“That’s why I brought the twenty-two. If I do have to shoot you, you probably won’t die.”
Tiny sweat droplets began to bead on Bradford’s forehead. “What do you want?”
“I want you to admit what you’ve done — to Ryan Tyler’s parents, to J’Quarius Jones, to Annamaria Olivera,” Dillon said, fidgeting with his phone.
“Fine. I’ll admit anything you want,” Bradford blurted desperately. “But that won’t make it true. And you have to know that nothing I say would ever stand up in court. There’s no evidence for anything. Because I didn’t do anything!”
“I’m well aware that a simple admission wouldn’t be any good in court. That’s why I want details. And if they’re not consistent with what I know to be true, there will be consequences.”
Bradford’s mind raced. How much could Dillon really know about anything? There wasn’t much of any substance on the Avillage intranet.
Dillon held his phone up next to the gun. “Talk!”
“Ok! Ok! Where do you want me to start?” Bradford stalled.
“Start at the beginning — with Ryan Tyler’s parents.”
Bradford turned toward the side window to see a growing crowd of police cruisers congregating at a safe distance on the other side of the now roped-off interstate. From a distance he could hear the staccato “thwup-thwup-thwup” of an approaching helicopter. If he could just confabulate for long enough to give the cops time to figure out how to get him out, he might not have to give up anything incriminating.
“As you may know,” he started, speaking very slowly and deliberately, “Ryan’s dad was a cardiologist in training.” True and verifiable, he thought. “Well, he’d been on call the night before the car accident, and, from what I understand, he’d gotten little to no sleep.
“You can check this out yourself. It’s all in the police report from the crash.” A lie, but there’s no way Dillon could know that. “The investigating officers speculated that he must have fallen asleep at the wheel…”
“Wrong, asswipe,” Dillon interrupted, frustratedly gritting his teeth. “One. More. Chance. And I’m serious.”
“Alright. You’re right. You got me. That’s not true — or it might be. I don’t know. Like I said, I had nothing to do with what happened to his parents!”
He paused as if to regroup, stealing another look at the police through the side window.
“But as for poor J’Quarius Jones, I do know about his death. Not a day goes by that I don’t question how I handled that situation.” Again he paused reflectively for as long as he thought Dillon would let him.
“When Dr. Bennett first called to tell me that he’d passed out on the basketball court, I had literally just landed in New York from Panama. I mean, I was still on the plane.” True. “And I’d been seated next to some screaming baby, who never should have been let into first class by the way, who had kept me up the whole flight — except for the final half hour. I had finally just faded into a deep sleep when the plane touched down, and the stewardess shook me awake.
“With the change in time zone and having just been woken up from a sound sleep, yet still sorely sleep-deprived, could I have potentially missed some details in the medical jargon Dr. Bennett was rattling off at me a mile a minute? It’s possible. But I don’t think so.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the University of Chicago Children’s Hospital actually chose to settle a malpractice case I brought against Dr. Bennett rather than risk taking it to trial.” True. “Personally, I was just ready to put the whole thing behind me, so I took their offer, and I donated…”
“Just shut up,” Dillon sighed, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry if…”
“I said shut up!” Dillon lowered his phone back down onto the front seat. “I wasn’t even recording. I knew you’d never admit to anything.
"But you weren’t the only one stalling.
“The truth is I’m not after confessions. I know what you did, and you are going to pay.”
He glanced down at the display on the device resting in the passenger seat. It now blinked, “400 PPM.”
Dillon smiled as he turned back toward Bradford. “You like the ‘72 Impala? She’s a bona fide classic.” He rubbed the back of his free hand down the tattered top of the vinyl bench seat.
“Here’s an interesting fact,” he continued. “Did you know that prior to 1975, cars manufactured in the U.S. weren’t equipped with catalytic converters?
“Interesting, huh? So if something were to block the tailpipe, like some kind of debris, or snow, or something like… I don’t know… duct tape,” he said, holding up a half-used roll, “the interior of the car could very well fill up with toxic levels of carbon monoxide.
“Don’t worry. We’re not there yet.” He put the tape down and held up the carbon monoxide monitor just before it ticked up from 400 to 800 parts per million. He then pulled a long piece of 1-inch PFA tubing out of his backpack and cracked the driver’s side window, just enough to thread about a foot and a half of the tubing out into the clean outside air. “Sorry. I’ve only got one,” he said sarcastically before sucking in a long drag of fresh air.
For the first time since he’d first pulled the gun, he could see true terror back in Bradford’s eyes. And he relished it.
“If you try to get out of the car, I promise you I’ll shoot straight for your spinal cord.” The pure hatred in his eyes convinced Bradford he meant it. He took another series of breaths through the tube. “Or you can stay in here with me and take your chances; I’m not gonna let you die.”
The monitor emitted an agitated series of beeps as the display ticked up from 800 to 1600 parts per million of carbon monoxide.
“You feeling ok?” Dillon asked pseudo-empathetically, unable to fully suppress his smile. “Because you’re not looking too good.”
Bradford tried his best to stay stoic, but he couldn’t quite fight off an involuntary urge to swallow awkwardly as an unnatural rush of saliva filled his mouth.
Dillon gleefully sucked in a few more breaths through his tube. “You’ve probably got a little bit of a headache right now? Yeah, unfortunately that’s gonna get quite a bit worse.
“By the time this thing ticks up to 3200, you’ll probably be vomiting that eight-dollar latte you were so smugly sipping a little while ago all over the back seat.
“If you’re still awake to see 6400, you won’t remember it.
“But that’s right around the time I’m gonna give myself up, and one of those heroes over there will rush in and save your life.”
Not unexpectedly, Dillon’s phone interrupted his soliloquy.
“Hello? What? FBI? No, I’m sorry. I don’t know any FBI. You must have the wrong number.” He switched his ringer to silent and dropped the phone to the floorboard.
Bradford’s sallow complexion was lacquered with perspiration, his lips pressed firmly together, completely devoid of color, and he seemed to be concentrating intently on not vomiting. That could only last for so long.
Ryan anxiously turned on the TV and flipped to the news, where he found a field correspondent, just back from commercial, rehashing Dillon’s story from the southbound lanes of the interstate, flanked on both sides by the flashing lights of more than a dozen police cruisers. Mind-numbingly repetitive aerial and ground shots of the green Impala offered no clue as to what was going on inside.
“CNN has now confirmed that the owner of the car is one Dillon Higley, a freshman at MIT,” the correspondent reported as Dillon’s high school yearbook photo flashed briefly on the screen. “And his hostage is believed to be Aaron Bradford, executive vice president of Avillage, Incorporated.”