Gone ’Til November (22 page)

“Motherfucker come back to apologize, I’m gonna beat his ass,” the driver said.

“Pull out,” DeWayne said.

The driver cranked the ignition, and as the engine fired up she heard a flat crack like a board breaking. The windshield on the driver’s side starred. His head snapped back, and something wet and warm spattered her face.

DeWayne made no sound. He popped the door open, slid out. More shots, glass imploding. She ducked down, saw the driver slumped over the wheel, blood all over the seatback. She lunged across the console and passenger seat, staying low, and got the glove box open, her hand on the Glock.

Morgan put the first shot through the Range Rover’s windshield, saw it hit, and then the passenger door was open, DeWayne moving fast. Morgan steadied the Beretta with both hands, tracked him, fired three times. The first shot blew out the door window, the second went high, and the third caught him in the hip, spun him but didn’t drop him. Morgan heard him grunt in pain, and then he was away from the Range Rover and gone in the fog.

Morgan moved out of the headlights, put two shots through the grille, steam hissing out. The engine coughed and died. He looked into the fog-shrouded woods, waiting for DeWayne to show himself. Then the Range Rover’s left rear door opened,
and someone spilled out. He swiveled to take aim, saw it was the woman deputy. She hit the ground and came up fast, using the door for cover, a gun in her hand.

He backed away into the fog.

Sara moved to the rear of the Range Rover, trying to get it between her and whoever else was out there. It had come to rest at an angle, front tires in the right lane, rear still on the shoulder. She crouched, listening. To her right, where DeWayne had gone, a solid wall of fog, the phantom shapes of trees. She heard something move there, a dragging footstep.

She raised up, but the tint on the rear windows was too dark to see through. To see ahead she’d have to look around the corner of the Range Rover, expose herself. She thought of her cell phone, left on the Blazer’s dashboard.
How stupid was that?

More noises from the trees. She’d heard DeWayne cry out, guessed he was hit, but had no idea how bad. The driver had taken a head shot. He was out of the play. But where was the other shooter?

Stay calm. Watch, listen, and think. Survive this.

“Yo, Morgan,” DeWayne called. “You hear me, man?”

The voice off to her right, hard to tell how far. Then more dragging footsteps, closer to the Range Rover. He was being smart, moving away from where he’d called out.

No answer from the fog.

“Cops be here any minute,” DeWayne said. “It don’t have to play out like this. Just be on your way.” More movement.

She gripped the Glock with both hands, looked around the left rear corner, saw the taillights ahead in the fog. The shooter’s car. She pulled back.

You’ve got cover. Stay there. Don’t take any chances. Think about Danny.

A slight thump against the right side of the Range Rover. DeWayne using it for cover.

No sound. The fog seemed to close in around her.

“Yo, Morgan, we know where the money at, man. Let’s talk this out.”

If DeWayne was moving toward the back of the Range Rover, he’d find her. Or worse, she’d end up in the field of fire between him and the other shooter, wherever he was.

“Police!” she called out. “Drop your weapons! Both of you!”

Silence.

“Sheriff’s Office! Units are on their way. Put your weapons down.”

A faint sound to her left. DeWayne’s breathing, low but labored. Closer now, maybe four feet away. She could wait for him to find her, or she could swing around, get her weapon on him, hope she was faster.

She thought of Danny, sleeping soundly, trusting her to be there when he woke up. To tell him everything was okay.

The breathing inched closer. She gripped the Glock tighter, finger on the trigger. Now was the time.

Danny, forgive me.

She turned the corner, gun out, arms extended, yelled, “Police!” and DeWayne was right there, closer than she’d thought,
and he caught the barrel of the Glock and wrenched it to the side, his own gun at her face. She threw herself to the left, saw the muzzle flash, felt the heat, knew he’d missed. He hammered a shoulder into her, his weight behind it, and as she hit the side of the Range Rover he twisted the Glock out of her hands. She lunged for it, missed, caught a knee that knocked her back onto the blacktop.

He stepped back, tossed the Glock away, pointed his gun down at her. She saw his finger tighten on the trigger, heard the
crack
of the shot and then pink mist filled the air. He fell away from her, onto his side, and lay still.

A figure came out of the fog behind him. A tall black man, gray hair, wearing a dark windbreaker, pointing an automatic at her.

She rolled onto her knees, struggling to breathe. She saw where the Glock lay a few feet away on the shoulder, knew she’d never reach it.

“I’m a sheriff’s deputy,” she said.

“I know.”

She looked up at him. Got one foot under her, then another. She rose shakily, her back to the Range Rover, breathing heavy. If he was going to shoot her, he’d have to do it like this, standing. Not on her knees.

The muzzle of the gun followed her up, steadied, maybe three feet from her forehead. Gloved finger on the trigger.

Danny.

“I don’t have the money,” she said. Her chest rose and fell.

“I know.”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“Doesn’t matter now.”

She closed her eyes, wondered if she’d hear the shot.

“I have a little boy,” she said.

“I know.”

She looked at him then, met his eyes.

He lowered the gun.

As she watched, he stepped back, picked up her Glock, and tossed it into the woods. He looked at her for a moment, then turned and walked away into the fog.

She knelt by DeWayne, trying not to look at what was left of his face. Felt beneath him until her fingers touched metal. With a heave, she rolled him off the chromed automatic, picked it up, slick with his blood. She worked the slide to make sure a round was chambered, moved fast to the front of the Range Rover. The man was only a silhouette in the fog now, walking toward his car. She aimed.

“Stop right there!”

He did.

“Turn around slow and drop your weapon.”

He didn’t move.

“You going to shoot me in the back?” he said.

The gun was unsteady in her hands. She tightened her grip, set the front sight on him. “Just put your weapon down.”

After a moment, he said, “I didn’t think so,” and walked on, the fog closing in around him.

She watched him go, her finger slackening on the trigger.

Whoever he is, he just saved your life.

She heard a car door shut, the hiss of tires. Watched the glow of the taillights fade.

She listened until she couldn’t hear anything else, then lowered the gun. She stood alone in the fog and silence.

Morgan kept it to thirty-five on the drive back to the motel, watching the rearview, the still-warm Beretta on his lap.

He doubted she’d gotten a good look at the car or plates. DeWayne had used his name, but it wouldn’t do her much good. One more day here and he was gone.

He’d get the money from Flynn, do whatever it took to make that happen. But he couldn’t go back to Newark now. He’d call Cassandra from someplace safe, have her and the boy meet him. He’d have to find a way to get to the bank, empty his safe deposit. Then head west maybe, keep driving.

He thought about the woman deputy. Remembered her carrying her little boy in the park, hitched up on her shoulders. Tonight she’d gone head-to-head with DeWayne rather than run and hide in the fog. Had stood and looked Morgan in the eye as he held the Beretta on her, his finger on the trigger. He’d seen the fear there, but something else beyond it. Something that was stronger.

The fog was starting to break up, the road clearing in his headlights. He turned the stereo back on, pushed the tape in. Sam Cooke wishing someone would come and ease his troublin’ mind.

One more day and gone.

Four
A.M.
, and the Sheriff’s Office was abuzz. Off-duty deputies had shown up as the news got out. Sara sat slumped in the chair facing the sheriff’s desk, her right ear still echoing with the shot DeWayne had fired. She ached all over, and the adrenaline aftershock was starting to fade, a stonelike fatigue taking its place.

She could see the sheriff and Sam Elwood talking by the dispatcher’s desk, Sam with his hands on his hips. He turned, met her eyes.

She stretched her legs, rubbed her calf where DeWayne had kicked her. Outside, she could see thin fog drifting past the floodlights, stars starting to appear in the sky.

The sheriff came back in carrying a manila folder and a bottle of water. He cracked the cap, handed it to her.

“Thanks.”

He closed the door and settled behind his desk. “How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she said.

“I can imagine.”

“I just want to see Danny.”

“You will. I talked to Andy Ryan a few minutes ago. Everything’s fine. I sent a deputy out there as well.”

She took a long drink of water.

He opened the folder, took out a black-and-white photo on printer paper, and set it in front of her.

“New Jersey State Police sent that down. Look familiar?”

She pulled the photo closer. It was the man DeWayne had called Morgan.

“That’s him,” she said. “He’s younger here, though. Man I saw was in his fifties, sixties maybe. Like he’d been around.”

“He has. That photo’s a few years old. Name’s Nathaniel Morgan. Fifty-seven, kind of old for this sort of thing. He has a jacket going back to the sixties—assault, attempted murder, manslaughter. Did seven years on the last one, 1980 to ’87.”

“Who were the other two?”

He read from the file.

“Dante and DeWayne Coleman. Brothers. Both have substantial sheets. DeWayne, the big one, just got out of state prison two months ago, for aggravated assault. A couple of princes, those two.”

“Have you found Billy?”

He sat back. “Sam just came back from his place. He’s gone, of course. I left Minos McCarthy and Ed Strunk out there in a cruiser, see if he comes back. I’m doubting he will.
Looks like he packed up, hit the road. Any idea where he might have gone?”

She shook her head. “I tried his cell a half-dozen times,” she said. “It’s turned off. I think he’s got a brother in Ocala—”

“We know. I put in a call to the Marion County SO up there. They’re out at the house now. No sign of him, and the brother says he hasn’t seen or heard from him in weeks. No, I’m thinking it’s somewhere nearby, somewhere he thinks is safe. A fishing camp or a hunting cabin or something.”

“If he has one, he never told me.”

“On the other hand, if all this is true, he can go a long way on three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

All of it was catching up with her now, hearing someone else speak it. The signs she should have seen. The things that were in front of her all along she never put together, didn’t want to put together.

Now here you are. What good did you do after all?

“We put a BOLO out on the truck,” he said. “Unless he’s got another vehicle stashed somewhere, we’ll find him soon. My guess is he’s holed up somewhere close, especially if he’s carrying that money around.”

“Maybe he isn’t. Maybe Lee-Anne has it.”

“If she did, someone took it from her.”

“What do you mean?”

“Call came in about an hour ago. FHP found her car abandoned down in Hendry County. Gone off the road, all busted up. Blood on the seat.”

“And?”

“They alerted the Sheriff’s Office down there. Tracks show
there were a couple other cars at the scene. They’re trying to chase it down. She had suitcases in the trunk, but someone had been through them. From the amount of blood, the condition of the car, unlikely she walked away.”

“Someone took her.”

“Looks like. And not to a hospital. This thing’s sprawling, Sara, and bad. FDLE’s out at your scene. Tampa FBI’s been notified as well. This whole thing gets taken away from us in twenty-four hours, I’m guessing. Unless we find Billy first.”

“Can you GPS his phone?”

“No luck so far. Either he shut it down or figured out how to deactivate the tracking applet. If he uses it again, we might get lucky. Until then . . .”

He tapped an unsharpened pencil on the desk.

“Elwood’s got your service weapon,” he said. “He’ll give it to you before you leave. You’ll need to clean it good, though. Some dirt in the barrel and all.”

He touched his left cheek. “You might want to do something about that too.”

She raised a hand to her face, felt the stickiness there. He took a tissue from the box next to his terminal, handed it over. She folded it, dabbed it with water from the bottle, wiped her cheek. It came away red.

“You handled yourself well out there,” he said.

“How’s that?” She dabbed water, wiped again. More blood. “I had my service weapon taken away from me. Twice.”

“You came back in one piece. That’s the main thing.”

“I guess.”

“Maybe this Morgan did you a favor, taking those two out
like that. Kept you from having to make that choice. It’s not an easy thing, shooting a man. It can be tough to live with. You can give it all the context and justification you want, but it still goes against human nature. I haven’t fired a shot in anger since the war, and that’s the way I want to keep it.”

She looked at the bloody tissue.

“That’s one of the things I can’t get my head around,” he said. “Billy shooting that boy that way. What makes a good man—a good deputy—do something like that?”

“Money.”

“Did he really think he was going to get away with it? That much money? That someone wasn’t going to come looking for it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was tired of the way things were. Maybe he saw this as his chance.”

“His chance to get killed.”