“What was that for?” said Murray.
“You could barely remember your name at the time. How could you possibly remember mom?”
“You mean the drinking? I gave that up when I found out your mother had pancreatic cancer.” Erica winced internally, knowing how vicious pancreatic cancer was. Kevin’s mother probably didn’t live long after the diagnosis. “I didn’t have time after that to sit around drinking beer.”
“Yeah, I know how busy you were,” Kevin said. “You didn’t even have time to call me and tell me she was sick. You knew for two months, and you didn’t have the decency to tell me. I wouldn’t have known except for that fluke call from the hospital.”
“I know your mother explained to you why I didn’t tell you.”
“What? That she didn’t want to disrupt my studies? Bullshit! She said that to cover your ass.”
“Nick, I tried to come clean at the funeral, but you wouldn’t listen. Jesus, why would I want to keep something like that from you? I begged her to let me tell you, but she never would have forgiven me. She thought your education was too important to screw up.”
“You thought it wasn’t serious, and you thought I’d overreact when I found out. She told me she didn’t even get chemotherapy, for God’s sake.”
“And I thought you knew your mother better than that. She read up on pancreatic cancer. She didn’t want to go through all that chemotherapy crap just to live another month. It wasn’t her way.”
“Whatever you want to believe,” Kevin said.
“Boy, you must be in big trouble to let me help you.”
“To tell the truth,” Erica said, “we are. Someone should probably know in case…something happens.”
“Well, it can’t be trouble with the police, seeing as how they just let you go. Do you kids owe money to someone?”
Kevin looked out the side window, brooding. Erica knew that the issues between him and Murray weren’t going to be worked out on this short trip, so she let Kevin sulk.
“No, it’s not that simple. Some men are after us. We think we know why, but we still don’t know who. They want something that we have. The place you’re taking us has equipment that will help us get out of this.”
“Okay,” said Murray. He seemed reluctant to go into any more depth on the subject, and Erica didn’t push it.
Up ahead, a sign showed the exit for the North Dallas Toll Road.
“How long until we get there,” Erica said. Her watch read 6:22. Rain was just starting to spatter against the windshield.
“About 30 minutes if we don’t hit any traffic. I’d go faster, but the toll road always has plenty of cops during rush hour. We’d never make it if we got stopped.”
Erica smiled. “I think I’ve had enough of the police for one afternoon.”
Thirty minutes later, they were still ten minutes from LuminOptics. A wreck on the toll road had slowed traffic, but it could have been worse. Erica had been stuck in traffic for an hour several times while she had been in Houston, and she’d heard Dallas was no better.
At 7:03 they pulled into the almost deserted LuminOptics parking lot. The facility was located in the middle of Greenmont, a long, dead-end street off Abrams Rd. Similar squat warehouse-type buildings lined the street. Like LuminOptics, most of the parking lots allowed open access to the street, but a ten-foot-high chain-link fence separated the rear delivery lot from the front, as well as the LuminOptics lot from the one next to it.
Only one car remained in the lot, and Erica prayed that it was the sales rep’s. Activity at the other buildings along the street was nonexistent.
Murray stopped the pickup in front of the building. It was pouring now. Kevin hopped out, scurried through the rain to the front alcove, and knocked on the door. A man in his early fifties opened it. Erica cracked the window.
“You Kevin Hamilton?” the man said.
Erica was relieved; it was the same wavering voice she’d spoken with this afternoon.
“Yes, and that’s Erica Jensen,” he said, pointing toward the truck.
“I was about to give up on you two,” the sales rep said. “I was just locking up the place when you knocked. Come on in.”
Kevin ran back to the truck and picked up his backpack.
“All right,” he said to Murray. “We can take it from here. Have a good life.” Kevin began to turn and walk away.
“Will you call me sometime…Kevin?” Murray asked.
Kevin turned back and stared at him. “I don’t know,” Kevin said, surprising Erica because it wasn’t a flat refusal. Then he walked into LuminOptics.
“What are you going to do now?” Murray said.
“We can call a cab. We’ll be all right now. Thanks for getting us here in time.”
“I was glad to do it. And I’d like to ask you to do something to return the favor.”
“Sure, anything.”
“I didn’t want to tell Nick this to shame him into calling me, but I have cancer. Lung cancer. I guess I didn’t give up cigarettes soon enough.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“Oh, I’ve probably got a year left at least. But you have to promise not to tell him. I don’t want his pity. Just try and get him to call me. I have my friends and the business, but he’s my only family.”
Erica saw sincerity in his wide hazel eyes.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I knew you would. You seem like a fine match for Nick. Don’t let him lose you.”
“We’re just friends.”
“No you aren’t. I can tell. It’s in the way you take care of him. If you’re not together now, it’s just a matter of time.” He winked.
“Goodbye, Murray.”
Erica shook his hand and climbed out of the truck. She smiled and waved to him as he drove back toward the freeway. Then she went to look for Kevin.
Like most Texas buildings during the summer, the LuminOptics offices were chilly from the air conditioning. A receptionist’s desk stood in the first room. Through the doorway, she could see a hall with open offices on either side. She headed to the only one that still had its light on.
When she entered the office, the sales rep nodded and then returned his attention to Kevin, who was examining a piece of equipment. It looked like a telescope, about three feet long and six inches in diameter, cradled in a receptacle.
“Is he gone?” Kevin said without looking up.
“Yes. Is this what we need?”
The sales rep chimed in. “I believe so. The model XXP-2400 blue light laser. The most reliable in the industry.”
“Yeah, it looks okay,” Kevin said. “Do you have the check?”
Erica pulled the cashier’s check out of her purse and handed it to the sales rep, who examined it as closely as Kevin had studied the laser.
“I’ll just need to make a call and verify this.”
After the sales rep left the room, Kevin began boxing up the laser.
“Why’d you have to be so hard on him?”
“What are you talking about?”
“He seemed like he was trying to make amends with you.”
“Oh, you mean my dad.”
“Who else would I mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ve been bottling up everything for so long, it had to come out somehow.”
“Then you don’t hate him?”
“I never hated him,” Kevin said.
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Well, maybe I did. Now, I just try not to think about him. But seeing him brings up all these memories. It’s more painful than anything else.”
“Then you’ll call him?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see. Right now, we’ve got to call a cab.”
While Kevin finished repacking the laser tightly in its box, Erica used the yellow pages and telephone on the desk. She gave the address to the cab company and hung up.