the plane, though, there were still only a few, as if the spectators sensed that the show might not be quite over. At least the little girl was okay. Cheryl had seen the doctor carry her up onto the road.
She needed to get moving, if she wanted to stay out of jail. Her best bet was probably to go down to the northbound lanes and hitch a ride with some horny salesman. She probably looked rough after the crash, but the truth was, men didn’t care. Not when you were twenty-six and had a body tailor-made for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.
Cheryl was standing up when when she saw Joey rise from behind a parked car and walk toward the knot of people that had gathered around Dr. Jennings and his little girl.
Will was stunned by the reaction of the people on the shoulder. They all talked at once, and he could only catch fragments of their conversations. A couple of guys slapped him on the back, but another yelled, “Where’s the stupid son of a bitch who was flying that plane? Somebody needs to arrest his ass!”
Will just held Abby tight and asked someone-anyone-to call the state police and the FBI. Three men detached themselves from the crowd and trotted back toward the line of cars, presumably to use their cell phones.
“Daddy, your plane,” said Abby, pointing at the mangled wreck.
Will heard himself laugh. “That old girl did what I needed her to do. That’s all that matters.”
“Look at my bear, Daddy. Huey made it.”
Abby held out an intricately carved figure of a bear holding a little girl. Will was no art expert, but he was an experienced collector, and there was something in the little figure that moved him deeply.
“Everybody back!” screamed a male voice.
Will thought it was a cop until the men around him began to scatter, half of them sliding down the shoulder behind him, the other half running back to their cars. Among the running bodies, his eyes picked out a man standing still as a pole, thirty feet away. He had dark hair and black eyes, and one of his pant legs was soaked with blood from groin to ankle. As Will watched, he raised his arm. A revolver gleamed blue-black in the sun.
Hickey.
There was nowhere to run. He and Abby were caught between the burning plane and the steep shoulder. If he made a dash down the hill with Abby in his arms, Hickey could simply take a few steps and shoot them as they tried to reach the trees.
“Who’s that man, Daddy?”
“Shh, punkin.” Will had thought he might remember Hickey from the time of his mother’s operation, but the man’s face was a cipher. It was hard to comprehend, facing a total stranger who hated you enough to kill you and your children.
“Where’s my money, Doc?” Hickey asked, his eyes smoldering like coals.
Will pointed at the burning plane. “In there.”
“You’d better be lying.”
“I’m too tired to lie.”
“Where’s Cheryl?”
“I don’t know.” He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t lie a little. He wasn’t going to tell Hickey that his wife had burned up in the plane with the ransom money.
Keeping his gun trained on Will and Abby, Hickey backed to the edge of the shoulder and looked down.
“That’s the way, Huey!” he shouted. “Come on, boy! You can do it!”
Will looked around for signs of help, but he saw none.
“You know what happens now?” Hickey asked, focusing on Will and Abby again.
“What?”
“This.”
He fired, and Will felt his right leg buckle. He almost collapsed, but he managed to keep his feet long enough to set Abby down and move in front of her. She was screaming in terror. He considered telling her to run for it, but he doubted she would, and any such move might cause Hickey to shoot again. He felt her clutching his pants from behind.
“Shot by your own gun,” Hickey said. “How does it feel?”
Will looked down. The bullet had caught him in the meat of the thigh, but on the lateral side, away from the femoral artery.
Hickey yelled back over his shoulder: “Come on, Buckethead! Train’s leaving! Show me you’re not a wheelie-boy!”
“Get out of here while you can, Joe,” Will said.
Hickey laughed darkly. “Oh, I’ll be gettin’ on soon. But you and me got an account to settle. And that little girl behind you is the legal tender.”
He took a step closer, then another. Will was about to snatch Abby up and try to run for it when a female voice stopped Hickey in his tracks.
“I got the money, Joey!”
Cheryl was standing on the far side of the road, by the median. The smile on her face was as forced as an Avon lady’s on a poor street, but she was making an effort. “Let’s get out of here, Joey. Come on!”
“Well, well,” Hickey said. “The prodigal slut.” He shook his head. “Gotta finish what you start, babe.”
Her smile cracked, then vanished. “There’s no reason to hurt that little girl, Joey. Not anymore.”
“You know there is.”
“Killing her won’t bring your mama back.”
His eyes blazed. “He’ll feel some of what I’ve felt!” Hickey lowered his aim to Will’s legs, which hardly shielded Abby at all.
“Joey, don’t!” Cheryl opened the ransom briefcase, took out her Walther, and aimed it at Hickey’s chest. “It wasn’t even his fault! Let’s go to Costa Rica. Your ranch is waiting!”
Hickey looked at Will and laughed bitterly. “Turned her against me, didn’t you? Well… she always was a stupid cow.”
He turned casually toward Cheryl and fired, blowing her back onto the median and spilling hundred-dollar bills across the grass. Then his gun was on Will again, his aim dancing from head to chest to legs. As he played his little game, a strange beating sound echoed over the slab of the interstate. Will recognized it first: the whup- whup-whup of rotor blades. Hickey soon understood its meaning, but instead of bolting, he took two steps closer to Will.
“What do I want with a ranch in Costa Rica? I can’t stand spics anyhow. This is what I came for. What goes around comes around, Doc.”
Will felt a hard tug on his pants. “Daddy, look.”
As Hickey steadied his aim, Will threw himself on top of Abby. Then, just as Cheryl had done before the crash, he turned and looked death full in the face.
He expected a muzzle flash, but what he saw was a bloody forearm the size of a ham slip around Hickey’s neck and lift him bodily into the air.
“You can’t hurt Abby, Joey,” Huey said. “You can hurt Huey, but you can’t hurt Abby. She’s my Belle.”
Hickey’s eyes bulged with surprise. He tried to bring his pistol far enough back to shoot his cousin, but the first shot didn’t come close. The bloody forearm just lifted him higher, closing off his windpipe like a clamp. Hickey’s legs kicked like a badly hanged man’s, and his gun barked harmlessly into the sky. He somehow managed to choke out four words, but they were poorly chosen.
“You-god-damn-retard-”
Will watched in fascination as Huey choked the life out of his cousin, his face as placid as that of a mountain gorilla at rest. Hickey’s last bullet tore off part of Huey’s ear, but then the gun clicked empty. By the time the sharp snap of cervical vertebra reverberated across the road, Hickey’s face was blue-black.
His limbs went limp as rags, and his gun clattered onto the concrete. After a few seconds, Huey set him gently on the side of the road, sat beside him, and began to pet his head. Then he shook him gently, as if he might suddenly wake up.
“Joey? Joey?”
The beating of the helicopter was much louder. Will rolled off Abby and unbuckled his belt, wrapped it around his wounded thigh, and tied it off.
