first thing she and Kevin had done after leaving the hospital was to head for a self-service car wash and spray the blood out of the interior with a high pressure hose. Even though they had vacuumed up most of the water, and after 18 hours of drying, the seats were still squishy.
Since the car wash, they had been driving toward Ted Ishio’s house in Blacksburg, Virginia, stopping only to gas up the thirsty Chevy pickup. Most of the drive had been spent with one of them driving while the other slept. It was Erica’s turn at the wheel now, and Kevin dozed, his head against a pillow they had bought for the trip. Meals consisted of fast food sandwiches, fries, and soft drinks dispensed from drive-through windows. Erica grew tired of the greasy fare, but like Kevin, she wanted to put as much mileage between them and Texas as they could. The prospect of getting a more balanced meal at Ted and Janice Ishio’s home almost made her drool.
As they crossed the border from Tennessee into Virginia, a sign on I-81 indicated only 105 miles to Roanoke. Kevin had told her earlier that Blacksburg was about 45 minutes southwest of Roanoke. Out of their 16 hour trip, they had about an hour and half to go.
Erica looked at the fuel gauge. The 30-gallon tank was still half full; she’d be able to drive the rest of the way there easily.
She didn’t want to disturb Kevin, who had been unusually silent during the parts of the trip when they’d both been awake. His silence was beginning to worry her because she didn’t know how to gauge his reaction to his father’s death. She had spent more time with him in the last four days than anyone else since her ex, and in that time they had become quite close. Even when they had been hiding out on Sunday, they had laughed a lot, telling jokes to pass the time. Now he was withdrawn, retreating from her contact.
Which made her wonder about something else. Why he hadn’t tried to make a pass at her during one of the motel stays? Lord knows, she’d given him enough opportunity. Maybe she was being too subtle, although in med school she had never been accused of that. She finally decided that he really was just being a gentleman, and that if the situation arose again, she’d have to make her intentions clear.
A semi came up fast behind them, moving into the passing lane. The minivan in front of it wouldn’t yield, and the truck blasted its air horn. Kevin jerked. In one fluid motion, he opened the glove compartment with his left hand and plucked the pistol from its interior with his right. He looked around wild-eyed, ready to shoot.
“What the hell?” he said.
“It’s okay! It’s just a truck. Put that away before you shoot me by mistake.”
He calmed almost immediately, sitting back in his seat. “I was dreaming about Barnett and his friend. They began shooting at us. I had the pistol in my hand, but I couldn’t raise it fast enough to shoot back. It just moved inch by inch. It was taking forever. I was so…frustrated. I didn’t know what else to do. All I could do was look at my damn hand not responding.”
She patted his knee, not knowing what to say.
“I want you to learn how to use this,” Kevin said.
Erica was taken aback. “I couldn’t…”
“Yes, you can. It’s easy. You slide the chamber back like this.” He demonstrated the maneuver, popping a bullet out onto the seat next to him. “There's no safety, so all you have to do is pull the trigger.”
“Will you be careful with that,” Erica said, realizing the gun was now ready to fire. “Just put it away.”
Kevin pushed a button with his thumb and the ammunition clip dropped into his lap. It was the full spare his father had kept in the glove compartment. After removing the round from the chamber and reloading the clip with the two ejected bullets, he inserted the clip into the pistol grip, and put the Glock back in the glove compartment.
“We’ll do it tomorrow,” he said.
“No. I don’t care if I never hold a gun. I’ve seen what they do every day for the past three months in the ER. If you want to keep it for protection, fine. But I’m not touching it.”
“Fine.” He rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”
“We just crossed the Virginia border. How do you feel?”
“Like my neck has been in a vise. Have you got any aspirin?”
“I think so. In my purse.”
Kevin rummaged around until he found a small bottle of Tylenol. “Close enough,” he said and washed down two tablets with the melted ice from a McDonald’s cup.
“I meant emotionally, how do you feel?”
Kevin said nothing, prompting Erica to wonder if she had done the right thing by prodding him. She was surprised when he finally spoke.
“I feel a lot different than when my mother died. My mother was great. She’s the one who always encouraged me to keep up with school, even when I was depressed about being different than some of the more popular kids. I remember one time when I came home crying because Barney Williams and his buddies beat me up for being a teacher’s pet. She told me that being smart was nothing to be ashamed of, that it was the other kids who should be ashamed for not trying their hardest to do well.
“I remember that because my father was in the room and the next thing he said was ‘Nick, if you don’t stand up for yourself like a real man, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. You’re still a wimp, and wimps don’t get any respect.’ I guess in his own macho way he was just trying to make me stronger, but it made me feel like a loser at the time. The only time I really liked him was when we went hunting together by ourselves. Around my mom or his friends, he always had to act tough, but when we were alone, he was actually kind of a funny guy.” Kevin paused. “If we had only left the LuminOptics parking lot instead of going back for the laser, I might have found out how much he’d really changed. Maybe I should have told him to keep driving instead of turning around.”
“You’re not blaming yourself for that, are you?”
“Maybe I am a little. There’s no reason to, but it’s hard not feel that way. I know we needed the laser, and looking back on it I probably would have done the same thing. It’s just hard to make yourself really believe that. You probably think I’m heartless.”
“For what?”
“For not crying or grieving like a son should.”
“It sounds to me like you are.”
Kevin didn’t answer, instead going silent again. Erica thought she should keep up the conversation, so she brought up something they hadn’t discussed yet.
“What are we going to do with the diamond when it’s finished?” she asked.
“The one we’re going to make at Virginia Tech? I suppose we’ll give it to the authorities.”
“Which authorities? You mean the police? We haven’t had much luck with them so far.”
“You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it. We need someone who will believe us and give us protection. And I don’t think the police are going to believe two poor twentysomethings with a big diamond. They’ll probably lock us up for theft and then try to find out where we got it. Hell, we still don’t even know who’s after us.”
Erica had an idea. “What about the Washington Post? This story is so strange, they might believe it.”
“And by the time the full story comes out, we’ll be dead. They’ll start checking facts and the next thing you know, Barnett and his buddy will be all over us. No, we need someone powerful, someone who has the ability to protect us, and we need the evidence confirmed at the same time.” Suddenly, Kevin’s face lit up brighter than it had been in days. “I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“The Washington Post.”
“You just said that was a bad idea.”
“Right, but we are going to be close to Washington.”
“So?”
“Do you know who Frederick Sutter is?”
“The name’s familiar.”
“You still vote in Kansas, don’t you?”
Erica nodded, completely missing what he was getting at.
“Frederick Sutter is the new congressman for the Fourth District in Texas. I met him at an STU awards banquet about five months ago. Apparently, he’s on the Board of Trustees for the university. I sat next to him and we had a nice conversation. He told me to visit him if I was ever in Washington.”
“You want to tell this story to a congressman?”
