One was Rakic, and the other was a fat, pasty-skinned blond man I’d never seen before. They had their backs to me, and they were looking intently at the balconies. When I came sprinting up, they heard me and turned.
Rakic shouted something unintelligible, and the pale fat man spun toward me, lifting a sawed-off shotgun. I shot him twice in the face, and he fell hard. A red mist sprayed onto Rakic. He dropped his own gun and fell to his knees, screaming and lifting his hands to his face, apparently convinced I’d shot him because of all the blood. I turned and ran back toward the street as someone fired at me from the balcony, the bullets kicking up bits of grass and dirt behind my feet.
I sprinted down the sidewalk, running faster than I’d moved since high school track, well aware there were three men still in pursuit and that I had only one round left in my gun.
I ran out into the street, and several cars honked at me and swerved to avoid a collision. I found the parking lot where I’d left Julie and Betsy. I’d told her to leave after ten minutes. How long had it been? They’d better still be there.
They were. I glanced over my shoulder and saw nothing but an empty sidewalk. I tucked the gun back under my shirt and wiped the sweat from my face, then knocked on the driver’s door. Julie leaned over and unlocked it, and I slid behind the wheel.
“What happened?” she asked. I was covered in sweat and gasping for breath, and a few drops of the fat man’s blood dotted my T-shirt. Betsy was sitting up in the backseat now, staring at me with eyes like dinner plates.
“Nothing happened,” I said. “But we’re leaving now. Betsy, honey, would you do me a huge favor and lie down in the backseat? We’re going to be driving for a while, and I want you to take a nap. I’ll get you an extra ice cream tomorrow if you lie down.”
She went down obediently, but her eyes remained open, and she clutched the stuffed cat to her chest a little tighter. Scared. She was a little girl, not an idiot, and she knew something was wrong.
The parking lot had exits onto Business 17 and Ocean Avenue. I turned onto 17 and drove south, watching my rearview mirror carefully. A squad car passed us, lights flashing and siren wailing, and hung a left, heading toward the Golden Breakers. They’d be looking for me soon enough. Rebecca would tell them my name, and they’d put out an all-points bulletin. They would even have the license plate number on the rental car, since I’d been required to put it on the hotel registration form. I didn’t fear the police at all compared to the Russians, but I also didn’t want to be stopped. I wanted to get back to Cleveland, and Joe. Together, we’d work this out. Or die trying.
CHAPTER 20
I DROVE south for an hour, even though it was the opposite direction from where I wanted to be heading. The less reasonable the route, the harder it would be to follow, I figured. I probably had an hour or so before the APB on my license plate went out, and then every state trooper in South Carolina would be looking for me. And for good reason-I’d just killed a man. I thought about it in a detached way now, as if I hadn’t actually pulled the trigger but watched someone else do it.
I’d pulled my gun several times in my police days, but I’d never fired to kill. I imagined tonight’s incident would have more impact when the adrenaline died down, and I wasn’t looking forward to that. It had been the definition of a self-defense killing, but it had been a killing nonetheless, and I’d never wanted to experience that, regardless of the circumstances or the victim. Julie had asked me if I could kill for her daughter, and I’d told her yes. I’d believed it when I said it, and she’d seemed to believe it, but I hadn’t expected the statement to be put to the test.
I drove to Charleston and took the interstate north out of the city. Cleveland was probably a fourteen-hour drive from Charleston, which meant I had a long night-and morning-ahead of me. It was slightly after eleven when we left Charleston, but I couldn’t even imagine sleeping. The adrenaline coursing through my veins was more intense than anything I’d felt before, and I thought I could probably abandon the car and run to Cleveland with Betsy on my back if necessary.
Julie and I did not speak. Betsy stayed awake until we hit Charleston. There the fatigue caught up with her and overpowered the fear, allowing her to sleep. Twenty minutes out of Charleston, Julie turned around and stroked her daughter’s arm, making sure she was sound asleep. Satisfied, she pulled back into her seat and looked at me.
“Will you tell me what happened now?”
I kept my eyes on the highway. “I got the tape. The Russians were at the hotel, though. Your hotel room turned into the O.K. Corral for a few minutes, and I jumped off the balcony onto the one below it, then ran out of the hotel and right into two of them. One of the guys swung a shotgun at me, and I killed him.” My voice was the same odd monotone it had been during my conversation with Joe. Detached. No emotion. Just routine talk from a cold, calculating, reflex killer.
Seven minutes passed before she spoke again. I watched the dashboard clock.
“I’m sorry” was what she said when she did break the silence.
“Why are you sorry? It’s not your fault.”
“Yes, it is. They weren’t there for you. They were there for me.”
“I might have led them to you, though. I used a credit card to pay for my flight and my hotel room. I assume they have someone who is capable of tracing that. I should have considered it to begin with, but I didn’t. So it’s just as much my fault as yours.” I wasn’t sure how the Russians had become aware of me in the first place, or concerned enough to try to trace me, but I figured that was how it had happened.
“No,” she said, shaking her head in the darkness. “It’s not your fault or my fault. We didn’t do anything wrong, we’re just paying the consequences. It’s my husband’s fault-his and Jeremiah Hubbard’s.” She said it sadly but firmly.
We drove on in silence.
“Are you going to drive all the way to Ohio?” she asked several minutes later.
“I’m going to try.”
“That’s not safe. You’ll be exhausted.”
“Julie, it would take a dozen tranquilizers to slow me down right now.”
“Okay.”
“Besides, the farther we get, the better. The police will be looking for the car.”
“Is that a problem?”
I shrugged. “We agreed that we didn’t want to deal with the local authorities, but I’m not too worried about it. If they pull me over, I’ll go to jail and you can ask for the FBI. These hick cops will be happy to do it, because they won’t have a clue what to do with you.” Cody was with the FBI, but I didn’t see how he could possibly have enough power to get to Julie and Betsy once they were under the control of authorities in a different state. Yet I continued to keep them out of police hands. A fool for a keeper, that’s what they had.
“Why would you go to jail?” Julie asked.
“I killed a man, Julie. It was a justifiable homicide, but I’m going to have to prove that in court. All the cops know is that I shot up a hotel and killed a man. They aren’t going to let me go home right away.”
She reached out and gripped my arm. “I need you with us. If they arrest you, they’ll separate us.”
“I know. That’s why I’m not going directly to the cops. But if they stop us, that’s what’s going to happen. We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”
Julie turned her head and stared out of the window. “I know it seems unimportant now, but we need to talk about what happened in the whirlpool tonight. I need to apologize for that.”
“It’s fine, Julie.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. I can’t believe I did that. My husband has been dead for ten days, Lincoln. Ten days. And I’m jumping on you in a hotel hot tub. Classy.” She looked up at me and pushed her hair away from her face. “It was an emotional response to a lot of fear and confusion,” she said. “That’s all it was.”