Sleepwalker (15 page)

“The key is for us not to be here when—if—they come looking.”

“They’ll find our footprints.” If Uncle Nicco knew what was in those pictures, which she had to assume he did, he would have an army looking for them. “If not tonight, then tomorrow, when it’s light.”

“By tomorrow we’ll hopefully be long gone. In any event, our footprints should be hard to find. In case it’s escaped your notice, it’s snowing.”

Given that they were now stranded on foot in the middle of a several-thousand-acre wilderness on an icy winter’s night, that should not have
qualified as good news. But to Mick it did, which said volumes about the sad state of affairs in which she found herself.

“Yay.” If she sounded a little dispirited, it was because she was. Being frightened and freezing tended to do that to her, she was discovering. Grabbing the makeshift mittens out of her pocket, she pulled them on as the one little bit she could do to alleviate the freezing part at least.

“Silver linings.”

“Always come with dark clouds,” she retorted.

He laughed. “Way to be optimistic. That coat has a hood, by the way. Here.” Stopping her with a hand on her shoulder, he unzipped a small zipper in the back of the collar, pulled out a hood, and flipped it over the knit cap that was already nestled on her head.

“Glad you came prepared,” she said as they resumed walking.

“I’m always prepared.”

She snorted.

“All right, so maybe I didn’t foresee that a stray cop might decide to spend New Year’s Eve camping out in Marino’s house.”

“Among other notable lapses.” Having tucked her hair into the hood, she tied the dangling strings beneath her chin. The extra layer was thin, but it helped: it kept the wind and snow off her neck and shielded more of her face. She realized something else, too: the hood, like the coat itself but unlike the cap she wore, was waterproof, while the hood portion of the fleece sweatshirt he wore as a middle layer, which he had pulled up over his own head, was not. Plus, he could have reclaimed his coat at any time; actually, he hadn’t had to give it to her in the first place.

So maybe the guy was a gentleman in some respects. It didn’t change the fact that once they were safely out of the reach of Uncle Nicco’s crew, they were natural enemies, like a dog and a cat.

“You know where we are, right?” he asked.

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

Tramping along beside him, both of them moving as fast as they dared but hampered by the layers of unseen mulch beneath the snow, Mick focused on getting her bearings. She knew Muddy Flats fairly well. Also, the forest beyond it was not totally unfamiliar: she’d hiked through sections of it, including this part, on several occasions.

Unfortunately, the last time had been almost a decade earlier. Plus it had been summer, and daylight. In the dark, with snow falling all around them, nothing looked the same as anything she remembered.

“There should be a gravel road around here somewhere. And a little fishing store, kind of a shack that sells bait and things. If it still exists.”

“Which way?”

“I’m not quite sure. The last time I was here was about ten years ago.” Concentrating, she tried to remember. “I think it’s to the west. Yes, it is. The gravel road led down to a public boat ramp, so if we keep walking parallel to the lake, we’re bound to hit it.”

“We want to get away from the lake, not walk around it. The lakeshore is where they’re going to start the search. And when they come looking, I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet they’ll check out any known boat ramps.”

Mick shook her head. “This one’s just a small ramp, for people who tow their runabouts in by car then back their trailers down into the water so the boat can float off. The
Playtime
could never have used it: it’s too big. Anyway, if we walk away from the lake, we’re liable to get lost. This forest is huge. We could be wandering around in here for days. What we need to do is find the quickest way out.”

He didn’t reply, and Mick didn’t say anything else. He had to be at least as cold as she was starting to be, and probably a considerable amount colder, considering that his core temperature had presumably been affected by his plunge into the lake. Apparently he realized the
sense in her words, because he didn’t protest when, taking the lead now, she set a course following the lake.

“Where does this gravel road you’re hoping to find go to?” he asked after a moment, catching up.

“Route 92, which is the main road in and out of here. If I recall correctly, it’s a ways, but if we can get to that, we might be able to hitchhike out.”

“Expecting a lot of traffic out here at this time of night on New Year’s Eve, are you?”

“Technically, it’s New Year’s Day.”

“Technically, it doesn’t matter. A cemetery has more life than where we are. Are there houses or cabins anywhere near here? A campsite? Anything? Because hitchhiking isn’t going to happen. Our best bet is to find some kind of occupied dwelling and steal a car.”

“Oh, you steal cars as well as cash?”

“When I steal us a car, baby, I’m betting you’ll be glad enough to hop in.”

“Stealing a car is a crime,” she pointed out.

“If it makes you feel better, you can arrest me later. Houses? Cabins? Anyplace where somebody might be spending the night so we can
borrow
their car?”

Feeling it best not to respond to his crack about arresting him later, which she had every intention of doing, Mick shook her head. “Besides the fishing store, which I doubt will be occupied, I don’t remember seeing any cabins or anything. This is more of a wilderness area. You know, people come here in the summer to hunt and fish and camp. I’ve never been out here in the winter.”

“Not surprised.”

Snow was coming down thick and fast now. Even with the canopy of branches overhead, it swirled around them, obscuring all but the closest
trees. Mick ducked her head to avoid the constant cold dampness of flakes landing and melting on her skin. In the undergrowth nearby, something rustled. For an unpleasant second she wondered what kind of creature would possibly be moving around on such a night. Wolves and bears sprang instantly to mind, but entertaining such a worry was idiotic, she knew, when men with guns were chasing them. Even the weather posed a far greater threat than the biggest, baddest, fanged and hungry woodland creature could. It was so cold that her nose was starting to feel frostbitten. Her cheeks tingled. Even with the sock mittens, her hands were freezing. Curled into fists, they were thrust deep into her pockets in a so-far-unsuccessful search for warmth. There wasn’t a lot of room, because each pocket also held a gun. In addition, the left pocket held her handcuffs, which he had confiscated, and the right pocket held his phone, which she could feel nudging her knuckles. He was a step or two ahead of her now, his long strides eating up the distance more quickly than her shorter ones. Although she knew it was probably futile, with a quick, surreptitious look at him she pulled his phone out. Keeping one eye on his broad back because she didn’t want to have to hand the phone, a possible lifeline to rescue, over, she checked one more time for service: nothing.

Good God, it was starting to seem like they might be totally stranded out here. She had to remind herself that they weren’t that far from civilization. Even if the fishing store didn’t pan out, even if they couldn’t find it, it no longer existed or didn’t have a working phone, if they kept walking, sooner or later they were bound to come within range of a cell phone tower.

All was not lost just because it was freezing cold and snowing and they were stuck outdoors with no phone and no place to go, being chased by guys with guns who wanted at least one and probably both of them dead.

“Looks like they stopped the boat.” His laconic observation had
Mick hurriedly thrusting his phone back down in her pocket and looking up fast. They had reached a thinning in the trees, she saw as she stopped beside him, which meant, if her memory served her correctly, that the road couldn’t be too far ahead. Through the falling snow she could once again see the lake, its surface glimmering like polished jet in the moonlight. Although it was far away now, the helicopter was impossible to miss: it hovered in place, its searchlight beaming down out of the sky like a homing beacon to lock onto a partially illuminated object below. She couldn’t quite see it clearly enough to be 100 percent certain, but that object could only have been the
Playtime,
which had obviously, by some means or another, been stopped. Three other, smaller lights bobbed up and down in the darkness around the boat, which meant, she knew, that Otis and the others were on the scene as well. Her stomach tightened as she realized anew just how desperately serious the search party was: to be out on the lake in those vehicles in this weather, they meant business. Whatever happened, they weren’t just going to let her, to say nothing of the man beside her, slip away.

But there wasn’t anything she could do to change a thing. From the moment she’d chosen to check out the sound she’d heard in the far reaches of Uncle Nicco’s house, the die had been cast.

“Probably a couple of them are onboard searching it right now.” Her voice revealed nothing of the disorienting sense of unreality she was experiencing. To know that her whole life was evaporating around her like mist in the sun gave her a feeling that she imagined had to be a close cousin to vertigo. But giving in to it didn’t help, and so she pushed it firmly aside. Almost as one they started moving again, more swiftly now, although the natural forest debris of fallen leaves and sticks and rocks hidden under the snow made achieving anything much beyond a fast walk difficult.

“Are they going to be disappointed.”

God, he could still make light of the situation! Well, it wasn’t his
whole life that had just been blasted to smithereens. All he had to do was escape and he would be fine.

“This is just business as usual for you, isn’t it?”

“Nah. Usually my jobs don’t go wrong.”

Of all the gin joints in all the world
… Out of nowhere that line from
Casablanca
popped into Mick’s head. “Couldn’t you just have robbed a bank like everyone else?”

“Robbing a bank is old school. Hitting your uncle Nicco’s house was quicker, easier, and yielded a hell of a lot more cash.”

Mick glanced at the suitcase. “You haven’t gotten away with it yet.”

“Good point.”

“They’re going to keep coming after us, hard.” She hunched her shoulders against the cold, doing her best to bury her chin in the collar of her coat. That “us” had come out automatically, but she realized with a sickening sense of inevitability that it was true.

“You realize that if your uncle Nicco’s team had been seriously concerned about your welfare, they’d have called your fellow cops to report an officer taken hostage in a robbery, and the lake would have been swarming with law enforcement types looking for you by now.”

“I realize.” Although she had been trying not to let the thought creep into her consciousness. It served as too emphatic a punctuation mark to the trouble she was in. “See, the thing is, the money you stole is obviously the ill-gotten gains from some illegal enterprise. Also, we both saw the pictures that place my uncle Nicco at the scene of a multiple murder. Given those factors, I don’t think we’re going to be seeing cops anytime soon.”

At least, not until I call them on you.

“For all those goons know, I could be planning to rape and murder you.”

Mick snorted. “Good luck with that.”

“The point being, they’re clearly willing to let that happen rather than get law enforcement involved.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“Some uncle you have.”

“You know what? It was all good until you decided to rob him.” Mick slipped a little as her foot found a slick branch hidden under the snow.

“You’re blaming this on me.”

“Damn right I’m blaming this on you. Want to know why? Because it’s all your fault. Because you chose to commit a crime, I’m in this mess.”

“Hey, if you hadn’t been there, my team would have gotten away clean.
You
screwed everything up.”

“I should have shot you when I first saw you. Then I wouldn’t have seen those fricking pictures, I wouldn’t know anything about any illegal cash or murders or anything, and my life could just keep going on like normal.”

“Yeah, well, if
I’d
shot
you,
Jel—My partner and I could have gotten the hell out of there with the money and no one any the wiser.”

“You never even had the chance to shoot me. Your hands were full of suitcases containing stolen cash, if you recall. I had a bead on you. I could’ve shot you.”

“But you didn’t. And the bottom line is, if you hadn’t been there, neither one of us would be here right now. What were you doing in that house, anyway? It was supposed to be empty. It’s New Year’s Eve. What, no date?”

Mick thought of Nate. “Go to hell.”

“From that I take it, no. You’re attractive enough, so it’s probably got something to do with that ball-busting attitude of yours. You might want to think about working on that.”

“Instead of shooting you, I should have called for backup the minute
I heard that first sound. You’d be in jail right now, and I’d be back in my bed fast asleep.”

“Speaking of calling for backup, probably now would be a good time for you to give me back my phone. And my gun.”

He held out his hand. No sock gloves for him, just long, strong-looking bare fingers.

Mick shot him a fulminating look. But because fighting with him over them did not seem to be the best approach, since they were stuck with each other for the time being, Mick reluctantly handed over his Sig Sauer and, even more reluctantly, his phone, which he immediately checked. It occurred to her that, as a sign of mutual trust, neither of them trying to keep the other from having a gun was significant.

“Still no service.”

She barely stopped herself from saying
I know
as he slipped his phone into his pocket. The gun he nestled in his waistband at the small of his back before pulling his garments back down over it. Mick found herself wondering once again if he’d had military or, perhaps, police training.