One False Move (4 page)

He pulled out the cell phone and flipped it open, stopping to admire it. He might have to hang on to this one. Technology stuff amazed him. He didn’t have a clue how it all worked, but he loved having it, owning it. Like a new toy. He’d had fun in the last week taking pictures—sometimes without anyone knowing since the miniature camera was almost hidden in the back panel of the phone. He could take a person’s picture then program it into the phone with that person’s phone number. It still amused him that, when he dialed a number, the person’s photo came up on the tiny video panel inside. And it blew him away when his phone rang, bringing up the caller’s photo as a caller ID. Totally cool.

He’d filled up the queue in just a few days. The only problem was he didn’t know how to erase them. That was one disadvantage—stolen cell phones didn’t come with instruction manuals, and he hadn’t been able to figure out the erasing part on his own yet.

He punched in the number, watching the small video panel then almost laughing out loud when the photo appeared. He’d taken the picture as he ate, catching him between bites, his mouth full of cheeseburger. He liked catching him off guard, sort of keeping him in his place, if only for a second or two and if only inside this high-tech contraption.

“Yeah?” Jared heard him say in place of a greeting, trying his best to sound like a tough guy.

Jared held the sliver of metal to his ear and said, “You almost finished?”

“I told you I’d take care of it.” But there was no urgency in his voice.

“When you finish, you know where to meet me, right?”

“I remember.”

“Good.” Jared pushed End. He hadn’t even had time to shut off the phone when it began ringing. Jared thought perhaps he had hung up too soon. Was there something he forgot? But one quick glance at the caller’s picture, and he groaned out loud. “What?”

“It has to be today.”

Instead of answering immediately, Jared gave him a heavy sigh, his best “don’t fuck with me” sigh. Then finally he said, “I told you I’d take care of it.”

“That’s what you said last week.”

“Last week didn’t work.”

“I’m getting pretty fucking tired of waiting. The set-up is perfect for today. It has to be today.’’

“I already know all that. I’m taking care of it. Now don’t fucking call me anymore.”

He snapped the phone shut, this time shutting it off.

Jared Barnett was sick and tired of people wanting things from him. Tired of cleaning up messes. This time there would be no mess. He was making sure of that with his own insurance policy. He pulled the cassette tape out of the pocket of his overalls, flipping it around in his fingers, pleased with the power this little flimsy piece of plastic gave him. The cell phone picture hadn’t been the only thing he had taken without the motherfucker realizing it. He had their entire conversation on tape, down to the last instruction.

Just then he noticed the front door to the house open. He pulled down the baseball cap and put the cell phone to his ear again. To anyone watching him, he was just some guy parked along the street to make a few phone calls while he waited for someone.

Her big, Italian husband came out with a briefcase in one hand and a huge Pullman in the other. Excellent—a trip for hubby. So he did have the day right, after all. Following close behind was the little girl. The two were packed and in the car by the time she finally came out, stopping to lock the front door.

Yes, it was perfect timing. Jared zipped up the coveralls, despite the fabric sticking to his body. He wished he had worn underwear, now feeling the inseams scrape against his sweaty thighs. By the time the SUV backed out of the driveway and headed up the street he had his shoes and socks off. He wasn’t going to take any chances this time.

8:30 a.m.
Eppley Airport

Grace Wenninghoff hugged the leather portfolio to her chest as she watched her husband and four-year-old daughter say their goodbyes. It was a little like watching an Abbott and Costello routine. Vince was on one knee, still slouching in an attempt to be eye level with his daughter, completely oblivious to the extra creases he was adding to his expensive trousers.

“I’ll see you in ten days,” he told Emily.

“Not if I see you first,” she quipped back, trying to contain the smile but bursting into a giggle even before his eyebrow rose and his hands went to his waist in his pretend look of surprise.

They did this routine before every trip, which was becoming more frequent in the last year, and yet both played their parts with genuine pleasure and surprise. Sometimes Grace wished she was part of their fun and games until she remembered that this exchange wasn’t exactly motivated by fun. Instead it was the product of sadness and perhaps a bit of fear.

Vince rose to his feet, stretching his six-foot frame with a slight touch to his lower back, a subtle gesture no one but a nagging wife might notice.

“You remembered your Advil gelcaps?” she asked when he came over for his goodbye kiss, which she planted on his cheek despite his disgruntled look.

“That’s your idea of a send-off?” He was joking again or trying to, looking to Emily for his audience and rolling his eyes to get her giggling again.

“It’s an eleven-hour flight,” she said without a smile, refusing to be pulled into the duo’s game of pretend, or what Grandma Wenny might call “denial.”

But before Grace could remind him that she was the keeper of logic in this family, that she was the grown-up, he surprised her by pulling her in for a hug, crushing the leather portfolio between them. In her ear he whispered, “You sure you’re okay?”

And then she realized it was all still part of the charade, his constant attempt to protect Emily, who Vince either didn’t realize or truly didn’t want to see had become a precocious, tough tomboy. In fact, Grace wouldn’t mind planting a little fear in Emily if it kept her from catching backyard snakes and crickets and dumping them into her kiddie pool to see if they could swim. Sometimes Grace wondered who her husband was really protecting from the cold, hard facts that came with growing up, his daughter or himself.

“I’m fine.” She pulled away to meet his eyes so he could see that she meant it. “What’s a few boxes? I’ll have them unpacked and the house looking like home before you get back.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He frowned at her, his brown eyes no longer playful but clouded with concern.

“What? I’m not allowed to joke? Okay, so it might take longer than ten days to get unpacked.”

But, of course, she knew he wasn’t talking about the mess of their new home, a huge old Victorian, all the packed boxes still stacked and left exactly where the movers had set them over two weeks ago. No, Vince didn’t mean that mess. She knew what mess he meant. He meant Jared Barnett. She had made the mistake of telling him about seeing the bastard at the coffee shop and in the courtroom. Luckily she left out the dry cleaner’s. He worried too much, always concerned that some criminal she had sent to prison would someday come back for revenge. Unfortunately, an occasional threat came with the job, an occupational hazard. Most of the time they were empty threats.

“I just don’t want you constantly watching for the man in every shadow,” Vince said then held out his hand to Emily, closing the subject of serious adult talk. It didn’t matter. Grace knew that as soon as she and Emily got into the car Emily would be grilling her.

And, unlike her husband, Grace tried not to lie to their daughter. But she was also guilty of protecting her. She hoped Emily never had to be faced with the realities of her job as a deputy prosecutor. Now that Emily was in preschool the girl’s questions became more difficult. Last week she wanted to know why Grace’s last name was different than hers and Daddy’s. Grace couldn’t remember exactly what she told her, but it certainly had not been the truth. How could she tell her four-year-old that the reason she used her own name was that, if any bad people who Mommy pissed off came looking to hurt her, they wouldn’t find Emily and her father?

“Don’t worry,” Grace said, squeezing her husband’s hand. “I’ll be okay. I always am, right?”

He smiled down at her, apparently satisfied and unaware that her mind had already become preoccupied as she scanned the airport terminal, looking through groups of people coming and going. Making sure that Jared Barnett was nowhere in sight.

9:50 a.m.
Interstate 80

Andrew Kane discovered a hole in the traffic and gunned the engine, easing into a space in the fast lane. He was getting good at driving with his left hand. Still, he kept an eye on the speedometer. No need—the fast lane was doing a whopping forty-five miles per hour. Checking the speedometer had already become instinctive, an annoying new habit. Not that he could afford another reason to take his eyes off the road now that he was relegated to using only one hand. He had enough problems without adding another speeding ticket.

Almost since the moment he drove the torch-red Saab 9-3 off the dealer’s lot, it had attracted police radar as if it contained some secret, invisible force. He wondered if it was punishment for buying what had been a magnificent splurge, so much so that he had added vanity plates that read, “A WHIM,” as if he needed to explain. Would he ever consider this car the well-deserved reward he intended it to be? After six years of playing the starving novelist and living off one credit card advance after another, he was finally reaping the financial awards, the fruits of his labor, so to speak. In other words, the royalty checks for his five novels were finally adding up. This car was supposed to symbolize his success. It was supposed to represent an end to the struggle and a new beginning, a promise of what was yet to come. Maybe all that was too much to ask of a car, any car.

He checked the rearview mirror. Traffic had slowed enough for him to adjust the canvas shoulder harness that threatened to strangle him and itched like crazy, especially in this sweaty heat. After three long weeks it still bugged the hell out of him. The doctor kept insisting Andrew wouldn’t notice it “after a while.” He was beginning to think his doctor’s measure of “after a while” wasn’t the same as his own.

Yet it wasn’t the shoulder strap that Andrew wanted to rip from his chest. That hatred he reserved for the blood-sucking contraption that practically glued his arm to his chest. His doctor had also told him that he would learn quickly to make do with his left arm as if his right no longer existed. His doctor obviously had never broken his collarbone or been without use of his dominant hand and arm…hell, practically that entire side of his body.

It didn’t help matters that this injury—what Andrew wished he could have chalked up to a simple biking accident—had unleashed the reminder that Andrew’s forty-three-year-old body wasn’t what it used to be. It was as if his reward for all the hard work and struggles, for his newly acquired success, was high blood pressure and broken bones. His doctor called it “a wake-up call,” then smiled when he added, “Who knew writing novels could be so stressful, huh?” Andrew shook his head. Maybe he needed a new doctor.

He glanced at the worn leather briefcase on the passenger seat. It had been with him through the writing of every one of his novels, a gift from Nora back in the days when she said she believed in him and wanted him to follow his dreams. Back before she realized following his dream might include going into debt and having to sacrifice by putting some things off. Things like commitment and marriage and kids. She accused him of using his dream as an excuse to avoid commitment. He told her that was ridiculous, and she couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through. It wasn’t until after she was gone from his life that he realized maybe she was right. Maybe he had a tendency to drive people away to avoid commitment. Sometimes it was just easier that way. He was better on his own, anyway.

Andrew looked back at the briefcase. Ordinarily it was bulging at the seams with notebooks, the pages filled, sometimes bleeding red from self-edits, the corners creased, stains in the margins from late-night coffee or too much wine. But today the case slouched, thin and frail, with hardly enough inside to keep it upright in the seat. The spiral notebooks were empty, white blue-lined pages ready to stare back at him, taunting instead of coaxing him. When had it become so difficult? When had writing gone from fun to hard work? When had he begun looking at his dream with dread instead of anticipation? Dread, accompanied by this tightness in his chest.

“This is the stuff of early heart attacks,” his doctor had cautioned, “especially with a family history. What was your father? Sixty-eight? Sixty-nine?”

Andrew had only nodded, not bothering to correct him. His father had been sixty-three when he died of a heart attack. Only twenty years older than Andrew. Yeah, he definitely needed a new doctor.

He tried to concentrate on the interstate lanes in front of him now that he was approaching yet another construction area. Lines of blinking taillights like little red dots lined up for as far as he could see. Another slowdown. At this rate he’d never get out to Platte River State Park. Though, what was the hurry? He had reserved the cabin for two weeks. Why hurry only to sit and stare out at the glistening lake and find that, perhaps, it could no longer inspire him? He hoped that wasn’t the case. In fact, he was counting on this retreat to turn things around. It was his last hope.

Why was the fast lane now the stop lane? Andrew cocked his head to the left, swerving the car as he did so to compensate for the harness around his neck. He couldn’t see any end to the backed-up traffic. What he
could
see were thunderheads, sagging in the west. Just his luck. He had hoped he and Tommy would have time before lunch to do some fishing. He still couldn’t believe his hot-shot detective friend had never been fishing before. Finally, something
he
could teach him. It was usually the other way around with Tommy sharing details and experiences of being a cop, teaching Andrew how to give his suspense novels some real-life credibility.