Paranoia was the unreasonable concern about an imaginary threat. The danger Jon Merritt presented was real.
“Alli—”
She disconnected, staring at a drawing Hannah had done at age ten. A watercolor on white construction paper. A unicorn, its coat the spectrum of a rainbow.
This musing lasted only seconds. The past had arrived. She would now make sure she and her daughter had a future.
Parker shoved the door open and walked into the hallway, gripping the bag and backpack firmly.
The girl was sitting on her bed, beside a half-filled gym bag. Inside were only her computer and a few articles of clothing. She was texting.
“No, no.”
The girl glanced her way.
In a low voice, as steady as her hands were now, Parker said, “Phone away. Finish. I fucking mean it.”
“Language!”
“I don’t have time for that. Pack.”
The girl shot an exasperated look her mother’s way, then rose, slipped her phone into her right rear pocket. She started sifting through drawers. Parker stepped quickly into Hannah’s room and filled her bag and backpack with random clothes and toiletries.
“Wait. I want to take—”
“No.” This word was a growl.
Parker hurried into the kitchen and looked out into the backyard, half expecting her ex to come charging out of the bushes, holding a baseball bat or axe.
She loaded the electronics into a Whole Foods reusable bag — phone and computer chargers and cords, her Dell laptop, a seventeen-inch model, a Wi-Fi router, battery packs.
“Where are we going?” the girl whined. “You said I could go to the mall!”
“Your bags. Now. We’re leaving.”
She reluctantly picked them up. “So Dad’s out of jail? So what?”
Of course he does...
They had just walked out the front door when the girl stopped and ran back into the house.
“Hannah!” Parker called. “No!”
“I can’t,” came the girl’s voice.
“What?”
“My iPad. I’m not going anywhere without it!”
16
In the backyard of his ex-wife’s house on Maple View, Jon Merritt was making his way through the brush toward the back door.
He tensed and crouched as he heard an engine roar.
His ex’s SUV raced over the curb and skidded around the corner onto Cross County Highway, heading west.
Goddamn.
He began sprinting back to his truck, which he’d parked three blocks away, just to be safe. As he ran, he pressed his hand against the grip of the pistol so it didn’t fly from his belt. In the garbage-decorated alley behind the Ferrington City Diner, Ryan’s man had, yes, conducted a vigorous frisk for wires. Unnecessarily rough, but Merritt was more offended that a battered two-hundred-dollar gun was priced at seven, no negotiation.
Supply and demand...
Gasping, he continued along the sidewalk, dodging a homeless man, as he watched her 4Runner. It was closer than he’d expected. He could catch them.
Had she seen him? Or had somebody called her with the news he was free?
The run hurt, muscles and lungs. He was out of shape. You might lift weights in prison but you don’t get aerobics. Nobody runs.
Breathing hard, gasping, he got to the Ford and leapt into the driver’s seat, shoved the key into the ignition and started the engine.
As long as he wasn’t lit up for speeding they were in his grasp. Any cops nearby? Probably not. Random traffic patrols were not budget-strapped Ferrington’s strong suit. Anyway, sometimes you just had to take a chance.
Into gear, spinning the wheel and slamming down the accelerator.
The big truck bolted forward.
And began to stagger.
Thump, thump, thump, thump...
He braked hard, dropped the transmission into park and, shoving the door open, stepped out onto the asphalt.
For Christ’s sake...
He closed his eyes in disgust and fury. She could’ve gone east or west but chose west and spotted the truck. She had let the air out of the right front tire. It was completely flat.
He gazed up Cross County to where the battered asphalt disappeared into the hills. She was already out of sight.
Merritt lowered his head to the driver’s-side window.
After a full minute of letting the anger pass, he pulled out his phone. He composed a text saying that plans had changed — Allison had fled and he needed help finding her. He’d get back soon with specifics. He would pay. A lot.
The response, affirmative, came back in a matter of seconds.
Merritt looked west, into the afternoon sun. Where are you going? he thought. Where the hell...?
He was startled when a voice intruded. “Hey, mister, need a hand?” The question came from a middle-aged man. He was in a casual jacket and slacks. Apparently just out for a stroll on a gentle fall afternoon.
Merritt was inclined to say no, the fewer people who could place him here the better. But the guy had already seen him and Merritt was pressed by urgency. “You don’t mind getting your hands dirty. Always hard to lift up the spare and get it on the lugs.”
The man took his jacket off and rested it on a nearby hedge. “Don’t I know it? They give you a jack for the car; they oughta give you a jack for the tire.”
Merritt said, “Now, there’s an invention for you.”
The men walked to the back of the truck and the neighbor unwound the spare while Merritt got the jack and the tools from the compartment in the bed.
He fitted the device to the bracket on the undercarriage while the neighbor wheeled the spare up. He surveyed Merritt, who was energetically working the jack handle. “You’re in some hurry there, sir.”
Merritt scowled. “Just going to pay a visit to my wife and daughter. Who I haven’t seen for a long time. I’ve been away. And this happens.”
“Isn’t that always the way? But we’ll get you back on the road fast as we can. You must miss ’em.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Merritt said, breathing in gasps as he pumped.
And under his frantic hands, the two-ton vehicle rose slowly into the air like a ghost leaving a recently deceased body.
17
There it is. Our most famous attraction. Get out your Polaroid.”
Sonja Nilsson slowed the Range Rover and pointed. They were downtown on the road that paralleled the Kenoah. Across the river was a tall brick building not unlike the others here. Mounted on the portion of the building’s foundation just above the surface was a ten-foot-diameter clock, in art deco style. The face and hands, frozen at ten until two, were the green of aged copper and the brown of rust.
“The Ferrington Water Clock. That building, it was the Carnegie Iron Works. The CEO — no, not that Carnegie — wanted a public relations gimmick. His radiators and car parts weren’t sexy enough to get traction. So he had it commissioned. It ran on the river’s current. People’d come from all over the state to see it and get pictures of themselves with the clock in the background.”
“When did it stop? And I’ve got the ten-to-two part.”
She laughed. “Long time after Carnegie did. The city kept it going, but money dried up. Probably twenty years ago. The hands: people call them the ‘Angel Wings.’ ”
The SUV accelerated fast, then turned away from the river at the next intersection. She told him she had a pub in mind she thought he might like.
She was wearing aviator shades. He’d tried to get a look at her eyes. He really wanted to know if the color was from genes or from plastic.
After some silence he asked a common silence-breaking question. “How’d you end up here?”