She looked at him in silence for a moment. Then she began to cry.
“Hey,” Esteban said. “Hey, hey. This is for us, baby. You spend a couple fucking days with the old man, and we’re outta there with the money.”
Amber stood and ran. Esteban went after her, out along Marshport Way along the water. A hundred yards up from the marina was a red light. A half-painted, half-primed pickup truck that might once have been blue was stopped at the light. The back was full of loose copper pipe. Amber reached it as the light turned green and as the car started to move Amber stepped up onto the running board and hooked her arm through the window.
A big guy in a black tank top and a do-rag sat in the passenger seat. He had a thick gold chain around his neck.
“What the fuck are you doing,” he said.
“Somebody’s after me,” she said. “Keep going.”
The driver was a wiry kid with longish blond hair, tattoos on both forearms, and the scruffy beginnings of a beard.
“Keep going, hell,” he said. “Whyn’t we stop and clean his clock?”
“No, please, keep going,” Amber said.
The driver looked in the rearview mirror.
“Hell,” he said. “He’s given up anyway. Lemme stop and you can get in.”
She rode in the front seat between them, still crying.
“What’s going on?” the big guy asked.
“I can’t tell you,” Amber said.
The big guy shrugged.
“Where you want to go?” the big guy said. “Want us to take you to the cops?”
“No,” she said. “I…I want to go to Paradise.”
“You want to take her to Paradise?” the big guy said to the driver.
“Sure,” the driver said. “Better than running copper pipe all day.”
40.
Crow came into the Paradise police station with Amber.
“Where the hell did you get her?” Molly said.
“She called me,” Crow said. “From the shopping center.”
“Paradise Mall?” Molly said.
Crow nodded.
“How’d she have your number?” Molly said.
“I gave it to her,” Crow said. “When you cut her loose.”
Molly looked at him for a moment and shook her head, and then looked at Amber.
Amber’s eye makeup was ruined again by crying. She wore lace-up black boots, and black jeans that had been cut off very short, and a tank top with some kind of heavy-metal
