by Jayne, Chris
Plus, he had traveled here himself instead of calling the local authorities and giving them a made-up story, which would have been easy enough to do if all he wanted was that she be “picked up” for questioning. No, he was only interested in one outcome, and while he might have connections and influence in Miami, in Montana he had to go it alone.
Lori reached the Escalade and scanned the dog walk area. It was a nice fenced space, and Sasha was off the leash, cavorting ridiculously with a Dachshund about one-tenth her size. Simone and Grace were sitting on a bench within the fenced area; Brandon was running around with the dogs. Good. She could call her sister and talk without the children overhearing.
As long as a steady supply of new toys and videos showed up on the journey, five-year-old Brandon seemed nearly oblivious to what was going on. Grace, however, had realized that something was very wrong, and it was starting to show in her face and in her demeanor. Lori had seen the ten-year-old crying several times when she thought no one was looking, though whether that was stress or ongoing consequences from her brief but violent illness, it was hard to tell.
She grabbed the burner phone from the central console and looked at it. So far, the few times she’d checked in with Louise, she’d called from a pay phone, not wanting to risk that someone was watching Louise’s phone line and then could somehow track the disposable. Should she go back up to the building and see if they had pay phones?
Lori didn’t want to take the time. Every time she called from a pay phone it took about five minutes of fooling around with the prepaid calling card, and half the time the pay phones didn’t even work. She wanted to call Lou this second, tell her what was going on and figure out what to do. Her plans for a safe haven had just been burned to the ground and now there was no way she could go to their house.
Taking a deep breath, she dialed Lou’s number on the burner phone. Now, she prayed that her brother-in-law, a person she had avoided talking to for five years would be the one to answer.
It was. “Hello?” a deep voice rumbled into the phone.
“It’s Lori.”
“Where are you? Louise said you’d be here last night.” Her brother-in-law certainly got right to the point.
Still, for a moment, Lori felt as if she was in la-la land. She’d tried to get through to Louise last night, getting a busy tone repeatedly, but then this morning she had finally gotten through. How did Roger not know? “I called this morning. Didn’t Lou tell you?”
“You called this morning?” Lori heard her brother-in-law’s rough exhalation. “Okay, that explains it. We actually had a little accident here this morning. The child of one of our friends fell off a swing and broke her arm. Louise went to the hospital with the mother. They were in such a hurry to get out of here, get the girl to the ER, I guess she forgot to mention it.” He paused. “So, what happened?”
“There was a huge wreck on the interstate in northern Wyoming just south of Sheridan, but…” She stopped, none of that mattered now. “Roger, I’m in trouble.”
His voice came back, quick and sure. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m at a rest area about an hour outside of Billings.”
“West or east?”
“West. We’re maybe 20 miles from where we go off the highway and come north to Hobson. I can’t remember the road number.”
“191,” he supplied. She heard Roger speaking to someone else in the room, his voice distant, as if he was holding the phone away from his mouth. “Top drawer of the desk. Yeah, there. Should be a road atlas in there.” His voice came back into the phone. “I’m pretty sure I know where you are, but I’m getting a map. What’s going on?”
“The man who is after me is here. His name is Raoul Saldata and…”
“There? Now? With you?” Roger’s voice, while remaining calm, still carried a note of real urgency.
“No. I saw him just by chance. He didn’t see me. He got into a car and left.”
“You’re sure he didn’t see you?”
“Yes. If he’d seen me, there’s no way he would have driven off.” She quickly shared with her brother-in-law her theory that if it were not for Grace’s illness, they would already be at their destination and because of that, Saldata was no longer looking for them on the road. “Roger,” Lori voice cracked, “he wants to kill me. And he’s not alone. He’s got two people with him, a man and a woman.”
Lori heard what sounded like a door slam and then another voice muffled in the background, the words unintelligible, but it was definitely a male voice, and not her sister.
“How long ago was this?”
“Just a couple of minutes. I saw him, watched him leave, walked back to my car and then called you.” She did the quick math. “Four… five minutes.”
“So, two hours from here,” Roger stated flatly. Lori got the feeling he was talking to someone else as well as to her. “Is he armed?”
Lori swallowed, her throat dry as dust, thinking about what she’d seem at Saldata’s house. “I’m sure he is. But,” Lori had a sudden thought, “can you bring guns on the plane?”
“He flew?”
“He was in a rental car. I assume he flew. That means he would have had to bring the guns on the plane, right? Can you do that?”
“You have to declare them if you fly commercial. But, if this guy has enough money or influence, he may have come on a private jet. Then he could bring anything he wanted.” Roger paused. “Tell me about who he’s with.”
“I don’t know who they are. I don’t know this man, really, at all. I just did a party for him. But, the first one is some sort of helper. A bodyguard maybe. I saw him at Saldata’s house. About the same age, late forties, early fifties. The other one is a woman. Younger, maybe thirty. Very professional. She looked like,” Lori envisioned what she’d seen in the restroom and suddenly Lori realized exactly what she looked like. “…like a lawyer or a detective maybe. She saw me in the bathroom.”
“She saw you?” Roger couldn’t hide the shock from his voice.
“Yeah,” Lori explained, “but she didn’t recognize me. Even if she had a picture of me, I cut my hair really short and dyed it black. I look very different. And the kids weren’t with me, thank God.”
There was a long pause as Roger was obviously considering the next steps. “Did you notice the model of the car?”
“No, Roger, I’m sorry, I don’t really know car models. It was a small SUV.” She thought about car models that she knew, ones that she and some of her friends owned. “It wasn’t as big as my Range Rover. Maybe something like a Toyota 4Runner. That size. It was gray. And it definitely had Montana plates.”
“How did he know you were coming here?”
“I don’t know, but…” Quickly, Lori shared with Roger her fear that Saldata had somehow found her employees, Salvadore and Michelle.
As she waited for Roger to respond, she watched her two children with Simone. Brandon had run over to Simone, and, his face turned up, he said something to her. He smiled, so sweet and trusting. My God, she had to protect them, all of them. The silence on Roger’s side of the call grew. “What should I do? Where should I go? I’m so sorry.” She heard her voice rising to shrill, but she couldn’t stop it.
Roger interrupted curtly. “What’s done is done, Lori. You need to hold it together. And the only thing that matters now is keeping everyone safe.”
“I don’t know what to do. Even if I turn around and I didn’t come to you, he’s still on his way there.”
“I want you to stay there.”
“Here? At the rest stop?”
“Yes, I’m going to send someone to get you. Do you remember my brother Deacon? He’s on leave and visiting us for a few weeks.”
For the second time in ten minutes, Lori felt like she’d been punched in the stomach and for a very long moment, she could not breathe. On a day when things could not possibly have gotten worse, they just did. “Yeah, I met him at your wedding,” she managed to choke out
. That flat statement masked a wealth of information. Did Roger notice how strangled her voice was?
Lori remembered Deacon Hale very well, but now was not the time to dwell on it, though why in the name of all that was holy had her sister not mentioned that Deacon was there visiting them? For a brief hysterical second, she wondered if she’d be better off taking her chances with Saldata. And in the next moment, she knew a hard truth, one she had never allowed herself to acknowledge. The main reason she had avoided being around Lou and Roger for the last five years was that Roger reminded her way, way too much of Deacon. She could barely gasp out her next, strangled question. “So, you’re not coming?”
“No.” Roger’s voice was flat and hard. “If what you say is true, I have three people on their way here who are perfectly capable of putting a bullet into the brains of anyone in my family.”
“You think I should just wait here? At the rest stop? What if he comes back?”
“You’re sure the woman didn’t recognize you?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. She just walked right out of the bathroom. I look really different, Roger.”
“Then, they won’t come back,” Roger responded, his voice full of confidence. “Why would they? And even if they’d turn around for some reason, they’d be on the other side of the interstate.” Lori saw the logic in that, as he continued. “Just sit tight. Deke’ll be there in two hours, give or take.”
In less than three hours she’d see him. See Deke. Could she do it? There was no way. No. Fucking. Way.
The phone went dead in her hand.
And in one instant the world changed forever.
Chapter 2
Louise
Monday
11:00 AM Mountain Time
Lewiston, Montana
* * *
Nervously, Louise Hale checked the large clock on the wall in the ER cubicle. Exactly two minutes had passed since the last time she checked. Actually, she was doing better; the prior time she’d checked, only a minute had passed. Sandy Kaplan, Louise’s friend, sat next to her on a wheeled stool, chin resting on her folded arms as she stared at her dozing child.
At least the sedatives they’d given poor little Marie had finally taken effect. Lying on the table in the cubicle, she looked pale but at least she was resting quietly. Her arm was wrapped in a splint.
The emergency room physician had reviewed the x-ray and told Sandy and Louise that the fracture looked very small, what they called a hairline fracture. Ironically, he told them, when fractures were less serious, children often felt more pain, simply because the injury was not especially critical. Sandy had shared with the doctor the fact that the family was scheduled to fly to Chicago the next day, and he had reassured her that nothing he was seeing on the x-ray would prevent that, though he still wanted a radiologist to do a final review.
As was typical with these fractures, the ER physician had explained, they didn’t put a cast on it right away. In this case, they could wait until they arrived in Chicago and have the case reviewed by a pediatric orthopedic specialist. The ER doctor could make no promises, but to his eye, Marie might not need a hard cast at all.
Now, they were only waiting for the final review by the radiologist who, hopefully, would concur with the emergency room physician’s recommendations.
Louise hated hospitals. It’s why she’d become a home birth midwife. Looking for anything to pass the time, Louise dug her phone out of her purse. “I’m going to call Roger,” she said quietly. “Let him know where we stand.” Sandy nodded without answering, never taking her eyes off her daughter.
Louise’s call, however, only resulted in a busy signal. Had the phone gotten knocked off the table again? Surely not. But then she remembered that when they signed up for the phone plan, in order to save money, they had declined every single “extra” feature, including call waiting. Maybe Roger was just on the phone. But whom would he be talking to, except for maybe Lori?
Louise’s heart sank. She hadn’t considered a serious problem. What if Roger spilled the beans about Deacon? Louise just hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell Lori that Deacon was in Montana. It was the ultimate procrastination decision, but they were just going to have to cross that bridge once Lori arrived.
She pushed the thoughts away. Lori had never called during the day, except for this morning, and she’d told Louise then they’d be to Hobson by 2:00. Why would she call again? Louise told herself to stop being so paranoid. The phone’s busy signal could be anything, including, she realized exactly what had happened the previous night: one of the kids knocked it off the hook. She had to move it off that end table when she got home. She wished she could dump the landline phone completely, but cell coverage was so spotty at their house, they couldn’t.
Away from the house, sitting in this modern hospital, with nothing else to think about, it was inevitable to wonder if some of Lori’s worries were dramatic overstatement. Being chased by bad guys? That was something that happened in the movies, not to real people. Yet, Louise reminded herself, six men with guns had shown up at her own house in Bowenville just the other day when they were doing nothing but moving out. Still, running half way across the country because it was too dangerous to talk to the FBI? That seemed like very extreme drama.
She looked at the clock again. At least this hospital trip was going fast. Actually, she couldn’t believe how quickly they were seen. As soon as the intake nurse had seen how much pain Beth was in, they had allowed Louise to go with Marie to radiology even while Sandy filled out paperwork. There was no way they would not be home before Lori arrived, even if they had to stop at the pharmacy and pick up some medication.
Now, however, another concern occurred to Louise, a very practical one. Sandy had planned on leaving this morning. If she didn’t leave, where would everyone sleep? She hated to bring it up, but had no choice. “Sandy? I need to know whether you think you are still going to go into Billings tonight,” she asked softly.
Sandy’s face fell. “I haven’t even thought about that,” she answered, her voice terribly discouraged. “I guess I need to. If we cancel the flights for tomorrow, there’ll be a penalty.”
“I don’t think you should cancel. Nothing the doctor said makes me think she can’t fly.” Louise tamped down her feelings of guilt, because if she were being honest with herself, she knew she was encouraging this at least in part because she wanted Sandy gone by the time Lori got there. Stop it, she told herself sternly. Nothing she was saying was not actually in Sandy’s best interests. “Plus, if you drive now, while she’s still knocked out, it will probably be easier in the morning. Particularly if you have,” Louise cleared her throat, “a bad night.”
Sandy looked at Louise, her face stricken. “I just don’t know what to do,” she said, her voice absolutely devastated.
For just a fraction of a second, Louise felt impatience, then she reminded herself that the husband of the woman sitting in front of her had died in the past six months, in all probability had been murdered, leaving her a widow with three young children. She deserved a little bit of latitude. The chair Louise was sitting on had wheels and she slid herself to Sandy’s side, took her arm. “You don’t have to leave. I didn’t mean it like that. But I really do believe that it will be better to drive today, while she still has pain meds on board, and before you’re up half the night with her. What I didn’t tell you is that my sister is coming to us because there was some sort of,” Louise chose her words with care, “problem in Florida.”
Sandy raised her chin off of her arms. “What sort of problem?” she asked slowly.
“I don’t want to say too much, but she’s involved in some sort of situation where someone is, well, someone is after her.”
“After her?” Sandy blinked. “You mean chasing her?”
Louise shrugged. “That’s what it sounds like.” She paused. “Well, what it really sounds like is a terrible mess. And once she gets here, it may be family drama and a lot of kids.” And Deacon, she a
dded to herself, which was going to add an entirely different flavor to this whole scene. Louise couldn’t even think about that.
Lori was going to kill her.
The curtain slid wide on its smooth metal rings, and in walked the young emergency room physician’s assistant. She pulled the curtain shut behind her and glanced down at her notes. “Mrs. Kaplan?” Sandy nodded, and she continued. “Dr. Tang is with another patient, but he wanted me to talk to you. We got the report from the radiologist. You’re free to go, and…” She paused. “I see you asked about flying tomorrow? Yes, she is fine to fly. We’ll give you some pain meds, and a copy of everything to take to an orthopedic doctor when you get to Chicago. We’re just bringing you a few forms to sign and…”
In one moment, every light in the ER shut down. Then, in the next instant the constant background hum of the HVAC wound down and disappeared. For one second there was a complete hush as if the world had, for an instant, just stopped turning, and then around them voices started rising.
“Wow.”
“What was that?”
“What the hell?”
The cubicle in which Sandy and Louise sat, located towards the rear of the ER, was in almost total darkness. Louise could see only the shape of the PA, outlined against the curtain. “Just a second here,” the woman laughed. “The generators will kick on.”
They waited, as voices from outside the curtain started getting a bit louder. “Any second now,” the PA said, her voice falsely cheerful. After a few more moments, she muttered, “Hold on,” and went out through the curtain.
“That’s so strange,” Sandy said to Louise quietly. “Wonder what happened. There’s no storm or anything.”
“Yeah, and the generators didn’t kick on.” Not only was it odd, it was very worrisome. Louise had worked in multiple hospitals, and at the least electrical flicker, backup generators were supposed to take over immediately, to protect the patients on ventilators and monitors.