Read Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) Online
Authors: Nancy Alexander
Reflecting,
she reached up to her neckline and slowly extracted a long gold chain; she ran her fingers along its surface until they encountered a small key. Reaching toward her desk she located a tiny keyhole. As the nearly invisible desk drawer opened, Elisabeth Reinhardt slipped her finger inside the narrow opening and pressed a metal lever; behind her a whisper of air swooshed in. She swiveled to face the bookshelves and waited...
Elizabeth A. Reinhardt, PhD
Great Lakes Bank Building
Suite 315
Chicago, Ill
60601
CLINICAL PROGRESS REPORT
Patient’s name:
Gina R Date of Contact: 11/13/2012
Nature of
contact: Office Visit __X__ Phone Call ______ Email ______ Other__________
b) No: X
Health _______ Safety _______ Functioning __________ Moral/Spiritual ____________
Axis II: none_____
Elisabeth Reinhardt, PhD ________
Elisabeth Reinhardt, PhD
Date ____
11/13/2012_______________________________________
“Open the damned window,” Jake shouted, “you stink!” Custer hurriedly rolled down his window and sunk lower into the passenger seat. Slim snored on the backseat having scarfed down 2 cold cut subs and a large bag of chips. Custer wished he’d wake up so they could change places. He hated being in the front next to Jake. Jake could be so nasty! Sometimes he wished he could just get away from these two. He didn’t like the stuff they did with those girls. It made him sick. And being on the run was getting to him. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. He knew he could not get out of the gang. Not now, not ever. Jake would kill him rather than let him go. He knew too much. Jake had said so many times. He remembered the time they caught that girl, Rosie something, from Kentucky. She was real pretty. He liked her a lot. He wanted to set her free and tried to, too, but he’d been too slow. Jake caught him messing with her ropes and nearly beat him to death. He still remembered the pain. His hand wandered across his rib cage where Jake had kicked him. He thought he could still feel the pain and wondered if those ribs were still broken.
‘No,’ he thought.
He could never get out. And he could never stand up to Jake either. Jake was too strong and too mean. Jake didn’t like anybody Custer thought and him least of all. Jake wanted him around to do things like buy subs and stuff. Both Slim and Jake were too scary looking to go out in public. People might call the cops as soon as they saw them! But Custer wasn’t scary looking. People treated him real nice most of the time and he was nice back. He’d just gotten in with a bad crowd, that’s what his mother used to say. He missed his mother, wished he could go and see her, but she told him never to come back there again. He felt sad when he remembered that. She was a poor, G-d fearing woman and she’d freaked out that time he went there with Jake and Slim. They had been in bad moods that day. They pushed her around and lay around the living room with their dirty shoes all up on the furniture. They made her cook for them and slopped food all over the place. ‘Your friends are pigs’ she told him, ‘making messes and pushing people around. They are no good,’ she had said and she told him he had to choose between her and them. He guessed he chose them, but he didn’t remember doing that. “It’s your life,” she had said, “You decide.” But Custer didn’t think of it that way. He never really decided anything, to his way of thinking. He just went along. People seemed to do the deciding for him. That’s how it had been all of his life. He had four big brothers who bossed and bullied him all the time. He spent his childhood trying not to get beaten up and somehow it had all turned out wrong. So he hid, he ran away, he got into trouble. He didn’t decide anything. Things just happened. Like at home. His Dad beat them all when he was drunk until he got run over by a gasoline truck. After that Mom had to work all the time and no one was there to take care of her kids. Custer sighed, to his way of thinking things just happened, no one ever really decided anything.
“Get me a Coke,” Jake ordered as he wove in and out of traffic. Custer
draped himself across the seat and pulled one from the cooler. “Next wheels we steal gonna be a van,” Jake said “so there’s room in the front for our cooler.”
“Yea,” Custer agreed, “that’d be cool.” Custer never disagreed
with Jake and not agreeing immediately was the same as disagreement. If Jake said something, he expected an instant answer and it had better be the right one. Custer took a stick of gum out of his pocket.
“Give me one of those,” Jake demanded. Custer handed him a stick.
Jake popped it in his mouth and said, “Shit, its peppermint,” spitting it out, he tossed the wad at Custer. “You know I hate peppermint. Get those fruity ones next time, I like sweet gum.”
“Okay
, Jake, sorry,” Custer said retrieving the wet wad from his lap with a tissue. He hated arguments.
“How much money we got?” Jake asked. Custer was their accountant. He held their money and kept track of what they spent and when they were running low.
This was his most important job in the Gang. He was proud that he was better at numbers than Slim or Jake. That’s why they let him manage the money. He knew that Jake would kill him if he did anything sneaky, so he never did. He accounted for every penny and reported everything to Jake. Custer opened the glove compartment and took out a fat, black wallet. Silently he counted everything in the wallet three times to make sure and said, “$528, Jake.”
“I’m getting sick of camping and eating in the car and shit, let’s check into a hotel for a while; we have enough for a cheap place, don’t we? We could eat out and relax and watch TV” Jake said. “What do you think?”
“Sounds great, Jake I could use a shower,” Custer answered. He was worried though. Fights always seemed to break out when Slim and Jake were around people. This one looked at them funny, that one dissed them. The eggs were too runny, the toast was too burnt. There was always something that pissed them off. And there were bound to be girls around and that would set Jake off. He’d start thinking about Reggie and how much he wanted her and he’d get mad and go grab some girl and they’d be off again to the nearest campground. Slim would be holding the girl and messing with her in the back and he’d be in front with a map directing Jake. If they got lost or it took too long to get where he wanted to go he’d start yelling and cussing at Custer, like it was his fault they had to drive 85 miles to get somewhere. It was Jake’s fault, really. He couldn’t control himself. Although Jake was their ‘planner’ he didn’t always plan so well. Sometimes he didn’t plan at all, he just did things. It was a wonder the cops hadn’t caught them already with all the stupid things Jake made them do.
They’d been driving around the Asheville area trying to pick up Reggie’s scent. They’d been down there for days now since the last visit to the Raines farm. Jake was convinced that the story the old lady at the hair place told was right. He was sure of it, that’s why they kept coming back down this way. Custer had no idea, though, how Jake thought he was going to ‘pick up her scent’. It would take some kind of plan to find her, something like those detectives do on TV shows. Jake didn’t have no plan. He was just driving around looking for her, like she was going to be standing there on the street
corner waiting for him to drive by and find her. That was dumb, Custer thought. How long had it been now? Sixteen? Seventeen years? He wasn’t sure. That was just dumb he thought.
“Hey Slim,” Jake called over the seat. “Wake the fuck up! You been sleeping all day! Get the fuck up and help me look for her.”
Slim moaned and turned over on the seat. “Hey, man I was asleep,” he complained.
“What do you think about us getting a room somewhere for a day or two?” Jake asked.
“Fine”, Slim mumbled.
“Find us someplace to stay,” Jake ordered Custer.
“Okay, Jake,” Custer said opening the glove compartment and reaching for the map that had listings for motels and restaurants. “There’s a Best Western and a Days Inn not too far from here. Which do you want? They’re in different places.”
“Which one is the closest?” Jake asked, “I’m sick of this car. I want to shit in a real bathroom for a change and eat some steak.”
They pulled into a Days Inn a half hour later and Custer went in to get them a room. Slim was just waking up. He didn’t feel good. He was shaky and he needed a fix. It had been days since his last buy and he’d used up everything he had. Beer was okay, but he needed his drugs. Coke, pot, uppers, downers, whatever he could find. He needed something and he needed it fast. That was one of the problems hanging out with Jake and Custer. They didn’t need drugs the way that he did. Withdrawal was a bitch, no doubt about it. Now as they unloaded some stuff from the car Slim was totally focused on drugs and how he could get some. Slim was an addict, had been since he was 12. He had been arrested for some petty shit and was sent to Juvie. That’s where he got hooked on Coke. It was the best. He liked to snort it, cook it, shoot it up; hell he’d even eat it! It was better than food, better than sex. As soon as they checked into a room, he would borrow the car and cruise around ‘til he found what he needed. He knew it was a bit risky, looking how he looked, being a stranger, doing something that might get him noticed by the cops, but he didn’t want to think about that. It was what he had to do. He’d tell Jake he was going to check out the area, look for a good place to rob. Jake would buy that. Jake was easy to fool if you did it right. If you acted like you were helping him. Slim thought he had Jake all figured out. Jake, the great manipulator could be manipulated if you knew how, and Slim thought he knew how. Sure he and Jake had been buddies for years, but things had been changing lately. Jake was getting crazier, more obsessed with that little bitch and finding girls who reminded him of her. He was going to get them all killed one of these days with his shit. Slim, for one, was getting sick of it. He thought that Custer was, too, but, Custer was scared shitless of Jake, so he couldn’t count on him. Slim didn’t care about ‘doing’ those girls. He liked catching them and he liked outsmarting the cops, but he was getting tired of being on the run all the time, sleeping in camp grounds and eating fast food. That really was beginning to piss him off. He wanted to eat real food in real restaurants, he wanted to sleep in a bed and get high without worrying about having to hike up a mountain or pitch a damn tent.
Slim slid in behind the wheel of the 1999 Plymouth
they’d had since the time they were foiled in West Virginia by a bunch of yapping dogs. It felt great to have his hands on the wheel. Getting away from the ‘gang’ for a while was a relief. Slim thought, ‘Maybe I’ll stay out all night!’ He’d never done that before. Hell, maybe he’d just keep on driving. He could manage on his own, robbing and drugging all by himself could work. He wouldn’t do the ‘girl thing’ though, that was Jake’s gig not his. He thought about it for a while. It was a fun thought. He’d head out west, get on Rte. 66 or whatever the hell it was and just keep going. ‘California here I come,’ he thought and sang a few bars from the song in his raspy voice. ‘He’d never find me there,’ he thought, ‘It’s a big state. Jake would never find me out there.’ Slim was deep in thought when he saw the North Carolina State Police car pulled over on the right. It freaked him out a bit. He’d just scored coke and weed from some black guy in an alley a few blocks back. He’d snorted some coke, smoked a joint and was feeling fine. Smoke filled the car and billowed out the windows. He had stuffed his stash under the seat but knew if that cop pulled him over he would be arrested for ‘possession with intent.’ “That cop bastard isn’t going to get me,” he thought and gunned it, speeding through a red light. He flew past a school bus, its red stop signs jutting out from its sides and nearly hit a crossing guard escorting some little kids across the street. Swerving to avoid them he side-swiped several parked cars and rear ended a Lincoln sedan, launching it headlong into a telephone pole. Then he heard the siren ‘whoop-whoop’ behind him. Soon he heard sirens from all directions. Slim was high; adrenaline, weed and coke surged through his system and he was running for his life.
Sirens
shattered the sound barrier as they tore through the city. He sped into a Food Lion parking lot, ditched the Plymouth and stuffed the drugs in his pockets. He raced through the grocery store, out the back door and into a vacant lot where he belly flopped and soldier-crawled through the tall weeds. Within minutes the area was flooded with police. Helicopters ‘whoop-whopped’ overhead and patrol cars cruised the parking lots. Slim hoped he could get away before they called in the dogs. Those hounds would find him for sure, hell he stunk so bad a blind man with a cold could find him.
It
was after 10 when he was finally able to boost a car. He maneuvered through darkened streets toward the motel, parked on a side street and snuck up to their room. He knew the cops would soon figure out where they were staying. He’d tell Jake they had to leave the motel as soon as he got back. He worried that Jake would be mad. He was nervous and shaky when he knocked on the door. Jake was drunk and pacing when he arrived. Slim started to explain, minimizing his role and blaming those ‘stupid cops,’ but before he got a few words out, Jake punched him in the face, hard. “You put those cops on our trail! You led them right to us,” he screamed. “What the fuck is the matter with you? We saw it all on TV. It was on the news you dumb shit. Don’t try to lie to me, I know what you did. You lost our fuckin’ car, Man, and it had all our shit in it, our guns, our fingerprints our DNA and shit; the cops have it now. You’ve put those cops right on our ass, Moron! I could kill you, Man,” he screamed. Slim went down with a thud; Jake kept hitting and kicking him. Veins were popping out of his neck as he screamed out his fury. Custer thought he was going to kill him. He tried to stop Jake, but Jake snarled like some wild animal and back-handed him. “You’ve got to stop, Man,” Custer warned. “Jake stop it, Man, you’re gonna kill him. The cops’ll come after you for murder, Man. Stop it!” Then Custer shouted, “You’re making too much noise, Man, people will call the cops and we’ll be trapped here. You’ve got to be quiet, Jake, people will hear you.” he whined. That got through to him. Jake stopped. Exhausted, he flung himself across the bed glaring and breathing heavily. His knuckles were bleeding and his face was so red it looked like his head might explode.
Custer
hoisted Slim and dragged him to the bathroom. Jake glared at Slim as he passed. Tense with rage he punched buttons on the TV remote, ‘channel surfing’ for local news stories about the big police chase in downtown Asheville. He grimaced and swore as his plan for a few nice restful days, living in the lap of luxury at the Days Inn, faded. In a little while he’d sneak out and steal another car. And he’d have to do it with cops crawling all over the place. What a fucking mess, he thought, all because of that stupid asshole druggie he used to think was his friend!