“Why hasn’t she just called us?” Susanne asked. “Found a way to get in touch?”
“One reason,” I said slowly, knowing there was no real way to prepare Susanne for this, “is that she may have killed someone.”
Susanne started to form some words to respond, but nothing came out.
“I think it may have been self-defense, or she was trying to help someone else who was being attacked.”
“But…” Susanne struggled. “Even if, even if that’s true, I can’t believe she wouldn’t call. For help.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know.”
I wondered whether we were thinking the same thing, that something had happened to Sydney, something even the bad guys didn’t know about, that had kept her from letting her parents know where she was.
“Maybe because, on top of everything else, she’s pregnant,” Susanne said.
Bob tightened his grip on the Hummer steering wheel.
“I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, maybe, but I don’t think that has anything to do with why she hasn’t called.”
Bob’s used-car dealership was just up ahead. He pulled into the lot and parked just beyond a dark blue Mustang, late nineties vintage I thought. “I’ll get the key,” Susanne said, getting out and heading for the office.
“You never even paid for the Beetle, did you?” Bob asked.
“Is that your biggest concern at the moment, Bob?” I asked.
I was resting my head against the seatback. I was suddenly very exhausted. Stowe had to be a good four-hour drive. I needed some sleep, but I didn’t have time for it.
I also didn’t know where to begin looking for Syd once I got to Stowe.
“Look,” Bob said, “do what you have to do. But it’s not fair to drag Susanne into this. Not if you’re wanted by the police. You’re really a piece of work, you know?”
“Did the cops tell you what they want me for?”
“All they said was more questioning. It was Detective Jennings and this other cop, big guy with a girl’s name. What do they think you’ve done?”
“There’s a list,” I said. “But the man who tried to kill me tonight killed a woman named Kate Wood earlier today. The police like me for it, at the moment.”
“Jesus Christ.”
I closed my eyes and rested my head. I opened them when I heard rapping at my window. Susanne was dangling a set of car keys.
I climbed down from the Hummer and took the keys for the Mustang. “Any gas in it?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” she said. “It’s not exactly Bob’s policy to include a tankful with every purchase.”
I hit the remote button and unlocked the doors of the Mustang. I got inside, left the driver’s door yawning open, and turned the engine over. It roared. I glanced at the gas gauge and saw that there was a little under half a tank.
“Gas up now and you should be able to make it the whole way there without stopping if you get lucky,” Bob said.
“You mind grabbing the guns?” I said to Bob.
He went back to the Hummer. Susanne said to me, “I’m going with you.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “You’re not up to this.”
“Don’t tell me that.”
“Susanne,” I said, lowering my voice so she’d lean in close to me. “I’m going to get Syd out of this thing. But if something happens to me in the meantime, I want her to have you to come home to.”
“Tim, don’t say-”
“No, listen to me. I mean it. You have to stay here, be here for Sydney when she comes back, if she ends up coming back alone. And I may need to get in touch, need you to find out things for me. Right off the bat, when you get home, I need you to look up some directions for me for getting to Stowe. I’m going to hit 95, then 91 North, but I could use some pointers along the way.”
Susanne’s eyes were glistening. “I love you, you know. I always will.” She sniffed. “What should I do about the police?”
“Don’t tell them a damn thing. But if it’s Jennings… you can tell her what went down at the dealership. Just not where I’ve gone. They’ll try to stop me. Jennings’ll be waking up every Connecticut state police officer trying to find me. I don’t know how much time I have to find Syd, but I don’t need Jennings holding me up.”
Susanne understood.
“If that guy I shot wakes up, she may find out soon enough that I’m on the way to Stowe,” I said. “If she pressures you, tell her I’m still in the Beetle. At least then they won’t be looking for this car.”
Susanne nodded. She said, “I can’t let you go alone.”
“Suze, you can’t come.”
“Then you have to take Bob.”
Bob had just shown up with the two guns. He was holding them like they were made of plutonium. “What?” he said.
“You’re going with Tim.”
“Oh no, no, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Just this once, I gotta agree with Bob,” I said.
“If you don’t go,” she told him, balancing on her cane, “I will.”
He stood there a moment saying nothing. Then, guns still in hand, he gave Susanne an awkward hug and walked around to the passenger door of the Mustang, opened it, and got in.
“Let’s go,” he said, gently putting the guns on the floor mat in front of him.
FORTY-TWO
BY THE TIME WE’D GASSED UP and got onto I-95, it was around 10:30 p.m. Once I’d merged the Mustang onto the highway, I put my foot down. The needle on the speedometer climbed until I had the Ford up to ninety. I could feel the car floating a bit, but I was confident it was a speed I could maintain, and decided to hold it there for the time being.
“We don’t even know where we’re going,” Bob said. “I mean, once we actually get to Stowe. I was there once, years ago, with my first wife, Evan’s mother, and the place is lousy with resorts and all these places tucked up into the mountains.”
“I doubt Sydney’s staying at a resort,” I said.
“Maybe she got a job at one,” Bob said. “A lot of those places, they’d pay a kid like Sydney cash under the table. She wouldn’t have to give her real name or anything, which, considering she’s a kid on the run, would kind of be appealing to her.”
What he said made some sense.
He continued, “I think one of Evan’s friends had a summer job up there once. Stowe does a pretty big winter business, the skiing and all, but it’s pretty nice in the summer, too.”
While I was thinking about what Bob had to say, I was also trying to concentrate on the road. When you’re doing ninety-and nudging up above that-you need to pay attention to what you’re doing. Especially at night.
As if reading my mind, Bob said, “You know, if a deer or something runs out in front of us at this speed, we’re fucked.”
