Interstate 80
Andrew Kane discovered a hole in the traffic and gunned the engine, easing into a space in the fast lane. He was getting good at driving with his left hand. Still, he kept an eye on the speedometer. No need—the fast lane was doing a whopping forty-five miles per hour. Checking the speedometer had already become instinctive, an annoying new habit. Not that he could afford another reason to take his eyes off the road now that he was relegated to using only one hand. He had enough problems without adding another speeding ticket.
Almost since the moment he drove the torch-red Saab 9-3 off the dealer’s lot, it had attracted police radar as if it contained some secret, invisible force. He wondered if it was punishment for buying what had been a magnificent splurge, so much so that he had added vanity plates that read, “A WHIM,” as if he needed to explain. Would he ever consider this car the well-deserved reward he intended it to be? After six years of playing the starving novelist and living off one credit card advance after another, he was finally reaping the financial awards, the fruits of his labor, so to speak. In other words, the royalty checks for his five novels were finally adding up. This car was supposed to symbolize his success. It was supposed to represent an end to the struggle and a new beginning, a promise of what was yet to come. Maybe all that was too much to ask of a car, any car.
He checked the rearview mirror. Traffic had slowed enough for him to adjust the canvas shoulder harness that threatened to strangle him and itched like crazy, especially in this sweaty heat. After three long weeks it still bugged the hell out of him. The doctor kept insisting Andrew wouldn’t notice it “after a while.” He was beginning to think his doctor’s measure of “after a while” wasn’t the same as his own.
Yet it wasn’t the shoulder strap that Andrew wanted to rip from his chest. That hatred he reserved for the blood-sucking contraption that practically glued his arm to his chest. His doctor had also told him that he would learn quickly to make do with his left arm as if his right no longer existed. His doctor obviously had never broken his collarbone or been without use of his dominant hand and arm…hell, practically that entire side of his body.
It didn’t help matters that this injury—what Andrew wished he could have chalked up to a simple biking accident—had unleashed the reminder that Andrew’s forty-three-year-old body wasn’t what it used to be. It was as if his reward for all the hard work and struggles, for his newly acquired success, was high blood pressure and broken bones. His doctor called it “a wake-up call,” then smiled when he added, “Who knew writing novels could be so stressful, huh?” Andrew shook his head. Maybe he needed a new doctor.
He glanced at the worn leather briefcase on the passenger seat. It had been with him through the writing of every one of his novels, a gift from Nora back in the days when she said she believed in him and wanted him to follow his dreams. Back before she realized following his dream might include going into debt and having to sacrifice by putting some things off. Things like commitment and marriage and kids. She accused him of using his dream as an excuse to avoid commitment. He told her that was ridiculous, and she couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through. It wasn’t until after she was gone from his life that he realized maybe she was right. Maybe he had a tendency to drive people away to avoid commitment. Sometimes it was just easier that way. He was better on his own, anyway.
Andrew looked back at the briefcase. Ordinarily it was bulging at the seams with notebooks, the pages filled, sometimes bleeding red from self-edits, the corners creased, stains in the margins from late-night coffee or too much wine. But today the case slouched, thin and frail, with hardly enough inside to keep it upright in the seat. The spiral notebooks were empty, white blue-lined pages ready to stare back at him, taunting instead of coaxing him. When had it become so difficult? When had writing gone from fun to hard work? When had he begun looking at his dream with dread instead of anticipation? Dread, accompanied by this tightness in his chest.
“This is the stuff of early heart attacks,” his doctor had cautioned, “especially with a family history. What was your father? Sixty-eight? Sixty-nine?”
Andrew had only nodded, not bothering to correct him. His father had been sixty-three when he died of a heart attack. Only twenty years older than Andrew. Yeah, he definitely needed a new doctor.
He tried to concentrate on the interstate lanes in front of him now that he was approaching yet another construction area. Lines of blinking taillights like little red dots lined up for as far as he could see. Another slowdown. At this rate he’d never get out to Platte River State Park. Though, what was the hurry? He had reserved the cabin for two weeks. Why hurry only to sit and stare out at the glistening lake and find that, perhaps, it could no longer inspire him? He hoped that wasn’t the case. In fact, he was counting on this retreat to turn things around. It was his last hope.
Why was the fast lane now the stop lane? Andrew cocked his head to the left, swerving the car as he did so to compensate for the harness around his neck. He couldn’t see any end to the backed-up traffic. What he could see were thunderheads, sagging in the west. Just his luck. He had hoped he and Tommy would have time before lunch to do some fishing. He still couldn’t believe his hot-shot detective friend had never been fishing before. Finally, something he could teach him. It was usually the other way around with Tommy sharing details and experiences of being a cop, teaching Andrew how to give his suspense novels some real-life credibility.
The Saab’s engine wanted to race and Andrew considered cutting the A/C to relieve it. Instead, he blasted two of the vents directly in his face and sat back. He needed to relax. His shoulder ached. It constantly ached. And today the back of his head felt as if it would explode at any second. Probably the high blood pressure.
He glanced in the rearview mirror again, this time taking note of the blue eyes staring back from behind the wire-rim glasses. The glasses were new, yet another sign of the toll his newfound success had taken. The result of too many hours spent in front of a computer screen. Recently, his eyes had begun to remind him of his father’s, almost the exact blue, chameleon—quick to change with his mood or the color of his shirt.
Andrew remembered that his father’s eyes had grown hard and cold in response to the betrayal, pain and disappointment he felt he had been dealt. There was always some reason he wasn’t able to succeed, something or someone who kept him from getting what he deserved. Life wasn’t fair. That seemed to be his father’s motto. He believed that just when you got a taste of success, a sample of happiness, it could all be ripped away.
Andrew had always promised himself he’d never be like that, and yet when Nora left he’d felt a sense of betrayal. She left when he was most vulnerable, before he had even gotten a publishing contract, before he had anything concrete in hand that he could promise or offer her. But he couldn’t be angry with Nora. He couldn’t blame her. It was his fault. Andrew wondered if he was destined to sabotage any success and happiness that came his way. Because like his father, he worried that all of it could be taken away as quickly as it had come. Is that what his writer’s block was about? Was it just another way to sabotage the success he was amassing as a novelist?
“Be careful what you wish for,” his father would often warn, usually after several whiskeys, “you might get it, only it won’t look anything like you thought it should.”
Andrew shook his head and stole one more glance in the mirror. He was not his father. He had spent a lifetime making sure of that, and yet here were his father’s eyes, staring at him, warning him again.
CHAPTER 7
10:03 a.m.
He was waiting when Melanie drove into the parking lot. Her stomach took a slow nosedive when she saw him. She knew how much Jared hated to wait. He sat in one of the wooden rocking chairs, the last in a row that lined the restaurant’s deck.
She glanced at her wristwatch. She was on time. Okay, maybe a minute late, but only a minute at the most. And even though he sat slouched, fe
et propped on the handrail, as though content enough to catch a nap, Melanie knew he would be pissed. Pissed that she wasn’t the one waiting for him. That she hadn’t been anxious and excited, ready to jump when he told her to. In other words, that she wasn’t the same little girl who looked up to her big brother, constantly wanting to please him. That girl would have been here on time. No, that girl would have been here early.
He nodded at her without really looking at her. There was something different about him. Something Melanie wasn’t prepared for. He was smiling, almost a grin, which made things worse. Jared smiled only for a couple of reasons, none of them because he was happy. This smile was his “I have something over you now” smile. If Melanie had had any appetite left—which she didn’t—it would be gone for sure.
He dropped his feet one by one as if he was in no big hurry, each an exaggerated plop against the deck’s wood floor. Then he pushed himself out of the rocking chair, scooping up the backpack that Melanie only now noticed.
“That’s Charlie’s,” she said in place of a greeting, pointing to the worn purple backpack, its corners scarred with black-and-white marks. She’d recognize that ratty old thing anywhere. Charlie could lift a new one—hell, he could lift a dozen new ones—and, yet, the boy carried this thing around like that pathetic Charlie Brown character with his worn-out security blanket. Because that’s what it was to Charlie. Her son, who wasn’t scared of anything or anyone, carried around this pathetic old canvas bag like it was his Superman cape, drawing strength from its simple presence. “Is he here?” she asked, looking around, but not seeing Charlie’s pickup in the parking lot.
“No,” Jared told her, the smile already gone as though he didn’t feel the need to explain. “But he will be.”
Melanie watched him sling the backpack over his shoulder with exaggerated purpose, as if to reinforce the fact that Charlie would eventually show up. Sort of like a ransom. Ransom? That was silly. Why in the world would she even think such a thing? Charlie was crazy about his uncle Jared. He looked up to him like a father figure. Even during Jared’s five years in prison, it was Charlie who visited when Melanie couldn’t make herself go to the prison. Instead she had kept in touch via phone calls and letters. Melanie didn’t mind that Charlie wanted to visit. She knew he needed a man in his life to learn how to be a man. And his uncle Jared, despite what their mother called his “unfortunate incarceration,” was a better mentor for Charlie than Charlie’s own deadbeat father. There was a bond between Charlie and Jared that sometimes drove her crazy.
“He doesn’t go anywhere without that thing,” she said, not taking Jared’s hint and letting the subject drop. It bothered her. She couldn’t believe Charlie would have left it willingly, not even with Jared. It contained an odd assortment of what Charlie called his “valuables.” “Did he say where he was going?”
“He’s running an errand for me.”
Jared walked into the restaurant ahead of her, not bothering to hold the door open. A gray-haired man on his way out with his hunched-over wife shot Jared a nasty look. It was a wasted effort. Jared didn’t even notice. Melanie ignored them, too. Actually, it didn’t bother her. She didn’t need any man holding a door open for her.
No, what bothered her more was that Jared wasn’t telling her something. He was shutting her out again. He had been like this since he came back, quiet, almost secretive, as if he was holding something back.
The hostess led them to a table in the middle, but Jared continued on to a booth in the corner by the window. Before the woman even noticed, he was tossing the backpack against the wall and sliding in after it.
“This one’s not taken, is it?” He was already unwrapping the paper napkin and setting out his silverware while the poor hostess simply stared at him.
“No, that one’s not taken, but we—”
“Great. Could we have some menus?” He squinted at her name tag. “Annette?” Then he held out his hand for the menus. Annette immediately complied, a rush of crimson crawling up her neck from her white lace collar, coloring her cheeks.
“I’ll send your waitress over to get your order.”
“That’d be just fantastic, Annette.”
Melanie slid into the other side of the booth, giving the woman only a glance while examining Jared’s smirk. What she once considered to be her brother’s charm now seemed like sarcasm. Ever since they were kids, Jared would call strangers by their names, catching them off guard by reading their name tags that Melanie never noticed. It had always seemed so cool, so adult, even polite and friendly. Maybe she was only imagining that he sounded sarcastic.
What was her problem? Why was she doing this, second-guessing things? She and Jared were blood. They were family. They had a bond, held together by promises and secrets. They had vowed long ago to always be there for each other, and Melanie had broken that promise. Not only that, she had let him down when he needed her most. If she had only been able to provide him with an alibi he would never have had to waste five years of his life in prison. She owed him. That’s exactly what she told herself as Jared closed his menu, ready to order, waiting once again. He grabbed his fork and began cleaning his fingernails with the prongs. At least she wasn’t the one keeping him waiting this time.
Suddenly Jared broke out in a grin. Not at Melanie, but at someone over her shoulder. She turned, expecting to see a waitress, but instead saw Charlie making his way through the maze of tables. He bumped into someone and excused himself, but then turned and rolled his eyes at Jared as if the elderly man had been in Charlie’s way and it was his own fault for getting bumped.
Somehow her son seemed to lose his manners in Jared’s company, eager to please his mentor and instinctively knowing just how to do that. He annoyed her when he acted like some bumbling idiot, a puppy doing tricks for its owner. He was above that. Or he should be. Melanie would never call Charlie brilliant but the boy was smart, sometimes too smart, learning with ease the trade of manipulation. That red hair, spiked in all directions, along with those irresistible freckles and that boyish grin allowed him to get away with just about anything. Now if only someone could teach him how to dress. She certainly had not succeeded, because here he was wearing those baggy jeans she wished he would throw out and the black T-shirt that read, What if the hokeypokey is really what it’s all about?
Melanie hadn’t even noticed that he had something tucked under his arm until he got to their table. She might not have noticed it at all except that Charlie stood it in front of them on the table, grinning from ear to ear.
“Here you go,” Charlie said, presenting the object to Jared as if he were Indiana Jones delivering some gold treasure he had seized by outrunning violent tribesmen and Nazi henchmen. “You said you needed one more. Whadya do with the one I gave you yesterday?”
Melanie couldn’t believe it. Was this the important errand Jared had sent Charlie on? What the hell were the two of them up to? Was it Jared’s way of testing Charlie’s loyalty? What stupid, immature game were they playing? Because why else would Jared encourage her son’s obsession with stealing ugly ceramic gnomes from people’s front yards?
CHAPTER 8
10:24 a.m.
Logan Hotel
Max Kramer stopped to catch his breath at the fourth-floor landing of the Logan. Sweat poured down his forehead, dripping off his chin. The son-of-a-bitching apartment building had no air-conditioning. What did he expect of a place that had a security door held open with a trash can? The elevator didn’t work. No surprise. And if that wasn’t enough, Carrie Ann Comstock lived on the sixth floor.
He took off his suit jacket, threw it over his arm and loosened his tie. He had just put on the crisply pressed suit and already it felt like a wrinkled wet rag. He swatted at a swarm of flies that had followed him in from the street. Maybe he was getting too old to be meeting clients at their houses. He pulled himself up the narrow flight of stairs and stopped again. This time he took a deep breath and almost started gagging.
“Good God!”
Someone on the fifth floor had burned their breakfast. It smelled like scorched milk mixed with something sour, something that reminded him of vomit. He held his breath and hurried up the last flight, pushing through the filthy, heavy door and letting it slam behind him.
He tried wiping the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his shirt and slapped at the persistent flies. He hated feeling damp and sticky, unclean. He prided himself in looking pressed and polished. He kept remembering how good he looked on those videotapes he had made of his recent interviews. Thanks to Jared Barnett he had a whole library of videotapes.
He buttoned his collar and straightened his tie. He took one more swat at the flies then knocked on the door of apartment 615. The number six clung by a loose nail and had swung upside down so that it looked like apartment 915.
A grumble came from the other side of the door. He stepped back and waited for the succession of clicks as the locks were undone. The door opened a couple of inches, limited by the chain that held it. Max wanted to shake his head and restrained himself from rolling his eyes. In this building a door chain was about as worthless as a flyswatter.
“Whadya want?”
Max recognized the woman’s raspy voice and knew that it was, no doubt, the result of her prolonged usage of crack cocaine, not cigarettes.
“I’m Max Kramer. Are you Carrie Ann Comstock?”
“Yeah, so whadya want?”
“Actually, Carrie Ann, you called me.”
“I did?” She shoved one eye to the crack and gave him a once-over.
“You said your friend Heather Fischer recommended me to represent you.”
“She did?”
“I just spoke to you on the phone last week. I told you I’d stop by on Wednesday. Today’s Wednesday.”
“Oh, right. You’re the lawyer guy. Geez! Where’s my fuckin’ brain today?” She slammed the door. He heard the rattle of the chain, then she opened the door. “Come on in.”