“Not yet,” Travis scolded. “He hasn’t lit his cigarette. Uncle Harry said to wait for the cigarette.”
Jake pulled his jacket out of their hands. “Oh, for crying out loud. It’s him! How many white cars do you think are scheduled to show up at this spot precisely at midnight? Jesus!”
“But Harry’s instructions were exact!” Carolyn protested. “He said to wait until…”
Jake was done listening. He was tired, and he was wet. For the last thirty-six hours, he’d done nothing but follow Carolyn’s orders. Do this. Do that. Stop here. Don’t stop here. He was sick of it! Soon, he’d have Mr. Congeniality, Harry Sinclair, to deal with, too.
He hefted the two money bags and started for the car.
Fighting the urge to duck and dash around shadows, he opted to stroll out of the woods as normally as possible for the benefit of anyone who might be watching. Halfway there, he turned and beckoned for his family to join him, amazed at how thoroughly the shadows obliterated their images. He motioned, yet they didn’t move.
“Come on!” he whisper-shouted. “Let’s get this over with!” He waved at them one more time and they finally emerged from their camouflage, looking anxiously over both shoulders as they scurried to join him.
“Relax, Carolyn. You look like you just robbed a bank.”
“I feel like I just robbed a bank.” She sounded close to tears. “I don’t like this. Harry said…”
Carolyn fell silent, and they stopped dead in their tracks as the Cadillac pulled smoothly away from the narrow shoulder.
“What the hell is he doing?” Jake gasped. He fought the urge to call after him.
Then they saw it. First, as a wash of headlights, then as a blue and white Ford with a light bar. West Virginia State Police.
“Oh, shit!” Jake hissed. “It’s a setup.”
“No!” Carolyn insisted. “Not from Harry.”
“What are we gonna do?” Travis whined.
They were completely out in the open, too far from the tree line to make it back without being seen. Whatever they were going to do, they had to get it done in the next five seconds, or this would all be over. “The ditch!” Jake declared, pointing.
Moving as one, they dashed the three steps to the drainage ditch that ran parallel to the road, and dove in, sliding face-first in the gooey runoff and road trash.
Jake thought his chest might explode as he lay there, his eyes closed tight against the fear, listening as the cruiser drove past. If the cop spotted them, they were done. Even his gun was useless. He couldn’t get to it in time for it to do any good.
No one moved, even after the sound of the engine disappeared. A good minute passed before Travis broke the silence. “Is he gone?”
Jake sneaked his head above the ditch and slipped his hand to the grip of his pistol. Nothing but empty road, twisting out of sight in both directions. “Clear,” he announced at a whisper. “Back to the trees!”
Jake grabbed Carolyn’s hand, and she grabbed Travis’s as they scurried back to the shadows and collapsed into the bushes.
“Oh, my God,” Carolyn breathed. “I told you to wait!” She hit Jake in the chest, hard enough to hurt.
He said nothing. When you’re right, you’re right.
“Do you think he saw us?” Travis whined.
“No,” Carolyn said unequivocally.
Jake wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know. Even if he saw us, he might not have stopped. We’re armed and dangerous, remember?”
No one was sure what to do next. Their ride was gone, the police were cruising the area, and they were stuck in the middle of nowhere at midnight, without transportation. Five minutes passed.
“Do you think he’s coming back?” Jake asked.
“Who, the cop or our ride?”
Jake shrugged. “Pick one.”
Again, Travis answered for his mom. “I’m guessing: ride, yes; cop, not for a while.”
Jake rumpled his hair, drawing an annoyed look. “I like the way you think.” Two more minutes passed. Then three. Then five. “This isn’t good,” Jake whispered.
When Carolyn and Travis both missed their cue to argue, Jake’s spirits slipped even further. Suddenly, capture seemed imminent. And what exactly would capture mean? Certain jail time, he figured, for decades, at least, if not life-or maybe even death. For the first time in years, Jake’s mind recalled a tour he’d taken of a police station back when he was a Cub Scout-maybe ten years old. The best part of the tour had been the weapons locker, with all the rifles, pistols, and shotguns lined up like soldiers at attention; but the tour also included a peek at the detention cells, with their peeling paint and their metal beds and their toilets without any privacy. Even after all these years, Jake could clearly remember the tour guide reciting the dimensions of those steel-and-concrete boxes: six-by-eight. He didn’t even know what the numbers meant back then, but he knew that it meant small. And he hated small.
You could suffocate in a cage that small.
In fact, of the entire Cub Scout den, he alone refused to cross the threshold to “try the cell on for size,” as the cop had said. He knew how much other kids liked to fool around, and he remembered feeling terrified that one of them might think it would be funny to close the door on him. Even if they’d been able to find a key, there’d have been those minutes-however few-when he would have been locked alone in a tiny room, with everyone watching him and laughing at him as he sobbed and begged for them to let him out.
But it never happened that way. He’d said, “No thank you,” to the police officer, and the police officer had respected his wishes. Still, the fear he’d experienced back then felt very, very real, even today, nearly thirty years later.
Neither surrender nor capture was a viable option.
“How long do you think we should wait?” Travis asked.
“Till next Thursday, if we have to,” Jake said.
The Cadillac returned. “There he is,” Carolyn said excitedly.
The mammoth white car returned to its spot in the road and parked. “This time we stay put until he gives the signal,” Travis ordered. God, he was getting bossy.
Nothing happened for thirty seconds, and then the interior light came on. Right away, Jake recognized the driver as good old Thorne-the man without a sense of humor. Even after fourteen years, he hadn’t changed a bit.
While the Donovans watched, the broad-shouldered man pulled himself out of the driver’s seat and closed the door behind him. There was movement, but they couldn’t tell in the dark what he was doing until a lighter flared in front of his leathery face.
“Now?” Jake prompted.
“C’mon.”
They approached the car slowly but not stealthily, walking like regular people down a regular road in the middle of a regular night. “Remember,” Travis whispered. “Don’t startle him.”
Jake smiled. “God, Trav, if he can’t see us by now, I don’t want to be riding with him in a car.”
“Just remember, is all.”
“I’ll try.”
No one said anything until they’d approached within five feet of the driver, who, on closer inspection, had only one eyebrow, which stretched from ear to ear. He made no moves as they approached, but there was something about the way he smoked the cigarette that didn’t look right. Then Jake realized that the guy was keeping his hands free.
How reassuring. And the hands wore gloves.
“Hello, Thorne,” Carolyn said softly. “Nice to see you again.” She gave him a perfunctory hug, and the tightly coiled man returned it, sort of.
Thorne did his best to squeeze out a smile. “Mr. Sinclair says hello. Your friend Nick will be able to join you tomorrow.”
“That’s great!” Carolyn exclaimed. “What about Uncle Harry? Will I see him, too?”
Jake checked his watch nervously. “Shouldn’t we get going?”
