Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1)

by GA VanDruff

  “End dot ...” He lost focus and went back to the book on his lap, mumbling, drawing straight lines with a red crayon—the paper label torn half off.

  Aunt B stepped between us, took my phone and parked it right under his nose. “Listen here, young man. Start dot is Bo Peep’s. Jaqie, who is your good friend, wants to know about ... ?” She turned to me and said, “You want to know exactly what?”

  “This is a map. Peep’s is marked Start. What is the location of the last dot?” Beads of sweat popped up on my forehead.

  In Willie’s world, dots ruled. If he didn’t want to tell me, he just wouldn’t. Aunt B? That was another matter, altogether.

  “Willie. I’ve made fudge with tiny marshmallows.”

  “They look like dots,” he said, bopping on the swing and grinning. “I want that.”

  “Not until you tell Jaqie—”

  “Drue’s Cove. X marks the spot. Fudge, now?”

  ~~^~~

  Ed was already in the driver’s seat when I got to the truck.

  “Buckle up.” He stomped the gas to the floor, and Uncle Frank’s 1970-something truck spit a ball of black smoke out of the exhaust, and sat there. The second time around, we laid rubber and expended three gallons of gas squealing down the street toward Mercer’s Landing Road.

  “Can you get to Drue’s Cove this way?”

  Ed leaned forward, gripping the steering wheel while we raced past the speed limit signs. “Me and the guys used to drag race out there every Saturday night, then we’d have a bonfire. This is the short cut. Don’t you remember any of this stuff?”

  We’d dated since pre-K. Too much to remember. “How long?”

  “Ten. Fifteen, tops.”

  I slid down in the seat and covered my eyes. Be there. Be there.

  ~~^~~

  He wasn’t.

  “Jaqie? Are you all right?” Ed sounded scared. He’d never seen me this way.

  I’d never been this way.

  I snatched up a piece of partially gnawed rope lying under a scrawny tree and shook it at him. “Do I look all right to you?” I tripped over my feet scrambling to a blue tarp. A shredded burger wrapper fell out and blew away into the marsh grass.

  Tire ruts ran in circles then burrowed through the muck toward Mercer’s Landing.

  “They gave him water in this filthy thing!” I sailed a grimy hub cap into the tidal shallows. Let the environmentalists come. Bring them on.

  Ed took a cautious step in my direction, holding out the palms of his hands. “You’ve got to calm down. Geesh, you’re gonna have a heart attack or something.”

  I stormed along the water’s edge. The mire sucked at my shoes, then filled my footprints with water as I scoured the shoreline. “He was here. All last night, Doofus was right here. By himself.” I whirled around. “Do you know coyotes live in these woods? Uncle Frank shot two of them sneaking into that rickety work shed of his.”

  “I don’t see any sign of digging.” He swept his arm out as he turned a circle. “No piles of dirt. Do you see anything? Maybe they didn’t kill him.” He turned back to me. “Maybe, Jaqs, they put him here because Miss Gertie doesn’t allow pets at her place, and they came back to pick him up and head home. It’s a possibility.”

  I flung the rope into the water, and the tarp. “Another possibility—he could be out there!”

  Ed snatched the tarp out of the shallows, rolled it up and tied the bundle with the rope. “We should call Sheriff Nilly—”

  I covered my face with my hands. “Oh, Ed, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This has all been so awful.”

  I buried my face against Ed’s chest and bawled.

  I blubbered about Doofus. I blubbered about Jeep—the whole story—a year’s worth of anger and worry, despair, even. I was a raging waterfall of estrogen and emotions and self-pity. I soaked his shirt while Ed stood still like a tree and let me go on until the sobbing dwindled to sniffing and hiccups. He tugged my ponytail now and then, saying, ‘There. There.’

  When I finally stepped back, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out to me.

  It was clean.

  “Dianne said in case I had to stop the bleeding.”

  I laughed into the handkerchief. “Uncle Frank isn’t that bad.”

  “It was an anchor, Jaqs.” Then he said, “I’m real sorry about your dog—about Doofus—and that Jeep guy. I know you’re sad, but I think you might be overreacting—like a female PMS thing. Don’t you think a lot of this probably has to do with our divorce? You and me being together all day might be bringing up some of your old feelings. I just want to say that you don’t have to be jealous just because I’m with Dianne now. Maybe if you got a boyfriend—”

  I punched Ed square in the nose.

  CHAPTER 21

  “In you go, boy.” The man stepped back and gave the Lab room to jump onto the backseat of his truck. “Youns stay inside this vehicle and keep these doors locked. I’ve got to pay for the gas, and I want to see if they sell dog collars.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boys were all over the dog. Good boy, Rex. Good dog. C’mere. He’s mine. No he ain’t. He’s mine.

  Dad walked toward the convenience store, shaking his head. He sure wasn’t looking forward to taking the dog away from his kids. Maybe he’d just keep him. His wife was a whiz with coupons, and could probably squeeze dog food into the budget. When it came to her boys, she was a softie, so she’d probably be fine with keeping the dog.

  Still, if he could squeeze five-hundred dollars out of the Cuthbarts for returning their dog ... that was a lot of coupons. That pink nail polish had to go. Made no sense thinking too hard on any of this if the dog didn’t have that black mark.

  He tossed a wave to the two men in the sedan with the Pennsylvania plates. They’d followed him here and pulled behind a sandwich board advertising foot-long hotdogs for a dollar.

  No matter. If they had a legal right to the dog, they’d have done something about it by now. His opinion? Those two had got hold of Cuthbart’s dog somehow and wanted a reward for themselves.

  Too bad, fellas. Finders keepers.

  ~~^~~

  “What are we going to do?” Avery knew they were in trouble if he had to ask Timmy for suggestions.

  “You’re the hotshot idea man, you tell me. If you’d brought the shovel along in the first place, this mess woulda been done with yesterday.”

  “Coming from the hit man with no bullets.”

  “We coulda killed it with a rock. Can’t dig without a shovel.”

  The men had danced this jig for the last ten miles, and were no closer to a solution. Bottom line, too many kids to deal with. One—two, on the outside—but they drew the line at three. Principles must be maintained.

  Avery rubbed his tired face. Barely three o’clock and he was bushed. First, the lady in the purple house backed a dump truck of bacon and eggs and pancakes, and whatever else goes with breakfast around the world, up to the table this morning, and it took an hour to eat it. Then, while he and Timmy recovered from their carb overdose, they discovered the car missing and were forced to spend an hour with a small-town deputy who fancied himself Tom Cruise in those Mission Impossible movies.

  Follow that with another hour on the phone hassling with the rental agency, fetching the car out of a falling-down barn, getting rid of the deputy, driving back to town to buy a shovel, then back to the purple nightmare so they could coordinate their starting point with the crumpled map of circles and squiggly lines. All that, and they missed the mark by just five minutes.

  He and Timmy should be on the way home. They should be home.

  “We’ll just stick with them,” Avery said. “It’s the best we can do for now.”

  “Should we call the boss?”

  “No. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”

  Timmy craned his neck left. “Was that a crack? Sounded like a crack. For your information, I suffer from an inherited glandular disorder.”

  “This place sells foo
t-longs for a dollar. Maybe that will fix your glands right up.”

  “Wise guy. I’m sure not going to sit here on an empty stomach and listen to you.” He’d get two, and break a twenty for the tolls on the way home. If they ever got to go home.

  CHAPTER 22

  “I deed a westwoob.” Ed pressed the handkerchief against his bloody nose.

  I stole a quick glance at him and winced. “Ed, I’m so sorry. Keep your head tilted back. There’s a gas station up ahead.” I squirmed in my seat. “You’re really bleeding.”

  “I dow. I dow. I’b a bweeder.”

  ~~^~~

  The big guy stood next to the rental, catching his breath. A man his size—getting out of a low slung car—like dead-lifting a four-hundred-pound bar bell. Avery had refused to spring for an SUV.

  Dad dug the dog collar out of the plastic bag, and jangled it until he caught the big man’s eye. “My dog,” he called across the parking lot. He had a pretty good idea those boys weren’t giving up soon.

  Jimmy unlocked the door. “Wow. A red collar. That’s so cool. C’mere, Rex.”

  The dog stuck his head over the front seat and the boy buckled the collar around its neck. “Look, Dad. I can fit my fingers underneath so I know it’s not too tight. See?”

  The man patted Jimmy’s shoulder. “Good job.” Let the boy have a dog for a day or two. Maybe for good.

  “I’ve got to move the truck to the side of the building so we don’t block the pump.” And so the guys in the sedan couldn’t watch their every move. He took the first of the three empty slots.

  “Now, hold his ear. Let’s find out if there is a black mark under this mess, like those guys claim.”

  He’d found nail polish remover two shelves below the foot-long hotdogs. Out in the sticks, this guy’s gas station was the only game in town. He soaked a leftover burger napkin with the remover and pressed it against the dog’s ear. As the polish loosened, he combed through it with a plastic fork.

  “Look at that. Rex here does have a black mark.” He tilted Rex’s ear so his boys could see the letter C. “Maybe we should call him Charlie.”

  “No, Dad, please. We like Rex.”

  “Settle down. Rex it is. Jimmy, you and Rex hop in the bed of the truck. Give him some water, and a handful of kibble.”

  “What about those men in the car?”

  “Don’t you mind about them. I’ll keep an eye out. Billy, Ryan, come with me. Owner says there’s a restroom. Jimmy, I’ll take you after your brothers.”

  ~~^~~

  “Pull in here,” Ed said, lifting the handkerchief by millimeters away from his swollen nose. “They got a westwoob around back.”

  I stopped the truck and waited while a man and two boys crossed in front of us, headed around the side of the building. “You’ll have to get in line, I guess. I’ll park over here.”

  Two slots left. Another truck was in the first one and had a blond boy—twelve, thirteen—by the looks of him, in the truck bed, hanging all over the family dog. A yellow Lab. More Pennsylvania plates. Does no one work in Pennsylvania? This is March. People don’t travel from up north to Oakley Beach in March.

  “I’m going to the ladies.” I was not up to watching the boy and his dog. That should’ve been Doofus’s lot in life, and I’d been too late.

  Ed leaned forward and saw the dog through the driver’s side window. “Take your tibe.”

  I kept my back turned as I slid out of the driver’s seat, but it was impossible not to hear the boy giggling and cooing over his pet.

  “Hey, lady.”

  Oh, no. I pretended not to hear—pretended he meant a different lady—shut the door and started to walk away.

  “Hey, lady. C’mere an’ see my dog. Name is Rex. Picked the name myself. Well, me an’ my brothers. Hey, lady.”

  Rats. I stopped, hung my head and took a deep breath. This was the Eastern Shore. I’d better get used to seeing yellow Labs. Besides, the boy was jumping out of his skin to show off his dog.

  “Rex?” I turned around and stared at my shoes and hoped this was as close as I had to get to satisfy my social obligation. “Great name for such a pretty dog. What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy. C’mon and shake hands with Rex. I think he shakes hands.” Jimmy held out his hand and the dog’s paw filled it. “Look! He does know shake! C’mon, lady.”

  I trudged over to the truck, looking everywhere but at the dog. The blacktop, the dirt, the brown-and-mud landscape beyond the building toward the tree line. “What else does Rex do?”

  “Not sure.” He kissed the dog with a loud smack. “Don’t tell my dad I kissed the dog. ‘K? We just got him and I ain’t supposed to get attached, Dad says.”

  “Sure won’t. You and Rex have a safe trip home. Bye.”

  I made it three steps. “Hey, lady.”

  I came to a parade rest. “Yes, Jimmy?” Maybe this would be quick and I wouldn’t have to turn around.

  “Do me a favor, wouldja?”

  “What’s that, Jimmy?”

  “Would you throw this away for me? And these? I would myself, but my dad says I have to stay in the truck with Rex.”

  “Absolutely,” I walked backward to the spot where I’d been standing.

  “Hey, lady, why are you walking like that?

  “So I can see where I’ve been.” I held out my hand. “What am I throwing away?”

  “You’d better look ‘cause it’s in a jar and you might drop it and break the glass.”

  Sigh.

  “Here.” He held the jar with two hands, and balanced a plastic cup with a lid on top of it. “It’s okay. Everything’s dead. Mostly.”

  Dead? Dead means used to be alive. “What are you talking about? What’s dead?” The dog whined and pranced, and poked me in the ear with its extraordinarily cold and abundantly wet nose.

  “It’s just an old lizard and some dumb old worms it used to eat before it croaked. I was gonna use it as fishin’ bait, but dead stuff doesn’t work.” He leaned out over the side of the truck. “You okay, lady? You ain’t gonna hurl, are ya’?”

  I lifted my shoulder and dried my dog-kissed ear on my T-shirt and took the jar. It was one sad-looking gecko. “What’s in the cup, again?”

  “Mealworms.”

  “Mind if I put them in my truck?”

  Jimmy shook his blond head and scratched the dog’s blond head. “Nope. But why wouldja?”

  “I collect dead things.”

  “Cool.”

  “Okay, then. See ya, Jimmy.” I opened my door and put the jar on the seat. I set the mealworms next to it.

  Ed squinted and peeped through bloody folds of the handkerchief. “What dat?”

  “A gecko,” I said. “See if it will eat a mealworm—there, in the cup. But it’s probably dead.”

  “Why are you gibing be a dead gecko?”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  “Why do I have to beed a dead gecko?”

  “It’s the least you can do.”

  CHAPTER 23

  When I walked around to the front of the building, I side-stepped an enormous man with flushed cheeks.

  “’Scuse me.” He pulled the front door open, and fished a wallet out of his pants’ pocket.

  I pulled up short. Costello. A quick survey of the parking lot, and I spotted the sedan behind the hotdog sign.

  Keep moving. Keep moving. Don’t just stand here. They’ll notice you.

  Well, of course they’ll notice me. I’ll be the one smashing out their windshield with a tire iron.

  Pull yourself together. Go find out if Doofus is in their car.

  Before the windshield. Smart.

  Go over there. Stop shaking and go over there.

  I pulled off my ponytail scrunchie, slipped it on my wrist and shook my hair free. Avery might remember me, but I could hide half my face if I angled my head and kept back from his direct line of sight. I marched straight over before I gave into the urge to find a really big rock, and ins
tead, knocked politely on the passenger window. It slid down as Avery hit the button.

  “Yeah. What can I do for you?”

  I spoke through a veil of unkempt hair and clenched teeth. No dog. “Hoping you have a set of jumper cables in your car.”

  “Nah. It’s a rental.” The window started to slide up.

  I smiled, exposed one eyeball and batted an eyelash as I gripped the top of the window. “Could you just check the trunk? I’d sure appreciate it.” Blink. Blink.

  Avery, the dognapper, was in a foul mood, like this had been a very bad day, and eyelashes meant nothing to him. Getting rid of me did. “Take a look.” He reached under the dash and pulled a lever. The trunk popped open.

  He wouldn’t have done that if there were a dead dog in the back, but I’d committed so I slid along the side of the car to brace myself and lifted the lid.

  No Doofus, no jumper cables, no tire iron, but there was one spotless, shiny shovel with the price sticker attached. It had not been used.

  I thanked him with a wave through the rear window, closed the trunk and headed to the ladies’ with a spring in my step just as Costello returned with two fistfuls of hotdog.

  The route to the ladies’ meant passing the dumpster, where Dad now stood, slipping something off the top of the pile of dumpster grunge while his two sons tugged on his coat. “Let’s go, Dad. We want to see Rex.”

  Dad caught my eye and I nodded briefly, the way strangers do, and kept walking. I ran into the restroom, grabbed a handful of paper towels, and soaked them in cold water. Ed would have to clean up in the truck. We had to be ready to pull out when the sedan left the gas station. Doofus was still out there somewhere. All we had to do was follow Avery and Costello. They would lead us straight to him.

  When I came out, Costello was back at the car, opening ketchup packets with his teeth. He’d lined the hotdogs up end-to-end on the hood of the car. Dad was done dumpster-diving, so I veered off course, and went straight for the trash. Plain curiosity. Two Pennsylvania vehicles at the same remote gas station, at the same time. One with a yellow Lab, one that used to have a yellow Lab. Was there a connection?