there was some kind of cover-up linked to the money.”
His father stared straight ahead. In the distance he saw a fading dust curtain.
“We’re gaining on him. Push it harder. She’ll take it.”
“Damn it, Dad! What really happened that day?”
“Quinn’s a smart-ass punk who doesn’t know shit!”
“Did a cop kill that boy? Did Vern? Was there some sort of cover-up? Does Sperbeck know the truth?”
“Christ, look at my fucking life! Look at what happened to me, Jason!”
They both caught the chrome glint of a rear bumper half-concealed like a phantom in the dust ahead. The vehicle was dark blue.
“Hang on!”
Jason accelerated, the Ford roared along the narrow route, bobbing on its sudden hills and valleys, sunlight flashing through the thick woods, branches slapping the body as stones boiled against its undercarriage. Jason’s ears pounded with each curve as they gained on the car.
“It’s him!” his old man said. “It’s a Chrylser Concorde.”
They saw Sperbeck behind the wheel, then Jason’s skin prickled when a small head surfaced from the backseat. They were suddenly looking into the frightened face of Brady Boland.
Henry Wade sucked in a deep breath before sliding a full magazine into his Glock.
“Jesus!” Jason said.
In the Concorde, Sperbeck shook his head and continued ranting about his twenty-five hard years of regret.
“-Hey pup, your old man was a first-class fool to bring his girlfriend in on the job. She was never right for it. I told him, but he wouldn’t listen. She fucked us good. It was not supposed to happen the way it did. Then the bitch wants me to ‘see the light’ after she tries to buy her way to heaven with my fucking money! Bitch. I sent her to hell where she belongs.”
Sperbeck snorted and spit out the window.
“You better hope your mom’s smarter than that dead bitch cause I got a special place picked out for you. Your mom ain’t ever going to see you again if she doesn’t find where your daddy hid my money!”
Sperbeck turned his head to glance at Brady and met a ghost.
Henry Wade glared at him from two car lengths back-pointing at him to pull over.
“What the-! Goddamnit!” Sperbeck slammed his fists against the steering wheel. “God-fucking-damnit!”
Sperbeck smashed his foot on the gas pedal and the Chrylser rocketed ahead. The pickup was in better shape and stayed close, ahead of the dust the car was kicking up. The Concorde grabbed air over the next rise, coming down hard and heavy, scraping the oil pan, sliding and grinding on loose gravel.
“Shit!”
A bang sounded under the hood as the fan belt snapped. The steering wheel shuffled through Sperbeck’s hands and he struggled in vain for control before the Concorde slid down an embankment, rolling over small trees in a storm of stones, dust, and crumpling metal.
It came to rest on its side against a stand of cedar and pine.
Brady had a small cut on his head but was okay, cushioned by the sleeping bags and clutter in the back. Crawling out of the wreck, he saw a pair of shoes, then Sperbeck seized his arm, hoisted him to his feet, pulling him as they ran, crashing against branches and trees.
“Come on!”
Brady glanced behind them at the two figures gaining on them, then back at Sperbeck, who yanked on his arm. Brady saw the gun in his hand and struggled. They splashed across a creek, the cold water reaching up to Brady’s thighs.
They scrambled up the meadow, up a hill toward a clearing.
Brady’s legs ached. His ears roared from the blood rush.
The men were getting closer.
Cresting a hill, they’d come to a cliff and a dead drop of some two hundred feet. Sperbeck turned. The men were thirty yards away.
Sperbeck had nowhere to go.
He pulled Brady closer to him, edging back to within ten feet of the cliff.
The men were twenty yards away and separating. One going left. One going right.
Sperbeck used Brady as a shield and placed his gun to the boy’s head.
“You’re going to give me your keys and let me walk out of here.”
Henry Wade leveled his Glock at Sperbeck.
“It’s over, Leon. Put your gun down and release the boy.”
“I’m taking this pup to hell with me to meet his old man and his girlfriend!”
They could hear the distant thud of a helicopter.
“It’s over.”
“It’s not over! The bitch nun stole from me! She knew this pup’s father was holding the rest of my money. I FUCKING WANT IT! I paid for it with twenty-five years of my life!”
“We all paid!” Henry inched closer, lifted his safety, his gun never wavering from Sperbeck’s head. “We all paid for what happened that day!”
Henry met Brady’s eyes, wild with fear, his heart thumping in time with the distant chopper. Brady struggled against Sperbeck, only to feel his hold tighten into a crushing death grip, forcing Brady to freeze in order to breathe.
“Leon, let him go! Don’t make the same mistake again!”
“I’m not going back to prison! I’m not going back into my coffin!”
Jason rolled two rocks at Sperbeck’s gun side, distracting him as Brady suddenly squirmed free, scrambled two, three, five, seven steps. Henry Wade, in the stance, waved him to the ground, Brady dove, hitting the ground hard.
Two shots split the air.
Sperbeck spun, stumbled back, collapsed at the cliff, slid over completely. He screamed as he stopped himself at the final moment with one hand gripping a sharp edge of rock as his gun tumbled two hundred feet to the bottom.
The rock was cutting into him, blood webbed down his arm.
“Help me!”
A shadow blocked the sun above him.
“Who shot the boy that day, Leon?”
“Please.”
“Who shot the boy?”
“You-”
“I want the truth.”
“You, you missed. It was me.”
“I want the truth!”
“It’s true! They were going to execute me!”
“Jay, help me get him up!”
Henry Wade got on his knees, gripped Sperbeck’s arm, and reached for his shoulder. Suddenly, Sperbeck looked into the sun.
“No, I can’t go back! I can’t! Let me go!”
With his free hand Sperbeck pulled out his knife and slashed at their hands. They fended him off, while struggling to pull him up, but he drove his feet against the rock. Their grip grew slippery as blood gushed from their wounds.
“Let me go!”
Sperbeck continued stabbing at them until he broke free.
As he fell he extended his arms, plummeting fifty, seventy, one hundred feet before his body dropped into the yawning mouth of a jagged open crack. As he plunged deeper into its narrowing darkness, sharp rock walls peeled off his clothes and skin, transforming him into a lifeless, bleeding mass entombed in granite.
