Just Run

by Culver, Chris

  “Is that right?” said Amerson, smiling as he took a sip of coffee. “Well, there are a lot worse things that you can be mistaken for than the son of a Greek god.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” said Victor, laughing easily. “I feel like it’s a good day if none of my kids throw up on me.”

  Amerson chuckled again, dispelling any tension that had crept into the room. Victor’s response was good, but the sheriff was already becoming curious. It wouldn’t be long before he started asking questions they couldn’t answer, which meant they needed to finish things quickly. Anatoly took his cup of coffee from the desk but never put it to his lips. He mouthed a quick thanks to Amerson before stepping back. The sheriff and Victor continued speaking, but Anatoly wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy thinking of escape routes out of town.

  “I don’t know,” said Amerson, picking up the threads of some conversation to which Anatoly hadn’t been paying attention. “I’m envious of your resources at the FBI, but some nights, I just wouldn’t give up what I have here for the world.”

  The room settled into silence for a moment. Anatoly writhed internally as he glanced at a clock on the wall. They had spent ten minutes in the office without so much as a sound from Dr. Carter or Detective Schaefer. Something had gone wrong. He gripped the coffee mug tightly, feeling the warmth of the liquid through the ceramic flow into his hand.

  Without looking at his partner, Anatoly swept his arm across his body, splashing the hot coffee onto Amerson’s face. The sheriff cried out and covered his eyes with his hands while Victor bolted upright. Brown liquid stained the sheriff’s white shirt and dripped down the wall behind him. Anatoly tossed his now empty coffee cup on the table and nonchalantly pulled his weapon from his shoulder harness.

  “Kindly shut up,” said Anatoly, leveling the barrel of his firearm at Amerson’s face.

  “What the hell are you doing?” asked Amerson. The skin on his neck and cheeks ranged from pink to light red, a sharp contrast to the pale–cream color of his hands.

  “Not a word,” said Anatoly, focusing his glare at Amerson. “Victor, please go in the back and get Dr. Carter. Kill Detective Schaefer as soon as you see him. This is taking too long.”

  “Tell me this is a sick joke,” said Amerson, lurching to his feet. Anatoly stepped around the desk and kicked the sheriff in the stomach. Amerson flailed his arms as he fell backwards into his chair. Anatoly tried to hold it in, but he gasped as his arthritic knee screamed in pain. He took a deep breath, choking down any further pain.

  “Put your hands on top of your head, Sheriff.”

  Amerson didn’t move at first, so Anatoly closed the distance between them and backhanded him across the jaw with his firearm. It was like hitting somebody with a two–pound block of steel. The weapon struck bone and Anatoly heard a crack as Amerson’s head rebounded against the wall behind him.

  Victor glanced from the sheriff to Anatoly and back.

  “I gave you a job,” said Anatoly, diverting his eyes from Amerson to his partner. “Get your weapon out and kill Detective Schaefer. As soon as you see him, shoot him in the head twice. Don’t take any chances because he will kill you.”

  Victor’s face was white as he left the room. Anatoly turned his attention back to Amerson.

  “Please. I have a family,” said Amerson. He tried to slide his chair back, but hit the wall and stopped. “You don’t have to do this.”

  Anatoly hit him again, this time on the other side of his face. Blood dribbled down the sheriff’s chin, but he didn’t speak again. Victor came back into the room, his breath short as if he had just been running.

  “I couldn’t find anyone back there.”

  Anatoly gripped his weapon hard and gritted his teeth.

  “Where’d they go?” asked Anatoly.

  “I swear to God, I don’t know.”

  Anatoly stepped closer and ground the muzzle of his Glock against Amerson’s temple.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I swear. I’ll help you. Whatever you need. Just let me go. I’ve got two kids. Please, let me go.”

  The sheriff was trembling, his face white. Anatoly flicked his eyes down in time to see a dark spot form on the sheriff’s pants. It wasn’t an uncommon sight on a man who knew he was about to meet his end. He motioned Victor over and pointed it out.

  “What does that tell you?”

  Victor looked but quickly turned his gaze away. Amerson was pleading with them both by that point, so Anatoly pressed his firearm against the sheriff’s temple, silencing him.

  “He pissed himself,” said Victor, his voice low and stressed. “What is that supposed to tell me?”

  Anatoly looked at Amerson and took a breath.

  “Do you have life insurance, Mr. Amerson?” he asked. “For your family?”

  The sheriff hesitated at first, but he nodded.

  “Good,” said Anatoly. Five and a half pounds of pressure. It didn’t seem like much, but it was enough to send a bullet through the sheriff’s forehead. The shot was deafening in the enclosed space, but after forty years of firing weapons on a regular basis, Anatoly was accustomed to it. Amerson’s blood and brain matter painted the walls. Anatoly turned to his partner. “Cowards don’t lie to protect other people. If Sheriff Amerson had known anything, he would have talked. By pissing his pants, he told us he was expendable.”

  Victor backed into the door frame, his eyes wide and his mouth agape. He ran his fingers through his hair. Anatoly chose to ignore his partner’s shock for the moment.

  “I can’t believe you just did that,” said Victor. “He wasn’t a threat to us.”

  Anatoly placed his still warm weapon in his holster.

  “If we want this girl, we have to make it so she has nowhere to hide. To do that, we’ll have to make it more dangerous for her to go to the police than to run. Call the State Highway Patrol and tell them you found Amerson dead. Tell them you also saw a man and woman driving from the station. Let the police do our work for us. Consider that a lesson.”

  Saturday, September 14. 5:42 a.m

  Bluffdale, OH.

  Rectangular windows along the ceiling allowed a scant amount of light to filter inside. The station’s basement storage area was filthy but surprisingly well organized. White–cardboard evidence boxes labeled with month, year and case numbers were stacked on metal racks, creating a maze–like walkway throughout the room. Someone probably had a master catalog upstairs. It was a good system.

  Trent walked through the stacks, feeling his way through the boxes where the light was too dim to see. The room smelled like mildew, which meant the station must have had a leak somewhere. If it wasn’t taken care of soon, it would probably ruin decades’ worth of cases. Hopefully they were long since closed. Trent scanned the area, knowing there was a door somewhere even though he couldn’t see it. It must have been behind boxes.

  He pushed through the maze with Renee a few steps behind him until he came to the correct wall. The concrete floor was cracked and uneven. Trent pushed aside a stack of boxes and watched as evidence for thirty–year–old cases crashed to the floor in muffled thuds. He hated ruining evidence, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Besides, the cases were almost as old as he was; the detectives who had worked them were most likely retired or dead. They wouldn’t mind.

  He pushed a final stack of boxes out of the way, exposing a plain steel door with a small grime–covered window and rust–coated lock. Trent kicked evidence bags out of his way and tried twisting the knob on the deadbolt. Sharp bits of metal bit into his hands, but the lock didn’t give.

  A cut opened up on his palm, right beneath his thumb. His heartbeat kicked up a notch as he knelt down and started pawing through the evidence bags. It wasn’t standard procedure, but they were alive, and the cases those evidence bags represented were dead.

  “See if you can find pliers or a hammer in these bags,” he said.

  R
enee knelt beside him and started pushing bags aside. Trent’s hand throbbed, and he smeared a thin layer of blood on everything he touched. Sweat dripped into his eyes. Most murders aren’t premeditated, and they don’t always involve guns or knives. If someone caught his wife in bed with his best friend, he didn’t wait to get a gun out of his dresser. He picked up whatever heavy object was close to him and heaved it. There ought to be something in those bags that would help.

  Trent quickly lost count of the bags he examined, but all he found were bits of cloth, fragments of glass and fingerprint cards. His neck and back felt stiff. He pushed over another nearby stack of boxes, causing more evidence bags to fall on the floor, obscuring the piles he had searched and those he hadn’t. They didn’t have much time.

  He wiped his forehead. His hand stung as beads of sweat seeped into his cut. Bluffdale didn’t have many murders, though. They might as well have well been looking for Bigfoot.

  “Hey,” said Renee, her voice excited. Trent looked up. “I’ve got something.”

  She held up a plastic bag that was so yellowed with age that Trent could barely see the outline of what was inside. She tossed it to him. It was a finishing hammer that had evidently been used to bludgeon someone to death. A weapon of convenience if there ever was one. It was so small that it could have been a child’s toy; still, it was the best they had.

  He stood up and walked to the door, removing the hammer from the bag.

  “Cross your fingers,” he whispered, tapping the corroded latch. The sound of metal striking metal echoed against the concrete walls, but the lock didn’t budge. He tapped again, this time harder. The strident ring hurt his ears, but the lock remained unchanged. Trent swung a third time, but the hammer’s handle broke as soon as the head connected.

  “Damn,” he said. He threw the handle against the ground and wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. He put his hands on his hips and looked at the pile of evidence bags on the floor. “See what else you can find.”

  “Try the lock first. You might have broken it.”

  Trent didn’t think it likely, but he nodded and wrapped his jacket sleeve around his hand to insulate him from the corroded metal latch. The lock had a little more give this time. He twisted his wrist, using his shoulder for leverage. The deadbolt budged a fraction of an inch. He covered his right hand with his left and strained. Metal grated on metal, causing a piercing squeal to fill the room. Renee covered her ears, but as far as Trent was concerned, the squeal might as well have been music. The deadbolt disengaged.

  Trent glanced back at Renee before pulling open the door. The station had an overhanging roof that created a shadow along its exterior walls. They would be hard to spot on the side yard, but the parking lot was lit well enough that they’d be silhouettes against the concrete. They had a straight shot to his car, at least. If they were fast, they could probably make it.

  “Be quick and try to stay in the shadows,” he said. “When we get to my car, just stay down.”

  Renee nodded. Trent took that as a sign that she was ready. He stepped outside but paused for a moment, listening. He pressed his back against the building’s brick exterior, feeling the cold, damp brick rob him of body heat. He couldn’t hear anyone coming, but he saw three cars in the lot. His Dodge, an old Chevy Tahoe with the Sheriff’s Department logo emblazoned on the side and a hunter green Crown Victoria. The FBI agents evidently hadn’t left.

  Trent’s feet sank into the mud. His toes felt numb from cold, and he could feel himself start to shiver as the sweat on his skin cooled. He inched along the wall with Renee a step behind until he reached the edge of the shadow cast by the roof. Twenty feet of brightly lit lawn separated them from his car. If anyone happened to look outside while they were running, there would be nowhere to hide. He reached into his pocket and took out his keys.

  “On three, run toward my car.”

  He counted down, and they darted at the appropriate moment. As soon as he stepped into the light, he heard a crack of muted gunfire from deep inside the station. The Russians weren’t shooting at them, but Renee didn’t seem to recognize that because she dove to the ground.

  Without missing a step, Trent bent down, grabbed her wrist and pulled up. She took the hint and vaulted into a sprint, reaching the Dodge before he did. She dove inside while Trent opened his door. As soon as he was in, he jammed his key into the ignition. He didn’t even bother shutting his door before throwing the car into reverse and flooring the accelerator.

  “Are you okay?” he asked a minute later. Renee’s eyes were wide. She was shaking.

  “Fine. Are you?”

  “Yeah. They weren’t shooting at us.”

  They were going seventy–five down Bluffdale’s main thoroughfare a moment later. Trent glanced at the clock on his center console. It was a little before six, which meant he had been awake for nearly thirty–four hours. His heartbeat had gone back to a normal pace, but he could feel exhaustion weighing heavily on his chest.

  “As soon as we get somewhere safe, we’ll call the Highway Patrol,” he said. “They’ll put you in protective custody.”

  “Why don’t we call them now?” asked Renee. “We can meet them somewhere.”

  “If we call now, the dispatcher will route our call over the police radio, which means our Russian friends would know exactly where we’re going. I don’t want to get into a high–speed chase if I can help it.”

  Renee didn’t say anything, but she seemed to accept the reasoning. About ten minutes after leaving the station, Trent pulled onto US–52, a four–lane, rural highway that paralleled the Ohio River. It was normally a peaceful drive through scenic countryside, but nothing felt peaceful that morning. Trent didn’t have a lot of experience with trauma victims, but everything he knew told him to get Renee talking. Hopefully it would keep her from panicking.

  “So, tell me about yourself,” said Trent, hoping a familiar, routine question would calm her nerves. He glanced at her before turning his attention back to the road. Her posture was rigid, and her movements seemed stilted.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “How’d you get into poker?” he asked. “I don’t imagine that’s something too many math professors do.”

  Renee blinked and shot her hands toward the road.

  “Just drive. I’ll be your friend later if you want. I promise.”

  Maybe she had a better handle on the situation than he had thought. Trent settled into his seat and adjusted the belt across his lap.

  “We’ll hit Cincinnati in about an hour,” he said. “Once we’re there, I’ll take you to my office. They’ll know what to do with you.”

  “There’s a rest stop in a few miles. Pull over there.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Trent.

  “If you don’t pull over, I’m going to puke in the car.”

  Trent looked over. Renee’s face was pale green.

  “Are you all right?”

  “What do you think?” she said. “Somebody’s tried to kill me twice now, and all you want to do is play twenty questions. I can’t handle this. I need some air.”

  Trent hit a button on his door, unlocking the power windows. Renee rolled her window down and breathed deeply. The cabin smelled like diesel exhaust from the passing trucks, but the air seemed to calm Renee some. Goose bumps formed up and down Trent’s arms.

  “You still need to stop?” he asked. Renee nodded, so Trent pulled into the right–hand lane. It was half–past six, so the rest stop would have plenty of people. Long–haul truckers should have been waking up and commuters would be streaming in on their drive to work. No matter how much the people chasing Renee wanted her dead, the two of them ought to have been safe in front of that many witnesses.

  Rather than park with the rest of the cars, Trent pulled into the side for the semis and trucks. The aisles were extra–wide and about eighty feet long, more than big enough for even oversized loads.
Trent pulled behind a U–Haul roughly half the size of the surrounding semis. It was a good spot; from their current vantage, he had an unencumbered view of the grounds from his rearview mirror.

  Renee opened her door and swung her legs out as soon as Trent put the vehicle in park. He could see her shoulders and back rise and fall as she breathed deeply. She had done well, all things considered. Had he been in her situation, Trent didn’t know if he’d have been that composed. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat. The situation wasn’t ideal, but if he could get her to his station in Cincinnati, she’d be okay while he worked on other parts of the case. Everything could still work out. He stretched his hands above his head and yawned as truckers walked from their rigs to the welcome center and back.

  Coffee would have been nice. Hell, anything with caffeine would have been nice. He glanced at Renee again, but she hadn’t turned around. He briefly considered getting a drink, but decided against it. His office needed to know he was coming in with someone who would most likely need to disappear quickly. It took time to prepare for that.

  “I’m going to make a call,” said Trent. “This might be a good time to use the restroom. I don’t know how much time you’ll have after this.”

  “Thank you, Dad, but I’m fine,” said Renee, shaking her head and pulling her legs back into the car. She fidgeted and wrung her hands together, not meeting Trent’s gaze. “Do you think Sheriff Amerson is dead?”

  He hesitated but then nodded.

  “More than likely.”

  Renee closed her eyes and buried her face in her hands. Trent could see her throat bob as she swallowed.

  “It’s not your fault,” he said. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  “I know it’s not my fault,” said Renee, not taking her face from her hands. “But those men wouldn’t have even heard of Bluffdale if not for me. I didn’t pull the trigger, but the blame is still mine.”

  She stayed like that for a moment, her face in her hands. Eventually she swung her legs out of the car again.