Читать книгу Nowhere to Run - Nancy Bush - Страница 12

Chapter 6

She kept the gun leveled at him. It wasn’t loaded, but he didn’t know that. She had ammo stowed in her backpack, for all the good it would do her. Not that she wanted to actually hold a loaded gun on someone. For all her words she didn’t think she could hurt him or anyone else. But again, he didn’t know that.

They were driving east, away from Laurelton toward Portland. She felt like she was in some improvisational acting scene where each player just keyed off the situation and made up their own story.

She was crazy. Flat-out nuts. This definitely decided it. This was a crazy thing to do. And yet she wasn’t sorry. They rode in silence. The man—Auggie—seemed intent on the road but Liv could just imagine the thoughts rattling around in his head.

It felt like an eternity, and was probably only a matter of minutes, when he drawled, “Did you have a place in mind?”

“Just drive.”

“I have a quarter of a tank. I can drive for a while, then I’m going to need gas.”

She looked at the gauge, saw he was telling the truth and wanted to rail at him. How could he be so irresponsible? She wanted to scream and cry and pull out her hair, but that made her think of the unfortunate ones at Hathaway House who sank into that kind of behavior and were moved to other facilities. She’d always felt more grounded than they were, more capable, more sane, but maybe she was as wacko as they were. This was crazy.

But right now, she was putting miles between her and her apartment, and for the first time since she’d seen the bodies at Zuma, she felt almost safe. Still, she couldn’t prevent the shudders that wracked her body. Auggie shot her a sideways glance, aware, so she lifted the .38 a bit, just to remind him.

“Would you seriously shoot me when I’m driving?”

She glared at him, resenting his insolence. “Where do you live?”

“Uh . . . not far from here. Toward Portland.”

“Are you lying?”

“ No.”

“You took a while to answer my question.”

“I was just thinking about the exit I need to take. It’s coming up.”

They were driving on Sunset Highway and getting close to the junction at 217. “Do you live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go there.”

She wanted just to keep driving and driving and driving, but that wasn’t prudent, either. She wondered, for a moment, if she could ditch him and just take his car. But what would she do with him?

He passed 217 and turned off at Sylvan, winding the car up the hill. Liv gave a glance around his vehicle, thinking hard, noting the dark clothes he’d thrown into the back and the toolbox. A length of twine was wrapped around the Jeep’s back hatch, holding it down, as if maybe it popped open unexpectedly from time to time.

They drove in silence for about twenty minutes, taking several side streets until they reached his place, a small bungalow that needed some serious repairs if the cracked sidewalk and sagging gutters were any indication. There was a breezeway between the house and one-car garage. The door to the garage was open and he pulled inside, put the Jeep in park, and switched off the engine.

“Now what?” he asked, pulling the key from the ignition.

“Stay in the car. Hands up. I’ll come around.” She opened her door, the gun still trained on him, then walked around the front of the Jeep and stood outside the driver’s door, her muzzle aimed at him through the window. “Let yourself out,” she said.

Carefully, he opened the door, his hands raised in front of him. She took the keys from his hand.

“Get the twine from the back of your car.”

“The twine?”

She nodded.

“You’re not going to tie me up,” he stated flatly, challengingly.

“Yes. I am.”

“It won’t work. What are you running from? They’ll find you.”

“ No.”

“Don’t take offense. But I don’t think you’re good at this.”

Liv barked out a harsh laugh. “I’m only as good as I need to be.”

He thought that over, then walked around to the back of the Jeep and pulled up the hatch as far as the twine would allow. He untied the twine, gathered it together and put it into Liv’s outstretched hand.

She said, “I’m going to put this gun into my jacket pocket now, but I’ll shoot you through it if you do anything while we walk across the breezeway to the back door.”

He made a movement of acquiescence and then headed out the garage’s man-door, across the breezeway and up two concrete steps. At the door, he said, “I’m going to need the key.”

Carefully, she put the full set in his upturned palm.

“I usually close the garage door,” he told her.

“I’ll do it later.”

There were no neighbors directly across from him. In fact this stretch of road was winding and covered with fir trees, with a wide stretch of sun-scorched lawn beside the cracked cement driveway. If she had to stay out of sight a while, it was not a terrible hideout.

He threaded a key in the lock. Twisting the door open, he stepped inside, but Liv was right on his heels, just in case he planned to slam the door in her face and lock her out.

They were in a kitchen with a small wooden table and two chairs. “Sit down,” she ordered, holding the length of twine.

He eyed the twine and said disbelievingly, “You plan to tie me to a chair?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not going to do anything. I don’t really care what you’ve done. Let’s just sit down and talk about it.”

She gestured with the muzzle. “Sit down. Put the keys on the table.”

He eased himself into one of the chairs, set the keys on the table, then slid them away from himself toward her. She picked them up and put them in her pocket.

“This must be a first offense,” he said.

“It’s not,” she lied. “Put your arms behind you.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Just do it,” she snapped.

“So, you’re a hardened criminal? Is that what you’re saying?” He put his arms around the back of the chair, though it was clearly hard for him to comply.

“That’s what I’m saying.”

With his arms behind him, she threaded the twine through the lathed spokes of the chair’s back and around his wrists, tying them tightly, testing the twine’s strength.

“This is gonna get damned uncomfortable real fast,” he muttered.

“Be quiet. Please.”

“First offense,” he said. “You’re way too polite.”

“Shut up.”

She’d set the .38 on the table out of his reach while she tied him up, but if he made a move for it, she was pretty certain she could beat him to it. He might be able to take her down with brute strength, but there was the chance she could get a shot or two off were it loaded, and since he believed it was, he let her truss him to the chair with no resistance though the dark, mutinous look on his face didn’t bode well if he should chance to get free. With that thought in mind, she tested his bonds a second, then a third time until she was satisfied that he was contained.

Finally, she checked his pockets and found a cell phone, which he clearly wanted to protest about but kept his mouth a taut, grim line. She saw that it was turned off, but when she tried to switch it on, nothing happened.

“Out of juice,” he said, stating the obvious.

“Where’s the charger?” she asked.

“Not here. Why? You wanna use my phone? Where’s yours?”

“I don’t own one.” He looked at her as if she were an exotic species, which annoyed her. “Not everyone has to have a cell phone,” she said with a touch of asperity.

He shook his head and changed the subject. “What’s your plan?” She could discern a faintly mocking tone to his voice and decided he wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

“If you try anything, I will shoot you.”

“I’m having serious trouble believing you.”

The image of Aaron Dirkus’s body and the blood—all the blood—crossed the screen of her mind again, and she had to look away, tears welling. She drew a quivering breath and swallowed hard, several times. “I will,” she said with more conviction and her desperation must have penetrated because his expression grew more serious.

Needing to get outside his range of vision, she walked behind him, obsessively testing the twine yet again. When she was convinced it would hold him but wouldn’t cut off his circulation, she backed away until she felt the kitchen counter behind her. Leaning against it, her legs seemed to lose all strength and she sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees, the .38 hanging loosely from her hands. Tears ran down her cheeks and she stared into space, reviewing the scene at Zuma though she’d told herself she wouldn’t.

“What’s your name?” he asked. She could only see the back of his head.

Blinking hard, she cleared her throat. “Livvie,” she said, invoking the name of her younger self.

“Well, Livvie, I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of hungry. I hope you’re not planning to starve me.”

It took her long moments to pull herself together, but finally she got to her feet and wandered to his refrigerator. Inside were some sliced deli ham, a loaf of bread, mayonnaise, mustard and some dicey-looking iceberg lettuce. She put together a sandwich, leaving off the lettuce, put it on a plate, found a steak knife in a drawer—he hardly had any utensils or kitchenware of any kind, she noticed—and cut the sandwich in half.

Sliding the plate in front of him, she asked, “What do you drink?”

“Beer. Coke. Water. Occasionally a semi-nice glass of wine.”

She went to the sink and poured him a glass of water, placing that in front of him, too. They stared at each other and she picked up the sandwich and held it to his mouth.

“Actually, I’d like a drink of water first.”

“Take a bite.” When he pressed his lips together in rebellion, she added, “Please.”

“You’re a very polite kidnapper,” he pointed out again.

“You were right. It’s my first time,” she admitted.

“Wow. I’m shocked.” Then, “The police after you?”

“Probably. By now, anyway.”

“What did you do?”

“Take a bite,” she said again, and he bit into the sandwich with white teeth, his gray-blue gaze never leaving her face. When he was finished chewing, she held the water glass to his lips and he took a long swallow. After that, they sat in silence while she fed him the rest of the sandwich.

After he’d swallowed the last bite, he said, “What about you? Hungry? I don’t have a huge selection, but I think there’s enough for another sandwich.”

“I’m going to go close the garage door.”

She was happy to get out of his presence for a moment. Her head was crammed with thoughts. She needed to see the news. She needed to know what was going on.

God, what have I done?

The realization that she was a kidnapper sent a shockwave through her body. What had she been thinking? Now, it didn’t matter what the situation at Zuma was all about, she was a criminal of the worst kind.

Shutting the garage behind her, she looked around quickly and found the source of the twine in a roll in the extremely empty garage. There were no rakes or tools or lawn chairs or whatever else people kept in garages. There was nothing but the Jeep, the twine and a pile of black tarp.

Reaching upward, she grabbed the handle for the garage door, looking out to the road just as an older-model Buick cruised by with an elderly man at the wheel. He didn’t even bother to glance over, but panic filled her anyway as she slammed down the door. She grabbed up the roll of twine.

Returning to the kitchen, she set the twine on the counter, then stood in front of Auggie and asked, “Is this really your house?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It doesn’t feel like anyone lives here.”

He assessed her silently for a few moments, then said, “I just moved here and I don’t have a lot of stuff.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Canada,” he said.

“Canada,” she repeated with an edge to her voice. “You don’t sound Canadian.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ve been oot and aboot all day, eh? That good enough for you?”

She almost laughed. Hysterical laughter, for certain, but the irked look on his face was almost comical. Almost. “Not really.”

“I didn’t say I was Canadian. I’ve just been living in British Columbia a while, that’s all. I’m a fishing guide.”

“Really?”

“Really. What are you, besides a fugitive?”

“I’m . . . I’m . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment, then asked, “You have a television?”

“Basic cable. In my bedroom.”

“Can you walk?” she asked. She hadn’t bound his feet.

“You want me to come watch TV with you?”

“Just the news.”

They stared at each other another moment or two, then he got awkwardly to his feet, carrying the chair on his back as Liv preceded him across the living room toward the west end of the house. Directly ahead was a bathroom and there were bedrooms to the right and left of a short hallway. She could see the television in the bedroom to the right—the room toward the rear of the house—and headed that way. Auggie followed after her, banging the chair into the wall several times and swearing softly in the process.

By the time he’d slammed his chair down near the door and sat upon it and Liv had perched on the end of the bed, it was five forty-five. Had it really only been hours since the attack?

The remote was tossed on the bed beside her. Liv snatched it up and hit the POWER button. The Channel Seven news came up and it was the weather. They both watched in silence as more sunshine was predicted, and more, and more. “It’s been a beautiful week so far and there’s more to come,” the weatherman said with a smile.

“Beautiful week,” Liv repeated as they went to commercial, her voice breaking. She wanted to lie down on his bed and bury her face in the covers and never come up.

“What started this?” Auggie asked her, a note of concern entering his voice, which nearly did her in.

She turned down the volume but kept her gaze on the commercial—something about being ultra-fit with the use of a “miracle product”—but her thoughts were far removed. At length, she asked him, “Do you know about what happened at Zuma today?”

A pause. “Someone shot up the place,” he said carefully.

“I was out to lunch, literally . . . but I came back and they were all dead, dying, injured, shot. . . .” She looked over at him and saw he was staring at the .38 she’d laid on the bed beside her. “It wasn’t this gun. This one hasn’t even been fired . . . yet. I just went home and got it and then I ran out.”

“You work there.”

“I’m the missing employee.”

“You should call the police,” he said immediately. “If what you’re saying is true, then—”

“That’s just it. They won’t believe me. They never believe me.”

“Never believe you?”

“I don’t trust them. I don’t like them and I don’t want them.” She shook her head. On a half-laugh, she gestured to his trussed-up state, “And now, it’s too late anyway.”

“I wouldn’t press charges.”

“Oh, sure,” she said with a snort of disbelief.

“Livvie, they’ll help you. They want to get in touch with you.”

“Of course they do!” she said emphatically. “And they’ll throw me into an interrogation room and try to wring out a confession and use my past against me and before you know it, it’ll all be my fault. And maybe it is anyway!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re not meant to.”

“What did you mean about ‘my past’?”

“Nothing!”

“Well, why the hell did you say it was your fault? I believe you, that you didn’t shoot those people at Zuma,” he added.

“I didn’t.”

“Why were they shot? Do you have any idea?”

She shook her head slowly.

“You do have an idea, Livvie,” he argued, watching her closely.

“It’s just Liv . . . please . . . and, yeah, someone’s after me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know, but it’s always been there. I’ve always known it, felt it. I think this—massacre—has something to do with me.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I can’t explain it. I don’t have any proof. I know you won’t believe me. Why would you? But it’s a feeling I have, and it’s real.” She paused, then added, “I’m not . . . completely nuts.”

He was studying her in a way that made her extremely uncomfortable. She was about to say something to break the tension, when he said, “We’ll go to the police together. I’ll take you and we’ll tell them—”

“NO!”

He drew in a breath and exhaled it slowly. “If you would just—”