“There are no circumstances!” It came out as a whispered shout, but a shout nonetheless, too loud for the tight surroundings. “He didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t and he didn’t. Why won’t you believe me?”
“But he did, sweetheart. If not at the Quik Mart this afternoon, then twice before. At least twice before. You can’t pretend that those just go away.”
Nicki’s head reeled with the revelation of this second killing. Her father would do a lot to get her back, but she didn’t think he’d lie. “He’s gentle, Daddy. And he’s sweet. He’s taking care of me.”
“This is taking care of you?”
“Brad saved my life. If he hadn’t been there, I might have been the second victim. It’s not our fault that the guy chose that moment to rob the store.”
“You shouldn’t have run.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.” Nicki found herself startled by the defiance in her own voice. “Daddy, you know what’s going to happen if I turn myself in. You’ve told me a thousand times how cops like to prove their own theories. If I step out, they’re going to arrest me, and then they’re not going to believe me any more than you do. I’ll die in jail.” That last sentence caught in her throat, and she realized that she was crying.
Something softened in her father’s voice. “Dammit,” he growled, but it wasn’t a sound of anger as much as it was one of defeat. “Tell me again that he’s treating you well,” he said.
The tears continued to flow. “Like a princess,” she said, but even she could barely hear her words.
“And promise me that the minute that changes—the instant it changes—you’ll be on the phone to me or to the police. No second chances for him. No talking you out of it.”
Nicki’s voice was thick. “I promise.”
She could see the expression in his face, his eyes closed, the muscles in his jaw flexing as he clenched his teeth. “Tell me again what happened. Every detail.”
* * *
It took another five minutes, but she told him everything about the robbery. When she left something out, he prodded her to fill in the blanks. She swore again that she was safe, but lied when he asked how she was feeling.
“How are you going to get more meds?” he asked.
She realized that he’d probably seen the bottles she’d left behind. “We don’t know,” she said. “We haven’t thought that far ahead. It’s not a problem yet, though.”
“Yes, it is. I can hear it in your voice. I can hear it in your breathing.”
Nicki smiled. “Okay, it’s not a big problem yet.”
“I have the bottles,” Carter said. “Maybe we could meet somewhere and I could hand them off to you.”
Nicki sensed a scam. She was probably a terrible person for thinking such a thing, but her mind conjured a picture of a trap: her dad handing over her meds while a hundred cops lay hidden in the shadows, watching.
Carter interpreted her silence for what it was. “Keep it in mind,” he said. “It’s an option. I don’t mean to push. I just want you to know that I’m always a phone call away.”
There was a tenderness in her dad’s voice that Nicki had rarely heard. In the past, there’d been orders and occasional grunts. Now he sounded like . . . a father. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, and the tears returned.
“I love you, too,” he rasped back. “More than that, I miss you.” He cleared his throat. “You be careful.”
“I will,” she said. “I promise.”
As she hung up the phone she sensed the shadow that was Brad. When she turned to face him, his expression was plain, entirely neutral. “That your dad?” he asked.
She nodded. The emotions from the call were still too raw to reduce into words.
He put his hands into his pockets. “So, what’s the deal? Are you staying or going?”
Looking at him standing there in the shadows of the little phone alcove, Nicki felt her gaze grow hot. “You lied to me,” she said.
He looked shocked. “What are you talking about?”
She pushed past him, heading out toward the pier. “Hey,” he called, hurrying after her. “Where are you going? What’s wrong? What did he say?”
After the stifling heat of the restaurant, the chill of the torrential rain made Nicki gasp. She didn’t know where she was going, but anyplace indoors had become too crowded. She needed space, fresh air.
Brad kept with her step for step as they hurried out onto the pier. Their clothes became saturated within seconds. “Nicki, come on. Talk to me. What happened? What did your father tell you?”
She stopped short, causing a collision. “Don’t ask me what he told me,” she spat. “Cough up what you didn’t tell me.”
Brad was oblivious to the water cascading down his face. His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out what Nicki was talking about. “Give me a hint,” he said. “Give me a place to start.”
“Well, you could start with the other murder,” she said.
Chapter Twenty-two
Brad’s eyes launched sparks of fear. Then it was gone, leaving just Brad again, back in full control of his emotions. “I didn’t lie,” he said.
“Bullshit.” She turned away.
He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back around. “I never lied to you,” he said. “You never asked, and I never told, but that’s not the same.”
“You said you never killed anyone!” But for the rain, the loudness of her voice would have stopped traffic.
“This isn’t the same,” Brad said. “This isn’t what we were talking about.”
Nicki looked amazed, her brows scrunched as she grunted out something that might have been a laugh or a cough. “So, what, I have to itemize things now? Have you murdered so many people that we have to talk about them one at a time?”
“I’m telling you it’s not like that,” Brad said, his voice more forceful. “In the world, it’s murder. In prison, murder is different. In this case, murder did the world a favor. It was about me staying alive.”
Nicki laughed again. “Oh, you’re a piece of work,” she said. “Always the victim, right? It’s not your fault—”
“No, it’s not,” Brad said. He was angry now, and he cut her off in mid-sentence. “It’s not my fault. I did it, and I admit I did it. Hell, the whole prison knows I did it, and there’s not a soul alive who would want it a different way.”
This time, Nicki’s laugh was less dismissive. She wanted to punish him for hiding details of his life, but she could see from the heat of his expression that she’d trod on private ground.
“You want to hear the story?” he said. “Is that what you want? You really want to hear the details? Because if you do, I can sure as shit share them with you.”
No, she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know any of this. Hell, she didn’t even want to be here; certainly not like this, not with all the crap that was swirling around them. But she nodded anyway. “I think I have a right to know,” she said.
“I think you’re right.” Brad held out his hand. “Let’s take a walk.”
“In the rain?” No sooner had she asked the question than she realized what an idiotic one it was.
“What, you’re afraid of getting wet?” Already, they couldn’t get any more soaked if they dove off the end of the pier.
Brad led the way back toward the restaurant, his hand gripped around hers. It was as if he wasn’t going to let her go. Before they reached the doors to go inside, though, he veered off to the left, and from there, it was a steep climb through scrub grass and rocks down to the beach below. So near the pier, the air smelled of creosote.
“Where are we going?” Nicki wanted to know.
“We’re going where we can have some privacy,” Brad said.
In rain like this, no place without a wall could be dry, but at least the space under the towering pier was a little less unpleasant. Brad led the way to one of the pilings, where he leaned his back against the splintery wood and examined his toes as he collected his
thoughts. Nicki helped herself to a seat atop a rock.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard about prison life,” Brad began, “but whatever it is, reality is worse. I was mainstream general population from day one. Guys who can afford good lawyers to lose their cases for them can at least draw isolation for a few weeks till they figure out how the place works, but not my public defender dickwad. I was GP from the very first day. You can’t believe how much violence there can be till you’re locked inside with it. There was one guy, his name was Chaney. He led a group called the Posse. It was a gang of killers. There was no limit to what they were capable of.” His voice trailed off as he remembered the details.
Brad relayed the details of Derek Johnson’s murder and the way that Lucas Georgen just allowed it all to happen. It took the better part of fifteen minutes to tell the whole story, and with each additional word, Nicki edged ever closer to asking him to stop.
“After Derek was dead, and I denied him to his mother—to the one person in the world who seemed interested in pushing a little kindness my way—I hit bottom. I just didn’t give a shit anymore about anything. And then they came after me.”
Nicki’s eyes grew wide. “Were you . . . Did they . . .”
Brad chuckled. “It’s the first thing people always want to know, and it the one thing that the media has right. You take it wherever they want to put it or they cut your throat. Sometimes, they cut your throat anyway. There’s no sense fighting. All it does is make everything hurt more for a longer time.
“But then they think they own you. They think that you’re their property to lend out or to sell however they want.”
“Sell?”
“For cigarettes, mostly. That’s another thing the movies have right. Inside, cigarettes are cash. Even if you don’t smoke.”
Nicki screwed up her face. “But why would they sell you? What were people buying?”
Brad gave her a look that said, “Duh.”
“Oh,” she said.
“But I knew after that first attack and that monster Georgen just stood there and watched—I swore that they were going to die. I knew I couldn’t get them all, so I targeted Chaney. He was the leader, and he was the one I hated most. If I’d had time, Georgen would’ve been next. Looking back, I wish I’d done it the other way around.”
“So you killed Chaney?” Nicki said.
Brad didn’t answer at first, retreating to that place in his mind where she’d seen him go before.
“Brad?”
“I waited in the same corner where the Posse liked to wait for people. It was like one of two spots in the whole place that nobody could see unless they were looking for it. Chaney used to work in the prison library, and his thing was to take the rolling cart of books all over the place, and in the process, he’d collect his protection money. Thing is, it was the one time when he used to travel alone. I waited for probably fifteen minutes. A couple of people saw me there, and they had to know what I was up to, but nobody squealed me out.
“My boss thought I was going to the infirmary to get my hand stitched.” He displayed a ragged scar on his palm. “I told them that I’d cut myself, but if I didn’t show up soon, they were gonna come looking for me.
“I waited and waited, and then I heard the sound of the book cart. It had these crazy wheels that always rattled and squeaked whenever you pushed it along. Nothing else in the world sounded like that cart. So, I heard it coming, and I just waited.
“I saw the cart first, and then I made my move. Chaney tried to step back, but he wasn’t fast enough. I stuck the knife in his belly right at his belt line, pushed it all the way to the hilt.”
Nicki could tell by his expression that Brad was back there again, reliving the moment in vivid detail. The expression on his face was anything but the revulsion she felt at hearing the story. His expression was all pleasure.
“He tried to fight me for maybe two seconds, but then I guess the pain got the better of him. I started sawing with the blade, in and out, a full thrust every time. It was a goddamn sharp knife, too. I spent hours putting the edge on that thing. Christ, you should have seen the blood. It spilled out of his gut like I’d burst a water balloon. He tried to fall, but I wouldn’t let him. I pulled him closer and kept sawing until I hit the underside of his ribs. I had no idea how hot blood is when it comes out of a person. It’s like spilling coffee down the front of you when it pumps out like that.
“I think he died then, standing up, with me supporting his weight. I was looking right at him, too. Right into his eyes, and it’s like this light just goes out. It’s there one second and then it’s gone.”
Brad looked up, saw Nicki’s expression of revulsion, but beyond it, lying under the surface the way cake sometimes peeks out from under the layer of icing, he thought he saw a glimmer of understanding.
“He deserved it,” Nicki said. From her tone, Brad couldn’t tell if she was reassuring him or herself.
“Yeah, he did,” Brad agreed. “When it was over, I looked up and there were all these people staring at me. Inmates, all over the place. They weren’t cheering the way they normally do in a fight like this, and nobody was coming in to break it up. They just stood there, watching. It was like they were afraid of me. Like I was back in middle school, where people were afraid to step on my shadow. Then somebody said, ‘You’re toast, dude,’ and I knew that he was right. Way too many witnesses. If the Posse didn’t kill me before dinner, then the state would get to it in a couple of years. Prisons don’t mind letting the violence escalate to the point where you have to kill, but when you do it, they call it murder, just the same as if I’d gone to some school yard and shot the place up.
“So, I’d had all these ridiculous plans to break out of there through tunnels and shit—stuff that I’d never in a million years have been able to do—and there I was, with a need to get out of right-by-God now, and I had no idea what I was gonna do. I just ran. Had no idea where I was going, and there was the laundry cart. It was just sitting there on the loading dock. I dove into it and pulled clothes over top of me. I knew I’d be caught. I mean, really, who’d have thought it could be that easy?
“I was gone before anybody even moved the son of a bitch’s body. I just wish I’d taken the extra time to hunt down Georgen. That would’ve made it all worthwhile.”
“They’d have killed you,” Nicki said.
“They’re gonna kill me anyway. At least then, the books would be settled.”
He stopped talking. There it was, out in the open, just the way Nicki said she wanted it. “Sorry you asked?”
Nicki reached out and took his hand. “Yes.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
Nicki looked at him hard. For the first time, she sensed that he’d shed all the masks. She was seeing the real Brad. There was more to this man than kindness and love. There was violence, too. And pain.
She loved him even more.
“There wasn’t any tape in the security recorders,” she said. “Daddy told me. They’re looking for us as the killers, just like she said in there.”
Brad winced.
She forced a smile. “How are you coming with those getaway plans?”
As if lifting a veil, the pain evaporated from Brad’s face, replaced by one of his patented smiles. “I’ve got a good one, I think,” he said, “but I don’t want to tell you about it till it’s done.”
Nicki cocked her head, wondering.
“It means breaking some more laws,” he explained. “Some big ones. And you don’t want to be part of it till it’s over.”
PART FOUR
TIME TO DIE
Chapter Twenty-three
Carter stared at the phone after he hung up. If he was wrong about Nicki, or if she was wrong about Brad, he’d just made himself an accessory to murder. Worse, he’d just granted tacit approval for his daughter to remain in the company of a convicted killer.
What the hell was he thinking?
It occurred to him a
s he sat in his car contemplating his own stupidity that he’d inadvertently started a clock for everyone involved. He needed to find this kid in the red shirt, and he’d end up doing it alone. Nicki was dead-on about the mind-set of cops. They already knew who their suspects were, and whatever Carter told them would be discounted as the frantic rantings of a worried father.
He jumped a foot as the front passenger door opened. Before he could say a word, the female deputy he’d seen inside the Quik Mart slid into the seat next to him and closed the door. She smelled of wet hair. “Couple days of this and we’ll have to build an ark,” she said. When she saw the look of confusion in Carter’s face, she extended her hand. “Darla Sweet. We met inside.”
A little stunned, he took her hand. “I remember,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I was watching you through the window,” she said, nodding to the front of the store. “That was a long chat. You looked pretty animated. I presume you were talking to your daughter?”
Carter tried his best to look unfazed, but he didn’t think he pulled it off. “If I were, it would be none of your business,” he said. “Attorney-client privilege.”
“That’s a good one,” Darla said. “I was thinking misprision of a felony.”
Carter felt trapped. He didn’t know what to say, and his silence told the deputy that she was correct.
Darla let him off the hook. “If you did speak to her, I hope that you had the good sense to advise her to turn herself in.”
“It wouldn’t be that simple,” he said. “She’s innocent.”
“Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.”
Carter looked past the deputy and saw through the front windows of the Quik Mart that the crime scene technicians were still bustling. “You’re not searching for exculpatory evidence,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect you to find it.”
She didn’t bite. “Evidence is evidence. Prosecution and defense have equal access.”
Carter allowed himself a bitter chuckle. “I am a prosecutor, Deputy. I know better. The good news is, I can take your case apart in court.”
Nick of Time Page 23
