ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18)

by John W. Mefford

  “Elsa, I’d like to ask about your departure from Genbio.”

  I paused. She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes while taking a pull on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth. For a brief moment, the scent was a nice departure from the smell of peas.

  “From what I understand, you were fired.”

  She began jiggling her top leg. “If you’re asking me did I have it out for Nicole…honestly, the answer is ‘Yes.’ Hell yes. She turned me in, got me fired.”

  I clenched my jaw, but it felt like a dentist was drilling directly into a nerve ending. I blew out a deep breath, trying to do anything to relax and reduce the pain. “How badly did you want to get back at her?”

  She got out of her seat, grabbed an ashtray off the counter, and returned to her spot. “I’m not proud of who I’ve become. You can say I was sucked in by the race for money, the race for attention, moving up the corporate ladder, and I didn’t care who I stepped on to get there.”

  I withheld comment and let her share her story. Where it would end up, I had no idea.

  She sucked on her cigarette until I could see the glowing ember. Then, another long stream of smoke. “I moved up here near my family, and I’m trying to start over…in many ways. But, like with Joel, I keep fucking up. I guess I’m just destined to be a fuck-up.”

  She tapped her cigarette over the ashtray.

  She was the victim, the one the world was supposed to feel sorry for. She made bad decisions. Did she make the worst decision, though? I couldn’t tell at this point, and I wasn’t sure she’d tell me anyway. With Darrell and Jeb in the next room, I could take it only so far.

  “Elsa, I’m going to ask you a blunt question. I’d like an honest answer. But I’m not sure you’re going to give me one.”

  Her leg stopped kicking, and she arched an eyebrow. “Wait a second. You think…?”

  I wasn’t sure what she thought I was about to ask. So I didn’t say anything, but I kept my gaze right on her.

  “If someone had given me the means, I might have done something to harm Nicole. Just being straight up with you.”

  I could feel my body tense again.

  Another puff on her cigarette. “But as much as I’ve thought about it, I never did anything. I’ve been in some catfights in my life…”

  That wasn’t hard to imagine.

  “But to kill someone? I don’t even go hunting with the two ogres in the other room.”

  “So you didn’t—”

  “Ozzie, I know.”

  My mouth didn’t open.

  “Social media is how I get my news. I know she’s dead. And I know they think you did it.”

  “But you didn’t say anything?”

  “You showing up here instantly made me question what I’d seen on Facebook. I asked myself, ‘Why would a guy who had killed his wife come to my house?’ I was trying to figure out what you wanted out of me. I also wanted to know if I had a murderer in my house. If so, I was going to call the cops. But I can see that you didn’t kill her. Not surprising. She loved the hell out of you. You are all she talked about. Kind of made me sick at the time. I look back now and…” She swallowed hard and used a thumb to snuff a tear from the corner of her eye. “Now I think it’s the most amazing thing in the world.”

  She sniffled, grabbed a napkin, and dabbed her nose. I looked away and tried to control my emotions. For a fleeting moment, I felt like I could reach out and touch Nicole. I wanted to call out to her, to take her by the hand, to bring her closer and hold and protect her.

  Fuck.

  I picked up the glass of water and took in a couple of gulps, my eyes staring blankly across the smoke-filled room.

  “You wanted to confront me, to see if I’d killed Nicole because of what she’d done to me,” Elsa said.

  I set the peas on the table and nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jeb wiggling in his chair because he was so overwhelmed with laughter.

  “Please don’t think my brothers had the means to do anything like that, either. They’re very protective of their sister, but they don’t have the brains to plan anything like that…not by a long shot.”

  I wanted to poke holes in her argument. I wanted to see vindictiveness in her eyes, to feel her hate for Nicole. I wanted her to boast about how brilliant she was in pulling off this crime and setting me up. I wanted her to laugh in my face at the misery she’d caused.

  But, as much as I wanted her to be the killer and bring it all to a close—it just wasn’t there. I was almost certain she didn’t kill Nicole or have her killed. As for her brothers, it was obvious their capabilities were limited in the areas of anything requiring mental acuity.

  So, I wrapped it up. “You going to call the authorities, or maybe go online and tell the world that I showed up at your house?”

  She snuffed out her cigarette in the ashtray and brought a hand to her chin. “For a while, I wished…no, I prayed that something bad would happen to Nicole. Now she’s dead. And you know? I feel like I made it happen. I don’t know what to do with myself. The guilt is tearing me up.”

  Guilt. Never thought Elsa and I would share a trait. But we did.

  Emotionally gutted, I walked out of the house, carrying the bag of frozen peas.

  24

  I stopped at a Quick Stop on the way out of New Haven, went into the bathroom, and washed up. My face was still swollen, and I had a few cuts, but I no longer looked deformed. I was sore in about a dozen places, but I didn’t bother with a closer assessment of my wounds. I could still walk and talk and drive, and that was all that really mattered at the moment.

  My facial hair had continued to grow out, giving me a thin beard. The new whiskers were lighter. My appearance reminded me of a woman from my dad’s law office who was always battling root issues, never quite achieving a “natural” look. I pulled waterproof mascara out of my backpack and gave myself another touch-up in the mirror. I could imagine Poppy making a few foul-mouthed comments, followed by a hearty laugh. She might even tell me it was time to add a few piercings to my look. Depending on how long this charade lasted, I might have to go in that direction.

  For now, I thought my hair color(s) only helped with my concealment. I put away the mascara, slipped my backpack over my good shoulder, and walked outside. I stopped before I reached the edge of the sidewalk.

  Two cops were walking around my car, eyeing it. The one who had no hat was carrying a notepad.

  Crap! Had Elsa lied to me and called the authorities after I’d left her house? Sure looked that way.

  I was so focused on the cops that I didn’t see the man in biker boots until he rammed into my injured shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said, scowling.

  He flipped around, held up a piece of paper, and then crumpled it in his hands. “Fucking cops. Can you believe they just gave me a fucking ticket for riding my Harley without a helmet? What kind of country is this?” He shook his head and tossed the wad of paper in the trash. “I don’t hurt no one. I don’t bother no one. And what do they do? Give me a fucking ticket just because I love to let the wind hit me in the face. What’s wrong with this place, man?”

  I shrugged.

  He mumbled some more expletives and swaggered into the Quick Stop.

  I turned back around. The cop with no hat looked around and, for a second, held his eyes on me. I looked up at the sky, noticed a few wispy clouds, and then brought my backpack around, unzipped it, and looked inside. I ambled down the sidewalk, moving away from my car and the cops, acting as if I were on a leisurely stroll…at a Quick Stop.

  I reached the end of the building, pulled out my phone, and put it against my ear. I smiled, moved my lips, pretending I was speaking to another person. I nodded and nonchalantly twisted my torso so I could peek at the cops. The one without a hat had moved behind Mutt Three. He lowered his body and wrote something in his notebook.

  The license plate number. This was not a good development. They would run the plate and fin
d out it was unregistered, that it didn’t exist at all. It might take a few minutes since the car had Texas plates, but I was toast. At least my ride was.

  The cop looked up and stared right at me.

  I kept talking on my phone, nodded a couple of times, and then walked around the corner. There were two cars. A lady was sitting in the driver’s seat of a silver Accord. She appeared to be rubbing her eyes. I walked over to the other car, a tiny little Kia of some kind. The window was rolled down.

  When I was a little kid, my grandfather Ga-Ga never locked his car door and always left the keys in the ignition. I thought it was normal until my parents told me he was nuts. Thing is, though, he’d never had his car stolen.

  Prepared to soil the family name even more than I already had, I stuck my head inside the car to see if there was any chance the driver might have left the keys in the car.

  Without any warning, a hand grabbed my shirt and pulled me back. A large man—at least four inches taller than me and a hell of lot meaner looking—pushed me against the car and held a switch blade to my face. “Nosy people might just lose their nose,” he said, spraying his spittle all over my face. Oh, how I wanted to wipe it off, but I couldn’t move a muscle. His blade was touching the bridge of my nose.

  “I was just checking out your awesome car stereo,” I said, pulling an excuse out of my ass to get my ass out of trouble.

  He growled. “You give two shits about that crappy car stereo? I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s a free country.” The moment I said the words, I let out a long sigh. How lame could I be?

  He actually chuckled, used the back of his wrist to wipe the edge of his mouth. “You’re pretty fucking funny, but that only means I’m going to cut out one of your testicles. You can keep the other one.”

  The mere utterance of those words made me weak at the knees. “Thank you,” I said as more of a question.

  He laughed again. I considered my options. One included a swift knee to his testicles. Maybe he’d like to chew on a good jawbreaker. But that might start a major disturbance. If I did that, the cops standing by Mutt Three would undoubtedly show up in a matter of seconds. That would be the end of the road for Ozzie.

  A woman approached from the front of the Kia. Wait. Isn’t that the woman from the Accord?

  “Big Al, are you ever going to get back into the car?”

  I looked up at Big Al, but he was looking at me. I shifted my eyes to the woman, who huffed out a breath, her hands at her waist. She looked cute in faded jeans, flats, and a sweater tied at her waist. She had a dark complexion, but her cheeks were pink. She wore a ponytail high on top of her head. I guessed she was a recent college grad, maybe twenty-four years old or so. “Please excuse my boyfriend,” she said to the guy with the knife, grabbing my arm.

  All I could think was, Why is she grabbing my arm? At the same time, I was thinking, Thank God she’s grabbing my arm.

  The monster pulled back a step. He seemed confused, just like I was. The woman was in charge now, and I wasn’t going to argue.

  “Big Al,” she said, hooking her arm inside of mine, “when are you going to learn that you can’t just run from your problems?”

  That statement got my attention, but I kept my lips sealed.

  She continued, “Well, we’re going to go back to my place, pour a glass of wine, and talk this out like two mature adults. And then I’m going to bang the shit out of you.”

  My jaw dropped open. And so did that of the monster.

  She turned to the monster, cupped a hand to the side of her face, as if she were about to tell a secret. “You know why he’s called ‘Big Al,’ don’t you?”

  “Do what?” I choked out.

  He put his knife in his pocket, started shaking his head.

  “It’s because of what he’s got right here,” she said matter-of-factly. I was watching her lips, not her hand, which violently grabbed my crotch.

  I squealed. There goes one testicle.

  “Oh, baby, did I hurt one of your giant balls?” she said, feigning a frown.

  Was this woman for real? “I’m okay,” I said, squeezing out a breath.

  With a smile on her face, she pulled me over to the Accord, opened the passenger door, and practically pushed me inside. Another second later, and she was in the driver’s side. She looked right at me.

  “So, dude, you ready for me to rock your world?”

  25

  We pulled out onto Whalley Avenue and started heading into New Haven.

  “You going to thank me now or later?” she asked, wiggling her shoulders like an enthusiastic teenager who’d just ridden a roller coaster.

  “Thank you. What’s your name?”

  “Melissa. And you?”

  “David,” I said, sticking with my library-card alias.

  “Well, David, you almost got your ass beat back there by Guido. Or worse. That guy could have sliced you up. But it kind of looks like you’ve already run into another Guido.” She waved a hand in front of her face. She was referring to my bruises, courtesy of Elsa’s Neanderthal brothers.

  I waved it off with a flick of my hand but added, “I think New Haven might want to rethink who’s on their Welcome Committee.”

  She smirked.

  “Guido definitely had some anger issues. But I appreciate you reading the situation and coming to my rescue.”

  Of course, her method of grabbing my crotch was a little over the top, but I couldn’t argue with the results. Anything less than that performance, and I might be sitting in a cell, waiting to be extradited back to Austin.

  “Sure thing. I guess you didn’t have a ride, and you were looking to steal that car. Am I right?”

  I glanced at her and then stared straight ahead. “I was just curious.”

  “Uh huh, and I’m the queen of England.”

  I grinned. “Nice one.”

  The brakes squeaked as she pulled up to a red light. “So, where you headed?”

  “Going north.”

  “Does that mean Boston, New Hampshire, northern Maine, or maybe the North Pole?”

  “I’m not real fond of cold weather, so I’d never go to the North Pole. Just north, you know, up the highway an hour or so.”

  Now that I’d escaped Guido the Kia Protector, I started thinking through the implications of the cops having control of my car. The New Haven Police Department probably didn’t have the same resources as a big city, or maybe the urgency—who knows?—but eventually they’d learn the Texas car was not on the books. And as dots started connecting for Valentine with the APD or even other national agencies, they would know I was in the area. They might start looking at video footage. I’d not worn a cap into the Quick Stop. Dumb move on my part. I began to feel antsy. The window of time to find Nicole’s killer had probably just narrowed even more. How long was that, though? Two days? Twelve hours? Less?

  The car punched forward, rocking my head back. I felt a stab of pain where the nail had punctured my skull, but thanks to the Neosporin from Elsa, it was livable.

  “Damn, you seem anxious,” she said.

  I followed her gaze to see my legs. I was rubbing my palms along the top of my thighs. “Well, I just have a tight schedule.”

  “What do you for a living? Or are you more like a nomad? You know, one of those guys who just travels from city to city just taking the world in, maybe breaking girls’ hearts along the way?”

  She gave me a sheepish grin.

  I started to say something, but I had no words. I just shrugged.

  “Trying to think about what you can say without getting in trouble?” She snapped out a laugh.

  I tried to laugh, but it was clearly fake. More hand-wringing on my jeans. I noticed tissues throughout the car, most of them used. Lots of junk in a tray in the center console, a thick layer of sticky dust on every surface.

  “So, wherever you’re going in town, I’ll just take off from there and move on. But I really appreciate you saving me back there,�
�� I said, pointing a thumb over my shoulder.

  “I guess I didn’t say that I was headed north too.”

  I saw steepled buildings sticking up above a sea of trees. The Yale campus was coming up on our right. “Doesn’t look like you’re heading north.”

  “Oh, I just had to drop by the store to pick up a few things. I’m headed back to feed my cat, Sam.”

  “Sam the cat. A nice simple name.”

  “I named him after a friend of mine.”

  There was probably a story there, but I didn’t want to learn it. My mind was thinking about getting to Waterbury and talking to Harvey Reese. With Elsa marked off the list of suspects, I was ready to see if Harvey had some answers to Nicole’s murder. I also held hard to the hope that Mitch’s connection in the US Attorney’s office might help me out—whether that meant interceding to somehow get the APD to drop the charges or just stepping in to assist in the investigation. Maybe both if I was lucky.

  Melissa made three turns off the main street and then pulled into an apartment complex. Opening her car door, she glanced over at me. “It should only take me a few minutes. You can wait in the car or come up to my place. Either way. And even though I shouldn’t trust someone who was about to steal a car, for some reason, I do. Something about your look, I guess.”

  My look? Not sure I followed that thought.

  I glanced around and saw people, students mostly, walking and talking, cars driving by. Everyone doing their thing. But I still felt exposed. Probably paranoia, but I didn’t want to take a chance. “I guess I’ll tag along and get to meet Sam.”

  I followed her up to the third floor and walked into her apartment. I loitered in the living room as she entered the kitchen.

  “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

  “Got any Diet Coke?” I looked around for Sam. Didn’t see him, but I knew a lot of cats weren’t fond of strangers. The place wasn’t luxurious, but it was cleaner than her car. Furniture didn’t match, but it also didn’t have holes like mine had in college. There was a flat-screen TV on a stand, magazines on a coffee table, a few paintings on the walls.