Dawn's Light

  She followed him into the kitchen. He closed and locked the window there, and wished he could light a lamp so she could see the sincerity on his face. But he couldn’t take that chance.

  “Have you been hiding from the police?” she asked.

  “Analee, just listen to me.”

  “I am listening.”

  “I lied to you,” he said. “When we got your grandfather’s inheritance, I told you that I’d put it in the bank, that it was safely tucked away in our savings account.”

  “Wasn’t it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  She stiffened, and in the moonlight coming in through a window, he saw her face hardening. “Clay, what did you do?”

  He moved toward her, set his hands on her shoulders. “I got stupid.”

  “What do you mean, you got stupid?”

  He pulled her to the couch, set her down. Then he sat on the coffee table, facing her. His breath was heavy, and he longed to wash his face and hands and change his clothes. What a long, foolish day it had been.

  He drew his thoughts back to Analee. “I started to think that I could double it, if I could just get a winning hand at blackjack.”

  “Oh no. Don’t tell me!” She shoved his shoulders. “You told me you’d stopped gambling. You promised!”

  “I know,” he said. “But I couldn’t help myself. I just knew I could win and double the money. Maybe even triple it.”

  “You lost it, didn’t you?” She said the words bitterly, tears glistening in her eyes.

  “Yeah, I lost it.”

  She got up and walked away from him, turned back. “But I don’t understand. You brought home cash the other day. It was two percent of what I thought we had. How did you do that if it wasn’t in the bank?”

  His throat was dry, and he couldn’t make himself say it.

  “What did you do, steal it?”

  His silence arced like electricity between them.

  “You did! You stole it!”

  He walked around the couch. “I took it from somebody else who got theirs from the bank that day. It was a classic holdup. I pulled a gun and told them to give me all their money or else. And they did. It was no big deal.”

  “Armed robbery was no big deal?” Her mouth hung open. “Clay, what were you thinking?”

  “I did it for you. That seemed better than telling you the truth. I knew if I did you’d leave me.”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t blame this on me!” Her eyes moved from side to side, as if she was going back over everything in her head. “No wonder they’re looking for you. They asked for your picture. What if the person you robbed can identify you?”

  “You didn’t give that to them, did you? Analee, tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “But I had no idea that you had done something like that. Why couldn’t you tell me about the gambling? I could have dealt with that.”

  He swallowed hard. “You have to understand, I did this for you. I couldn’t bear to see you disappointed in me again. I didn’t want to lose you and Star. I thought I could fix it.”

  Her hands came up to grasp her hair at the roots. “Clay, you have to go to the police. You have to turn yourself in.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Why not? It’s the only right thing to do. Besides, they already know. They were here!”

  “I know they were. And they’re watching the house now. I saw a patrol car over at the school.”

  “A patrol car? Watching us?”

  “Don’t worry. They didn’t see me.”

  She was on the verge of hysteria, so he grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Analee, listen to me. I’m not going to prison. Do you know how many people did the same thing that day? How much money was taken from other people?”

  “It wasn’t theirs,” she shouted. “They should go to jail too!”

  “It’s payback for what the casinos did to me.”

  “The casinos didn’t do it to you. You did it to yourself before the Pulses.” She shook free of him. “Who are you?”

  “I want you to come with me. We have to leave town tonight.”

  She shook his hands off of her. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  “Please! Analee, what’s it going to be like if you stay here and they come for me? You care so much what people think about you, and what they’re going to think is that you’re the wife of an armed robber. How will you feel if I’m in prison and you have to go about your life with everybody knowing that?”

  She dropped her hands. “Why did you do this to me?”

  “Honey, we can fix it. I can borrow a car from the conversion plant.”

  “Borrow? You mean steal?”

  “Borrow. I’ve worked on enough of those cars to own half of them. We’ll just take it and plan to bring it back sometime. I know where we can get some gas. We can get to your parents’ house before daybreak.” When she shook her head, he added, “They can see the baby for the first time. We’ll surprise them.”

  “I don’t want to bring my parents into this.”

  “Why not?” he asked. “With communication still down, the police departments won’t even be talking to each other. Nobody’s gonna know. We can tell them we just decided we wanted our family together. They’ve been trying to get you to come anyway. All those letters. They never have to know. We can start over there. And honey, I have the cash. I’ve still got it.”

  She began to sob and dropped onto the couch. “Why did I marry you? How did I miss the clues that you were like this?”

  “You married me because you love me, and I’m not like that. I’m a good person. I did what I had to do to take care of you and Star. It’ll be okay. No one will ever have to know what happened. I swear, I’ll never be so stupid again. I’ve learned my lesson. Give me a second chance, so Star won’t have to grow up being the child of a prisoner. She shouldn’t have to pay for what I’ve done. We have to protect her.”

  Her face changed, and she looked at him. He knew he had broken through. If he could just get her to consider it, he could take her the rest of the way.

  “No one got hurt,” he whispered. “It was just money. When we get there, I’ll send it back to the guy if you want me to.”

  “Then you know him?”

  “Yes. I threw his wallet away, but I remember his name and address.”

  Her eyes rounded. “You would send it back? And we could start over without having to worry?”

  “I promise you, sweetheart.”

  She considered him for a moment. “If I do this . . .”

  He had her. “Yes?”

  “If I do this, there’s not going to be any more gambling, even if the casinos open back up. Even if they come and beg you to play with them. I don’t want to hear anything about gambling. Do you see how it’s ruined our lives?”

  “It hasn’t ruined them,” he said. “Honey, we can start over and pretend this never even happened. But we have to go now.”

  He reached out for her, and she didn’t push him away. Her arms slid around him, and she wept into his shoulder. He’d won. She was going to give him that second chance, and soon they would be on their way out of town. He would be able to keep his baby, and still evade the police.

  SIXTY

  THE SOUND OF A BABY CRYING ALERTED MARK THAT something had changed in the neighborhood. He’d taken a break from walking to sit in the dark doorway of the school, forcing himself to stay awake as he waited for Clay Tharpe to come home.

  He couldn’t see his watch, but it had to be two a.m. He’d been here for hours. And the crying baby’s voice drifted up on the wind.

  He crossed the parking lot, walking slowly up the street. Maybe some child had woken in the middle of the night, and its cries were carrying through open windows. He scanned the street, looking for a light flickering on in one of the houses. None did.

  As he neared the Tharpe house, he saw that the garage door was open. The beam of a flashlight moved inside the ba
y.

  Drawing his weapon, he went behind the house on the opposite side from the garage. He crossed the backyard — knowing this qualified as trespassing. But what was he to do? Let Tharpe walk?

  Maybe it was just Analee, looking for something in the garage. But the garage had been closed half an hour ago. He was sure of it. Why would she have opened it?

  He felt in his gut that Tharpe had come home — but why hadn’t Mark seen him? He’d watched the house all night. Maybe Tharpe had anticipated that someone was watching the house. Maybe he’d even seen Mark’s van and come up from behind the house.

  As Mark moved through the yard, he glanced toward the windows. Everything was still dark. He reached the garage, flattened himself against the wall, and crept to the front. The baby had stopped crying, but he could hear movement, muffled voices — a man’s and a woman’s.

  He was right. Tharpe was home.

  He eased around to the edge of the garage opening, his weapon pointed skyward. In one movement, he stepped toward the open bay and brought his gun down. “Freeze!” he shouted.

  Analee screamed, and the baby choked out a cry. But he couldn’t see Tharpe. He moved the gun in sharp jerks, his eyes wide as he searched the darkness.

  He heard a whoosh from the wall next to him. Something smashed into his head.

  Pain burst white and broad, and he felt himself falling backward, his head hitting the concrete, the gun flying from his hand. Footsteps came closer, and he forced his eyes open and saw Tharpe standing over him with a two-by-four raised for another blow.

  “Don’t, Clay,” Analee cried. “You’ll kill him!”

  “I got his gun,” Tharpe said. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Mark tried to pull himself out of his stupor as they rode out on bicycles. He rolled over, tried to get his knees under him, pushed himself up. Stumbling to his feet, he felt his head clearing. He touched his forehead; blood dripped into his eyes. He’d been hit in the head before . . . and had a scar on the other side of his forehead to prove it.

  It wasn’t as bad as he thought. The fog was clearing. He looked up the street, saw the reflective lights on their bikes as Tharpe and his wife rode away, turning the corner.

  Mark tried to run after them, but they’d gotten a head start. He made it to the corner, but they were too far away to catch on foot.

  He turned back and ran for his van.

  When had Clay come home? Why hadn’t he seen him? Mark bolted across the parking lot at the school and around to his car. Jumping in, he stepped on the gas and turned the key.

  It cranked, but wouldn’t catch.

  He tried again, pumping the accelerator. Tharpe knew car engines inside and out. He must have tampered with it while Mark was walking up and down the street. Now what? If he took the time to figure out what was wrong with the engine, they’d be long gone and he’d never find them. But he’d never catch up to them on foot, either.

  Slamming the heel of his hand on the steering wheel, he got his flashlight and opened the hood. He wiped the blood dripping into his eyes on his sleeve, and saw that it wasn’t the battery. The cables were still tightly clamped. He looked for the distributor cap and realized it had been removed.

  He kicked the side of his vehicle, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere in it tonight. He took off running as fast as his legs would carry him, hoping to at least see the direction the Tharpes were going.

  SIXTY-ONE

  CLAY AND ANALEE RODE AS IF THEIR LIVES DEPENDED ON it, not speaking as he led her up the streets that would take them to the conversion plant. Star had stopped crying. Soon they would have her in a car, and Analee could hold her as they made their way out of the state. He hoped he could find gas.

  They turned onto Alabaster Street. The lights to the conversion plant were off, and it looked as though no one was there. He pulled onto the lot. Though they kept long hours here, from seven in the morning until ten at night, there was usually no activity in the wee hours.

  Analee pulled up to the door and put her foot on the ground, balancing the bike. “Clay, you didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “No, I just surprised him and knocked him off his feet.”

  “Because you can’t go around killing cops. I was with you. What if we get caught and they think I’m an accessory? What would happen to Star then?”

  “I said I didn’t kill him!” He went to the door and shook the knob, knowing he couldn’t get in. They hadn’t given him a key. He wasn’t that high up in the hierarchy yet. But he knew how to get into the cars parked behind the place. There were a few already converted and waiting for pickup by government agencies. He could hot-wire one of those.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll come around with a car.”

  “I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t want to stand here by myself.”

  He came to her bike, unhooked the baby, and picked her up. As Analee got off the bike, he kissed Star and handed her to her mother. “All right, come with me. Just leave the bikes here. We won’t need them anymore.”

  “But they’re valuable. We’ll need them in Huntsville. We can’t do without them.”

  “Analee, work with me here!”

  “But Clay, they’ll identify us when they find our bikes. They’ll know we’re the ones who stole the car.”

  He hadn’t thought of that. Sighing, he said, “This is getting really complicated.”

  “Then let’s don’t do it. Let’s just go back. You can turn yourself in. We can pay the money back. Maybe they’ll let you go after the restitution is paid.”

  That would be fine if it was just as he’d told her. But there was no restitution for murder, or for assaulting a police officer. He had no choice but to run. “I need you to stay quiet,” he said. “I don’t know for sure if anybody’s here.”

  She shut up, and he led her quietly around the building. There were seven cars there that they had converted, but the keys to each were inside the building. One of them was a pickup truck. Maybe that was the one he should try.

  “Okay, we can put the bikes in that truck.”

  She seemed satisfied at that, so they retrieved the bikes and rolled them to the truck. He put them into the bed. The truck was locked, so he found a crowbar and knocked the window out. He unlocked it, then dusted the glass fragments off the seat. “Get in.”

  They hadn’t been able to bring the car seat for the baby, but it wouldn’t have mattered. The truck was so old that it didn’t even have seat belts, so Analee climbed in and held the child in her arms. Holding his flashlight in his teeth, Clay got under the dashboard and hot-wired the engine. It rumbled to life.

  He pulled himself up into the driver’s seat, looking to see how much fuel he had. Only an eighth of a tank, but that was enough to get them all the way out of town. Maybe he could get a little more out of the filling station next to the building.

  He backed the truck out and pulled it around to one of the fuel tanks. He tried it, but the spigots were locked soundly in their cradles, so that no one could steal fuel.

  Oh, well. Maybe he could go from one police station to another, siphoning gas out of their squad cars. It was risky, but they were the only ones he was sure had gas.

  He got back into the truck and closed the door. The baby was already asleep in Analee’s arms. Analee looked resigned to the situation they were in, and she was quiet — a rare occurrence. He hoped she stayed that way. He pulled the truck out of the parking lot and headed north.

  SIXTY-TWO

  MARK WAS DRIPPING WITH SWEAT AND OUT OF BREATH by the time he reached the sheriff’s department. He burst through the front doors and cried out to the dozing deputy, “Give me the keys to your car. They got away!”

  Billy London got to his feet. “What? Who got away?”

  “Clay Tharpe.” He saw the keys lying on his desk and went to grab them. “He took the distributor cap off my car so I couldn’t go after him.”

  Billy followed him to the door. “Who’s Clay Tharpe?”

 
“A murderer, that’s who.”

  “The one who killed that little girl today?”

  Mark swung around. “Killed? Don’t tell me she’s dead!” He grabbed Billy’s arm. “Did Beth die?”

  “No, I don’t know. I just thought — ”

  “Did someone come tell you she’s dead?” he screamed.

  Billy fell back over a desk. “No, I haven’t heard anything. I meant to say he attacked the little girl.”

  Mark let him go. He stepped back, adrenaline pounding through his heart.

  “Man, get a grip. You should go home and get some rest.”

  “I can’t,” Mark said. “They’re gonna get away. Then what good are we?” He looked down at the keys in his hand. “Look, if any of the squad cars come back in, tell them we’re looking for a man and a woman on bicycles with a baby on the back.”

  “How will they know it’s them?”

  Mark wanted to slug him. Through his teeth, he said, “They’ll be the only man and woman with a baby on bicycles at three in the morning.”

  Then he hurried out to the car parked haphazardly at the curb. He started the car and headed in the direction he thought the Tharpes had gone. His heart still hammered from his fright at the thought of Beth dying. “God, please don’t let her die. Pull her through this, Lord. We can’t lose her.”

  As he prayed, his eyes searched frantically through the night for the killer who had duped him.

  SIXTY-THREE

  BY DAWN, MARK HAD GIVEN UP ON TRYING TO FIND THE Tharpes. He had searched every street in Crockett. The knot on his head where Clay had hit him with the plank had swollen. It hurt like an ice pick probing through his brain, and the skin was crusted with dry blood. He was hungry and thirsty and utterly exhausted.

  When he finally came back to the sheriff’s department at 7:30 a.m., he learned that a car had been stolen from the conversion plant. There was no doubt in his mind who had taken it. That explained how they’d gotten out of town without being caught, but he had no clues as to which way they had gone or what their destination might have been.