Nobody Runs Forever

“I went home last night,” he said, “check on things. My signal was on that wasn’t supposed to be on. The person we had the missus send the fax to.”

Parker said, “She sent another fax.”

“To my intermediary contact,” Dalesia said, “who didn’t like that. And neither do I. I told the missus, at the beginning, lose that number.”

“They never do,” Parker said.

McWhitney paused with a lot of pancake halfway to his mouth to say, “You always have to go back and take it away from them.”

“That’s what we’re gonna do,” Dalesia said. He sounded grim.

Parker said, “She wants another meet.”

“Noon today, same place. Just one of us, she says.”

“Me,” Parker said.

Dalesia frowned at him. “Why you? It’s my message system.”

“She’s got you upset. I can stay calm and still get the number out of her.”

Dalesia wasn’t sure he liked that. “Or?”

Parker shrugged. “Or it turns out, she was afraid the cops were getting too close, coming in on her for shooting Jake, she didn’t see how she could go on.”

McWhitney said, doubtful, “She offs herself?”

“Only if she’s that stupid,” Parker said.

“With me she’d be that stupid,” Dalesia said. “Okay, Parker, you do it. Nels and me, we’ll get some bottled water, candy, shit like that, stash it in the church.”

At noon, Parker stood by his Lexus in the rest area parking lot as before, and here came the white Infiniti down the lane. He held up a hand to stop her, walked around the hood, and slid in on the passenger side.

Frowning at him, she said, “Aren’t we going in the restaurant?”

“You don’t want coffee. You bring that fax number with you?”

“Of course not, why would I do that?”

“Because my partner told you to get rid of it and you didn’t. So now you will. No copies, nothing.”

“I don’t see why it’s such a big deal,” she said. She hadn’t started driving yet, since Parker had climbed in.

“You don’t have to see,” he told her, and nodded at the windshield. “Drive on, don’t be conspicuous.”

“This isn’t the way it was supposed to be,” she said, but she put the Infiniti in gear and drove it through the parking area, a moving advertisement for milk.

“We can do it one of two ways,” Parker told her. “We can drive to your place, you go in and get the number, and any copies you made, and bring it out and give it to me. Or you can take me back to my car and I’ll go to your house myself and search a little.”

“Oh, my God, no.” The threat seemed to raise a host of horrible visions in her mind. “All right,” she said. “We’ll go there, I’ll get the number.”

“Along the way,” he said, “you can tell me what this meeting’s about.”

She frowned, not speaking, and steered them out of the rest area and eastward on the MassPike. Up to eighty, along with everybody else, she said, “The policewoman knows I did it.”

“You’re out walking around,” he said.

“She can’t prove I did it, but she knows I did it. She doesn’t know why. Jake’s tried to convince her it was because he wouldn’t come back to me, and that I wasn’t really trying to kill him, I was just trying to make him pay attention to me, but she isn’t sure she buys it. She isn’t dumb.”

“That’s too bad,” Parker said.

Elaine Langen gave him a quick sidelong glance. “Because I am?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “As soon as there’s a robbery, she’ll know Jake was lying, she’ll know we’re both involved.”

“As you say,” Parker said, “she can’t prove it.”

“Maybe she can.” Elaine Langen was very upset. “She’ll know it, and she’ll poke and pry, she’ll look for inconsistencies, she’ll question me and question me, and I don’t know if—”

“Don’t say that,” Parker said.

She looked at him, not understanding. “Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say you’ll cave in and tell this woman everything you know,” Parker told her. “Don’t say that to me, don’t say it to my partner, don’t even say it to Jake.”

“But I don’t—”

“Whichever one of us you say it to,” Parker interrupted, “will kill you.”

She swerved, the car jolting as she stared at him.

“Stay in your lane. You don’t want to attract a trooper.”

“No, I—” She controlled the car, but not herself. Leaning forward over the wheel, staring wide-eyed and