The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [114]
He started his Honda and turned toward the Tri-State Tollway, repeating the name Laura Russo so he wouldn’t forget, as he was too afraid to write it down.
41
MONDAY, AUGUST 2
SHE WAS HOLDING the phone—his phone—monkeying with it. She had it turned on.
How did she get my phone?
Wayne shook himself awake. The passenger door was open and he quickly slapped the phone out of Cynthia’s hands, knocking it to the ground, picking it up again, dropping it, finally turning it off.
“Oh, sorry,” she said, startled.
Wayne tried to smile. The much-needed sleep had made his head heavy, but the pain was better all over. “No, I’m sorry. Woke up and forgot where I was for a second.”
“I opened the door and then I saw it lying on the ground. I wasn’t sure if it fell out of the car or if somebody else had lost it. I was trying to see who it belonged to.”
“It’s mine,” Wayne said.
“I didn’t know you had a phone.”
“Pretty much useless in the desert.”
“Now that we’re back in civilization, why don’t you call your friends?”
Damn. “I did. Last night. A buddy is going to pick me up in Lincoln. Sorry I freaked out. I’m just trying to save the battery.”
Cynthia dropped him the same look Nada did when she was skeptical, which was often. “Huh. Where in Lincoln is your friend picking you up?”
Wayne wondered if she’d poked around on the phone, if she’d checked to see if he had made any calls. How long has she had it on? “I said I’d call when we got closer.”
“Huh.”
Wayne helped Will break down the tent while Cynthia set up breakfast on the wobbly picnic table. Will had walked to the campground’s general store and picked up coffee and some doughnuts and a USA Today. As they ate, Will grabbed the sports section, handed Cynthia the business and entertainment sections, and offered Wayne the main section. “Anything in there about Palo Verde?” Will asked.
“Doubt it,” Wayne said. The lead story on page one was about a massive blackout covering almost a quarter of Chicago. Cooling centers had been established across the city. Commonwealth Edison was asking people to conserve but was confident it could restore power quickly and subsequently meet the people’s increasing power demands. A spokesman asked for patience. The mayor was urging everyone to check on elderly relatives and neighbors, mindful of a heat wave disaster some years ago that had left hundreds dead. The most urgent need was fresh water. Trucks and trainloads of bottled water were being diverted from all over the country to Chicago.
Wayne followed the story as it jumped inside and his hands froze as he had one of those alarming sensations you get when you see a familiar thing in an unfamiliar place—that paralyzing combination of recognition and confusion.
What the hell is my picture doing in the newspaper?
On page four, adjacent to a story about the murders of Las Vegas ADA Beatrice Beaujon and her husband, was Wayne’s employee photo from the Colossus, the same photo that had been on the front of the badge he had tossed in the Tornillo brush. He knew from the mirror in the Subaru that he didn’t look much like it anymore. But he looked similar enough. Some things, second-degree burns and a beard won’t cover up.
The story said police were following several avenues with regard to motive, including the possibility that an individual named Wayne Jennings, an associate director of security at the Colossus Casino, had been an obsessed former lover of one of Beatrice Beaujon’s friends. Another murder in the city might be related, they said. Jennings was missing after having been seen fleeing the latest crime scene. Calls to Jennings’s mother in Sparks, Nevada, the story said, had gone unanswered.
Canada Gold was not mentioned by name.
Wayne felt the sweat building at his hairline despite the morning chill. His mother had become one of those parents, the parents of infamous criminals. Jeffrey Dahmer had