“About getting normal,” he said.
She laughed.
“Normal is boring.”
“I’m not talking about totally normal,” he said. “Just enough that we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulder all the time.”
The Rocky Mountain scenery rolled by, seriously riveting. When they got to the outskirts of Denver, River didn’t go home. Instead he turned south on Santa Fe.
“Where we going?”
“A graveyard.”
“Are you serious?”
Yes.
He was.
“Why, who’s there?”
“No one, yet.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means it won’t officially be a graveyard until tonight,” he said.
She ran her fingers through his hair.
“You couldn’t get normal if your life depended on it.”
He smiled.
“You’re probably right.”
“There ain’t no probably about it.”
127
Day Four
July 24, 1952
Thursday Afternoon
From the warehouse, Wilde checked the BNSF office to see if Alabama had shown up there, which she hadn’t. When he got back to the office, she wasn’t there either. He paced next to the windows with a cigarette for all of one minute before the door opened.
London stepped in.
Her face was beautiful but serious.
She put a piece of paper on his desk.
“That’s the original map,” she said.
Wilde picked it up.
Compared to the two he’d seen previously this one really did look authentic. It had dirt smudges on it, reddish in color, not indigenous to Colorado.
“How’d you get it away from Bluetone?”
The woman lowered her eyes.
“I’m going to tell you something and you’re going to hate me,” she said. “I had it all along.”
The words slowly sunk in.
“Are you telling me you had this last night when we were busy giving the guy a fake?”
Her eyes met his briefly then darted away.
“Yes.”
Wilde pounded his fist on the desk.
“That little trick may have cost Alexa Blank her life.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why it’s here now.”
Wilde looked at her in disbelief.
“Is this really the original?”
“Yes,” she said. “No more tricks.”
Wilde studied it again.
“It’s time for you to leave,” he said.
“Wilde-”
“I’ll handle it from here.”
“But-”
“Go! Do it now before I say something I’d rather not.”
She gave him a short look, then walked out the door and closed it gently behind her. Wilde set a pack of matches on fire and lit a cigarette from the flames. From the window he watched London disappear down the street.
128
Day Four
July 24, 1952
Thursday Afternoon
Jaden couldn’t think of a way to trap Bristol but did come up with an alternate thought. “What if he admits the murder?”
“You mean to you?”
“Yeah, say that, for starters.”
“That’s no good,” Waverly said. “That’s not evidence. Even if you told the police about it, they’d just assume there was some kind of lovers’ quarrel at work. And even if they did believe it enough to sniff around a little bit, they wouldn’t find enough corroborating evidence in the end. Meanwhile, while they were looking, Bristol would know about it. He’d disappear or lay a bribe or something.”
Jaden didn’t disagree.
“You said if we couldn’t trap him, you’d kill him if you could be certain he was the killer,” Jaden said. “Did you mean that?”
Waverly hesitated.
Good question.
“Yes,” she said.
“Okay, then think about this,” Jaden said. “The sky’s filling up with clouds. It’s going to rain tonight.”
Waverly looked up.
That was true.
“I don’t get where you’re going.”
“Here’s where I’m going,” Jaden said. “I’ll rent a car. I’ll drive Bristol to some remote place tonight after dark. When we get there, I’ll tell him that I’m onto him but I don’t care. I’ll tell him I want to stay with him no matter what he did in his past. I’ll tell him that I want him to share it with me though.”
Waverly shook her head.
“Even if he does, like I said, it’s not evidence.”
“Wait, let me finish,” Jaden said. “What Bristol won’t know is that you’ll be there listening.”
“How?”
“You and me will agree on the place beforehand,” Jaden said. “I don’t know Denver hardly at all so I’ll let you choose the place. You get there before we do and hide in the dark. After we get there, I’ll roll a window halfway down, ostensibly to get some fresh air. Then I’ll get Bristol talking. You creep up silently and listen in. Bring a gun. If Bristol confesses, you’ll have your proof. You can shoot him.”
Waverly receded in thought.
Then she looked at Jaden.
“Do you really think you can get him there, to a secluded place?”
Jaden nodded.
“He’ll go for two reasons,” she said. “One, he loves to make love in the car, especially in the rain. We’ve done it twenty times. Two, and more importantly, I’ll tell him I want to talk to him someplace private. He’ll go out of curiosity as to whether I know about his past or not. He’ll see it as a chance to probe me. He’ll also see it as a chance to kill me if he figures I know too much.”
Waverly frowned.
“It’s risky.”
“So is crossing the street,” Jaden said.
“They’re not exactly the same.”
She smiled, nervously.
“Maybe not but what other option is there?” Silence, then she said, “Do you have a gun?”
“No.”
“Then we need to buy one. We’re going to need some cleaning products too, in case you end up shooting him while he’s still in the car. I’m going to have to return it at some point. I think we should have a shovel, too. There’s less likely to be a problem down the road if there’s no body.”
“You’re serious about all this.”
“I am,” Jaden said. “All I ask is that you try not to let me die.”
“I’ll give it my best shot.”
They shook hands.
129
Day Four
July 24, 1952
Thursday Afternoon
Wilde went back to the warehouse and found no Alabama, not on the roof or anywhere else. He pulled River’s place in with the binoculars to find it equally lifeless. He was pretty sure what happened. If he was right, River would die a million deaths and not one of them would be pretty.
An hour came and went.
The sky got meaner.
The clouds turned into storm clouds, not spitting yet but building up a hellacious arsenal.
Wilde didn’t move.
The map was in his shirt pocket. He didn’t take it out, he didn’t look at it, he didn’t care about it.
Suddenly something happened.
A figure moved quickly towards the boxcars.
It wasn’t River.
It was a man with a scar on his face and a tattoo on his forearm. Wilde’s chest pounded. This had to be the man from last night. Wilde raced through the guts of the building down to ground level and headed directly across the tracks and weeds and gravel towards his target. He made no effort to conceal himself.
The man saw him.
Wilde expected him to take cover and pull a gun.
That’s not what happened.
The man stood there in the open and waited.
Wilde stopped two steps away.
“You’re a bad shot,” he said.
The man smiled.
“It happens.”
Wilde hardened his face.
“I want the woman.”
“Alexa?”
“Yes, Alexa. Where is she?”