Fool's Ride (The Jenkins Cycle Book 2)

by John L. Monk

  Johnny glanced at me, then he looked away, then back at me, then away again, then at his bat, then up in the air, then back at me again. He started to say something, but then he stopped. Then he opened his mouth again and said, “Shit.”

  He stood up.

  “She did it again,” he said. “Like high school all over again. Dude, I’m sorry. This one’s my bad, not yours.”

  Despite the loaded weapon in my hand, he walked over like everything was okay now and took me in a crushing bro-to-bro hug. Then the strange brotherly moment was over and he stepped back.

  “Sorry again, man,” he said, laughing ruefully.

  I needed to get to my appointment.

  “No worries,” I said. “Take care, Johnny. I’m in a hurry, so…”

  “Go ahead, man, it’s cool. Thanks for not shooting me.”

  I threw him a thumbs-up and jumped in the car.

  * * *

  Jane was coming out of the clinic entrance when I got there.

  “Hey, hold up,” I said. “You’ll never believe it, but I got held up by a crazy guy with a bat. Then we hugged.”

  Jane blinked at me and smiled. Then she laughed. It was her fake laugh, the one she used with all her friends when they were pretending to be grownups. Her friends almost universally hated me, except for one of them—a pretty brunette named Darcy, who was never nice to me in public.

  “I was about to call and suggest a reschedule,” she said. A soft rebuke.

  “No need,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  I held the door like a gentleman, and she went in first.

  Melody glared at me from across the room, her face pinched and angry. Pam pretended to read her book.

  Jane said, “I really appreciate you seeing me on such short notice.”

  “Happy to help,” I said, and casually flipped Melody the bird behind my back.

  Behind the desk, Pam gasped.

  When we were both inside, I escorted Jane over to the cushy chairs and said, “One second.”

  From Scott’s desk, I grabbed a straight-backed chair, a pen, and the sign-in sheet. I set the chair outside the door and put the clipboard and pen there in an unmistakable gesture of trust. Then I shut the door.

  “Is it always this muggy in here?” Jane said, rubbing her arms.

  Same old critical Jane, getting everyone defensive and worrying about her.

  “Only in the morning,” I said. “Would you like some tea? I was about to pour myself some coffee.”

  Jane threw me a curious look. “What makes you think I don’t drink coffee?”

  “Jane, please,” I said, smiling enigmatically. “I am a psychologist, after all. Let me guess … no sugar, right? Two bags?”

  “That’s right…”

  “Give me a minute.”

  I unlocked the door and left the room, then skirted the desk with Pam and Melody, both pointedly ignoring me. I poured coffee for myself and brought back a cup of hot water and two tea bags for Jane.

  “So, Jane,” I said, after the caffeine drinks were arranged to our mutually professional satisfaction. “Did you grow up here in Toledo?”

  Jane glanced quickly at her watch like she didn’t want me to notice, except she really did. She was a busy real estate agent. Places to go, people to sell places to.

  “No,” she said. “Just outside of Allentown. Mom’s still there, same house I grew up in. She’s actually why I’m here, so…”

  “She’s why you’re here in Toledo? Or why you’re here in my office?”

  Jane laughed her trendy laugh again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I mean here in Toledo. After Daddy died, Mom got even more messed up than before. My boyfriend’s from here and … it sounds bad, I know, but I had to get away from her.” She shrugged. “So I moved.”

  Jane folded her arms briefly and then lowered them. She’d done everything she could to look like someone else, even dying her hair thirty different shades. But in the ways that mattered—how she paused for breath, where her eyes roamed when she talked, the speed she moved her head, the things she did with her hands—all of these were classic Jane.

  I said, “Why did you have to get away from your mom?”

  “After my brother killed himself—sorry to just spring that on you—she was a broken woman. Weak. She cried all night long and slept all day. Nothing Daddy said helped. That’s when the calls started coming.”

  Jane studied my face for a reaction, but I kept it as blank of emotion as possible. I felt my heart thumping in my chest, and my breathing came quick and shallow. As casually as I could, I slipped my hands under my legs to keep them from trembling.

  “What calls?” I said.

  “That’s the part that actually weirds me out a little,” she said. “It goes back to when my brother committed suicide—it’s sort of embarrassing.”

  I smiled thinly. “No worries. You were saying?”

  “So the calls—it seemed like every week for a while, then every month, we’d get these calls from people saying they were looking for Suzie, Pete, Mike, Louie, Alex … you know, just random names, right?”

  I nodded.

  “The thing is, they all said the same thing: the numbers were so similar. They hit seven when they meant to hit eight.”

  “It’s plausible, right?”

  “Maybe,” Jane said, biting her lip. “But they were always for different people—and from different people. Different voices, anyway. And we got so many calls, at least for the first few years…”

  “Maybe it was a prankster,” I said. “Faking a different voice every time. Something like that.”

  She shook her head. “In the end, it doesn’t matter who they were—Mom wouldn’t change the number. Dad and I gave her hell about it because it was really sort of creepy, coming on the heels of my brother’s selfishness and all.”

  “What?” I said, sharply.

  Jane flinched. “What?”

  “Sorry, you said your brother’s selfishness—didn’t mean to shout. I was just surprised.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your brother. Most people … that is, you know, when someone commits suicide, you don’t…”

  Jane laughed. “Don’t speak ill of the dead? That kind of thing?”

  I nodded.

  “Please,” she said. “He was a weirdo, and yeah, he was selfish. Killing himself—over a girl.” She laughed again. “She wasn’t all that, trust me.”

  Yes, she was.

  “Let’s go back to your mom,” I said. “You said something happened recently?”

  Jane nodded. “She got another phone call. Same M.O. Called and said he hit seven instead of eight. Only now Mom’s saying he called from up here, in Toledo.”

  “Probably just a normal wrong number.”

  “That’s what I said! What’s it been, like eight years since the last time?”

  Five years, ten months, eleven days…

  “So what’s the problem?” I said, trying to hide my impatience. “Moms are funny sometimes. That’s why they have loving daughters, right? To be there for them.”

  “I was there for her,” she said, a trifle haughtily. “Never mind that. Here’s the problem: Mom thinks all this has to do with Dan. Sorry, Dan’s my—was—my brother. She thinks it’s his spirit reaching out and messing up everyone’s dialing. Can you believe it?”

  I grinned and shook my head like it was harmless. No big deal. Moms and their funny ways. One day we’ll all look back and laugh.

  “It’ll pass,” I said.

  “Nope,” Jane said. “She’s been like this forever. That’s why I finally left—couldn’t take the craziness. I needed my own life again after my second divorce—long story, don’t ask. Now I have a career, a wonderful new boyfriend, and I’m making good money. We’re planning on moving to L.A. to sell houses at an agency I contacted. Better money.”

  I spread my hands wide—crazy mom, second divorce, better money.

  “How do I snap her o
ut of this? Medication? You must have seen this kind of stuff before. It’s embarrassing, if you ask me. The way she talks about it.”

  I couldn’t help it—I dropped my head in my hands, right there in front of my sister, and a sob burst out of me like a bomb.

  Jane said, “What the…?”

  My shoulders shook as I cried—for what I’d done to my poor mom and dad with all those stupid, stupid, stupid calls. I’d just wanted to hear their voices. Every time, hoping they’d pick up sounding happy. Maybe with a lingering trace of laughter from one of Dad’s lame-o jokes.

  “Uh, Mr. Schaefer? Is this a part of your therapy, because that’s not why…”

  I said, “What do you care about?”

  “What?” Jane said, shifting uncomfortably. “Pardon?”

  With tears streaking down my face, I repeated: “What do you care about?”

  “Um, I’m just gonna go now, okay?”

  Jane moved to get up but I got there first and pushed her back in the chair. She opened her mouth to scream and I covered it.

  I pulled my gun, held it pointed up, and said, “If you scream I’ll blow your head off. You got that?”

  Jane nodded frantically.

  “What do you care about?”

  She made a noise and I moved my hand out of the way.

  “What?” she said, panting for breath. Crying now, shuddering in fear.

  Good.

  “I asked what you cared about: your stupid life in L.A or your mother. Which is it?”

  Blubbering now, red-faced and splotchy and crying a mewling sound I’d never heard from her before, Jane said, “W-what are you going to do to me? Please don’t hurt me. Please, I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t shoot me. Please!”

  She was starting to get loud again, so I shook the gun—being very careful to keep my finger off the trigger and the barrel still pointed up.

  “Your mother needs you,” I said. “She’s all alone in that damn house and you’re out here because she had the temerity to embarrass you? Because she misses her son? Her husband’s dead and now her daughter’s gone and she’s alone. And you sit there calling her crazy? What the hell happened to you?”

  Through her fear, a glimmer of confusion poked through. “Please just let me go. Please!”

  No, I wasn’t about to shoot my sister. The gun had a single round in it, in case I decided to shoot myself. It would fire on the third pull.

  I looked down at her and … and just looked at her. Sitting there crying and sniffling, messing up her makeup and staring at me in terror. To my own sister, I’d done this.

  The madness was starting to recede.

  “If I let you live,” I said, “you gotta promise me something. Think you can do that?”

  Desperately, she nodded.

  “I’m leaving town in a couple days,” I said. “You’re gonna call the cops, and—”

  Shaking her head, Jane said, “No! I’d never call them, I swear, I wouldn’t, I—”

  “I know you’d never do that,” I said, smiling like the friendly guy I was. “But I want you to. Tell them I went to Canada. Don’t tell them I’m still here in the city.”

  Jane nodded. Canada, absolutely.

  “Stay where you are for thirty minutes before calling. Got it?”

  She nodded again—she’d stay there forever if that’s what it took.

  “And call your mom after,” I said. “You’re all she’s got left.”

  Sermon completed, I pocketed the gun and walked out.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The name of Scott’s bank was conveniently written down on his credit card.

  “Can I get a balance?” I said to the nice lady behind the bulletproof glass.

  The Schaefers were sitting on more than eleven thousand in checking and over forty thousand in savings. Scott had turned scamming the government and abusing mentally challenged young girls into a lucrative business.

  I didn’t want to leave Tara penniless. She was doing the best she could with a real bastard of a husband, so I took out two thousand in a mix of fifties, twenties, and hundreds. Then I got on Route 23 South out of Toledo heading toward Upper Sandusky.

  I called the minister at the number he’d put in his email.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “It’s me.”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t get all mushy,” I said. “Slight change of plans.”

  I told him what happened at the clinic between me and my sister and left nothing out. Kind of like a confession.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said.

  “I don’t think Jane will sell Scott and Tara’s house now. So if you could be there for Tara, after … you know, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “What do you mean you know?” he said. “I warned you—you’re forbidden to hurt Scott Schaefer!”

  I laughed. Cackled, even. All that anger at my sister, my worry for Mom—all of it spilled out in a string of giddy laughter at this man who thought he knew the mind of God when all he had to do was ask me. I’d tell him God was out of his gourd.

  “Keep it together, Dan,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “Just take care of Tara for me. I’d like to get that right.”

  The minister said, “Tell me where you are. I’ll bring you in, we’ll figure it out.”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and hung up.

  I didn’t want my cell phone pinging off towers and revealing my location, so I shut it off. Also, I didn’t want to talk to the minister again, and definitely not Tara.

  The minister was a decent guy, beneath all the grumpiness. He wasn’t like those bad-apple priests the media gleefully held up as examples of clergy everywhere. He’d use the recordings to save Beth—and it’d kill Tara, the idea she’d married Scott, a sexual predator, a thief, and an all around bad person.

  I pounded the steering wheel in rage.

  “And you want me to keep coming back here?” I said.

  I got off the interstate and filled up the tank. I also bought sodas, water, cookies, chips, and several packages of beef jerky. The less stops to eat the better. But I couldn’t drive forever. I knew of a motel chain that used to take people without a credit or debit card, but it had been a long time. Maybe they didn’t do that anymore.

  I hadn’t killed anyone, so the police wouldn’t necessarily turn the state upside down looking for me. The interstates were the fastest route to safety, but I couldn’t risk a possible APB on Scott’s car.

  At times like this it’s good to know your back roads, and I knew all the back roads.

  I stayed on 23 until I got to 30, then took that east through farmland, more farmland, and after that more farmland. Between the farmland and the farmland were places like Canton, Wooster, Mansfield, East Rochester, and East Liverpool. I didn’t pass through them. Instead, I gassed up when I could and skirted around them on spaghetti-like roads that twisted deeper into the country, ever wary of encroaching suburbs and radar traps and good Samaritans. Not that country folk weren’t good Samaritans. They simply had fewer Samaritans per square mile to worry about.

  The biggest reason I’d chosen the scenic route had less to do with the police and more to do with me. I needed a break. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have pulled a gun on my sister, nor said such terrible things to her. Sure, her attitude was awful, but her abandonment of our mother was nothing compared to the way I’d abandoned everyone in that little dorm in college. So when I was yelling at her, I was really yelling at myself.

  The other thing I needed was a break from Tara, Melody, and her dumb brother Johnny. Having a job, mingling with people—it had sucked me right in. I was like one of those undercover FBI agents who goes so deep he can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys anymore. I’d broken one of my biggest rules and had sex with Melody—twice. Then I’d publicly dumped her and insulted her.

  In some ways, what I’d done to Tara was the worst. I
hadn’t just abandoned her—I’d assaulted our real estate agent for no reason and then driven off. And pretty soon I’d be adding never to be seen again to the end of that. If I was here to help her fix their marriage I was messing up utterly with every mile I put behind me.

  I’d all but consigned myself to killing Scott. Wonder of all, I felt a tiny bit bad about that. He hadn’t killed anyone. He’d done a lot of awful things, and I’d probably only scratched the surface. But I wanted him severed from Tara’s life completely. It was a selfish decision with an unfair outcome, one I didn’t have the right to make, but I was beyond caring about fairness anymore. Killing Scott wasn’t eye for an eye—it was more like heart for an eye. Or maybe both lungs for an eye. Something critical to live, certainly…

  My mind wandered for a while, pondering the various organs needed to keep someone alive. Then I wondered if I’d keep coming back long enough for humans to create robots they could transplant their brains into. Would such beings have super strength? Implants in their brains for speaking vast distances, that kind of thing?

  After a while, I turned on the radio and hunted for anything old and good and didn’t think about much except junk food, heartburn, and what I could see through my windshield. I crossed into Pennsylvania just after 9 p.m., way later than if I’d taken the interstate. The whole time, I hadn’t seen a single police cruiser.

  There was a motel outside of Pittsburg that used to be fine with cash, and I decided to try my luck.

  Scott pulling a gun on someone shouldn’t have been big news, but the media might find it interesting. Crazy redheaded psychologist attacking his patients could make for a lively story. He’d be easy to recognize if the authorities circulated a picture. So it was with a distinct feeling of unease that I walked into the motel lobby, trying to act normal while scouring the ceiling for those little black security domes.

  They didn’t have any domes—they had cameras out in the open behind the desk, pointing at the entrance when I walked in. Unable to avoid them, I didn’t bother. It’d just make me look more suspicious walking around covering my face.