Nate grimaced and closed his eyes for a moment. “You don’t need to remind me,” he said, thinking of Joe and Marybeth. Hoping they’d see and understand his message to them to get away fast. Hoping they were in the process of packing bags that very minute. Wondering if he shouldn’t step out from his self-imposed communications blackout and make an unsecured phone call to emphasize his concern.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That came out wrong. I didn’t mean…”
He grunted again and waved her words away with his hand.
She said, “I meant you might as well tell me, because the bad guys will think you did, anyway, and they’ll try to kill me, too.”
He looked over at her as if seeing her for the first time. God, she was lovely. She didn’t deserve to know him, he thought. She didn’t deserve to get hurt.
He said, “If I do-”
She cut him off. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. So you might as well. Lord knows, we seem to have the time.” He liked the way she pronounced time as “tahm.”
After pausing for a minute, he said, “It’s very close to me right now. Telling Oscar opened it all up like it was yesterday. All these years, I’ve struggled to keep it somewhere in the back of my brain, in the reptile part. But I spent too many years alone, with too much time to fight it back constantly. So at times, it crawled over the wall and haunted me, and after I’d chased it back I’d sit around for days and consider all the implications. In a strange way, I think Nemecek has the same problem. I dealt with it by staying out of the world and doing what good I could do. Trying to make up for what I did in a very small way, although I know it isn’t possible. I kind of adopted this family named the Picketts, and I swore I’d protect them. I have, up until now. But I’m afraid of what could happen to them. Their only crime is trusting me.”
She shook her head sadly, and asked, “How does Nemecek deal with it?”
“By making me go away,” Nate said. “And everybody who knows or might know. That’s one of the tragedies about what happened to Cohen and the rest back in Idaho. They didn’t know, but he thought they might.”
She said, “Could you go to someone? Maybe someone in the government who would be sympathetic? Or maybe a reporter?”
“No,” Nate said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought over the years, but I don’t know who I can trust. Something has happened to make Nemecek double down, to want to take care of his problem: me. Until I know what caused him to come out from under his rock, I don’t know who I can trust.”
“You can trust me,” she said.
“Can I?”
“Your arrogance is off-putting,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice. “You ask that question but you assume I should trust you with my life. Maybe you’ve spent too much damn time alone.”
He turned to her, amazed. “Maybe I have.”
Then he noted movement in his peripheral vision and sat up straight.
“What?” she asked.
Through the wet-streaked windshield undulating with moisture, he could see two men emerge from the side entrance of the Wort. Even without seeing their features clearly, he could tell by their bearing and presence they were heading for the Tahoe. They were both tall and without paunches, and they moved with an athletic grace not entirely affected by alcohol. One wore a battered straw cowboy hat and the other a ubiquitous billed trucker cap, as if they’d gone to a western store and said, “I want to look like a local yokel.” Cowboy Hat loped down the wood sidewalk and extended his hand toward the car. At that moment, the interior lights of the SUV came on as he keyed a remote.
“Buckle up,” he said.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “We’re gonna do this, aren’t we?”
Nate reached over and grasped her hand. “Last chance to get out. This could get ugly.”
“Like I haven’t seen ugly,” she said.
20
Nate sat still in the running Jeep in the alleyway while the Tahoe backed out onto Glenwood. When he realized the SUV would be coming in his direction, he slipped the gearshift into reverse and backed as fast as he could without losing control and clipping the outside walls of the brick buildings on both sides. At the far end of the alley, he stopped.
“Get down,” he said urgently, as the Tahoe swung into the street and its headlights flashed on.
She hesitated for a half second until he reached over toward her, then obeyed. Their heads touched each other in the space between the two seats, and a wash of light from the headlamps of the Tahoe flashed through the cab.
He waited for a beat and said, “Okay.”
When he looked up, the Tahoe was gone.
He kept his lights off as he backed the rest of the way down the alley, and when his tires hit the pavement of the next cross-street he cranked on the wheel so they were pointed left.
Assuming the Tahoe driven by Cowboy Hat was going north on Cache Street, he turned right onto Millward, which ran parallel to Cache through a residential neighborhood. As he crossed Gill Avenue, Nate gestured up the empty street to Haley, who looked out her passenger window.
“We should see them now,” he said.
And they did. The white Tahoe cruised through the intersection headed north and disappeared from view.
Nate gunned his Jeep, keeping up with the Tahoe a block to his right. He turned right again on Mercill and paused until the Tahoe crossed their path and continued north.
He gave it a count of fifteen before nosing the Jeep up Mercill to turn left and give chase.
She said, “Nate-your lights?”
Thinking he didn’t realize they were off.
“Haley,” he hissed, “the thing about talking.”
She blew out an angry stream of air.
“But if the cops see us without our lights on…”
“There are no cops,” he said impatiently. “They’re all over the pass in Idaho, helping out the sheriff over there with a murder. That’s how these small towns work.”
“Oh. Clever on your part.”
“Now, please, no more fucking help or advice.”
She reached up and drew her closed fingers over her mouth in a zipping motion.
Nate and Haley retraced their earlier route toward the airport, although this time there was a single pair of distant taillights a half mile ahead of them on the road. Nate still drove with his lights out, faster than he should.
The heavy snowfall blanked out the stars and moon and made the night landscape two-tone: black above and dark purple below. He used the faint double set of tire tracks ahead to follow, as well as the distant taillights. He could see nothing in between.
“Watch for wildlife on the road,” Nate said to Haley. “Warn me if you see anything.”
The route from Jackson toward Grand Teton National Park was famous for grazing bison and elk alongside the two-lane highway.
“Okay,” she said, tentative. He knew she was frightened. He didn’t blame her. He gently pressed harder on the accelerator, beginning a long process of closing the gap between the Tahoe and the Jeep in the dark.
Jackson Hole airport was on their left. It was low-slung and obscured by the darkness and the storm, but several red warning lights shone through the snowfall. After they passed it, the darkness descended on them further. There were no houses and no lights. They were officially in Grand Teton National Park, headed north.
