Time to Steal

by John Gilstrap

  But the panic was there, anyway. So was the sadness. A wave of it took her breath away. A sob choked her, and then it just started to flow from her soul. She sat on the rickety toilet, covering her mouth to keep the sound from escaping.

  You can’t lose it. Not now. It’s too late for that.

  But what else was there? What more could she do than cry?

  She needed to get her breathing under control and do something to slow her heart rate or there’d be hell to pay, and very soon. She could almost feel the vessels in her chest starting to close.

  By forcing herself to take long, deep breaths, Nicki was able to kill the sobs, and as they died away, she wrestled control of her breathing. It took five minutes, but the episode never fully bloomed.

  Brad would be getting pissed that she was taking so long.

  Nicki hadn’t seen the pay phone on the wall as she’d entered the restroom, but there it was now, a dilapidated old thing that looked like it had been installed before she’d been born. The wall surrounding the phone bore dozens of names and numbers drawn in pencil, ink, and crayon. God only knew how many romances those names launched, how many arguments. She thought it poignant that each of the scrawled numbers reflected a moment in the writers’ lives. There was something terribly romantic about it all.

  She wondered if the phone was a sign. The same phone that had played so important a role in so many lives could end this entire nightmare. All it would take was a single call to her dad, and he could fly down and have her back at home in just a few hours. Through him, her doctor could phone in a prescription to the nearest pharmacy, and the flutteriness would go away. It was really just that simple.

  It was really just that complicated.

  And what about Brad? What would he do? Obviously, he’d continue running. He had a reason to run, and it would be so much easier without the burden of caring for her. He’d so much as said so himself. Without her meds, who knew what lay ahead?

  It all made sense when she thought about it. Really, making the phone call was the only rational thing for her to do. Or it would be if the alternative nightmare were any less bleak. She conjured shadows of what her future would look like after the phone call: the hospital rooms, the needles, the doctors who spoke in her presence as if she weren’t there. Was that what she really wanted?

  Please, no. Still, no. A million times no.

  But neither was this.

  A boy was dead. She had to do something about that. No matter what Brad said, they had to do something. People needed to hear the real story of what happened. Otherwise, all of this manpower being invested in tracking Brad and her was being completely wasted. The police needed to be looking for the real killer. If nothing else, at least Nicki knew what he was wearing.

  It wasn’t about her, she told herself. It wasn’t about Brad. It was about justice for that kid in the store. Justice for Chas.

  Chapter Seven

  Carter sat in his car in front of the Quik Mart, trying to force it all to make sense. He had the engine running for the air conditioner, but he wouldn’t be going anywhere. Not until he got some of this madness sorted out. He sat there with his forearms resting on the steering wheel, staring without seeing through the opaque wall of water that cascaded down the windshield.

  The case against Nicki, as wildly off base as it had to be, felt frighteningly strong. Ironclad. They had fingerprints, a positive identification from a witness, and a perpetrator with a past record of armed robbery and murder.

  He wanted it to be impossible, but it was entirely feasible that Brad Ward could have done this. If Nicki had even been in the same car, that would mean an accessory charge at minimum.

  It was all too big to wrap his mind around: his daughter—his only child—sentenced for a crime committed by a boy she hardly knew. Surely, a jury would show leniency under those circumstances. Maybe not. Would it matter? If the North Carolina courtrooms were as packed as their New York counterparts, it could take a year or longer for the case even to arrive on the docket. Given Nicki’s out-of-state status and the seriousness of the crime, the prosecutor would undoubtedly oppose bail. Carter would have if the roles were reversed.

  For Nicki, every scenario equated to life without parole.

  Carter tried to think of the right thing to do. The kids were bound to be caught. If not today, then certainly this week. The search was just too hot for it to be otherwise. People might not care about teenage runaways, but they cared a whole hell of a lot about teenage murderers.

  He needed to talk to her, counsel her on what her next move should be. As if he had any clue what that was.

  The right thing would be to turn herself in and hope for the best. But was it the reasonable thing? If he were in her position, is that what he would do, or would he try to preserve every moment of freedom?

  How was a person supposed to wade through such terrible options and come up with any kind of rational—

  The chirp of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. Reaching into his suit coat pocket, he checked the number on the display, and when he didn’t recognize it, he nearly ignored it, but then pushed the connect button anyway. “Carter Janssen.”

  “Daddy, it’s me.”

  The sound of Nicki’s voice startled him. He shot a panicked look to all compass points to see who might be listening. “Nicki, are you okay?” He settled his tone. This was a time to be cool, a time to chat as if he were hearing from an old friend. “Where are you, honey?”

  “Daddy, I’m in so much trouble. You need to help me.” She was crying, but not hysterical.

  “I know, sweetie,” Carter said. “Just tell me where you are and I’ll come right there and get you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s all right, honey. Whatever happened, there’s a way to fix it. Just tell me where you are, and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  “You don’t understand, Daddy. Somebody’s been killed. In a little town in North Carolina—”

  “Essex. Yes, I know. I’m there now. I know what happened. I know who you’re with, and I know that you never would have been the one to pull the trigger. Your friend Brad did that. I know. But if you—”

  “No, Daddy, it’s not like that. He—”

  “Listen to me, Nicki. I think there’s a deal to be made here. If you cooperate and turn Brad in—just tell me where you are—then I think a judge would be swayed—”

  “No, Daddy!” This time, the urgency in her voice cut him off in mid-sentence. “We didn’t shoot anyone. Someone else did. He wore a mask and he had a red shirt on. A sports shirt with a number on it. He came into the store, pulled a gun, and when Brad tried to stop him, the guy shot the clerk. He shot Chas.”

  Carter wasn’t buying it. “Honey, I know you think you love this boy, and I know that you’re trying to cover for him—”

  “No, Daddy! Listen to me! He didn’t do anything.”

  “Nicki, your fingerprints are all over that store. Bloody fingerprints, at that. You can’t—”

  “Of course they are. We tried to save him. Brad and I. We tried to stop the bleeding in his neck, but we couldn’t.”

  “There’s an eyewitness, Nicki.”

  “There can’t be! Oh, wait. That old man? He didn’t walk out till way after the shooting. He saw us trying to help, and then pointed a gun at us. That’s when we ran.”

  Carter felt the air escaping from his lungs. This sounded like a very well-rehearsed alibi, one he’d love to buy, but his bullshit-o-meter was pinging. “Nicki, you’re not making any sense. If you didn’t do anything, why would you run away?” He heard himself cross-examining her and he hated himself for it. “Look, none of that matters—”

  “It does matter, Daddy. We didn’t do anything. They think we did.”

  “It’s not his first time, Nicki.” There. He put it right out there for her to see. “He’s committed this same crime before.”

  “He only drove the car
before. He never shot anybody. He’s never killed anybody.”

  Carter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You know about his record? You know about the robbery and his escape from prison, and you’re still with him?”

  “I love him, Daddy.”

  Carter was ready to do battle. She did not love him. She was seventeen years old. She wouldn’t know what love was if it hit her with a rock.

  But he restrained himself. This was neither the time nor the place. “I know you do,” he said. The words tasted like sour milk. “And I know that you’re trying to run away from the life you think is awful, but honey, you can’t do it this way. It’s too dangerous. Every moment you’re on the run makes it that much more difficult to prove your innocence.”

  “There was supposed to be a video,” Nicki said. “There are cameras all over the store, and we thought that the video would show that we didn’t do anything but try to help.”

  “You thought wrong, Nicki. The cameras are there, but the man who owns the place has a drinking problem. He forgot to load the machines with videotape. Which to me is a good thing under the circumstances, because he swears that he saw your friend Brad shoot the clerk.”

  “That’s a lie!” He could tell that Nicki was in a place where she could be overheard by the way she dialed down her tone. “He couldn’t have seen that.”

  Carter was growing impatient. “Nicki, he’s an eyewitness. He knows what he saw.”

  “That’s just the point,” Nicki said. “Even if we’d done the shooting—which we didn’t—he couldn’t have seen it because he wasn’t there. He was in the back room. He didn’t come out until Brad and I were on the floor behind the counter trying to help Chas.”

  Carter drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was beginning to see an early ray of light here. “Maybe he saw it on the monitor in the back,” he offered, testing the strength of Nicki’s argument.

  “Then why did he stay back so long? Why didn’t he come out shooting earlier?”

  “Maybe he was frightened.”

  “Then why did he come out at all? Why didn’t he wait till we were gone? Or call the police from back in the back room? Come on, Daddy, that doesn’t make sense.”

  Carter started to say something, but stopped. She asked a very good question, one that was not adequately answered by what old Ben Maestri was saying. “But why would he lie?” he wondered aloud.

  “Why would I?” Nicki responded. The question knocked him off balance. It was perhaps the most important question of all, and it hadn’t even passed through his head. “I’m not a murderer, Daddy.”

  “I know that—”

  “And I wouldn’t stay with someone who is. You have to know that.”

  Up ahead, through the rain, Carter noticed that the female cop from inside the Quik Mart was watching him through the front window. “But you are with a murderer.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says a jury of his peers.”

  “Who convicted him on a technicality. He didn’t shoot, Daddy, he drove. The law might see it as the same, but you know as well as me that it’s different.”

  “What about the prison murder?” Carter asked. “How does he explain that?”

  “What?”

  He could tell just from the sound of her voice that he’d blindsided her. “So, he didn’t tell you about that one?” he baited. “Maybe he’s not being as forthright as you give him credit for.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Nicki said.

  “He killed a fellow inmate,” Carter said, recalling the brief details sent on to him by both Chris Tu and Warren Michaels. “He was about to be arrested for that when he bolted from the prison.”

  She was stunned. He could tell from the depth of her silence. “So, he hasn’t been tried on that, then,” she said. She was fishing for anything that looked like hope.

  “Nicki—”

  “No, he must have had a good reason. He’s not a violent man. He couldn’t hurt anyone. He just couldn’t.”

  The circularity of her logic made his head swim. “Look, Nicki, I know it’s important for you to believe—”

  “I’m not leaving him,” she said. “I’m not.”

  “Then why are you calling me?”

  Again, she was flustered. “I, uh, I just thought . . . I wanted . . .”

  “You wanted me to come and get you.” He said this gently. He had to be careful. If he pushed her too hard, she’d hang up on him. “Just tell me where you are, sweetie. Give me the address, and I can be there in just a few minutes. Or, I can send the police.” The instant that word—the p word—left his lips, he knew he’d blown it.

  “Dammit, Daddy, it’s always the same with you. You don’t understand anything.”

  He cursed himself. In the heat of the moment, he’d said exactly what was on his mind. He knew better than to do that. Dammit! “Okay, then, no police,” he said. “I won’t call anyone. I promise.” He spoke quickly, fearful that she’d hang up on him. “Just let me come and get you. Let me pick you up.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  The question caught him unprepared. “What do you mean?”

  “You pick me up and then what? You said that they want to arrest me for that killing. If they really believe that I did it, then what happens after you pick me up?”

  A sense of dread invaded Carter’s soul. He hadn’t thought it through this far yet. “Then we’ll get it straightened out. Somehow.”

  * * *

  Nicki sneaked a glance around the corner to look at Brad. The food had arrived, and he was eating. She ducked her head back before he could see her.

  “Nicki, are you there? Pay attention to me.”

  “I’m here, Daddy. You haven’t answered my question. I ran away in the first place because I didn’t want to spend my last months in a hospital. I sure as heck don’t want to spend them in jail.” Past the rain-spattered glass on this end of the restaurant, the fishing pier extended out a hundred yards over the churning sea. She envied the few remaining holdouts whose lives allowed them the luxury of fishing in the rain.

  Her father’s tone lost some of its edge. “We’ll show that you’re innocent. We’ll show that he’s the one with the record of killing, and that you’re deserving of mercy, under the circumstances.”

  “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?”