I let go of the bridge and fell—the ground, thankfully, was only about ten feet below. The moment I hit the dirt, I didn’t move. I only looked up. Even with my bad hearing, I could pick up the murmur of the idling car. Slowly, I inched my way up the incline and saw an open garage about a hundred feet in front of me. Should I go for it?
I didn’t need to. A second later, the police car drove off.
A sigh of relief, for the moment, anyway. And my stomach settled a bit, but I knew another police car could drive up at any second. I got to my feet—my legs felts like rubber bands—and I trudged up the side of the hill and walked toward the garage.
A few breaths to calm my fried nerves. I huddled inside for a good hour or so and thought through my next move.
One thing peppered my mind: would I still be a free man at daybreak?
32
The minivan’s side door swung open, and I picked up the stench right away.
Weed.
“Come on, dude. You getting in or what?”
A slender kid wearing a rainbow-colored snow cap waved a hand in front of his face. For some reason, I thought snowboarder. I peered around him and saw at least one other person sitting in the van. It was a girl. She was smoking, and I didn’t think it was a cigarette.
I’d been hitchhiking for the last thirty minutes. This was my brilliant idea after hiding out in the dark garage for close to two hours—I’d wanted to be certain the cops weren’t trolling the area. When I finally made my break, I cut through lawns, back alleys, and generally ensured I was cloaked in darkness. I knew I couldn’t walk fifty miles to Mitch and Cassie’s home. So, once I made my way to the highway, I stayed just close enough to the main road where I could see the types of cars coming up, and then, if it wasn’t a police car, I would jump toward the road and hold out my thumb.
I’d never hitchhiked before. My dad had told me stories about his hitchhiking days. You know the ones, where your parents said they trudged through snow and mud to get to school every day while wearing shoes with holes in the soles? Yeah, he did that. And, he’d said, occasionally, when the weather conditions became dangerous, he would hitchhike. Most of the time, it was a pleasant experience. Once, though, some pervert had tried to touch him. He said he bit the guy’s wrist until it bled. The guy kicked him out of the car.
Damn, I missed Dad and all his stories, even the ones he embellished.
“You’re going north, right?” I took a step closer to the van, which was rusting along the roof. I also noticed one of those baby tires on the right rear.
Snowboarder chattered his teeth together. For a second, I thought I was looking at one of those skulls used during Halloween. Was that some type of reaction to the weed, or maybe he was just super cold? He then pointed. “If north is that way, then we’re heading north, dammit.” His teeth clapped a few more times. It was beyond freaky.
“Okay, well, if you have room, I’d appreciate the ride for a few miles.”
I climbed in the minivan and took a seat in the “way, way back,” where I could see everyone. I sat next to an amplifier, and my feet were propped on three plastic cases. Besides Snowboarder and the girl smoking a very large joint in the row in front of me, there were two others in the car: the driver, who had a thick beard and also was wearing a snow cap, and a guy dressed in a tweed sports coat and collared shirt. Boy, did he ever stand out. He looked back and waved, and as he turned more in my direction, I saw him smoking as well. At least his window was cracked open, which seemed to suck most of the smoke out of the minivan.
The girl turned in her seat, her eyes nothing more than tiny slits, and offered me a smoke by reaching her hand across the seat.
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
Snowboarder grabbed the joint and took a hit. “You sure, Hitch?”
“Hitch?” I pointed a finger at my chest, although I knew he had to be talking to me.
“I just gave you a cool nickname. Roll with it, Hitch.”
I was rolling as long as the car was rolling. “That’s cool.”
He eyed the joint as though it were a treasured jewel. “It sure helps take the edge off after one of those ball-busting days, if you know what I mean.”
I certainly did. “I appreciate it. I need to keep a clear head, though.” I paused a second and looked toward the driver. “Hey, is your buddy up there…you know, driving safely?” I began to think about the ramifications if he started driving erratically. We’d get pulled over by state troopers, there would lots of questions, reviews of identification and so forth. It was easy to see where that would lead me: in jail. I suddenly questioned my judgment about jumping into this car full of stoners.
“Do you think we’re stupid or something, Hitch?” Snowboarder coughed and handed the joint back to the girl.
“No, I was just wondering if you guys wanted me to drive.”
“It’s cool, Hitch. He’s our DDWWSF.” His teeth clapped together three or four times—it made me pause seeing it that up close.
“He’s your what?”
“Designated Driver When We’re Shit-Faced.” He laughed, and then the teeth came alive again.
“Don’t freak out about his weird teeth shit,” the girl said. “He’s just got this nervous twitch. It gets this way when he’s hyped up after a concert. It will calm down the more he smokes.”
Marijuana…the modern-day cure-all for everything.
“What concert did you guys go to?” I was certain they’d name a band I’d never heard of.
“The Stoners. Ever heard of them, Hitch?” Snowboarder chuckled, grabbed the joint from his friend, and took a drag.
“Doesn’t ring a bell. But if I heard their music, it might sound familiar.”
He chuckled again and held out his hands. “We’re the Stoners, Hitch.”
All of them laughed now. I felt pretty sure they were serious…about being a band and the DDWWSF stuff.
“Congratulations.” That was all I could think of saying. I took in all the cases scattered around me and under my feet. Equipment. “So you guys play real gigs?”
“Yep. People actually pay to see us, Hitch.”
The girl flicked her hand against Snowboarder’s arm. “Get real, man. They usually pay a cover charge to the dive we’re playing in, and then we get a small cut of that.”
“Hey, that business model works,” I said.
“Yeah, it really only works if we’re playing at a strip joint and they’ve double-booked us with some girl named Deep Throat.”
They all laughed again. It almost sounded harmonic.
The conversation died down, and the car was silent for a while. I was just happy that Beard Man was keeping us between the lines. Thankfully, I’d seen no state troopers or any police cars.
I relaxed for the first time all day. And what a day it had been, starting with the freaky interactions I’d had with Cassie. First, her eyes had practically devoured me when she caught me with no shirt on. And then later in the kitchen she had the gall to pull me in and plant a kiss on me. She couldn’t even claim that she was drunk. Unhappy, unsatisfied in her marriage, apparently, but why did she have to involve me in that drama?
I quickly ran through my stopovers in New Haven and Waterbury. Elsa’s moronic brothers, Melissa the psycho dominatrix, and then finding Willow in the hidden room in Harvey Reese’s house. The image of Willow tied up in the mini-dungeon, dressed in a tattered T-shirt, would never leave me. And neither would that self-righteous expression on the face of that prick, Harvey, when I had him pinned to the ground. He was a sick, twisted person. A kidnapper, a rapist…the lowest form of scum that walked the earth.
But was he a murderer?
That I wasn’t sure of. My opinion on his guilt wavered. It swung from one-hundred-percent certainty that he was behind Nicole’s murder to something under fifty percent, and then about a dozen places in between. Right now, a few hours removed from the confrontation, I was still on the fence. Just thinking about what he’d done to Willow
made me want to beat the crap out of him. But as I replayed the full range of data points involving that sorry excuse for a human being—what he’d done to Willow and maybe other girls, his smug answers, all the photos, including one of Nicole, knowing Mitch had seen him fighting with Nicole—my insides quivered with anger. Like right now.
I took in a deep breath, held it, then blew it out slowly. If I wasn’t careful, I’d lose control and punch a fist through a window or do something else equally stupid.
I scooted lower in my seat and tried to get comfortable. And then it happened almost involuntarily—a myriad of moments with Nicole played like a slideshow in my mind. Many of them so very intimate, but only a few involved sex. That’s when you know you’ve met that someone who is your forever—you share these moments that take you to another planet. The bond is irrefutable and, at the time, seems eternal. The moments happen at the most trivial of times, maybe when you’re sharing a dull story about your job, or when you’re moving furniture around, or stuck in a crowd while Christmas shopping. You can’t plan them; they just happen. And then the rest of the world disappears for a few seconds.
I knew my friends and family had questioned my sanity when I’d allowed Nicole back in my life following her affair with Calvin Drake. But what they didn’t understand—what I didn’t understand until after it had all happened and we began to heal—was that I couldn’t stop it. I learned that our love was so much like us: this perfect imperfection. Like a diamond full of flaws, yet it sparkled more than the brightest star in the sky. Stars live for millions of years. And I knew my love for Nicole, and her love for me, would be just as endless. Even if I had to love her without her next to me for the rest of my life.
A moment passed. Maybe two, I wasn’t sure, not until the minivan ran through a pothole and I lurched upward. “What’s going on?” I said, my heart in the back of my throat.
“Yo, Hitch, you fell asleep,” Snowboarder said. “We just dropped off Craig.”
“Craig?”
He pointed over his shoulder at the empty front passenger seat. Craig, the guy with the tweed sports coat. I nodded. “Ah, Craig. So, where are we?”
“Torrington.”
“Torrington? Where’s that?”
He smacked his lips a few times. He seemed to be ultra-relaxed. No more teeth clapping. “Connecticut.”
“Ohhhkay. Where in Connecticut?”
“Need for me to break out a map, Hitch?”
“I’m going to Bristol.”
“Oh, that’s southeast of here. Want us to drop you off? We don’t mind going out of our way, as long as you pay us the gas money.”
I had some cash. That wasn’t the point, though. I was fucking pissed that we’d overshot Bristol. I pulled out a twenty and handed it to Snowboarder. “How long until we get to Bristol?”
“Oh, I don’t know. My buddy doesn’t always take the direct route. He kind of goes with the flow, if you know what I mean. Could be an hour, could be three.” He laughed.
I placed fifty dollars in the palm of his hand, but I didn’t remove my hand. “That’s yours if you can get me there in forty-five minutes.”
He twisted his head around. “Okay, bitches,” he called out. “Time to get it together. Fifty bucks is ours if we can get our friend, Hitch, to Bristol in forty-five minutes.”
33
I waved goodbye to the Stoners—in every sense of the word—and walked the last quarter mile to Mitch and Cassie’s home. It was approaching six in the morning. I planned to go to the cottage, wash up, and semi-patiently wait for everyone to wake up.
The front of their home was dark, just like the rest of the neighborhood. I thought I heard a howl in the distance. Did they have coyotes in the woods behind their home? I shuddered. What was it with me and dogs today?
I walked down the long driveway and made my way toward the back of the home. I paused when I saw a light on in the kitchen. Probably Cassie up with the baby. I needed to steer clear of her when Mitch wasn’t around.
I followed the short tree-lined path to the cottage, but I stopped just before I got to the door. It was cracked open. I did a quick three-sixty to ensure no one was around me, then I walked heel-to-toe up to the door. “Hello?” The door creaked as I pushed it open.
Cassie was standing behind Mitch’s desk, her arms anchored on top. She lifted her head. Her eyes were spilling tears, causing her mascara to smear. She was panting, her face splotchy red. Or were those hand marks? I felt a pinch at the bottom of my back, and it quickly crawled up my spine.
“What’s going on, Cassie?”
She didn’t say anything. She looked away, using her thumb to swipe at the tears.
“Where’s Mitch?”
“He’s, uh…” She gulped in some air.
I set my backpack on the floor and walked around the desk, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Cassie, you can tell me. Doesn’t matter what’s happened. We’re friends. All of us.” I swallowed, knowing I’d included Nicole in that thought.
She shook her head. “Dammit, Ozzie, I don’t know what to say.” The misery on her face made my heart sink. I feared the worst, although I didn’t want to run through the options of what that could be.
I looked to the desk; it was a disaster. Files, paper, the edges of photos were scattered like someone had exploded a deck of cards. I blinked and realized there was a second laptop sitting there, right now in sleep mode or turned off.
“Cassie…” I waited for her to look at me. She only shook her head, and her panting escalated into a gasping cry. I tried holding her, but she pulled away.
“Cassie, it can’t be that bad. You can tell me anything. I’m not sure how I can help, but I know a thing or two about going through tough times in a relationship.”
“You can’t help with this.” She clutched her arms around her chest and turned her back to me. The sobs continued.
I rubbed a hand across my face and looked at the desk. I wanted to poke around, see if there was a clue as to why she was so upset, maybe give me an idea as to where Mitch was. But I was afraid that if I started snooping, it might set her off. Another thought: the kids.
“Is Mitch inside the house?”
No response.
“Cassie, are the kids alone?”
She stopped crying and let loose a long, shuddering breath. “My sister is inside with them.”
The kids were safe. But I still had no idea where Mitch was at this early hour. “Cassie, can you please let me know what’s going on?” I paused, adjusted my feet to get a better look at her, but she kept turning her back to me. “I just hope that I didn’t cause an issue. Nicole and I have always looked up to you and Mitch. We wanted to be like you guys.” I was doing my best to create some type of positive vibe.
More silence.
I raked my fingers through my hair. What hair? Again, my fingers felt odd scraping across my military buzz cut.
My eyes darted around the room. They landed on the desk again. I saw the white corner of a photograph poking out from under a mess of papers. Was that a copy of the attendee list to the marketing conference? I knew mine was in my backpack. I’d made no copies. How did Mitch get a copy of the list? And why?
“Cassie, your silence isn’t going to help a damn thing. You need to share what the hell is going on.” I’d let my irritation with my world bleed into the tone of my voice. “Hey, I’m sorry for sounding so annoyed. I’m just—”
She flipped on her heels. “Dammit, Ozzie.” She panted a few times. I got a better look at her face. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that definitely was a handprint on her cheek.
“What? Please tell me.”
She cupped her hands over her face and rocked back and forth for a moment. More tears, the kind that went beyond grief. I knew that place, and my fear factor sent a jolt into the base of my skull.
“Ozzie…” She gulped down a breath, put a hand on the desk as if she needed it to stay upright. “Mitch…he’s the one…”
More panting. I worried that she might hyperventilate. I couldn’t help but reach out a hand and touch her arm. It was cold, as if her body had been drained of its blood.
When she didn’t continue, I motioned with my arm, saying “The one…”
She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and then looked directly at me. “Mitch killed Nicole.”
34
A second later, I dropped into a chair. Oxygen wasn’t reaching my brain. It felt like I’d been dipped in a pool of dry ice.
A clammy hand touched my hand. I looked up and saw pure sadness. Cassie’s eyes were a cross between a raccoon and a devil worshipper. But I was drawn to the red mark on her cheek.
“What are you saying, Cassie?” I took in three deep breaths, but it wasn’t helping. I couldn’t get control of my breathing, and now my heart rate soared. I’d taken a page from Cassie’s condition—it seemed like I was on the verge of hyperventilating.
She put a hand to her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Ozzie. I had no idea.”
I pounded a fist to the desk. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“The computer, the photos, what he said to me, the room, our marriage, his obsessions, his drinking…” She fired off the list faster than an auctioneer.
“Cassie, I’m not following. You’re making no sense.”
She balled up her fists, as if she were drawing strength from some other power. A deep inhale and exhale. “I know that Mitch told you we had marriage problems.”
That was obvious. “Okay. So?” My softer, comforting side had been extricated from my body.
“I’m sure he told you about me being with other men, especially after I kissed you.”
“He just said he knew you had kissed other men. What does this have to do with him killing Nicole?” My voice carried more than a little steel.
She held up a hand. That was her signal to give her a second. I’d give her a few, but that was it.
“I’ve been miserable, Ozzie, and it’s because Mitch has changed so much.” For a quick moment, her eyes dropped like they were being pulled down by weights. Just before I was about to bark out another question, her eyes snapped back to me.
ON The Run (An Ozzie Novak Thriller, Book 6) (Redemption Thriller Series 18) Page 16
