Temporary Family

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  But it was too late now. There was no time.

  They ran behind the biggest tree Laura saw, then tried to remain absolutely still. Rico was frightened, but Laura couldn’t help that now. She peered around the tree and watched as a police cruiser pulled into the clearing in front of the cabin.

  CPD, read the letters on the side. Chicago Police Department.

  They’d turned north, crossed the border into Wisconsin last night, and here was a CPD car. What would a CPD car be doing in Wisconsin?

  Laura bowed her head and offered up one frantic plea for help, for strength and for some semblance of calm.

  Nick tried to call Drew as soon as he got into town and found a pay phone. The lines were busy. He drove around the tiny town and tried not to think about the fact that Laura and Rico were alone. He wished now that he’d brought them.

  A few minutes later, he got through to Drew’s office, but not to Drew himself. There was no way he was going to let some switchboard operator have his name to broadcast the fact that he’d called Drew, so he found the grocery store, stocked up on some supplies, then went back to the phone. At last Drew came on the line.

  “It’s me,” Nick said, careful not to use his name.

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t check in today, and we’ve got some things to talk about. We ID’d the cop. William Welch Morris. He’s the one who used to date Renata Leone, and I’m betting, from your description, he’s. the one who tried to take Rico out of the hospital.”

  “Tell me you caught him.”

  “No, but we have an APB out on him. We’ll have him soon, but... there’s something else, about yesterday. I should have told you last night, but things were so crazy. One of the policemen at the scene was hit. Nick, he died.”

  Nick swore. “I’m sorry, buddy.”

  Drew brushed off Nick’s condolences and told him in a tightly controlled voice, “We’ll have to deal with that a little later. For now, we’re going to think about catching the man who did this to him. And, Nick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whoever did this is now wanted for killing a policeman. If these people weren’t reckless before about trying to cover their tracks or shooting anything that moved, they will be now. They know what happens to people who take down an officer of the law.”

  “You’re telling me they’re ten times more dangerous than they were before?”

  “Exactly. Now, tell me one more thing.”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re calling from a pay phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your... friends are in the car?”

  “No.”

  “You came out alone and left your friends somewhere while you made the call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Somewhere close by?”

  “Don’t start playing games with me now, Drew. What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Where are they?” he asked, instead. “How far?”

  “About fifteen minutes away.” Nick knew now that he never should have left Rico and Laura. “What’s wrong?”

  “We had a possible sighting of Morris reported late yesterday, from a good source, a policeman in a little town in Wisconsin. He didn’t see the APB or the sketch until after he’d already seen the man. Otherwise we would have Morris by now. He’s not hard to spot. He’s in a stolen CPD car. At least, we figure he was yesterday.”

  “Back up,” Nick said, thinking about the miles between him and the cabin right now. “Wisconsin? Someone saw him in Wisconsin?”

  “I’m afraid so. Tell me you’re not in some little town in Wisconsin on the lake, a place called Wind Bay. Because if you’re there, Morris must have followed you when you left Chicago yesterday.”

  Laura watched and listened while the cop searched the cabin, then came back outside. He had a cellular phone, and he was arguing with someone over the phone.

  It wasn’t hard to hear his end of the conversation. He knew he had the right place. Someone named Marty had trailed them when they left the apartment building yesterday. Marty was on the train with them. When they got off the train, this man now standing in the clearing of the cabin had been waiting in his police cruiser.

  He’d followed them every step of the way.

  Laura felt a nasty shiver work its way down her spine. Beside her, Rico started to whimper and rock back and forth like a baby trying to comfort himself.

  She pulled him into her arms and scanned the dense woods ahead of them. She had no idea what lay beyond the trees. Lake Michigan was supposed to be off to the right, no farther than the length of a city block. The only road out was behind them, with a CPD car blocking the path.

  She had no idea which way to run.

  Nick drove like a madman to the edge of town and then east, toward the lake. When he first heard Drew’s startling news, he simply put down the phone and nearly took off running toward the car.

  Then, in a brief moment of sanity, he realized Drew didn’t know where the cabin was. He gave him directions as best he could, then made himself stay on the line long enough to hear what he could expect from the FBI and the Chicago police.

  The FBI had agents in the town already checking out the sighting reported late yesterday. Drew and a handful of other agents were coming in a helicopter. He wasn’t sure how long that would take. He would radio the local sheriff’s department and the FBI agents on the scene with the location of the cabin, and he wanted Nick to go to the sheriff’s office immediately.

  That was when Nick hung up on him and raced for his car. Now, as he went screaming down the two-lane road, he had time to think.

  He shouldn’t have left them. The three of them were in this together, and he never should have left them. More than anything, Nick hated the fact that the last thing he’d said. to Laura was that he couldn’t be the kind of man she needed or the father Rico deserved.

  Laura saw the cop kick the tires on the police cruiser, then stalk off toward the woods.

  She clamped her arms around Rico, who was still whimpering.

  “Shh,” she whispered in his ear. “Not now, little man. You can’t make a sound right now. Understand ? We have to be as quiet as mice.”

  And with that, she hunkered down behind the big tree and tried not to breathe.

  The cop was coming closer. She didn’t dare poke her head around the tree trunk and check to see just how close he was.

  They had waited too long. Her indecision may have just ruined their chance of escape. Because now it was too late to run.

  Nick came roaring down the dirt road toward the cabin. On the seemingly endless drive, he’d thought about how he should handle this. He could park in the woods before he reached the cabin and walk in. But that would take time he didn’t think he had. And he didn’t have a weapon, either. The cop would have a gun for sure, probably a knife, as well, like the one he’d used on Renata Leone.

  If by some miracle the cop wasn’t there yet, he’d drive up to the cabin, get Rico and Laura into the car and take off again.

  If the cop was there ...

  Nick felt sick inside, just like the day he’d heard the first reports of the shooting in the hallways at Carter Barnes’s expensive private school. Just like the moment he’d heard Carter had been the boy who’d pulled the trigger. Just like the day Jason Williams died.

  He thought about poor Rico and the way he looked after the three of them had escaped from the cop outside the hospital, thought about how Rico looked in Laura’s arms with her hand smoothing down his tight, brown curls. He thought about something in Rico’s sad, brown eyes that looked curiously like trust. He couldn’t betray the trust this little boy had placed in him.

  And he thought about Laura and all he’d told her he couldn’t give her and Rico.

  It was crazy, but he felt as if he’d lived a lifetime in the past five days. Surely they deserved more than five days together.

  Nick swore as the car sped through the trees. He never should have left them.

  Laura ha
d her hand held tightly over Rico’s mouth, and she whispered with her mouth pressed against his ear in an effort to calm him.

  The cop was nearby. She could hear the rustle of the leaves and the crackle of twigs under his feet as he made a slow sweep of the woods. He was so close. She didn’t know what to do, and she felt like such a coward. They should have run as soon as the cop showed up. They should have gone with Nick or—

  Laura cut off the thought. It was too late to be thinking of what she should have done, time now for deciding what she was going to do to keep this man from finding them.

  He was even closer now, somewhere to their right and behind them. Any minute now she expected him to pop up behind them.

  Laura saw a rock on the ground beside them, let go of Rico long enough to pick it up and hurl it into the woods behind them and to the left.

  The rock tore through the tree limbs and the underbrush. Once it settled, she strained for some sound indicating the cop’s movement. Finally, he started walking again. She couldn’t tell which way he was going at first, then realized he was still coming toward them.

  Laura picked up another rock and held on to it. If it came down to it, she might have a chance to bash the cop’s head hard enough to knock him out.

  She blinked back tears as she told Rico she had to let him go for a minute. She made him promise to run as fast as he could if he got the chance, then pushed him to the ground at the base of the tree.

  Laura stood, her back pressed against the trunk of the tree, and listened. The cop was still moving toward them. She swallowed hard. She thought she could hear him breathing now he was so near.

  With the rock in both her hands, she raised her arms above her head, ready to strike. She was shaking so much she was afraid she might drop it. Rico was sobbing softly again; the cop was bound to hear that.

  Fresh, hot tears stung her eyes, and she didn’t dare lower her arms to wipe them away.

  It wasn’t over yet, she reminded herself. This crazy cop hadn’t won yet.

  He was right on the other side of the tree. The sound of his movement was too close for him to be anywhere else. This would be her only chance,

  She had a death grip on the rock. She was ready to spin around and strike, when she heard something that drowned out the soft sounds of footsteps or a little boy weeping.

  It was a car! She heard a car roaring toward the cabin.

  From the other side of the tree, the cop called out menacingly, “Rico! I’m not done with you, boy. I’ll take care of whoever showed up, and then I’m coming back for you. You can run if you want to, boy, but you won’t get far enough away from me to do you any good.”

  Laura waited a tense ten seconds to see if the cop was lying, then heard footsteps retreating through the woods. She dropped the rock and hauled Rico into her arms, doing her best to reassure him with her words and her touch that they weren’t going to be here for the cop to find when he came back.

  When he saw the police cruiser with the CPD logo on it, Nick nearly lost all control. He had this urge to ram his car into it just for sheer satisfaction. But he resisted. They might need one of these vehicles to get away—if they got the chance to run, that is.

  He didn’t see the cop anywhere. He didn’t see anyone outside. Nick turned to the cabin, dreading what he might find inside.

  Rico and Laura might not be there, he told himself. Laura might have heard the car coming and gotten herself and Rico out of the cabin in time. Still, his hand was shaking badly when he reached for the doorknob. Her image came to him when he closed his eyes.

  Five days, he thought. Were they supposed to cram a lifetime into five days?

  He swallowed hard and turned the knob. The door slid open, and he saw nothing. No one.

  “Laura,” he called out.

  No response.

  He should go in and check the bedrooms, he decided, his eyes drawn to two more doors. Then he’d check the woods in back, then the lake.

  They were still there somewhere. Surely they were still alive. After all, Nick couldn’t imagine the cop hanging around once he finished the job.

  Nick fought the urge to be sick.

  He heard a movement to the left, just as he was about to enter the cabin. He saw Officer William Welch Morris walk around the side of the cabin with a revolver in his hand.

  Laura made herself count to sixty while the cop walked away. She held Rico’s trembling body close to hers and tried to explain to him that in a minute they had to run. He was too big for her to carry, and it would slow them down too much if she tried. He had to stand up and run. She would be beside him all the way.

  She didn’t know who had pulled up to the cabin, and she didn’t think they could afford to stay around and find out.

  But when she stopped counting and stood, she looked back at the cabin and saw the car, Nick’s car.

  And then she didn’t know what to do.

  “Dr. Garrett,” the cop said, waving the gun at him and smiling like a madman.

  “Morris,” Nick said, taking great pleasure in making the man uneasy by knowing his name.

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance at the hospital,” Morris said with a snarl.

  “That would have been smarter than killing a policeman outside my apartment yesterday morning.”

  Nick took great pleasure in seeing signs of nervousness in the man. “Do you know how they treat people who kill law-enforcement officers? Do you know how hard the FBI and the police will work to try to catch you now? You don’t have a prayer.”

  The cop pointed the gun at the center of Nick’s chest and slipped off the safety with a soft click. “Maybe you didn’t notice, Doctor. I’m the one with the gun. You are the one who doesn’t have a prayer.”

  “You’ll never get out of here,” Nick said, praying that it was true. “The FBI are coming in a helicopter. The local sheriff’s department should be here any moment. I’m surprised we haven’t heard the sirens yet.”

  “Nice try. I almost believed you at the hospital when you told me that, but it won’t work today,” the cop said, the gun still held dead center on Nick’s chest. “The only FBI agent who knows I’m here is on my side.”

  “Actually, he’s behind bars right now.” Nick was lying. He had no idea whether the man had been caught yet. He didn’t wait around long enough to find out. “But one of the county deputies spotted you yesterday on your way into town. He recognized you right away when he saw the sketch the FBI released when they issued an APB on you. By now everyone knows you’re here.”

  The cop might have bought part of that story. Nick couldn’t be sure. “If I were you,” he continued, “I’d get the hell out of here—right now.”

  The man laughed. “If I go, you and the kid and the teacher are going with me.”

  Nick’s heart nearly stopped beating then. If Morris wanted Rico and Laura to go with him, then surely that meant they were still alive. He wanted to ask, but what was the point? He wouldn’t believe anything the man said anyway. For now, he had to wait it out. And he had to stay calm and keep the man talking, to buy some time until help arrived.

  “Are you sure you have time for all that?” Nick asked. “If you don’t go now, you won’t get away. And you’ll never get out of here with the three of us.”

  “No one is coming after me.”

  Nick shrugged. “Hey, it’s your neck. Not mine.”

  The cop took a step closer. The gun was maybe ten feet from Nick’s chest. “Right now, you’d be smart to worry about your own neck, not mine. You and I ate going to take a walk in the woods.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s where the kid is.”

  Nick didn’t think he had much choice right now. He started walking.

  Laura stood on the other side of the cabin, listening. The sound of Nick’s voice was one of the sweetest she had ever heard.

  She was so relieved at first that she couldn’t think about what to do next. And before she had a chance to fig
ure it out, the two of them were walking toward her.

  There was no time. Laura pressed herself against the wall. She had another rock in her hand. Maybe, if the man was close enough when he came around the side of the cabin, she could bash him over the head with this one.

  If not, he would probably spot her.

  At least he wouldn’t find Rico right away. And maybe Nick was telling the truth. Maybe the FBI and the deputies were coming this time.

  If not, then ...

  Laura stiffened and pressed herself as close as she could to the wall. Nick appeared from around the side of the cabin, maybe ten feet away from her. His steps faltered when he spotted her out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t turn toward her.

  He looked furious, probably at her, but what was she supposed to do? Let this man shoot him?

  Seconds later the cop was visible, as well. He had a huge gun in his hands, and it was pointed at Nick’s back. Laura’s rock looked puny in comparison. And the man was too far away for her to reach him.

  Laura tried to not even breathe, sure the sound would give her away. The two men continued to walk toward the woods, where she had hidden Rico.

  It would take them some time to find the boy, unless they got lucky, but the man had a gun.

  She couldn’t wait. She had to do something. And then ... she heard the faint wail of the sirens.

  The cop heard it, too. He turned around. Then this nasty gleam came into his eyes when he spotted Laura “Well, it’s the teacher. And she has another rock.” He held up his weapon. ”I have a gun, and I want you to drop that.”

  Laura did.

  “Come over here by the doctor. Nice and slow.”

  She walked to Nick’s side. He took her hand in hers and squeezed it tight. There were a million things she wanted to-say to him right now, but couldn’t. She had to believe that they would have plenty of time to talk to each other later, after this man was caught.

  “Now,” the cop said, “where’s the boy?”

  “He ran to the lake,” Laura said with as much conviction as she could muster. “I told him to go there when I heard Nick’s car coming.”