The Edge of Lost

by Kristina McMorris

  Maybe a large vessel in the Pacific would be willing to bring them aboard. Shan looked harmless, still in a uniform. Although why would he be out in this weather? It would be wise to create a plausible story just in case.

  “There! There!” Sadie pointed.

  Shan twisted around and spied a red tower of the monstrous bridge reaching for the sky, fading into the clouds. High above, haloed headlights projected from vehicles moving in both directions. Soft twinkling lights to his right marked the city. They were on the south side of the Golden Gate!

  “Keep low,” he told her.

  Pulling back hard on the left oar, he cut the boat at an angle. Through the shadows came the outline of a sandy strip. He’d rejoice if not for fear of gliding right by.

  As he neared the shore, a man emerged from the darkness. He rushed into the water and grabbed the bow. When he glanced up, Shan recognized his face beneath the rim of his hat. The musician from the party.

  “It’s you,” Shan said, relieved.

  The man scowled in return. “The plan,” he said, “was to pop the raft, stuff it in the trunk. What am I supposed to do with this goddamn thing?”

  Before Shan could answer, Sadie stood up in the boat. The musician snapped his gaze back to Shan, making clear the same question applied to her.

  51

  The only sounds in the Fordor Sedan came from the rumbling of its wheels. Even if the driver struck them as a conversationalist—which decidedly he did not—he’d already shared how he felt about their unplanned risks. The expletives he’d muttered while shoving the rowboat off with the tide were followed by several more as he hurled the oars in separately.

  With no less warmth, he had hustled Shan and Sadie into the backseat. They were to remain on the floor, draped with a blanket for fear of roadblocks. Down that low, the air reeked of cigarettes and gasoline.

  The drive had just begun when a police siren whizzed by. Sadie reached over to squeeze Shan’s hand. Her palm was wrapped in a small bandage he hadn’t noticed earlier. His thoughts shot to her son-of-a-bitch father, but this time, she said, the fault was hers. “I did it when I cut my hair,” she whispered.

  The guy was still a son of a bitch.

  Soon their unseen surroundings quieted, and Sadie didn’t look nearly as nervous as she should. Then again, she had endured much worse.

  Shan ventured to ask the driver, “Where we headed?” They had been traveling for the better part of an hour. A peek through the back windows revealed little in the darkness.

  “Away,” the guy replied, and proceeded to smoke with the window barely cracked. “Keep covered.”

  Reluctant, Shan pulled the blanket back over, sensing even more familiarity. How did he know the guy?

  He considered the man’s bearing, hat pulled low, driving while puffing on a cigarette. And the image jogged a memory. Now Shan remembered. Without the toothbrush mustache, he was the getaway driver from the bank job. One of the robbers who’d left Nick to rot.

  Shan feared what this could mean, especially for Sadie. There was no question how bastards like this treated liabilities.

  A sharp turn changed the sound of the drive. The wheels were bumping over a dirt road. It then dawned on Shan how the blanket could have served another purpose: to keep him unaware of the destination. If so, it had worked. Shan had no inkling where they were.

  The sedan stopped and the driver got out.

  Sadie whispered, “Now what?”

  Shan shook his head that he didn’t know. He shoved his rain hood all the way down, straining to listen. From another peek, he detected only rural landscape.

  Then the footsteps returned and the back door squeaked open. The blanket was yanked away. Shan’s skin, warm and damp from breathing under cover, prickled from the cold.

  “They’re waitin’,” the driver said flatly. “In there.”

  Shan unfolded from the car, back aching from the cramped quarters, jaw and gut sore from Chandler’s fists. Sadie climbed out after him and adjusted her cap.

  A barn lay ahead, outlined by moonlight pushing through the clouds. A crop covered the surrounding hills. Vines, Shan realized. This wasn’t a farm, but a vineyard. The scent of fermenting grapes hung in the air.

  Again Sadie held his hand. She knew something was off.

  “It’ll be okay.” He forced a partial smile, daunted by the unknown waiting inside. And yet, where else could they go?

  He guided her forward. Every few steps he glanced back at the driver, now leaning against the car, keeping lookout. Shan had grown wary of having anyone behind him; even more so when that person was likely armed.

  At the solid oak door, he steeled himself and raised his hand to knock. He got no further before the door swung open to a man boasting a wide grin.

  “Hell, look at this,” the fellow said. “Two years in the pen, and the place turned you into a copper.” His pencil mustache and light hair, slightly shaggy, didn’t match his voice. A voice Shan knew almost as well as he knew his own.

  He peered into the guy’s eyes to confirm the impossible, and what he found nearly buckled his knees. Standing before him, alive and well, was Nick Capello.

  The discovery stunned Shan to silence.

  With a heavy sigh, Nick put a hand on Shan’s shoulder. “Gotta admit, I was starting to get nervous. Been pacing for hours and . . .” The rest fell off when Sadie caught his eye.

  “Sweetheart, close the door,” a woman called out. Josie’s voice.

  Stepping back, Nick ushered them in and locked the door. A lantern glowed yellow on a table in the room. It threw shadows across wine barrels aligned in rows.

  Shan struggled to grasp the world he had entered, a place where Nick was walking, talking, and breathing. Nick. The friend he had lost.

  “But—you were—I thought—”

  Nick smiled at Shan’s battle for words.

  Before Shan could try again, Josie appeared and said, “Now, who’ve we got here?” Her attention rested on the child clinging to his side.

  Nick, too, looked in want of an explanation.

  Shan scrounged for an answer through his tangle of thoughts. “This is . . . Sadie. She needed to come too.”

  “Oh,” Josie said, surprised. “I thought she was a—” She cut herself off, an effort not to offend.

  “It’s a disguise,” Sadie volunteered. Her tone was quiet but lined with pride.

  “Well, you sure had me fooled,” Josie said. “And trust me, I know my disguises.”

  Indeed she did. Josie was barely recognizable, with her platinum curls dyed black, shortened to just below the ears. In place of a sparkly, curve-hugging number, a cream cardigan layered a simple peach housedress. Likewise, Nick sported a workingman’s shirt, brown woolen trousers, and dusty boots. A far cry from the fancy suit he’d been wearing when Shan last saw him.

  On the day he’d died.

  Shan was still straining to comprehend. “In the bank, I thought you were . . .”

  “Shot to hell and hauled away?” Nick said.

  “This,” Josie said, “sounds like boring grownup talk. Sadie, honey, you got a little time to spare. How ’bout we get ourselves a drink. Some grape juice, maybe. You hungry?”

  Sadie looked up at Shan, gauging the offer.

  “She’s an old friend, Sadie. You’ll be all right.”

  Relaxing, Sadie released Shan’s hand and accepted Josie’s. The two trod past the barrels and into another room, with Josie making conversation all the way. The gal always did have a talent for lowering people’s guards.

  “Come on and take a load off.” Nick motioned to the right with his chin. “You gotta be beat.”

  As though following a ghost, Shan trailed him to the table. Made from the lid of a barrel, the furnishing was flanked by two ladder-back chairs. Beside the lantern waited a bottle of red wine with a pair of long-stemmed glasses.

  “Here, have a seat,” Nick said, and worked to remove the cork. But Shan remained standing.


  Nick proceeded to pour for them both. “We’ve been hunkered down here all day. Friends said we could help ourselves, but honestly my gut’s been twisted.” He shook his head and let out a breath. “You’re here now, though, ain’t ya,” he said, and raised his glass in a toast.

  Part of Shan wanted to jump in and celebrate. But his startle was now morphing into a sense of betrayal. The grief and guilt he had harbored all this time couldn’t be so easily shed.

  “You had a funeral.” Not a recollection. An accusation.

  Nick’s eyes dimmed, revealing his awareness that he had this coming. He lowered his glass and gave a small shrug. “They switched me for a John Doe. Guy had no one to claim him.” He raised a palm as if swearing in court: “A stroke. I had nothin’ to do with it.”

  The alternative hadn’t crossed Shan’s mind, though at this point it should have. “Did Ma and Pop know? And Lina?”

  “Nah. Not at first,” Nick said, assuring Shan he wasn’t the only one duped. “The undertaker told them a closed casket was best, ’cause of my wounds. If there’d been another way, trust me I would’ve done it. But first, I was out of sorts, trying to recover. Then with the heat from the feds, I didn’t want to put my family in a tough spot. Not like I did you.” His voice thickened, as if by his own layer of guilt. He cleared his throat, washed it down with wine. “Of course, they were real happy when they found out the truth. And they’ll be even happier when they hear about you now.”

  Shan had to remind himself he was free at the moment. He was grateful for that. But then, he never would have been imprisoned if it weren’t for Nick.

  He pulled off his guard hat. “What were you thinking, stealing from Max anyway?”

  Nick eyed him. “You really thought I was that dumb?” He smiled and reclined on his chair.

  Right at that moment, Shan realized he didn’t know a thing. But he did deserve to understand the reason he’d spent two years behind bars. “Why the robbery, then?”

  As Nick took a sip of wine, Shan opted to sit after all. He could tell this wasn’t going to be a simple story.

  “It was Sal and Vito,” Nick explained. “For years, they were in charge of collecting tax from shopkeepers. Protection, you know, by Max. Come to find out, the two of ’em kept hiking the prices, pocketing the difference. Shopkeepers were afraid to complain, so the tax kept going up.”

  It didn’t take much for Shan to imagine the scenario, having survived it firsthand.

  “Finally Max hears what’s going on. Along with a rumor that they’re working on some racket with a wiseguy in Jersey. So Max confronts Sal and Vito. They come clean about the shops, full of sor-rys, swearing to repay double, but they deny the rest. Max doesn’t buy it. But he wants proof before doing anything drastic. Also he wants to know who this wiseguy is. So that’s where me and Jimmy—my pal out there—came in.”

  Shan glanced toward the door. He had forgotten the driver was outside. Of course, clearer in his mind was watching the “pal” leave Nick at the bank in a pool of blood. “And then?”

  “And then,” Nick said, “we put out a leak that I’ve been called out for skimming off the back room. Then I go to Sal, tell him I’m desperate for cash and how I’m fed up with Max and his small-time thinkin’. I tell him me and Jimmy got a lead on a hot deal in Pittsburgh, but that Max wasn’t up for the risk.”

  Nick rested an elbow on the table and swirled his wine a bit. “Pretty soon, Sal comes back and says he’s got a solid connection who wants to meet. Some banker in Jersey, crooked as a fishhook. So we all drive together. Sal has Jimmy pull over and wait. Says too many people will make the banker jittery.”

  “Let me guess,” Shan said. “There was no deal.”

  “There was no connection. Not there anyway. They put on scarves, stuff one in my hand, and draw their guns. Sal hollers for everybody to get down. Says he’ll start shooting if anyone trips the alarm. By then, Vito nabbed the guard’s pistol, and Sal’s telling me to put on the mask. What was I supposed to do?”

  “How about make a break for it? Get back to the car.”

  “Because I was guilty just being there,” Nick said, and Shan had to acknowledge the hard truth in that; the past two years were solid proof. “Anyway, Sal starts stuffing cash in a sack, tells me how he and Vito have alibis in place. That if I don’t want to take the rap for this, I’m gonna convince Max they’re not doing side deals. Make sure they’re back in his good graces before the boss sends a torpedo their way.”

  “So . . . you refused,” Shan guessed, a reason they would have left him behind.

  “Nah. I lied and told him I’d do it—if we got right the hell out of there. But Vito doesn’t wanna go without cracking the vault. We start arguing, and shots blast our way. Guard must’ve been packing another gun. He hits me with a slug before Vito takes him out. Then comes the siren, and off they go.”

  “Including Jimmy,” Shan reminded him.

  Nick raised a shoulder. “They told him I was dead. Can’t blame the guy, what with cops closing in. Even so,” he pointed out, “I’d say he’s made up for it.”

  Shan thought of the smuggled raft, the escort here. He supposed he couldn’t disagree. He set his hat on the table and rolled the stem of his glass between his fingers. “So, how the hell did you make it out alive?”

  “I nearly didn’t,” Nick said. “If the coroner hadn’t noticed my pinkie movin’—or didn’t have the smarts to call Max—I’d have been done for. But now look, huh? Just like you, I got another start. And with Josie too.” He gazed across the room where she’d disappeared, and his eyes softened. “We’re living in Wyoming now. Nice small town. Lots of good folks there.”

  Shan remembered Nick’s last words at the robbery, his deep regrets over losing Josie. He just hoped that clarity wouldn’t fade. “I assume this means you’ve gone straight.”

  Nick just looked at him. “I’m a pipe fitter at an oil refinery. Can’t get much straighter than that.”

  Shan noticed a touch of grit under Nick’s nails and felt some pleasure at the irony. Finally he took a drink of his wine, savoring the indulgence he’d missed—a blend of blackberries and pepper—but also listening for wheels on the driveway. He wished there were windows, to keep an eye out for headlights.

  “I know what you gotta be thinkin’,” Nick said after a pause. “It’s not fair to her, having to start all over. I realize that. I just . . . I couldn’t let her go again.” There was a raw sincerity in his tone that Shan found refreshing, even comforting.

  “Yeah, well. Doing what’s right and what makes sense aren’t always the same thing.”

  Nick smiled a little.

  It seemed to Shan that Josie had never loved Nick for all the glitz and glamour; she’d loved him in spite of it. Something Nick, too, appeared to have realized.

  About to take another sip, Nick hesitated. “Speaking of girls, what’s the story with the kid?”

  Shan didn’t have the time or energy to spin a tale. And since they seemed to be spilling all . . .

  “She’s the daughter of a prison guard.”

  In the midst of a swallow, Nick spit part of it out. He set down his glass, wiping his mouth. “Christ.”

  “She needed to get away, so she can live with her mom. For good reason.”

  “I would hope,” Nick said. “When you meeting this woman?”

  “As soon as we can.”

  “You don’t have anything set?”

  “She’s in Kentucky, some town by a big river. Works on a switchboard. There can’t be all that many. And Sadie knows a few more details. We’ll find her before long.”

  “Wait,” Nick said. “You plan to just traipse around with this kid, knocking on doors?” He shook his head, bewildered. “You realize you’ll be in every major paper in the country, right? Make that both of you now.”

  Shan downed a gulp of wine. It wasn’t an ideal plan, but what were the choices?

  “I’ll . . . get a disguise,” he said.

&nbs
p; “No. No way. Do you know the headache, not to mention the dough, it cost me to get you out of that hellhole?” Nick leaned on the table toward him. “In four months, I got everything set up at Leavenworth. Two guards, the chaplain, a surefire plan. Even a cellmate to make sure you didn’t go and die before I could bust you out. Then what do you do? You get yourself transferred to the most secure prison in the damn country.”

  Shan stared at him, dumbfounded. His thoughts drifted back to Mitty, a friendly cellmate eager to help. And the chaplain, Father Anthony.

  “Almost two years it took me to finagle this,” Nick charged on. “That jazz group had to be personally requested twice by congressmen. And that’s not including the favors to get that priest transferred to Alcatraz. So I don’t know how you’re gonna get this girl to her mother, but unless you both want a trip right back to that island, I strongly suggest—”

  “I’ll do it.” Josie’s voice abruptly turned Shan and Nick. She stood halfway across the room, a protective arm around Sadie.

  Shan put down his glass, noting the worry in the girl’s face. He rose and made his way over. He didn’t have to wonder how long they’d been listening.

  When he reached them, Josie said, “Sadie explained everything. You were right to bring her, Tommy.” Her resolve made clear Sadie’s sufferings had struck a personal chord. Yet Josie seemed to have forgotten her own predicament.

  “You’re not supposed to be drawing any attention,” Shan told her.

  “And I won’t. Fact is, I’m the only person in the room who’s got nobody looking for ’em.”

  Oddly she was right about that. Still, how could Shan possibly walk away, leave the girl with virtual strangers?

  Appearing to understand, Josie eased down to Sadie’s level and spoke in a gentle voice. “Sweetie, can I ask you somethin’?”

  Sadie pursed her lips, stained purple, waiting.

  “Now, I know we just met. And it can be real scary to venture out with folks you don’t know. But if you’ll let me, I’ll do everything in my power to get you back to your mama. I swear on my life, we won’t rest till we find her.” Josie used a thumb to brush crumbs from Sadie’s cheek. “Could you trust me enough to do that?”