liked being called Nick, though it still fits him in my mind.”
“My mother called me Nicholas.”
“I think you hated that just as much. Now, what’s this about your car?”
Erica tucked her hair behind her right ear. “It seems that the impound lot where my car is won’t be open until tomorrow morning. And we need to be somewhere by seven o’clock tonight.”
“Well, the least I could do is give you a ride.”
Erica started to speak, but Kevin interrupted her.
“Thanks, but we’ll get there just fine.”
“Kevin,” Erica said, “it’s almost 5:45. We’ll be lucky to make it there as it is.”
“We can get there ourselves. We don’t need any more help from him.”
Erica started to protest again, but Murray put his hand on her arm.
“Miss Jensen, it’s a long story between us. If he doesn’t want my help, that’s the way it is. Like I said, I tried.” He turned back to Kevin. “Good-bye, Nick — I mean, Kevin. Give me a call sometime.” With that, he walked out the front door into the dingy, gray afternoon.
Erica whirled on Kevin with narrowed eyes. “Kevin, I don’t know what problems your family has had, but in thirty seconds, we’ll see our last chance to get the laser drive away.”
“We’ll get a cab,” Kevin said, trying to ignore her logic.
“It will take the cab a half-hour to get here, if it’ll even come out this far.”
“Then we’ll call the sales rep again. Get him to wait for us a little longer.” He saw the look on Erica’s face and tried to preempt her. “He is a drunken bum who didn’t even tell me that my mother had cancer until a week before she died.”
“I’m sorry about that. That was a terrible thing to do. You can hate him all you want, but we need his help.”
Kevin looked at the acoustic tiling in the ceiling and let out a huge sigh. “All right, but as soon as we can get your car, we’re gone.”
Erica nodded and grabbed Kevin’s hand as she started to run for the door. Kevin began to go with her, then stopped, feeling as if he were missing something. Suddenly, he remembered and ran back to Officer Olsen’s desk to pick up his backpack.
When he turned around, Erica was already running toward the station’s parking lot. He followed her outside, hoping that his father was already gone.
Minutes after completing the first call from Hank Vincent, David Lobec’s planning was interrupted yet again by the contractor. He’d given explicit instructions to Vincent that he was merely to follow Murray Hamilton. Under no circumstances was he to jeopardize his discreet observation by letting the subject know he was being followed. Now the simpleton couldn’t seem to follow even those unsophisticated instructions.
“Mr. Vincent, I believe I was clear in our last communication. We will call you when we reached the ground to obtain a report regarding the subject’s whereabouts.”
“Yes, Mr. Gale, I understood your instructions, but I do believe I may have some further information which you may be interested in.”
“What is it?”
“Well, I know my job is to just follow this Hamilton fellow, but I did catch the drift that you were looking for someone.”
“We may be,” Lobec said cautiously. “Why do you ask?”
“Would this someone actually be two someones comprised of a couple in their twenties, the guy about six two with short dark hair and his girlfriend a tan five-eight brunette.”
Lobec didn’t want to let the man know any more than he needed to, but he seemed to be leading somewhere. “As a matter of fact, we would be interest in determining the location of two people who fit that description.”
“I’d say you just determined it. Thirty seconds ago, they walked up to Murray Hamilton’s truck.”
CHAPTER 22
Luckily, Murray Hamilton had still been out in the parking lot when Erica ran out, ready to chase down the road after him if she had to. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, talking on a cellular phone.
The truck was a huge red two-door Chevy double-wide, pervasive in Texas. Erica had seen the pickup, with its distinctive rear fenders covering pairs of wheels on each side, only a few times before coming to the state. Now it seemed like she saw them everywhere.
The cargo bed liner was empty, but the dings and scratches in the paint testified to hard use in the construction business. A large toolbox straddled the bed directly behind the cab, which was extra long and probably had jump seats to carry two extra people on short trips.
When she walked toward the dualie, she could overhear a heated conversation through the open driver’s side window. She began to make out Murray’s gruff voice clearly as she got closer.
“No, goddammit, you tell him that if he doesn’t have the concrete on site by 8:00 tomorrow morning, I’ll have to go with another supplier. This is Dorman’s last chance. I’ve had it up to my ears with that guy.”
Just then he caught Erica in his peripheral vision and waved for her to approach the truck. Papers were strewn across the front seat, and a Palm Pilot was on his lap.
“You got that, Charlie? No excuses. Listen, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Mr. Hamilton?” Erica said.
“Please, call me Murray,” he said, stepping out of the cab.
“Murray,” she said, looking in Kevin’s direction. He was behind her about twenty feet, studying the traffic going by, obviously trying to ignore her and his father. She lowered her voice slightly. “We really need the ride. It’s very important that we get to a place on the North side of Dallas called LuminOptics by 7:00. With the weather looking the way it is”-she looked up at the darkening sky-”I’m not sure we can make it anyway.”
“We can make it,” Murray said confidently, even though Erica hadn’t told him where LuminOptics was.
She stole another glance at Kevin. “I’ve convinced Kevin to let you help us, but he probably isn’t going to be very talkative.”
Murray considered it for a moment, then said, “I guess there’s not much I can do about that. He’s probably not going to listen to me either, so you’d better tell him to get in. I’ll just clean the seat off for y’all.”
As he stowed the cellular phone and portable computer under the seat, Erica walked back to Kevin.
“He said he’ll take us there.
“Happy happy, joy joy,” Kevin said with no trace of humor.
“It’ll take an hour to get there. I think you can handle it.”
“All right, but he can leave as soon as we’re there. We’ll call a cab and find another motel until we can get your car.”
“Don’t you think it might be better if we stay at his…”
“No.”
There didn’t seem to be a point in arguing, so Erica walked around the Chevy and climbed in, knowing that Kevin would want to sit as far away from Murray as possible. She had figured that the truck would reek of smoke, but the cab smelled surprisingly fresh, with just a hint of masculine sweat.
Murray began to pull a map from the door pocket. “So let’s see where we’re going.”
“You don’t need that,” Kevin said. “I know where it is.”
“I see you haven’t lost your sense of direction,” Murray said. Murray was referring to Kevin’s ability to look at a map once and never refer to it again, even on long trips, a gift of photographic memory that Erica envied.
“But,” Murray continued, “do you know the best way to get there in rush hour traffic? You haven’t driven in Dallas for years.”
“Fine,” Kevin said. “It’s just off I-635 at Abrams Rd. Taking I-45 to highway 75 should be the quickest way, but you probably know better.”
