The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [68]
Nico glanced at the football-shaped digital clock glued to the dashboard. It was almost two in the morning.
“Listen, if you still need one of them maps,” Edmund said, “right as we pass I-20 in Florence, there’s one of those Circle ’n Stations with the big magazine sections—they got maps, travel guides, I swear I might’ve even seen an atlas or two. If you want, we can make it our next stop.”
Nico asked the voices what they thought. They couldn’t be more excited.
“Edmund, you’re a fine Christian,” Nico said, staring out at a passing telephone pole. “Your rewards will be bountiful in the end.”
36
As I pull into the parking lot at the back of my apartment building, I feel my phone vibrate and look down at caller ID. Crap. New York Times.
Surprised it took them this long, I push the Send button and brace myself. “Wes here.”
“Hey, Wes—Caleb Cohen. From the Times,” he announces with the forced familiarity of every reporter. Caleb used to cover Manning during White House days, meaning he called every day. But these days, we’re in the former-President rotation, which is barely a notch above second cousin once removed. Until right now.
“You have a statement on the escape yet?” Caleb asks.
“You know we never comment on Nico,” I tell him, following years of protocol. Last thing we need is to let some runaway quote rile up the mad dog.
“No, I don’t mean from Manning,” Caleb interrupts. “I mean from you. You’re the one with the scars. Aren’t you worried he’s out there, ready to hit you with something harder than a ricochet?”
He says it to get a rise, hoping I’ll blurt a quick response. That worked once, with Newsweek, right after the accident. I’m not twenty-three anymore.
“Nice talking to you, Caleb. And if you want to talk again, don’t print a no comment from us either. Just say we couldn’t be reached.”
I slam the phone shut, but as Caleb disappears, I’m swallowed by the haunting silence of the open-air parking lot, which is tucked just behind my apartment building. It’s almost midnight on a Thursday. At least fifty cars surround me, but no one’s in sight. Squeezing between two matching Hondas, I push the Door Lock button on my key ring just to hear the noise. It fades far too fast, leaving me alone with the reality of Caleb’s question: If Nico’s out there, what’s preventing him from coming back to finish the job?
Glancing around the empty parking lot, I don’t have an answer. But as I study the tall, slender shadows between the twelve-foot shrubs that surround the lot, I suddenly can’t shake that awkward, stomach-piercing anxiety that I’m no longer alone. Ignoring the skeleton arms of overgrown branches, I scan the darkness between the tall shrubs, holding my breath to listen even closer. My only reward is the droning buzz of crickets who fight for dominance against the hum of the lot’s overhead lampposts. Catching my breath, I take a few steps.
That’s when I hear the tiny metal jingling. Like coins rattling in a pocket. Or someone hitting a chain-link fence. I turn around slightly, scanning between the branches and spotting the fence that surrounds the parking lot and runs behind the hedges.
Time to get inside. Spinning back toward the building, I speed-walk toward the yellow-striped awning that juts out over the back entrance. On my far left, the crickets fall silent. There’s a rustling by the group of hedges that blocks the view to the pool area. Just the wind, I tell myself as I pick up my pace and move even faster toward the awning, which seems almost submerged in darkness.
Behind me, the rustling from the hedges gets louder. Please, God, just let me—
My phone vibrates in my hand as caller ID shows me a 334 prefix. Washington Post. Last year, Manning, like LBJ before him, had a secret actuarial done to see how long he’d live. The way things are going, I can’t help but wonder the same about myself. And while I’m tempted to pick it up just to have some sort of audio witness, the last thing I need right now is another reminder that Nico’s out there, waiting.
Shifting from speed walk to jog,