Dead Red (34 page)

“I wanna go home.”

She wiped the tears from under her eyes and brushed her hair out of her face, and I got a better look. Something about her struck me as familiar. I’d seen those blue eyes before, but the dark hair threw me. I didn’t think I knew her personally; it was more like I’d seen her on TV.

“I wanna go home,” she said. “Can you take me home?”

Holy shit.

I had seen her picture, and those blue eyes and brunette hair were just like her mother’s. And, like her mother, she was pregnant.

I was looking into a face worth fifty thousand dollars.

Chapter 29

I STOOD UP AND GENTLY PUT MY ARM around her, easing her down into a chair. She let out a grunt and placed her hands over her bulging belly.

“Angela,” I said. “How did you get here?”

“How do you know my name?” she asked, her eyes on the floor.

“I know your dad. How did you get here?”

She picked her head up. “My dad?” she whined again, her voice full of self-pity and fear. “Did he send you here? How did he know where I was?”

“Marissa called me. I’m a friend of Ricky’s.”

“Oh, yeah. I heard you tell the police guy that.” She looked at me through bloodshot eyes. “Ricky’s dead.”

“I know. They’ve got Marissa in a room. Let me get you a doctor.”

With a quickness that stunned me, she grabbed my wrist. “No. I’m okay. I don’t need a doctor. I wanna get Marissa and go home.”

“Marissa’s not going anywhere until the morning. And before that, she’s got a lot of explaining to do.” I sat down. “How did you get here?”

“I was in the car,” she said. “Waiting for Marissa to come out of the food court thingy.” She got silent as the events of the past few hours came back to her. “When the cops and the ambulance came, I thought Marissa was being arrested. When they took her away, I followed them, but they brought her here.”

“You followed an ambulance on the highway and made it here okay?” I thought about how fast she must have been going. “You’re only sixteen years old.”

She shrugged. “I drive all the time on the Island. My boyfriend takes me over to Jones Beach at night and we just drive around.”

I shook my head and looked at her stomach. “Your boyfriend the one who got you pregnant? Isn’t he worried about you?”

“No, and he’s not my boyfriend anymore.” She dropped her head again. “I date older men now.”

“And one of them got you pregnant?”

She rubbed her belly. “That’s about it, mister … what’s your name again? Mr. Bun?”

“Donne. I really think you need to have a doctor check you out. At least to make sure the baby’s okay.”

“They’ll call my parents, and then I’ll be in real trouble.”

As opposed to now.

“Didn’t you just ask me to get you home, Angela?”

She shook her head. “Not
home,
home.” I waited for her to explain. “Back to the city. To the baby’s father. He’ll know what to do. He always does.”

I looked at the pregnant teenager. “Yeah. I can tell.” I stood again. “Listen, there’s a state cop out there who’s going to want to talk to you about what happened at Robby’s tonight.”

“No cops.”

“You don’t really have much of a choice here, Angela. You witnessed a shooting. And for all we know, the shooter’s out looking for you and Marissa.”

“I didn’t witness shit,” she said. “We heard a shot and then got the hell out of there, mister.”

“You didn’t see the guy who came to the door?”

“Nope. Robby told us to hide in the garage.”

I was about to tell her I knew that when my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID: Jack Knight.

“Hey, Jack.”

“The fuck, Ray?” Jack using his dick voice. “What the hell are you doing, and why are you doing it without me?”

“Easy, Jack,” I said. “Marissa called
me
. She’s the girl from Ricky’s phone. I made a game-time decision to come up here and called you as soon as I thought of it.”

“That shoulda been your
first
thought, Ray. I coulda been there already. Right now I’m stuck on the GWB.” He stopped thinking about himself long enough to ask, “How’s Robby?”

“Not sure.” I looked at Angela Golden. “There’s been a new development.”

“Explain.”

“I’m here at the Albany Medical Center. With Angela Golden.”

I could practically hear Jack’s face turning red. After about ten seconds, he spoke.

“I knew it!” he yelled. “You
were
going around behind my back—you and your fucking Edgar and Robby, too—looking for her so you could squeeze me out of the reward money.”

“Jack,” I said. “You’re right. I should have called, but—”

“Don’t fucking ‘Jack’ me, Ray. I thought I could trust you.”

“Jack,” I tried again, “think about it. If I were going behind your back, why would I have called you? I came up here to check on Robby and Marissa.”

“And Angela Golden just came up to you and said hi?”

I laughed. “That’s exactly what happened.” I waited for another outburst. When none came, I said, “And there’s more.”

“What? You found Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa, too?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“Angela Golden?” He took a moment to let that sink in. I wondered if he’d find a way to blame me for that, too. “Angela Fucking Golden is pregnant?”

“I’m trying to get her to see a doctor, but she’s scared. And there’s a state trooper outside who’s gonna be
inside
real quick.”

Jack got quiet again as he considered this information. He wasn’t going to admit it, but I knew he was thinking about losing the fifty-thousand-dollar reward.

“There a back exit where you are?”

“I don’t know, Jack. It’s my first time at this hospital.”

“Look around,” he said. “You’re in the ER, right? There’s gotta be another entrance or exit you and the girl can leave through.”

I did as he said and saw a red
EXIT
sign at the end of the hallway I’d used to get to the men’s room.

“I see it.”

“Good. Head out that way, and find a place to hang until I get there.”

“What about the state trooper?”

“What about him?” Jack said. “You gave him a statement, right? He gets a look at the Golden girl and we’re screwed.”
There it was.
“You know what I mean. Our client likes to keep things on the down low. He’s gonna freak when he hears the latest, but I want him to hear it from us. The girl’s okay, right?”

“I don’t know, Jack. I’m not a doctor.”

“She bleeding? Screaming out in pain?”

“No.”

“Then she’s okay enough. Get her away from there and wait for me. I’m still a few hours out, depending on traffic.” I heard him lay on his horn. “When I get there, if I think she needs medical care, we’ll take her back to the hospital.”

“So you get credit for finding her?”

“Yeah, Ray. I’ve been looking for her for almost a month now. I think I deserve a little something for my efforts, don’t you?”

“I’m not saying you don’t, Jack.”

“Okay.” He was silent for a bit. “According to my GPS, there’s a hotel right down the block from the hospital.”

“I heard.”

“Take her there and wait.”

“You gonna call Charles Golden?”

“Soon as I get there and eyeball his daughter myself. This guy’s all about crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s. You know that, right, now that you guys are such buddies? I’m not calling him until Angela is in my po—my presence, and I got my eyes on her.”

“Okay.”

“Glad you approve.” He had the dick voice going now. “Call me when you get to the hotel.”

Before I could say anything else, he hung up. I looked over at Angela Golden, who was about to doze off. This was a bad time for a nap. I sat down, put my hand on her arm, and she reacted as if I’d stuck her with a cattle prod.

“Fuck!” she said, pulling her arm away. “That my dad on the phone?”

“No,” I said. “It was the guy your dad hired to find you. The guy I work for. Your family’s been going nuts, Angela.”

“Yeah,” she said, and for the first time I saw something resembling a smile cross her face. “Daddy gets like that when he’s not in control.”

“I got that feeling.” I stood. “I need you to get up and walk out the back door with me. We’re going down the block and into a hotel. Then—”

“I ain’t going anywhere with you, Mr. Bun—Dun; whatever that cop said. Especially a hotel.”

“Hey,” I said, my fatigue and frustration coming through loud and clear. “That works fine for me. I can just leave you here and you can explain everything to the state trooper, who’s about to come back. Or I could drive you back over to Robby’s house; maybe that nice guy with the gun will come back.”

She looked up at me, trying to figure out whether I was bluffing. I’m sure I was too tired to show much of anything on my face.

“Angela, you need to go back to your parents. You’re pregnant and alone. Marissa is upstairs, and your boyfriend isn’t coming for you, is he? You could take Robby’s car and drive back to him. But he doesn’t really want you, does he? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have run off with Marissa. It’s over, Angela. You need to come with me. Now.”

She waited a few beats, mulling it over. Finally she decided to get up. Slowly. I couldn’t decide if her pregnancy or her passive aggression slowed her down more. She let me know she’d do what I said, but she wasn’t happy about it.
Just as long as she came with me.

I reached for her elbow, and she quickstepped away. “Don’t touch me. I can walk out a door by myself.”

I held my hand out like a game show host and pointed it at the
EXIT
sign.

We walked past the nurse’s station. The nurse whose flirtations I’d interrupted with Trooper Gamble was working on her computer, a phone cradled in her neck, and she never looked up. I’m not too sure what she would have said anyway. As far as I knew, walking out of an emergency room was no crime. Angela pushed her way through some swinging doors and followed the other
EXIT
sign that had an arrow pointing to the left. I could see the exit door from where we were and hoped it led out to the same area where Edgar had parked.

“Let me go out first,” I said.

“Whatever.” She stepped aside and stood with her back against the wall.

The doors opened automatically and I stepped out, looking to my left and my right. I couldn’t see Trooper Gamble, so I waved Angela outside. She removed herself from the wall like it was the biggest chore anyone had asked her to do in months. Pregnant teens must be a dream to live with.

We walked together toward the parking lot, and I heard a horn beep to my right. I looked over and saw Edgar wave to me through his window. Even in this light, I could see Edgar was confused that I was with someone. I picked up my pace and was glad when Angela did the same.

Edgar was about to say something, so I stopped him with my hand. “I’ll explain at the hotel.”

Edgar looked at Angela as I held the rear door open for her. When she got in Edgar said, “Hi,” but she didn’t answer.

When I got in the passenger seat, I had a brief moment of clarity. I could end this all right now: go find Gamble, call Charles Golden myself, and explain to Jack and Robby and Marissa that I didn’t want to be any part of this anymore. Uncle Ray was right: this was a job for the cops. I was a schoolteacher now and had pregnant teens in the projects of Williamsburg I could help the other ten months out of the year. This was my last week of vacation, and I really needed the time to decompress, not to invite more danger into my life.

Instead, I kept facing forward and said, “Drive.”

*   *   *

We got to the hotel in less than a minute. As we pulled into the parking lot, I had an idea. If this were the hotel Gamble and Jack recommended, it would also be the first one Gamble checked if he decided to look for me. I told Edgar to turn around and head back the way we’d come.

“Make a left after the hospital,” I said. “I wanna put a little distance between us and our last location.”

“Why?”

I looked into the backseat, and Angela looked to be dozing again. I motioned with my thumb. “That’s Angela Golden, Edgar. The girl—one of the girls—Jack and I have been looking for.”

Edgar blew some air out of his mouth. “The one worth fifty G’s?”

“Among other things.”

“I thought she was blonde.”

“Daddy makes me dye it,” Angela said from the backseat. “Makes me look more like mom.”

We were about a mile past the hospital when I spotted a motel. “This’ll do.”

Edgar pulled in and I gave him explicit instructions to stay in the car while I checked in. He didn’t argue. I got us a double room, toward the back of the motel and away from any street traffic. Once we parked in front of the room, Angela flew out of the car and threw up.

I gave Edgar the room key and went over to where Angela stood, bent over. I put my hand on her back—she didn’t shrug me off this time—and waited until she was finished vomiting before speaking.

“If you wanna go back to the hospital, just say the word.”

“No.” She stood and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “I’m good. Been doing that for a while now. I don’t know why they call it ‘
morning
sickness.’ It should be called ‘every-fucking-hour-of-the-day sickness.’”

I gave her a smile she didn’t see and patted her back. “Let’s go inside.”

I knocked on the door. From the other side, Edgar said, “Who is it?”

“The Governor. Open the door, Edgar.”

I heard a lock slide and the chain being removed before he let us in. Edgar was a careful guy. Angela headed straight for the bathroom, and Edgar was finally able to give me the what-the-fuck look he had been holding in. I gave him all the details, including my call to Jack. Which reminded me …

“Good thinking,” Jack said when I explained the reason for the change in lodging. “I’m cruising now, less than an hour out if I don’t get pulled over. Any problems?”

“Angela’s puking all over the place, but other than that, no.”

“No phone calls,” he said, ignoring me. “Keep the shades pulled, and don’t go out or open the door until I get there.”