Julie tumbled through the story. At about eight-fifteen, Nikki opened her eyes, sat up, shook her head groggily, and said, “Hi, Mom. Where am I?”
Doctors came and went, tests were made, Nikki gradually seemed to focus, and particularly benefited from her little sister’s incredible joy. The two girls sat on the bed and talked for what seemed hours, while all the fuss went on about them. Now she was getting further tests.
“She doesn’t remember anything about the incident, but everything else seemed all right. How’s Dad-oh my God, how much work have I missed-oh, I have to call my editor-when can we leave-I’m hungry.”
“Oh, that’s so great,” said Bob. It doesn’t get much better than the moment you hear your kid has pulled through a tough one. His first impulse was to race to the car and beeline to Knoxville to be with his family at this precious moment.
“The doctor says the signs are good. She’ll get more memory back over the next few days. Our little girl is going to make it.”
Miko came on, delirious, and he talked to the second daughter for a while, in the language of fathers and daughters, both intimate and silly. But at a certain point it came back to him. Yeah, she’s fine, she’s okay, it’s all right, there’s a happy ending…if.
He realized that she’d make it if the boys didn’t come back to take her out again. She was much more dangerous now that she was conscious. Unconscious, there was always the thought that she could pass; now, revived, she was a threat.
“I’d like to come back,” he said. “I wish I could come back.”
“But you can’t,” Julie said. “You have work to do.”
“Yes, I do. I want the security tightened.”
“Bob, I’ve already called Pinkerton. They’re upping the manpower. It’ll cost us a fortune, but I don’t care. What’s happening there, where are you?”
He told her, summing things up, wishing he had a definite next step in mind, or that a solution would somehow soon be at hand. But it remained amorphous. Strange men tried to kill Nikki, tried to kill him for looking into it. The sheriff’s office didn’t have a clue. Nick Memphis hadn’t returned his phone calls.
“I’m going to go to Bristol now, to her apartment. That’s where they’ll know to find me.”
“Bob, be careful.”
“Maybe I can turn a thing on them. If not, I’ll wait a few days until after the race, then I’ll sneak back here and sniff out Eddie Ferrol. If anyone knows anything for sure, it’s him. He and I’ll have a little conversation, and then I’ll be up to speed.”
“Can you find him?”
“I think I can.”
He saw his cell light blinking, informing him another call was coming in.
“You know, I have to go. I’ll get back to you when I’m in Bristol.”
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
He called up Received Calls and recovered Charlie Wingate’s number. He punched Call and the phone was answered in two seconds.
“Charlie?”
“Mr. Swagger, did you hear?”
“No.”
“They found the owner of that gun store dead. Eddie Ferrol, the guy who owned Iron Mountain Armory. Someone shot him. They found the body off the interstate.”
Bob blinked, took a swallow of the coffee.
“Yeah,” he said. “And before he and I could chat.”
“Remember, I gave you the number from your daughter’s laptop hard drive. Did you see him? I don’t-”
Bob suddenly saw how it might have looked to the kid.
“You think I tracked him down? You think I’m some kind of hit man? No, Charlie, it’s not that way. I saw him and asked him some questions about my daughter. He denied ever having seen her, but I learned that was a lie. I was going to see him again, but the next thing I know, I’m the one who’s targeted. Long story. Been more or less laying low ever since. But anyone concerned about me would know that Eddie’s the man I’d have to get back to. If they couldn’t get me, they could get him. Especially since they can’t have had any confidence in his ability to stand up to tough questions. The fastest way out of that jam is a bullet in his head.”
“Yes sir. Um-am I in any danger?”
“Don’t think so. Only way would be if whoever I’m looking for has very sophisticated phone intercept capability. Government quality. No, not these boys. Smokeless powder is about as sophisticated as they get. It ain’t the CIA or even the mafia. It’s some boys who aren’t sure the wheel is going to last. Charlie, I’m about to leave town. You keep working on what I told you, and I’ll check back from Bristol, okay?”
“Yes sir. This is kind of cool.”
After disconnecting, Bob tried Nick again. Agh! Where was he?
He called Terry Hepplewhite, the clerk at Lester’s, about whom he still worried. But he found Terry in fine spirits with nothing to report. He had half a mind to pay for a vacation or something, but saw in an instant that wouldn’t work. Thelma’d be all over it if Terry suddenly vanished. No, Terry had to sit it out, at least until whatever happened happened, his case was processed, and police interest had moved elsewhere. Bob thought, That was another mistake. I shouldn’t have involved that kid, I should have stuck around and taken the heat. Man, am I losing it? I have made a batch of bad decisions on this one, and maybe I am just making things more difficult than they are. But there was nothing left to do but get out of town, so that sheriff didn’t drop down in his Blackhawk again.
He threw his laundry into his duffel, and went to the car. He drove aimlessly, hoping to smoke out anybody following, but his sudden turns and reverses uncovered nobody. For all of it, he was in the free and clear.
The route took him up and down Iron Mountain on 421, across Shady Valley, where he stopped and refueled and got a bite to eat. He then crossed Holston Mountain and, twenty miles out of Bristol, almost immediately hit the Race Day traffic he’d sworn to avoid by leaving early. That plan lost, he settled in for the long hauclass="underline" the drive across the valley, a backup at the approach to the bridge over Holston Lake, and then into really heavy stuff as he got close to the speedway itself, which was twelve miles outside of Bristol. He hated traffic. He was too old for traffic. Traffic was no fun. The only good thing about traffic was that nothing bad could happen in it, because nobody who did anything bad could get away. There was too much traffic.
He looked at the map, thought maybe he could figure out a way around the mess. It might be longer in miles but it would keep him driving and engaged instead of crawling. That was always his theory in other situations: it’s better to drive at speed even if it takes longer than to endure the frustrations of the slow stop-and-go.
But none of the other routes really offered much in the way of possibility. He had to remember that hundreds of thousands of people were on the march, and that every single route would be slowed down. It was just physics: That many cars on those few roads computed to simple congestion no matter what. You had to accept it, not let it screw you up.
So he just tried to stay relaxed, giving himself up to the radio, running from country western station to country western station, occasionally nesting on the Knoxville 24/7 news station, hoping there might be new information on the two Grumley boys who’d tried to kill him. But there wasn’t. That story was dead, as was the killing of the meth addict Cubby Bartlett. Nothing lasted more than a day in today’s news cycle.
Why didn’t Nick call? With Nick’s help, he could find out in minutes who these Grumleys were, what their involvement foretold, and who, possibly, they were connected to or working for.
But Nick didn’t call.
Finally, around four, he hit the city limits, and forty minutes later crawled past the speedway itself. It was the same, only worse. The huge structure dominated the valley, but it was aswarm with crowds. Traffic just crawled, and people wandered through it en masse. Most of the husky fellows who herded families through the merriment seemed to carry coolers full of beer on their shoulders, and NASCAR ball caps were perched on every head from the youngest to the oldest. The pilgrims were dressed any old way, mainly in cut-off jeans and tank tops, and everybody smoked or had a beer in a caddy. The women wore flip-flops, and a few even seemed to have bras underneath their shirts, but mainly it was down-home as it could be. Not a tie or a jacket anywhere in sight, just thin clothes, heaving flesh, a sense of complete ease. This was the night of nights, the Night of Thunder.