Nick of Time

by John Gilstrap

  The door to the Galleria lay straight ahead: ornate wooden sculptures with intricately carved glass in the top halves. Off to the left, he made casual notice of the Couture Shoppe that had so kindly donated to his cause.

  “Why no guards here?” Nicki asked, struggling to keep up.

  “They’re locked,” Brad said. “They close these doors at twelve-thirty.”

  She shot him a panicked look.

  When they stopped, Brad threw a look over his shoulder. So far, so good. “They’re not locked-locked. They’re just designed to keep people from wandering in from the mall after midnight.”

  “So how—”

  Brad pointed to the sign that had been slipped into a mahogany-framed plaque on the strip of wood near the seam where the doors joined. EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.

  “They can’t actually lock an exit,” Brad explained. “In case of fire. They alarm them instead.” He produced his Leatherman from his belt. “So, you just disconnect the alarm box.” He folded out a pair of needle-nose pliers with wire cutters built into the jaws. “Best forty bucks I ever spent.” Standing on tiptoe, he clipped two wires leading from the alarm box. “Voilà.”

  “Are you sure it will work?”

  “No,” he said, and he pushed the right-hand door open. No alarm. He smiled. “But I was pretty sure.”

  Dimly lit and massive in its proportions, the inside of the Galleria was silent, save for the staccato slapping of their flip-flops as they hurried across the sky bridge toward the second-level entrance to the parking garage.

  “Now we really need to hurry,” Brad said. “We’re probably on a lot of security cameras right now.” Noticing the deep furrows of concern in Nicki’s forehead, he smiled. “Like you said. Different.”

  Nicki didn’t know how to respond.

  “Relax,” Brad said. “We’ll do fine. I’ve come too far too fast to be stopped by some rent-a-cop.”

  At the doors, Brad pulled them to a stop, then scanned the edges of the doors themselves. “You see any alarm contacts?”

  “I don’t even know what an alarm contact looks like.”

  Brad crossed his fingers. “Here goes.” He pushed the door open, and then they were outside, where the humid night air embraced them in a wet hug.

  “Wait here,” Brad said, grabbing Nicki by her shoulders and planting her on the curb. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I can keep up,” Nicki said, with barely enough air to manufacture a sound.

  “I know you can, but there’s no sense wearing you out. I’ve got to get some wheels.”

  Nicki scowled. “But our car is at the hotel.” His look told her everything. “Oh,” she said.

  With the skills he’d honed over the years, he could grab any car that he wanted. It’d be slim pickings, though. At this hour, there were precious few to be borrowed from a mall parking lot. Still, Brad took off as if he knew what he was doing, running full tilt across the largely empty upper deck and disappearing down a ramp.

  The night seemed awfully quiet. Sitting there on the curb, all alone, she felt vulnerable, and the ceaseless hammering of her heart didn’t help. In her mind, she could see countless thousands of blood cells log-jamming in the hardened vessels of her lungs, waiting their turn to supply her ever-increasing demand for oxygen. Already, she could feel the swelling in her ankles. In a few more minutes, she’d be able to see it, too.

  It was still too soon to take any more meds, but it wouldn’t be long; just an hour or so. Meanwhile, she could just wait out the episode.

  The irony of it all made her so angry: After seventeen years on the planet, without any semblance of a life to speak of, why did real living begin at the very time when her body was least able to handle it? She’d had enough trauma in her life, for God’s sake. Why couldn’t someone else take a turn?

  Nicki leaned back against a light post and scanned the concrete horizon, resisting the urge to close her eyes. With so little time left, she found herself begrudging every second that her eyes were closed. There was just too much to see.

  But until today, the vistas had never changed. Classrooms. Hospital rooms. Bedrooms. The same neighborhood with the same houses and the same cars and the same people she’d seen every day of her life. It was all so boring.

  So terribly normal. That’s not how Nicolette Janssen wanted to be remembered. She wanted people to think of her as anything but normal. As better than normal, whatever that meant. She knew it was stupid to think such thoughts, but when she died, she wanted it to be an event on the news.

  Her shrink had told her that it was destructive to concentrate on the finality of her disease. “Quality of life,” he’d said, “is more about what one feels in one’s mind than what attacks one’s heart.” He’d looked proud when he’d said it.

  “Let’s trade places,” Nicki had suggested. “I’ll sit there saying important junk for two hundred bucks an hour, and you climb over here and handle a ticking bomb of your own.”

  Nicki understood the doctor’s point. Intellectually, she understood everything the doctor told her. Who the hell wouldn’t understand it? But knowing how you’re supposed to think about something is a whole world away from ignoring the fact that you’re sliding toward a big rectangular hole in the ground.

  Now, though, for the first time, she thought she might have a handle on how to make intentions meet reality. The trick was to walk away from everyone who attempted to tell you what to do with your life, and to take a chance for once.

  Look at where she was now: She thought she was heading off to hang out with a sweet guy, and now they were running from the cops. It was scary—scary as hell—but it was real. It was different, a surprise. Besides, Nicki hadn’t done anything wrong. If the cops caught them, she’d go back to same ol’ same ol’, and that would stink, but man, the trip to get there would be epic.

  She smiled as she thought about the look on Brad’s face when he told her about the killing stuff and the jail stuff. He thought she was going to freak out, but when she just took it all in, he was surprised. She liked that look on him. That superconfident Mr. God mask had to be peeled away from time to time.

  And she’d been the one to do it.

  She could hear her father already, ranting on about the danger she’d caused herself by hanging out with a felon. She could see his red face and the distended veins at his collar. He wouldn’t care that Brad had never hurt anyone, just as he’d never cared about what Nicki wanted for herself. In Daddy’s mind, her worst offense of all would be her defiance of him.

  But without the defiance, there’d be no living. That’s what he couldn’t see. It’s why she could never go back, either.

  Somewhere down below, the silence of the night rumbled with the sound of an engine turning over.

  * * *

  The stairwell door to the lobby was also locked.

  “Goddammit!”

  So what the hell were people supposed to do in the event of a fire? Just pile up in the stairwells like ice floes in April?

  Carter pounded with his fist on the locked door. “Let me in!”

  No one answered. And then he understood. This was an emergency exit. If the building was burning, they’d want people to go all the way outside, not to cluster in the lobby. If it were any more obvious, it would have smacked him in the face: down another half-flight, the sign on another door read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY/ALARM WILL SOUND.

  He should have taken the elevator.

  Carter charged at the door, hitting the panic bar with his hip and slamming the door open against the brick façade of the hotel. As promised, an alarm squealed, and he couldn’t have cared less. Even the exit chutes were decorative, sporting colorful plants and bushes. He could see the portico circle at the top of the hill on the right. He took off at a run.

  If his sense of direction did not betray him, the skyway to the mall was past the main entrance, on the other side of the hotel. It occurred to Carter as he ran up the hill that he couldn’t remembe
r the last time he’d taken a quick step. Not exactly out of shape, he wasn’t exactly in shape, either, and as sweat soaked his clothes, he could feel every one of his forty-five years.

  Two uniformed police officers stood sentry at the front doors of the hotel, clearly stationed to watch anyone who might try to leave. The sight of a middle-aged man running straight at them put them on edge. In unison, their hands moved from behind their backs to rest on their Sam Browne belts.

  “Come with me!” Carter yelled. “I know where they are!”

  The cops exchanged glances that betrayed their assessment of Carter’s mental stability. When Carter closed to within a few yards, the cop on the right shifted his hand from his belt to his weapon, holding the other hand out in a gesture that stopped Carter in his tracks. “Okay, mister,” said the cop on the right. “Don’t be stupid.”

  Carter knew what they must be thinking. “My name’s Carter Janssen,” he said breathlessly. “My daughter is with the man you’re looking for—Brad Ward. They’re not in the hotel anymore. They’ve fled to the mall over there. If we move fast, I think we can catch them.”

  The cop scowled. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”

  “Of course you haven’t. They don’t know in there. But I’m telling you now.”

  The cop shook his head. “Sorry, sir, but I’ve got orders. If the lieutenant thought—”

  Carter didn’t wait for the rest. This was a waste of time. The officers did in fact have their orders, and they were not going to violate them on the whim of a complete stranger. His guys back in Pitcairn County, New York, would have done the same thing.

  Without another word, he spun away from the cops and headed for the Galleria parking garage. The two minutes it took for him to run the distance made his legs feel as if they’d hammered out a marathon.

  He surveyed the layout of the garage with a single glance. It had been built into the side of a hill, with the mall itself blocking a second side. Nicki and Brad would face two options for escape: they could exit from the bottom level of the four-story parking structure, thus bringing them straight at him, or they could exit from the top level, which, thanks to the rolling hills of the surrounding countryside, was actually at ground level, with easiest access to the freeway.

  Upstairs was it. The humidity pressed in on him as he paused to look up the seemingly endless flights, and then got down to business, taking them two at a time.

  He was nearly to the third level when he skidded to a stop so abruptly that his momentum pitched him forward on the steps.

  Off to his left, from somewhere in the middle of the dimly lit expanse of concrete, a starter switch ground, and an engine caught. From where he stood at the landing between parking levels, he couldn’t tell if it came from the second floor or the third.

  Then, from the floor above—the third—headlight beams swept the walls of the stairwell.

  Carter dashed up the half-flight to the next level in time to see taillights disappearing up the ramp to the fourth floor.

  * * *

  This time, it was a Honda Accord.

  Nicki stood as she saw the headlights painting the far wall, shocked at how much the effort took out of her.

  The engine roared as Brad piloted the car around the curve, through a stop sign without slowing, finally skidding to a stop with the front passenger door positioned three feet in front of her. The window lowered itself, revealing a beaming Brad on the far side of the center console, leaning low over the steering wheel to make eye contact.

  “Hey, good-lookin’, want a ride?” he asked.

  Nicki smiled in spite of it all. The guy never knew a serious moment. She lifted the handle and pulled the door open.

  “Nicolette!”

  Her head jerked up, not believing what she’d heard. Sure enough, there stood her father, fifty yards away, illuminated by the wash of a streetlight. He waved his arms over his head as if to divert an approaching aircraft. His chest heaved from the effort of his run.

  “Nicolette Janssen, don’t get in that car!”

  She froze—having no idea what to do. Looking back through the window, she saw Brad’s gaze shift from the front, where he could see and hear her father, and then back to her.

  “Nicolette, please!” Carter yelled.

  Nicki pleaded silently for Brad to tell her what to do.

  “You’ve got to call this one yourself, hon,” he said. “But do me a favor and do it fast.”

  “Do you want me to come along?” she asked him.

  Up ahead, her father started walking quickly toward them. “Nicolette Janssen, I forbid you to get into that car!”

  “Stay there!” she yelled back at him. She hated the airy sound of her voice, but there was enough emotion there to freeze her dad. She returned her gaze to Brad.

  He looked back at her, his face showing nothing. “Nicki, you know what I want you to do, but that’s not a reason to come, any more than what he wants you to do is a reason to stay. You decide.”

  “Nicolette, please don’t go,” Carter said. There was a new tone to his voice. A pleading tone. He sounded as if he might be ready to cry. “He’s a killer, sweetheart. I don’t know what he’s told you, but I guarantee you that much is true. Please don’t get into that car with him. Don’t leave me.”

  Why did her father have to do this? Why couldn’t he have just stayed away? Why did it have to be about staying with him or leaving him?

  The clock had ticked down to nothing, and the whole world seemed to pause, waiting for her to make up her mind. In the end, the decision wasn’t all that complicated. She could choose something new and alive, or something old and dying.

  “My name is Nicki,” she said.

  She slipped into the seat, barely getting the door closed before Brad peeled rubber clearing the parking lot.

  PART THREE

  TIME TO STEAL

  April 14

  Derek’s mom visited me again today. She cried and cried. They told her that Derek was killed in a fight, but she didn’t believe it. She wanted to know if it was true. I told her I never wanted to see her again. I told her that Derek was a thief and he got what he deserved.

  They monitor the conversations in there. What else could I say? She begged to hear something good but I just walked away. I’m a piece of shit. A goddamn coward.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Carter Janssen hadn’t moved from the spot there in the parking lot, and when the police cars arrived, they came as a six-pack. Warren Michaels was first to step out onto the concrete.

  “You missed them!” Carter shouted. He was furious.

  Warren said, “I got a radio report from one of our men on the front door. He told me that you had tried to get them to come along.”

  “They wouldn’t,” Carter said.

  “They should have,” Warren said. “This is the only thing that made sense. Somehow they knew we were coming. Did you see them?”

  “I talked to her,” Carter said. He closed his eyes and saw that look of confusion in his daughter’s face all over again. “I tried to convince her to stay, but she went with him anyway.”

  “What were they driving?” asked the lieutenant.

  “A Honda,” he said. “Red, I think, but it might have been blue. They were gone before I could get a tag number.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Warren said, reading his thoughts. He squeezed Carter’s shoulder then let it go, a gesture of commiseration. “Besides, Ward is a smart guy. Chances are, he’s already switched those plates out for someone else’s.”

  “I tried to yell to you,” Carter said, a little calmer. “There in the hallway, but I couldn’t get your attention.”

  “I understand. The good news is, there can only be but so many Hondas out on the street tonight. We’ll put the word out on the radio and stop every one of them if we have to. We’ll get ’em.”

  Carter closed his eyes and tried to push away the approaching headache. Please just let it be that simple. “What
did you find in the room?”

  “They were definitely there,” Warren said. “And they left quickly. All that formal wear and such, they left it all behind.”

  Carter sighed. “I guess that’s good news.”

  “But there’s bad news, too, I’m afraid.”

  The tone of the cop’s voice caused a spear of pain to pierce Carter’s body. As the cop reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out its contents, the pain blossomed even more. “These bottles have Nicki’s name on them. I suppose they’re important?”

  It was all of her meds. All of them. “Oh, my God,” Carter said.

  * * *

  Nicki watched with amazement as Brad went to work.

  The Honda lasted all of five miles, zigzagging from the highway off onto back streets, before he slowed to a crawl in a residential neighborhood.

  “We need new wheels,” he explained. “Your dad’s probably got the license number, and even if he doesn’t, at this hour, the cops’ll be stopping anything that looks like a Honda.”

  “So you’re just going to steal another car?”

  Brad shrugged. “What difference does one more make?”

  “So, when the owner wakes up in the morning, he’s going to report his car missing, and when that happens, we’re right back where we began.”

  Brad laughed, just a chuckle at first, and then a real laugh, like one you’d hear at a comedy club.

  “What’s so funny?” She wasn’t sure why, but deep in her gut, Nicki felt offended.

  “Think about it. You’ve got a fatal illness, you’re wandering through the night with a convicted murderer, we’re both probably gonna die in a hail of gunfire, and you’re worried about getting caught stealing a car. It really is pretty funny.”

  Nicki was not amused. “Maybe I’m just too tired.”

  “Your head is in the right place, though. The trick is to find a car that no one will notice is missing.”