.
By the time I took the loop around DC, the blanket of clouds split at the horizon, allowing the low sun to make a quick appearance for the day. I was bone tired, and I’d eaten most of my packaged snacks: Goldfish, every type of cracker-and-cheese combination one could imagine, bags of chips. My body had been overloaded with manufactured, salty starches. I needed something more substantive…and a mattress.
Traffic lightened moving north from DC toward Baltimore. My hunger pains intensified, and darkness set in: two signs that told me I needed to find a resting spot. After five attempts, I located a motel that I knew would take cash without asking for identification. I parked Mutt Three in the back, on the opposite side of my room. And what a room it was. There were bumps under the paisley comforter—I walked over and pressed a hand onto one of them and felt a loose spring. The mattress had to be older than I was.
I walked across the street to a small grocery and picked up an eighty-nine-cent bag of unshaved carrots, two containers of blueberries, a bag of granola, a precooked roasted chicken, more hair dye, and a load of snacks for the road. Back in the motel room, I devoured all the food, sans one container of blueberries and the packaged snacks, while watching TV—a box TV. The picture looked as if they were broadcasting a signal from the moon.
ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18) Page 5