by Steve Brewer
"Pull it tighter. I can take it."
Breathing hard, he braced an arm against the wall. She pulled on the belt, tighter and tighter, until the little fountain of blood stop flowing.
"There," she said. "Can you hold it there?"
"I'll try."
He took hold of the belt in both hands as she let go. The blood resumed pumping for a second, but he tightened the tourniquet and got it under control.
Jackie got to her feet.
"What are you doing?"
"The neighbors must've heard those shots," she said. "We don't have much time."
"Call an ambulance."
"The cops will take care of that," she said.
"The cops?"
"They should be here any minute."
Chapter 76
Romeo Sandoval watched from the floor as Jackie went into the bedroom. She wiped her bloody hands clean on the bedspread, then got down on her hands and knees to reach the box of money out from under the bed.
She set the box on the bed and folded the flaps together so the top would stay closed. Her overnight bag was in the corner, and she slung its strap over her shoulder. Finally, the box under her arm, she turned back to him.
"I'm taking the car," she said. "And the money."
"What?"
"I'm sorry. I know you deserve half. But I need it all to start over."
"I don't care about the money," he said through clenched teeth. The throb in his leg was deep and sharp, but somehow, that wasn't the worst pain. "What about us?"
She smiled down at him. Her eyes were shiny, as if she were blinking back tears, though weeping didn't seem like something Jackie would ever do.
"It's been lovely," she said. "But you can't come with me."
"I can't?"
"You need a hospital. Which means cops. You'll need to sort it out with them so this business doesn't follow you forever. Pin it on Grant Sheridan, if you can. Pin all the shootings on me, if you need to. It won't matter."
"Stay with me," he said. "We'll face it together."
She shook her head somberly. "Santiago will keep sending people after me. We could both get killed. I've got to disappear, once and for all."
"But you just got here," Romeo protested. "We finally got together—"
"Don't. I've made up my mind."
She bent over him, one arm holding the box and the other keeping the overnight bag from swinging into his head. Romeo couldn't reach out to her without letting go of the tourniquet. She stretched her neck just far enough, and their lips met in the softest of kisses.
As she straightened, a siren wailed in the distance. Jackie turned her head to the sound, listening for a moment, as if measuring how close.
"Good-bye, Romeo."
He watched as she stepped past Joe Dog's bloody body. She went down the hall without looking back and turned left, toward the shattered back door and the hidden park beyond.
Chapter 77
Jackie Nolan chased the sunset, but it was full dark by the time she reached the Arizona border. She stayed on Interstate 40, bypassing a brightly lit rest area, minding her speed.
Lots of empty desert up ahead. She didn't think she could stay awake long enough to make it all the way to Flagstaff, but Holbrook had motels and cafes and car dealerships. She could spend the night there and ditch the rental car. Buy a cheap used car for cash in the morning. She didn't know what she'd give for a permanent address on the registration, but she'd figure something out. Car dealers were known to bend the rules when it came to a cash-on-the-barrelhead sale. People will do most anything for cash.
She mourned the loss of her red truck and its contents, her books and dishes and clothes and mementos, the family photographs she'd inherited from her mom. But there was no help for it. The truck likely would end up in an impoundment lot, once the cops found it and finished combing it for evidence. Jackie never expected to see any of it again.
At some level, she felt relief at the clean break with the past. As if it were baggage better off lost. She could be selective about which clothes and household items she replaced, which things she really needed in her new life. And she could afford the best.
The flat box was on the floorboard on the passenger side, with her red overnight bag sitting on top of it, in a spot where she could see it whenever she glanced over. The box of money looked like a way out. It looked like hope.
She was thinking perhaps California, one of those isolated little towns along the coast north of Los Angeles. Rent a cottage within walking distance of the beach, a place to lie low. She could hunt seashells and read on the porch and make sloppy sandwiches and lie in the sun. Just live, without the stresses of a crappy office job and WitSec and the unwanted attentions of Ellis McGuire.
She could live simply, quietly, making her newfound fortune last as long as possible, and she could try to be happy without Romeo Sandoval in her life.
Oh, it would be better with him along. She was sure of that. Their afternoon together had reignited passions that she'd kept tamped down for years. But she couldn't ask him to risk his life for her, not again, and that's what he'd be doing if he came with her. Even the most anonymous life on the beach was only slightly safer than staying in Albuquerque. Santiago's tentacles were long and they never stopped grasping.
For now, though, she'd made her escape.
Jackie was sure she'd regret some of her decisions, particularly when it came to leaving Romeo behind. But a hundred thousand dollars would cover the interest on a lot of second thoughts. She would put her old life behind her. She'd try to forget the people who'd died, the ones who still pursued her, the one she left behind.
She'd find a new place, and she'd make it her home.
