Society Rules (48 page)

Things were so much easier when he really didn’t give a damn.

There was still a small part of him that was scheming of ways to at least pick up the guy. He kept telling himself that it was for Will’s benefit, as well as his own career. Maybe Will had been right the first time, Shawn justified. Maybe his wife would return to him, if her
Equal
was hauled off to some unknown location—
“and
tortured
to
death!”
The horrible sound of his newborn conscience added.

He let a small growl of irritation escape at the sound of this new and unfamiliar voice in his head. This visibly startled Will, and unbeknownst to Shawn, very nearly cost him his life, as Will’s finger snapped around the trigger of his weapon.

Shawn stole a look at Will.

Jeeze, the guy didn’t look so good. He was white as a sheet, and soaked with sweat. It wasn’t
that
hot out, was it? Could it really just be the news about his kids that had him like this? Shawn had never seen anything get under Taylor’s skin before. The man was the perfect poster boy for nonchalance.

Now, the guy was falling apart, right before his eyes. In fact, if he had observed correctly, he could have sworn the man was about to freakin’
cry
when he was on the phone.

It was incomprehensible.

Will gave a sudden and violent shake of his head, sending a spray of sweat to every corner of the truck’s interior, and, unfortunately, all over the fastidious Shawn Baker.

“Ew, Taylor, that was sick, man!” Shawn whined, wiping the spatter of sweat from his face with the back of his hand. Will didn’t answer. He was beginning to look a little grey around the edges.

Something was definitely going down with Will, and it looked like it was a kind of something that could actually take him out of the game.

Alarmed, Shawn reached out toward Will, only to have him shrink back more tightly against the truck door, and shake his head ever so slightly in warning.

“No, Shawn . . . don’t.” Will whispered.

Shawn stared at him for a moment, feeling almost sick. He remembered thinking what he now realized was a childish and pretty shitty thought, about wanting to see Will really freaking out about something.

Well, he’d gotten that wish, and then some. The sense of “over the edge” despair radiating from the man like heat from a furnace, was suffocating. And nauseating.

It seemed so very clear now to Shawn that Will had been swallowing down some serious unhappiness for a long time, and now he’d simply gone off the cliff. And he, Shawn Baker himself, had done the pushing.

What
the
fuck
did
I
do?
He felt the question ring through his head.

“Ok, Will. Take it easy, man. We’re almost there, and this will be over. Then . . . I think you might need some medical attention.”

“Yeah,” was all that Will could manage in response.

Shawn now wore a look of genuine concern.

He and Will might not have exactly shared the same goals, but he felt no ill toward him. He was still coming to terms with the idea that he was an ass, when his brain added in the additional fact he did, in fact, also owe Will his life.

This whole situation had pretty much become total bullshit. He just wanted to call the game on account of humanity, and go home. Preoccupied with these thoughts, Baker pressed down harder on the accelerator of the heavy truck, urging it forward to the place where Lockhart awaited.

She would be disappointed, no doubt, with Baker’s change of plans, but she would just have to get over it. Maybe he would even—Baker swallowed hard at the very idea—have to
sleep
with her, to placate her. Aw, holy shit . . . . Talk about taking one for the team. Could he even get it up for that? Couldn’t he just take another ass kicking instead?

Shawn took a nice, deep breath as he began to organize the sweet talk he was going to have to put into action soon. He looked around, remembering that he was not in his own car, and there were no Tums or Zantac readily available.

Oh hell. How will I ever get through it, he wondered with a groan.

Chapter 31

The imprint from Nick’s cell phone was clearly visible in the man’s palm as he grasped it for perhaps the four hundredth time—squeezing it in his hands while glancing uneasily around outside his patrol car. With a sigh, he laid it back down on the seat next to him, just as he had done for the last three hundred and ninety-nine times.

Anxiety was chewing holes through the walls of his usually calm belly, as he tried to decide what course of action, if any, he should be taking.

He was still shaken by Will’s sudden and violent demolition of the car that he had pulled over and detained for him, although he was sure that the driver was unharmed. Driving away and leaving Will alone in what he was now sure was a potentially lethal situation was just wrong on so many levels.

He was confused, afraid and uncomfortable right now.

Emotions that he didn’t care for at all, and had moved a whole state over, simply to get away from that sort of thing. Yet, he had given his word to Will. Nick had broken a promise only once in his life.

Terrified, and seeking only to comfort, he had promised his girlfriend that she was going to be okay. He told her that she would be rescued, even as he watched in horror as the upper third of the Tower became engulfed in flames.

Candace was trapped on the top floor, every possible exit, every way out obliterated by the jet fuel-driven inferno.

Her desperate call to him came only minutes before the building had collapsed, right before his eyes. It haunted him still, every night in his dreams.

But those weren’t dreams. They were nightmares. Every day he pushed it aside, got up and got on with his life. Really, he was okay now.

Except for at night.

He had confessed this sickening event finally, to his shrink. Not even his family knew about this little detail; the true reason for his short descent into bottomless depression. However, thanks to the good doctor, he had learned to shake off the guilt.

The shrink, as well as the change of location, had truly given him his new lease on life. Now, the only after-effect that remained from his personal horror story, was his absolute refusal to ever break a promise again, under any circumstances.

This brought him back around to his current dilemma.

It went flatly against his nature to sit idly by, knowing that someone could be in trouble. Big trouble by the look of things.

Nick was more than convinced that Will was potentially in some kind of seriously bad scenario.

At the very least, Will was attempting to take on a situation that should require back up, but he was performing as a solo act. Always a very dangerous position to put oneself in, Nick knew. Of course, Nick also knew that he wasn’t aware of all the details about what was taking place, but he couldn’t fathom why a backstabbing partner situation had to be kept so . . . so
hushed
.

Why?
He wondered, somewhat sullenly.

He didn’t like it. Frustration, irritation, fear, concern and back to frustration. The carousel of emotions playing across his face would have been comical; a real scream, had anyone else been around to enjoy it. He snatched up the phone in his fist again.

How could he break his own rule?

But
really,
isn’t
it
true
that
the
most
beautiful
part
of
rules
are
all
of
the
exceptions?
There are no such things as absolutes are there? Not on this Earth, anyway. His own internal argument was making his head hurt. He glanced wistfully at the police radio, which was squawking out a steady stream of uninteresting and meaningless chatter.

Living in a state filled mostly with small, sleepy communities was a mixed blessing. Yes, he was happy not to live in a circus of violent crime and constant calls, but on the other hand, downtime gave him little to do but remain focused on his mounting uncertainty and frustration.

Normally, this was all well and good, but right now, he sure would appreciate a little action of some kind. Just enough to occupy his thoughts and allow him to lay aside the tug-of-war within himself. At least for a little while.

As if in answer to a prayer, he heard the roar of a powerful engine. Nick looked up to see a car approaching, and joy upon joy, it was traveling at a speed that he could easily discern, without the use of any radar equipment, was well above the posted speed limit of fifty miles per hour.

He could just now see the make of the vehicle.

A Mercedes, gleaming bronze in color, shooting towards him at a fast, but not obnoxious speed. Well, this was perfect.
Something
to
do!

Maybe he would just let the driver off with a warning, since they weren’t driving recklessly fast. Just give the person a little reality check, right? As the car passed him, the woman in the passenger seat met his eyes directly, but briefly.

Uh,
wow!
Nick shook his head.

What
a
very
 . . .
pretty
lady
, he thought, but her face was slipping away from him, like the trailing remnants of a dream. He tried to pull back the thoughts that were just with him, but couldn’t quite grasp them now.

The officer sat for a moment, stumped.

An odd lethargy settled over him, and his mind felt a little cloudy. He shook his head once more, feeling it clear a bit. What had he been doing? He looked down to see the cell phone still wrapped in his hand, and thought. Oh, yeah. He had been trying to decide if he should call Will. Or someone.

With a grunt of surrender, he threw the phone back down once again, a little more forcefully than was probably good for the little electronic marvel. He now felt restless and unnerved, absurdly positive that something had just tampered with his mental function.

Why had he been about to pull out into the road?

Nick sat with his hands clenched into duel fists, then forced himself to relax them. He made a conscious effort to open his hands and to shake loose the tension.

Now, he attempted to stretch his legs out in front of him—moving his seat back as far as it would scoot. He still couldn’t unfold the full length of his lower extremities, but it was an improvement. He decided to put into action some of the relaxation techniques that the psychologist had recommended to him, for times when the stress began to rear its ugly head.

Deep breathing. He would start with that one.

He reached down to his left and felt around until he found the small lever, and tugged it upward. Sighing, he rode the seat as it tilted back into an almost lying position with a smooth gliding motion. He folded his giant hands together and rested them on his belly, and closed his eyes.

Nick drew in a deep breath through his ample nose, inhaling the familiar warm and slightly grassy scent of the interior of his patrol car. Green and grassy from the near constant presence of some sort of foliage that Nick always dragged into the car.

As he slowly blew out his breath through pursed lips, he felt his body begin to respond by becoming almost limp in the seat.

The intrusive blast from a car horn cut through his serenity, causing him to jump and bang his right knee painfully into the steering wheel. He popped his head up to look outside, annoyed and now rubbing the offended body part as he let down the window.

The sound of the horn had come from a Chrysler Cordoba, circa nineteen seventy-nine. The culprit guilty of honking it, was an elderly woman, most likely in her eighty’s, who was glaring at Nick from the driver’s seat with a matching annoyed expression.

“It’s nice to see my tax money so hard at work!” She spoke dryly, with the trembling notes of an aging voice. Nick grimaced; a mixture of pain, embarrassment and irritation flowed across his face.

“What can I do for you, lady?” He tried not to sound rude.

The old woman stared at him, and began a series of har-umphing noises, to show her indignation, Nick supposed.

“Well,” she spoke finally. “You might be interested to know that there is a car in a ditch, just up the road a couple of miles.”

“Is anyone hurt?” Nick asked, instantly concerned.

“How should I know,” the old woman scolded. “I didn’t see anyone around, but I certainly wasn’t going to climb down into a ditch to look! That’s what we pay you people for!”

“Yeah lady, that’s right.” Nick’s annoyance returned. “That’s what I’m here for!”

He rubbed his eyes and tried to start over. He should not take his frustration out on this person.
Even
though
she
started
it
, he thought a little childishly.

“Okay, Ma’am, thanks. I’ll check it out. Did you happen to notice what kind of car it was?”

“I have no idea,” she sniffed. “It was one of those new-fangled kinds—you know—not just like a
normal
car!”

Nick stifled a grin.

“How about the color, then? Did’ja notice
that
?”

“It was black. After you check it out, then I guess you can go back to your nap!”

The urge to smile faded. He sighed now.

“Yeah, thanks. Maybe I will. You drive careful now, y’hear?”

The woman pulled away in her Battlestar Galactica-sized vehicle in a huff. Nick watched her go, relieved now to have something official to do. His body suddenly went rigid as he remembered something . . . almost.

He
had
been about to do something official just a few minutes ago, hadn’t he? He paused, and then shrugged. Couldn’t have been that important then, could it? This car in a ditch would occupy him now, and relieve the impotent helplessness he felt as he worried about his friend.

Nick pulled a neat Vermont turnaround, and began to drive North, on US two, but as he turned, the full force of the sun hit his eyes, blinding him. He put up his hand to block the sudden burst of light in his face, and looked over the top of his fingers.

He felt the shock of foreboding hit him squarely in the gut.

The sun.

Had anyone else noticed how odd it looked, he wondered. It was raging, and a perfect orangish-red, and somehow it looked . . . well . . . too
close
.

Of course, that was ridiculous, right?

But, damn, it just didn’t look
normal
.

And the heat. Jesus, man. The
heat
.

The fire waving off the surface of the orb made it look deceptively soft and furry, like a kitten. A very deadly kitten. Nick laughed uneasily to himself. “What am I, crazy or something? I must really be hell-bent on freaking myself out.” He flipped down his visor impatiently, and continued down the road, shaking his head.