His mind a jumble of hope, desperation, and worry, Michael Burnett burst through the building’s main door and descended two steps into a chilly May evening. A commotion on the far side of the parking lot snared his attention. Lights from an ambulance and two police cruisers flickered across the dying twilight.

He drifted closer. The ambulance sat adjacent to his silver Toyota Camry. He rested an unsteady palm on the hood of a BMW beside him. His heart skipped a beat, possibly two.

From thirty yards away he watched an emergency medical technician lift a teenage girl’s body from the trunk of his Camry. The EMT made no attempt to revive her.

Burnett leaned against the BMW’s hood for support. Then he crouched behind the bumper. Numbness radiated from his stomach.

The pulsating lights of the ambulance and police cruisers created a hypnotic effect. The Beemer’s tinted windows further distorted an already unreal scene.

A police officer barked commands into his vest mic. Three policemen cordoned off the area around the Camry. Another cop shoved back two students who’d pushed too close. The crowd swelled.

Who was she? Who killed her? How’d she get in the trunk of my car?
He’d met her two days ago, but the story she’d told was so absurd no one would have believed her. However, the fact that he had a motive, and the other unfortunate fact, that her body had just been pulled from his car, would make him suspect number one.

Fingertips grazed his shoulder and jolted him back to reality. He sprung up and stood face to face with another student from the university. At that moment he couldn’t recall her name. “Hey,” he said.

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “Just got here.”

She wandered off to join the crowd. Another wave of students rolled in from behind. The rumble of conversations grew. Smartphone cameras clicked and captured video.

He hunched back down behind the BMW, his mind a swirl of questions. Watching students gather around him, he envisioned each one staring suspiciously at the crown of his head. He rose and backed through the incoming tide of gawkers. This magnified his uneasiness as the crowd surged in the opposite direction.

He stopped. A curious thought struck him. He was ninety-nine percent sure he hadn’t murdered anyone. There are precious few things in life, he recalled one of his psychology professors stating, about which we can be one hundred percent certain. Besides, leaving the scene would make him look that much guiltier. He stood erect, determined to march up to the nearest officer and inform him that it was his car the dead girl’s body had been removed from.

An instant later all the reasons not to notify the police swarmed his brain. The numbness he’d felt when he first arrived on the scene dissolved. His body shuddered, and his heart thumped as he made the most important, most difficult decision of his life—he would run. No longer would he be a thirty-two-year-old student who’d returned to college to get a degree in the field he loved. He would be a fugitive.

Another cruiser barreled into the parking lot. No doubt the police had determined who owned the Camry. He tried to raise his left foot, but it felt like it was fused to the pavement. He had to consciously will his leg to take a step.

Once again he retreated from the crime scene. He collided with a pair of students who’d just exited the building. One of them grabbed him. This one he knew well—twenty-two-year-old Emma Blankenship. They had a meeting in ten minutes with a PI they’d hired to locate the girl who’d been hauled from his car.

“What’s going on?” Emma asked.

He couldn’t speak.

She stared at his face. Her expression soon mirrored his troubled look. “What?”

“The cops just pulled a body from a car.”

“Oh my God.”

Moisture drained from his tongue and reemerged in his palms. “My car.”

Emma’s troubled look transformed into grave concern. “Not her? Not the girl from Henri’s apartment?”

His head bobbed once. Then he stared into her blue, water-filled eyes. He reached out and caressed her cheek. Never before had her soft, delicate features looked lovelier. His mouth opened, but no sound came.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But someone’s set me up.”

“Who? Why?”

He rifled through his memory but of course found no answers. He knew no one capable of such an act. Whoever was responsible had gone to a great deal of trouble.

He inched toward the street. She clung to his elbow.

“Don’t run,” she said.

“I can’t stay.”

“You didn’t do it.”

“They’ll never believe me,” he said, and quickened his pace. “Besides, who knows what else they’ve done? My fingerprints on her body, murder weapon in my basement?”

She clutched his wrist. “My father knows the best lawyers in New York. You’ll make bail.”

The words rang hollow. He gnawed his lip. “We both know that won’t happen.”

He passed the rim of the parking lot, Emma still coupled to his wrist. A steady stream of onlookers slowed their progress.

One cop shouted to another and gestured to Burnett. The second man nodded and hollered for backup as he hurtled toward them.

Burnett paused by a patch of dried grass abutting the main road. One foot on pavement, the other on grass, he faced her. “You haven’t done anything.”

“Neither have you.” She freed his wrists.

“Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I need to know what’s going on.”

“I swear on my life we’ll find out. And I will find out why someone set me up. But I can’t do that from a jail cell.”

He knew she’d forced the smile that curled the corners of her lips. A lone tear slid down her left cheek.

Two cops loomed in the distance. A third trailed close on their heels.

Now he clasped her wrists. “You’ve done nothing. Tell them the truth. You hear me?”

He couldn’t wait for a response. He released her and bounded across the street.

Dusk had come and gone, and it became hard to see. He charged into a wooded park. He sped past a couple making out on a bench and blew by a gray-bearded man gulping from a paper-wrapped bottle. All three paused only an instant to glance at him, then returned to their priorities.

He sprinted past an ornate fountain and down a gravel path. The soles of his feet ached. His muscles protested. Where was the rush of adrenaline designed to kick in at a time like this? No doubt about it, at thirty-two he was out of shape and felt ten years older. He lumbered another two hundred feet and stopped. Bent over, chest heaving, he listened for footsteps.

What the hell’s going on?
His mind echoed Emma’s question from moments ago. Still there were no answers.

Footfalls cut through the chirping crickets. He guessed two people, maybe three. He crept farther along the path and disappeared behind a weeping willow. One thing had gone his way this evening—his tan windbreaker and khaki Dockers blended with the tree trunk.

The footsteps stopped. Two male voices conducted a brief question and answer session, then resumed their advance. Sand and pebbles crackled beneath hard-soled shoes.

The footsteps slowed, then sped up again. Soon he could no longer hear them. Reluctant to leave the relative safety of the willow, he grasped a low branch.

The crickets ramped up their background noise, determined to drown out all other sounds.

He tried to orient himself before darkness settled in. Nothing looked familiar. A hundred times he’d walked this park. Now he felt like he’d entered a foreign country.

Through the trees he spotted the red and blue lights of a cruiser accelerating down a path. He bolted in the opposite direction. He ducked to avoid a tree-branch and stumbled over an exposed root. A jagged piece of rock tore his pant-leg and scraped his knee. He scrambled to his feet.

A few yards ahead he located an asphalt path. Sporting only a slight limp, he tried to appear like any other visitor heading for an exit.

A breeze from the north turned the evening colder. He massaged his clammy hands.

What the hell’s going on?
Nothing could pry the question from his brain. He demanded his mind supply a name. No matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t imagine anyone capable of framing him for murder. In fact, he couldn’t imagine anyone capable of orchestrating the madness of the past two days.

He’d returned to school in the hope of learning how to extend the possible into the improbable. But what he’d experienced in recent days defied everything science had taught him. And now, with the chief architect of the insanity dead, what little firm ground that had remained felt like it had crumbled away.

The dim outline of a person emerged from the darkness. He froze. To his right he could distinguish little. To his left waited what appeared to be an open field. Behind him determined voices bellowed their frustration.

When he faced forward, the outline had vanished.

“Who’s there?” he asked as loud as he dared.

No response came.

“Who?” he asked again.

“Go,” a voice whispered.

He staggered back two steps. Had a person spoken or had he imagined someone? His recent lack of sleep had begun to affect him.

Clomping footsteps and angry voices closed in from behind.

Desperation overpowered curiosity. He spun right and waded through a thicket of scrub brush. The farther into it he advanced, the denser it became. It almost brought him to a complete stop. Fear that the truth might forever remain a mystery spurred him on.

At last he arrived at a clearing. A group of grungy teenagers ambled toward a fence enclosing the park. He scanned the area but saw no police. He scurried over and made an effort to blend in with the group.

“How’s it going?” one of them asked.

“Couldn’t be better,” Burnett said. “What happened? I saw half a dozen cops running around back there.”

“Probably saw a couple guys smoking weed,” another one said with a wink.

He nodded, not paying attention, and trailed the group over the fence.

Once again his mind posed the unanswerable question:
What the hell’s going on?

BOOK: Innocent Bystander

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