Now You See Her - Michael Ledwidge [71]
I thought about stopping and asking for his help, but even he would be no protection from Peter, I realized. I spotted a taxi stopped at the light on the corner and bolted for it.
The traffic light turned from red to green when I was still about twenty feet away.
I wasn’t going to make it, I thought as I ran barefoot, wheezing and covered in sweat, into the street. I winced, waiting for the feel of a bullet in my back, to fall sprawling on the asphalt. In my hysterical mind, it was already over. I could actually see Peter coming over and smiling his easy smile as he placed a gun to my forehead.
But instead, the cab suddenly stopped short and I jumped in. I broke a nail ripping open the handle of its rear door.
“In a rush, are we?” the young Asian wiseass of a driver said as I collapsed across the rear seat.
“Drive,” I gasped. “Drive, drive. Please just drive.”
Chapter 88
I MADE THE TAXI DRIVER PROMISE to wait for me as I pounded on Charlie’s front door.
He finally opened it, wearing a pair of Texas A&M boxer shorts.
“What the hell?” Charlie said. “Nina?”
I smoothed my still wet hair as I stood in my bathrobe, staring at him. I hadn’t thought this far in advance. What could I say? How could I explain what had just happened?
He reached out and grabbed my elbow, sudden concern in his eyes.
“Nina, are you OK? Are you hurt?”
I was about to tell him that there was a fire at the hotel. Why not? What was another lie on top of nearly two decades’ worth?
I was more surprised than anyone about what happened next. Maybe it was the fact that I’d come unglued with shock and wasn’t thinking straight. Or that I’d been working so hard over the last week under such enormous stress.
I stepped over the threshold and crashed into Charlie like he was a tackling sled. I wrapped my arms around him like he was my last hope. Probably because he was.
He seemed baffled, to put it mildly. But that shocker wasn’t anything compared to what came out of my mouth a second later.
“My name isn’t Nina,” I said in his ear. “Oh, Charlie. You have to help me. Please.”
Chapter 89
CHARLIE STARED AT ME, blown away, for a few moments before he brought me back into his office and sat me down. After he paid for the taxi, he put a half-full water glass of Johnnie Walker in my hand and one in his own, sat slowly himself, and let out a breath. After several more beats, he yelled, “What?!”
I stared at him for a few seconds, biting my lip. How could I do this? I thought. How could I open up after so many years, so many lies? I’d been keeping my secrets for too long. How could I reveal them now?
At first, I scrambled to think of a way to minimize the utter outrageousness of my insane life story. But after a minute, I realized how impossible that was.
Harris’s case file was sprawled out on Charlie’s desk. I stood and retrieved the sheet with the photographs of the suspected Jump Killer victims.
“Look, Charlie,” I said, tapping my high school yearbook picture twice. “This isn’t a young Renée Zellweger. It’s me. My name is Jeanine. Jeanine Fournier. I used to be married to Peter Fournier, the Key West chief of police.”
Then for the next half hour, as Charlie sat there blinking, I explained myself. Or at least tried to. When I got to the part about my faked abduction, he held up his hand.
“So you’re telling me that Fournier, the chief of police, is not only a bad cop, but, in fact, a psychopath?” Charlie said.
I nodded vigorously. “That’s why I faked my death. Peter’s first wife tried to leave him through regular channels. I didn’t feel like being stalked and gunned down.”
Then I told him the part about the Jump Killer and my new life and identity up in New York with Emma.
“When my firm volunteered me for the pro bono initiative, and I found out about Justin,” I explained, “I knew I had to come back down here to help. I knew Justin was innocent because the psycho who picked me up hitchhiking and tried to kill me the night I left was white.”
Charlie closed his eyes and