Nick of Time (17 page)

“I will do no such thing. You have no right to ask such a thing. What happens in our home is private business.”

“I couldn't agree more. Yet, here we are in a public place, talking about it.”

Gisela took a few beats to gather herself. “Look,” she said, “my husband wants you to know that there are no hard feelings about yesterday.”

Darla's eyebrows scaled her forehead. “Oh, he does.”

“He wants you to know that there will be no, um, what's the word?”

“Retaliation?” Darla helped.

“Repercussions. He asked me to talk to you because he thought it would be, um—”

“Inappropriate? Morally wrong?”

“
Embarrassing,
to say so himself. He reminded me to remind you that he would do the same for you. He calls it professional courtesy.”

“Oh, is that what he calls it?”

Gisela looked confused. “Why are you being so difficult about this?”

“I'm not being difficult,” she said. “I'm being surprised. Aghast. I understand the part about professional courtesy, but to have you do his dirty work for him is appalling.”

Gisela grew even more uncomfortable. “He has a favor to ask of you, also. You are free to say no if you wish—he made that very clear—but he would feel most indebted to you if you would think about it.”

This should be interesting,
Darla thought.

Gisela beckoned Darla to lean in closer to the center of the table. “He would appreciate it if you would keep an eye out for this Peter Banks boy. Watch him and wait for him to break the law.”

Darla nodded, feigning a serious expression. “And then shoot him, right?”

There was that horrified look again. “Heavens no! Just arrest him. Take him off the streets, away from Jeremy. Away from other good boys he might lead astray.”

Darla rattled her head again. “Isn't that a little over the top? Why not just tell Jeremy to stay away from him?”

“We have,” Gisela said. The frustration raised her voice louder than she wanted. “We have told him a thousand times, but he does not listen.”

This was the moment when Darla should have gotten up and walked out of the Dairy Queen, but something drove her to stay. There was a point to be made here, and for whatever reason, she wasn't able to make the other woman understand. “Suppose I catch Jeremy breaking the law? Do you want me to arrest him, too?”

“That will not be a problem. He has promised.”

“But you told me that he's promised a thousand times. What makes you think this time is any better?”

Gisela sat back in her bench and fiddled with a napkin, twisting it around her finger. “This time, he is frightened. This time, he understands what he faces if he breaks the law again.”

At one level, this had started to become amusing, even while it remained largely tragic. “Why does it fall to me?” she asked. “There are a lot of deputies here who would do anything to kiss your husband's ass. Why does it come to Darling Sweetcheeks?”

From the smile, she could tell that Gisela had heard the epithet before. “They are not as loyal as you think,” she said. “They talk too much about too many things. Many do not like my husband. Some might like to run against him one day. The less they know about this, the better.”

“I see. And since I already know the details, I'm the natural choice to terrorize the young man who did nothing more than spend an afternoon with your son.”

Gisela bristled. “He is a bad one, that Peter.”

Darla suppressed a smile. “I keep forgetting. And why doesn't Sheriff Hines keep his own eye out for Peter?” The question was rhetorical; she already knew the answer. “Under the circumstances, he couldn't very well be the one to arrest him, could he? In fact, Peter Banks could commit just about any crime he wanted in this town, right under the sheriff's nose, and not have a problem, isn't that right? All Peter would have to do is open his mouth to one judge, and any charge would be thrown out. Is that what your husband was thinking?”

Gisela squirmed. “Something like that.”

“But I was there, too.”

“You wanted to arrest them,” Gisela explained. “You do not have the same conflict of—What is the term?”

“Conflict of interest,” Darla said. “And over the course of the last ten minutes, you've handed me one hell of a big one.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

B
y one-thirty, they were deep into North Carolina, feeling their way east and south, obeying every speed limit. They had the top down, and as the wind blew her hair into knots, Nicki thought for sure that she could feel her strength returning, nature's remedies taking care of nature's ills.

“I can smell the ocean,” she said.

Brad craned his neck to look at the thickening sky. “Doesn't look like it's going to be much of a beach day.”

“Did I ever tell you that I've never been to the beach?”

Brad laughed. “About a thousand times.”

“Actually, I knew that,” Nicki said. “That was my hint. Let's go to the beach.”

“Don't you think we should get a few more miles behind us?”

“I'm seventeen years old and I've never once felt sand between my toes.”

Brad rolled his eyes. “No sandboxes in upstate New York?”

“It's not the same. Or so I've heard. Wouldn't know myself, because I've never been to the beach.”

He looked at her and made his dimples erupt in a smirk. “I can't believe you've never been. Didn't your friends just hop in a car and go?”

“You're kidding, right? My ‘friends'”—finger quotes—“are all mindless idiots, and even if they weren't, there's no way my father would let me drive that far with other kids.”

Brad regarded her with a scowl, as if he were confused. Then the smile returned. “Hey,” he said. “Let's grab lunch at the beach.”

“What a great idea!”

“Are we close to Nags Head? Kids at school used to go to Nags Head on spring break.”

Brad shook his head. “We're close, but I don't want to go there. That's actually a pretty busy place. Too many cops. Besides, it's behind us, and this is a one-way trip.”

“Where, then?”

“The beach is three thousand miles long, Nicki. I think we'll be able to find a place. There's a town called Sail Fish, where I went a hundred years ago. It's not touristy. Got a little drawbridge you've got to go over to get into the place. I think it's got maybe four restaurants altogether, and the people there don't particularly like visitors.”

“That means they won't like us,” Nicki said.

Brad laughed. “Nah, we don't look like visitors.” He lifted one bare foot away from the clutch and showed it to her. “See? No sandals and knee socks. Oh, yeah, and no cameras. We definitely don't look like visitors.”

Nicki laughed along with him. “How far is Sail Fish?”

He calculated. “Maybe an hour and a half. It's nearly at the South Carolina border.”

“I've got to eat before then,” she said. “Seriously, I'm starving. At least a snack.”

“You okay?” His tone took on a note of concern.

“I'm fine,” she said. “But until I get the meds thing worked out, food and fluids become even more important.” It's amazing, she thought, how an illness like hers can make even a layman talk like a doctor.

Brad squinted as he tried to make out the writing on the sign up ahead. “Can you read that?”

Nicki squinted, too. It was a green highway sign with white letters on it. “It says, ‘Essex, one mile.'”

Brad could see it now, too. “Let's find something to eat in Essex.”

* * *

The scent of the ocean grew stronger as they turned left at the stop sign, but there was no sign of water. Dense woods surrounded them—mostly towering, skinny pines growing out of the sandy soil. What few houses they saw looked gloomy and unkempt.

Essex was the land of billboard advertising. Nothing particularly eye-catching or original—although she did get a giggle out of the sign for Dirty Dick's House of Crabs—most of the boards hawked mid-range motels.

“This is a charming community,” Nicki said.

“Anything not built of steel and concrete looks right homey to me,” Brad replied. “I guess this is all people can afford when they make money only five months out of the year.” Brad kept the speedometer hovering around forty-five, just to be safe.

After another three miles, they found themselves approaching a T intersection with Shore Road. Directly in front, just beyond the dunes that frustrated any panoramic view, lay the ocean.

“You want to eat first or see the beach first?” Brad asked.

“Food,” Nicki said. It wasn't even close.

Brad yanked the steering wheel, and then they were in the parking lot of a Quik Mart store.

“What are you doing?” Nicki asked.

“Stopping for a snack.”

“But this isn't a restaurant.”

“Because this isn't a meal.” He perfectly mimicked her tone. He pulled the Sebring around the far corner of the store and stopped on the other side of a Dumpster, out of sight of the road. He wrenched the transmission lever into Park and turned sideways in his seat, drawing one foot under the opposite thigh, forming the figure
4
.
“And let's talk about a big problem we have.” He recapped his concerns about losing their new identities, and worse yet, their credit card. “From now on,” he continued, “we're strictly on a cash basis, and we don't have a whole hell of a lot of that. Things are likely to be austere for a while until I can come up with more folding money.”

“We're not stealing in here,” Nicki said. “Okay? Promise that we're not shoplifting.”

The comment startled a laugh out of Brad. “I don't think anyone's ever asked that of me before.”

He opened his door, pausing to slip his sandals back on. “You're something else, Nicolette,” he said. “You are something else.”

She got out of the car, too, a little more slowly than he. Concern darkened Brad's face. “You okay?”

“I'm fine. And I'll kick your ass if you ever ask me that again. You're sounding like my father.”

He clapped a hand over his heart and staggered back a step. He stopped her just as they got to the door. “Remember, no conversation with the clerk. Minimize eye contact, but always act normal.”

Her scowl mocked his serious tone.

Brad smacked her on the backside and then walked through the glass door.

Funny how being a fugitive changes you. The first thing Nicki noticed as she stepped into the Quik Mart were the two security cameras, one behind the counter, where the clerk was no more interested in eye contact than she was, and one opposite the door. Maybe eighteen years old with a complexion that would benefit from more soap, the clerk was buried chin-deep in a
Star Wars
novel. He wouldn't have noticed if Tony Soprano himself walked through those doors. (Yet another thing her father didn't know was her obsession with the new HBO show about the mafia.)

The cameras unnerved her. That unblinking eye watched everything they did. She hurried to catch up with Brad, who'd gone straight to the refrigerated cases in the back of the store.

“Lunch meats,” he explained, answering her look of curiosity. “Good nutritional value, quick, and cheap. That's my three basic food groups.”

“Do you see the cameras up there?”

He didn't look up at them. “Don't stare.”

“People will see us here.”

“Not if they don't go looking for us,” he said. “Nobody monitors cameras. They only look at the tapes if there's a problem and they want to see what happened. In a place this size, they probably record over the same tape day after day. After tomorrow, there won't even be a record.”

That made sense. It took some of the edge off Nicki's concern. “Don't you wonder about fingerprints?”

He planted his fists on his hips. “Do you think we could talk about this later? What are you eating?”

“I want something salty.”

“Up front,” he said, pointing the way with a nod. “Opposite the register.”

She started that way.

“Oh,” Brad said, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned.

“Try not to look at the camera, okay?” He smiled, knowing that that was exactly what she was likely to do.

The Doritos called out to her. She hated the orange fingers and the rancid breath, but oh, boy, did she love Doritos. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had them. This dying thing was a hell of a cure for an eating disorder.

Outside, just beyond the doors, she saw movement. The suddenness of it startled her, causing her to whip her head around, fearful before she knew why. A man dressed in black pants and a red shirt approached the front door from the parking lot. His gait frightened her, the way he pivoted his head from side to side, as if worried that he might be seen. When the guy yanked down the front of a winter ski mask to conceal his face, she understood why. His other hand held a pistol. Before a scream could form in her throat, the door exploded open and the man brought his gun up and leveled it at Mr. Star Wars's face.

Nicki turned to run, but the assailant stiff-armed her, planting the heel of his hand into her breastbone, and sending her tumbling back into the Twinkies and Ho Hos.

“Stay the hell away from me!” he barked. The hand with the gun appeared to be trembling.

The clerk behind the counter didn't move. His jaw dropped to his chest and his face paled as his eyes focused on the barrel of the gun.

“Don't look at me, you fucking moron,” the robber growled. “Give me the cash from the drawer. You want to die?”

The clerk jumped as if poked with a cattle prod, dropping his novel to the floor and putting his hands in the air, high over his head, a parody of an old Western.

“Money,” the attacker repeated. “Put your hands down and give me the fucking money.”

“W-we don't have much,” the clerk stammered. He looked scared to death.

“Stick your hand in the drawer, asshole. Grab what you've got, put it in a bag, and get down on the ground. If you even think of tripping an alarm I'll blow your head off.”

Nicki had never been so terrified. She'd never seen the business end of a gun before, and she'd never seen anyone willing to commit murder. When she tried to get up from the mess of collapsed shelving and scattered groceries, the masked man unleashed a kick that nailed her in the ribs.

“I told you to stay the fuck where you are!” he spat.

The pain exploded through Nicki's chest, making her wonder if maybe he'd shot her anyway.

“Please don't,” she sobbed. “Please don't hurt me.”

But the robber had already turned his attention back to the clerk, who was frantically scooping money out of the drawer and stuffing it into a plastic shopping bag.

She'd forgotten all about Brad, thoughts of survival pushing everything else out of the way. So when she saw him moving up behind her assailant, it was all she could do to keep from yelling out his name. He moved like those ninja warriors she'd seen on television, slowly closing the distance.

The assailant sensed it, though. When Brad was still five feet away—a good two feet farther than he needed to be for a decisive strike—the gunman turned. Nicki screamed.

Brad rushed the attacker like a linebacker, hitting hard, somewhere in the midsection. An explosion rocked the Quik Mart as the gun discharged, triggering another scream from Nicki. She tried to roll out of the way of the fight, but the driving force of Brad's tackle sent both men hurling straight for her. She covered her head with her arms, and grunted as they fell on her hard.

Brad was yelling, too, and like Nicki's, his words didn't make sense. It was a roar of frenzied anger, and after the first two seconds, it became clear that the robber didn't have a chance.

Brad cocked his fist and fired it into the gunman's face. Nicki could feel the impact reverberate all the way down to her. “Drop the gun!” Brad commanded, and he leveled another bone-crushing blow to the face.

The gunman made a high-pitched squealing sound as the blows found their marks, and as he rolled away, across the white linoleum floor, Nicki noticed that he left a bloody smear. The gun clattered to the floor and Brad made a dive for it, executing a shoulder roll to come back to his knee, with the gun leveled at the attacker, who himself had found his feet.

“Freeze or you're dead,” Brad commanded.

The attacker stood there, saying nothing, drooling blood through the tight weave of his woolen mask.

“Hands,” Brad commanded. “I want to see hands.” The gun looked different in Brad's hands than it did in the robber's.

The attacker made that high-pitched squeal again, then without a word, he spun and ran for the door, not even slowing as he charged out into the steadily darkening day.

“Stop, goddammit!” Brad yelled, and he threw the weapon at the door.

“What are you doing?” Nicki said. “Shoot him!”

“The goddamn thing is empty. He was robbing the place with an unloaded gun.”

But it
wasn't
unloaded. She'd heard it fire. Her ears still rang from the noise of it. Movies and television couldn't come close to capturing the heavy percussion of a gunshot up close. Even firecrackers couldn't touch it, and she'd detonated some hellacious firecrackers in her time.

As her hearing returned, she watched Brad struggle with his temptation to chase after the gunman to get even with him. The look she saw in his face—in his eyes—was one that she'd never seen before, not in him, and not in anyone else. It was a look of sheer rage, the emotion raw and unfiltered. She saw it in the set of his jaw, too, and the way the ridge over his eye was bleeding, but he clearly had not yet noticed.