Читать книгу Buried Treasure - Jack B. Downs - Страница 22

15 / Pre-dawn Flight

James tiptoed into the rectory and silently lifted the key to Father Mullenix’s Plymouth. A few minutes later, in the utter stillness he turned the ignition, his eyes glued on the second floor of the house. He held his breath, waiting for the lights to blaze on, and all hell to break loose.

The car started up, and purred quiet. James creaked it in reverse down the sloping driveway. He knew the car ran a little rough, but at least the brakes didn’t squeal. The car sagged out onto the street and James eased the column gear into first, let the clutch out slow, and flipped on the headlight beams as he glanced back once more to the darkened, brooding rectory.

He glided down the street toward the rendezvous, every sense alive. Would Anne be waiting in the shadows at the corner? Would anyone be out at this deep hour to witness their flight? He pondered what he would say if he had to return the car in an hour, when the sun began to claw its way up from the near Atlantic. No plausible story came to mind. He tried to calculate the mythical point of no return. In his soul, he knew Anne would be there, unless something had gone terribly wrong. When she eased into the Plymouth, and closed the door, that was probably the point. From there, they could race to the edge of town and point their way toward Cambridge, unless Chief Munro was in hot pursuit.

James shook his head at his own imaginings, as if he were shaking droplets off after a swim. Don’t get cold feet on me now. Ten minutes to liftoff and counting. And don’t start talking to yourself, under any conditions.

Spotting Anne standing back in the shadows two blocks from her house, he eased the car to the curb and clambered out to unlock the trunk.

They drove in silence out of their hometown. She slid over next to him and they linked hands. James often had to retrieve his hand to shift on the quiet lanes of the Delmarva Peninsula on the back approach to Cambridge. The relentless flat land stretched as far as the eye could see, a bounty of staple crops that fed the livelihoods of these taciturn, God-fearing people, along with the other major source of income, the crab traps stacked high alongside one-story cottages.

The sun dappled the road and strobed the interior of the car as the orange globe peaked up from the east, through thin forests of juniper pine. They drove north, toward the legendary gateway to the mainland, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. North to head south. And the unknown.