But Andrew's mind flew into panic mode. Suddenly he realized why Jared's face looked so familiar. He had seen him on several news shows. His picture had been plastered on the front page of the Omaha World Herald. Jared Bar-nett. Andrew had heard Tommy Pakula curse that name over the last few weeks, insisting Barnett had gotten away with murder. Andrew had done too much research, had spent too many hours listening to cops, knew too many statistics to deny the one thing he now knew for certain. Jared Barnett wouldn't simply be taking his wallet and his car and leaving.
At least not before finishing what he must have tried to do last night-but missed.
CHAPTER 34
8:27 a.m.
Melanie fell back in the chair, her hands wringing the khaki shorts she had pulled from the heap of clothes. All that blood. She had seen it on Jared's and Charlie's coveralls. What did she think it was from? And the gunfire. Of course there were victims. Someone probably got in the way, made a stupid move. That's probably what happened.
But four…shot at close range. There had to be a mistake. The media always blew everything out of proportion, hyped the news for better ratings.
She watched Charlie. He was cleaning his high-tops, robbing off the mud with a towel from the bathroom, trying to return them to his standard of bright white. It hadn't fazed him one bit to listen to the report, to hear what kind of mess he may have left behind. Instead, he seemed more concerned with the mess his shoes were in. That's when Melanie noticed he was scrubbing two pairs of high-tops. She had forgotten that Jared had borrowed a pair when he first got out of jail. And here Charlie was cleaning his uncle's shoes, too. Taking care of his uncle. It should have been the other way around-Jared should have been taking care of Charlie.
She smoothed the fabric of the shorts with shaking hands, not taking her eyes off Charlie. Her boy couldn't hurt anyone let alone shoot an innocent bystander. And certainly not at close range. Charlie didn't even know how to fire a gun. They had never had to use guns before. She wouldn't allow it. Wouldn't even allow them in her house. Accidents happened with guns, bad accidents. Maybe that was what had happened in the bank. Maybe it was an accident.
"We have half an hour." Jared startled her, making her jump. She wondered how long he had been standing there, leaning against the wall. "Fill that cooler." He pointed to a small one in the corner. "Maybe with sandwiches and Pepsis. And why aren't you dressed yet? Forget about fashion statements. Just put something the fuck on."
Her cheeks burned, but she didn't move. She could feel Andrew Kane's eyes on her. Charlie hadn't moved from the TV screen.
"You can't boss me around like when we were kids. Jared. I'm not moving until you tell me what the hell happened." There, she'd said it. It didn't matter that her voice sounded small and whiny.
"You let me worry about things. Do what I tell you to do and everything'll be fine."
She couldn't help thinking that was exactly what he had said all those years ago. The other mess they had gotten into. It was almost twenty-five years ago, when she was ten and he was twelve. There had been so much blood back then, too. Blood splattered on the walls and in the cracks of the kitchen linoleum. And there had been a gun, too. Jared had told her he'd take care of things. Everything would be fine, he had promised. It would be their secret.
"I need to know what happened," she insisted, disappointed that her voice sounded too much like that ten-year-old little girl.
"It's not up for discussion, Mel. We need to get the fuck out of here."
Jared pushed past her, bumping her chair. He started going through Andrew Kane's things. He turned over one of the brown sacks, spilling the food contents all over the counter. He ripped open a box of granola bars and started searching the room.
"This is bad, Jared," Melanie tried again. Maybe it had been an accident, she repeated to herself. That's what her mother had told her happened with that Rebecca girl, though Melanie wasn't sure how their mother knew. Jared never talked about it.
Jared ignored her, passing back behind her again. He grabbed two muddy backpacks from under a chair. That was the first time Melanie realized Charlie had remembered to bring her backpack along with his own.
"This yours?" Jared dropped it on the table in front of her. "So you're saved. Probably got a change of clothes and a makeup kit. Right? Go put some clothes on, Melanie."
"On the TV news they said there were victims, Jared."
He swung Charlie's backpack onto the table beside hers and opened it to put the granola bars inside. But instead he started shuffling through the contents, pulling out one of Charlie's comic books, a couple of maps, several Pez dispensers, which he held up for a better look, shook his head then tossed back inside.
He kept one of the maps out and started unfolding it. Then he stopped and with the sweep of his arm, cleared the tabletop of everything-mayonnaise jar, spoons, open loaf of bread, empty Pepsi cans, all crashing to the floor, along with Andrew Kane's suitcase and clothes. The only things to survive his sweep were the two backpacks and the map, which he began filling the table with.