Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [743]
“There’s not that much traffic. I can do it.”
“Fuck it. Keep going.”
And then, as they got closer, she saw it. On their left at the Phillip 66 Station was a black and white, Sarpy County Sheriff’s Department in bold print on its side. She hadn’t noticed it before because it had been partially hidden by the gas pumps. Now, as they drove by, there it was.
“Don’t speed,” Jared instructed. “Don’t make any stupid moves.”
Melanie wanted to tell him it wasn’t any of her stupid moves that had gotten them into this mess. She wanted to tell him if it hadn’t been for her quick—not stupid—moves they’d already be sitting in the back of a police cruiser. Instead, she simply flipped on her turn signal and eased back into traffic, trying to ignore her sweaty palms, fists gripping the steering wheel. Her teeth were clenched again, her lower lip between them. Her eyes darted back and forth as she tried to keep her head from moving, from looking in the direction of the cruiser. It was like roadkill in the middle of the highway and that annoying instinct to look even though you knew you shouldn’t.
“Stay calm,” Jared was saying, suddenly smooth and comforting.
Melanie recognized his seductive tone, the one he used like hypnosis usually to take the sting out of one of his cutting insults.
“No sudden moves,” he said. “Just be cool.”
She caught a glimpse of Charlie, now huddled on the seat in a ball, hugging his backpack, face white, eyes glazed. She didn’t have time to worry about him, not now when it took all her concentration to keep the car in the right lane of the two-lane highway and watch the cruiser in her side mirror.
Jared was watching the highway, too, while digging in the duffel bag. Soon she heard a rhythmic click-click and her stomach pitched when she saw him reloading the gun.
She wanted to tell him his gun had already gotten them into enough trouble, to remind him that she and Charlie had never had to use guns before. Instead, she said nothing.
Both she and Jared were so focused on the black and white at the gas station that neither noticed the one in the oncoming traffic. Melanie gasped out loud when it passed by.
“Be cool,” Jared said as he turned his entire body to watch out the back window.
Melanie forced her eyes forward. She couldn’t, wouldn’t look in the car mirrors. She held her breath and kept the car steady despite her shaking hands and pounding heart.
“Fuck, fuck,” Jared said. And she knew before he added, “Here he comes.”
CHAPTER 18
5:23 p.m.
Grace let Emily wear Vince’s William and Mary alumni baseball cap. He had also promised his daughter she could use his favorite travel mug for her juice but Grace couldn’t find that box. As Grace passed Emily’s bedroom she could hear her daughter telling her friend, Bitsy, about her daddy’s favorite cap, his lucky cap.
She checked her watch and decided she had time to unpack one more box before she started their dinner. It was amazing that they had managed these past weeks with all their worldly belongings buried in cardboard boxes, half mislabeled and the other half not labeled at all. This evening she needed to get back to the case files she had brought home. She had a preliminary set for Friday morning. Another crack whore up on drug charges. The only reason she remembered so clearly was because the defendant was being represented by Max Kramer. She thought that perhaps after his media stint with Barnett ole Max wouldn’t need to defend any more lowlifes.
Sometimes Grace wondered why men like Max Kramer became lawyers.
For Grace it was easy. When anyone asked—though the question came less frequently these days—why she had chosen to become a lawyer, she always said, without hesitation, that it was because of Atticus Finch. As a little girl Grace had been mesmerized by Harper Lee’s character in To Kill a Mockingbird who Gregory Peck brought to life on film. In the courtroom scenes, Atticus commanded respect, dressed in that crisply pressed three-piece suit, the shiny chain of his watch dangling when he pushed back his jacket and put his