The Thousand - Kevin Guilfoile [116]
He thought about the dream he’d had. Nada playing roulette. Red or black. He didn’t even feel he had as many choices as that right now. He was just pushing forward, trying to disappear long enough to get to Chicago.
He considered the evidence they might have against him. He had never met Bea Beaujon, but he’d been at the scene of Amoyo’s murder and then fled before police arrived. He had been calling Amoyo’s workplace and asking for him. On the hard drive of Wayne’s computer, now certainly in the possession of Las Vegas police, was an amount of information about Canada Gold that, to a suspicious mind, might be described as—
“An obsessed former lover,” the paper had called him. It wasn’t completely untrue.
Oh shit.
He heard the siren and popped his head up, peering over the seat and the canvas bag holding the tent and out the hatchback’s rear window. A Nebraska State Patrol car, either black or dark blue—Shit, a Mustang, just like mine.
“What did you do?” Wayne said with more than a little desperation.
They were crossing a bridge and Cynthia had slowed down but couldn’t pull over.
“Yeah, Cynthia,” Will said with an accusing hiss. “What did you do?”
Cynthia glanced in the rearview and gave her boyfriend a look that said, later.
“What did you do?” he asked again.
The cop was right behind them, Mars lights spinning, headlights blinking, one side and then the other. “Look,” she said. “He’s not who he says he is. His name is Wayne Jennings, not Daniel something. He’s from Las Vegas, not Chicago.”
“What?”
“I read a couple of his e-mails this morning,” she said. “The cops are looking for him. He’s in some kind of trouble. This whole problem you have back in Lincoln. We can turn him in and get you leverage with the county attorney. Being a good citizen counts; that’s what the lawyer said.”
“Are you crazy?” Will said.
“That’s why I waited until we were in Nebraska before I turned him in.”
“When did you call?”
“I texted.”
“Goddammit.”
“This will be good.”
“He hardly did anything!”
“He lied to us, Will. He’s not who he says he is. And we were hours and hours from Palo Verde. That story was bullshit. He’s wanted, and for something bad, I bet.”
“Goddammit!”
They were almost over the bridge. Now Wayne could see two patrol cars following just car lengths behind. He lifted the door handle to his right, but the door didn’t budge.
“Child locks.” Cynthia gave him a smug smile in the mirror.
Wayne wanted to tell them about the mistake they were making, that they had no idea what they were doing. Instead, he leaned forward, pushing his left arm between them, and gripped the key fob dangling from the ignition. Cynthia shrieked, slapping weakly at his hand. With his thumb, Wayne popped open the hatchback.
He climbed into the way back and pushed the tent over Cynthia’s and Will’s backpacks. Will was shouting for her to pull over as they got to the edge of the bridge. The cops were close enough that Wayne could see their faces. They burped their sirens. Cynthia slowed.
Wayne pushed open the rear hatch and slid onto the moving pavement, riding the tent like a sled, spitting gravel behind him. The first Mustang swerved onto the side of the road; the second slammed into the back of the first one with an abrupt crunch of metal and plastic and glass, some of which stung Wayne’s forehead and cheek. In an instant, he was on his feet and running—lumbering, really—toward the median, which offered a line of old trees as cover. He must have surprised the cops, because he was already dodging honking cars on the westbound lanes before he could even hear them shouting after him.
In a few more seconds, he was into the woods on the other side of the highway, running, running, running. He heard the jingling of three pennies in