John Wesley wanted to say something to Bean but then thought better of it. Instead he got up from the coffee table and walked to where Maurice lay, struggling for escape, his chin upturned with the side of his face flat on the floor and his eyes looking toward the door. Each breath flaring his nostrils as he put one hand out and then the other, trying for a solid grip on the floor.
Bean came out of the bathroom with a towel in one hand and with his other caught Sheri by the throat as she tried to make a run for the back door. He should have been angry but he wasn’t, the pulse of Sheri’s neck felt in the skin of his palm as he made a slow turn of his head, taking in the room. John Wesley there beside Maurice, the blood spreading on the floor, and John Wesley crouched on his haunches like a little boy studying a snail making its way across a distance too far to travel.
Chapter 13
GARY WAS THERE IN the prison parking lot when Driscoll came out. The two U.S. marshals were there with him, too.
Gary stood next to the fence, smiling now and watching Driscoll as the guard showed him out onto the lot. The marshals a couple hundred feet away by their vehicle.
“These marshals have been looking for you.”
“Looks like they found me,” Driscoll said. “They ask you to come along? Help them track me down?”
“Thought you would have at least picked up your calls the last couple days,” Gary said.
“I’ve got nothing for them,” Driscoll said. His eyes moved over the two men at the other end of the lot and then came back to Gary. “It’s not my case, it’s theirs.”
Gary grinned. “You worried they’re going to take the glory away from you? All these years and nothing to show for it?”
“No,” Driscoll said. “You’re right. I don’t have anything. I wish I did but I don’t.” The guard latched the gate behind him and Driscoll felt alone and exposed in the lot, the marshals both on their phones but looking to where Driscoll stood now. “Plus, there’s always the worry that if I did have something the information might end up in the wrong hands.”
Gary fell into step next to Driscoll as they crossed the lot, walking away from the prison gates. “These men are trying to find two escaped convicts,” Gary said. “I’m just doing my part. If they’re looking for Patrick, and Bobby gets in the way, that’s something I have to live with.”
“The way you lived with Patrick being in prison,” Driscoll said.
“Be nice, Driscoll. Patrick went to prison for smuggling drugs. He was the sheriff and he got caught. That’s all.”
“You got a job out of it, though.”
“And so did Bobby,” Gary said, his voice drawn tight and his jaw rigid as they crossed the lot.
“I know you’ve been waiting on Patrick to get out,” Driscoll said. “Everyone except maybe Bobby has. And now he’s the one in trouble.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gary said.
“Yes, you do.” Driscoll looked ahead to where the marshals had taken notice of him. He didn’t know what to tell them. Whatever Patrick’s cell mate John had told them yesterday, it hadn’t been enough. Now he had something for them. Something that could help them all, but Driscoll didn’t know if he could share anything with them while Gary was still helping them out.
He watched one of the marshals drop his phone to his pocket and start to walk toward him. Driscoll pulled his own phone up and looked at the blank display. He pulled up short with Gary still next to him. Driscoll pretended to answer. “They don’t really care about Bobby, do they?”
Gary looked back at Driscoll, the marshal still fifty feet away. “They’ve got a job to do and they’re trying to do it.”
“Just like you,” Driscoll said.
“Yes, just like me.”
PATRICK PULLED THE truck off at the exit in Everett. He was hungry and he was having second thoughts. The diner he pulled up to had a counter running the length of the restaurant and at the end near the bathroom there was a pay phone. When he came into the place he could smell the potatoes going on the grill in the back. He sat at the counter and ordered coffee.
No idea what he would do next and a fear growing inside him that all he’d done to get to this point would amount to nothing. The money he’d saved just another shackle around his life, holding him back from the hopes he’d had for the future. Now he wanted to get home to Silver Lake. He was worried about that dead space on the other end of the phone that morning. He was worried about what it might mean for his son and Sheri.
He waited for the coffee to come, looking the menu over and watching the grill man behind the counter. The potatoes were making his mouth water and he ordered a big skillet of hash browns with a side of bacon as soon as the waitress came back with the coffee.
The turnoff for Silver Lake forty miles to the north and he thought about this for a long time. Drinking his coffee cup dry and then calling for another. He didn’t know what to do anymore. The phone at the end of the diner sitting there and a real need to just call Bobby and Sheri and tell them both what he’d been doing these last few days.
The only thing stopping him was the certainty that he’d be going back to prison the moment he made the call. He knew Driscoll was probably still out there looking for him. He’d switched cars three times since he’d left Silver Lake and he couldn’t be sure of anything really, but he was almost positive whoever had been on the other end of Maurice’s phone hadn’t been the law.
He didn’t know what to do and he looked behind him, out on the interstate going by just beyond the diner’s big windows. He didn’t know one damn thing, and he was a fool to have thought he did.
Up above, over the counter, there was a television going and he watched some soap opera play out in silence on the screen. Lots of people crying and a bunch of actors who looked like they’d never lived a day of their lives in the real world.
He looked away at the interstate again and then turned and watched the grill man. Patrick was jumpy and he looked it. Nothing he could do but try to sit still. The waitress came over with more coffee.
“You going far today?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Just up the road.”
“Well, you look like you’re worried the freeway is going to get away from you.” She filled his coffee to the top and then stood there at the counter. “It’s not going anywhere, honey.”
Patrick gave a polite laugh. Even his laugh had nerves in it and he looked again at the interstate. He had to stop doing that. He thought of the money again and all the trouble it had brought him. “Just a reunion I have to be at this afternoon,” he said.
“I hate those,” the waitress said. “How long has it been?”
“Twelve years.”
The waitress whistled and behind her the bell rang in the kitchen. When she came back with his food she said, “I hope you didn’t leave anyone waiting at the altar.”
“No, nothing like that. Nothing that special.”
“That’s good,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine then.” She asked him if he needed anything else and when he said no, she walked away down the counter and started pouring coffee for one of the other customers.
Patrick ate and watched the soap opera. Well aware that at any moment their perfect little world would start to fall apart around them, if it hadn’t already begun.