Big Goodbye, The (21 page)

Once in my car, I sped away. After a mile or so, when I was certain they weren’t following, I stopped at a payphone under a streetlamp in front of a closed service station and called Pete.

I told him all I could—all he needed to know to capture Rainer and the rest and to protect Harry. Next I called Harry and told him not to drop out of the race, Howell would. Then I hung up, got back in my car, and went to get Lauren.

Chapter 46

My headlights couldn’t penetrate the fog. I was driving blind down Highway 22 towards Wewahitchka, to a fish camp on the Dead Lakes. Heat lightening continued to flicker occasionally, but there was no thunder in it. Mine was the only car on the highway, its engine the only sound.

Everything had fallen into place once I found out that Walt hadn’t killed Cab or July, that Lauren’s car was near Rainer’s sanatorium, and Howell thought I knew where she was. Ray had her.

He was doing what he does—protecting, obsessing—this was Dorothy Powell all over again. My guess was he was as obsessed with her as I was, that he had been hired to follow her and had not stopped when the job ended. That’s what July discovered in our logs—and why he killed her.

Ray had a small clapboard fish camp on the Dead Lakes and I was betting Lauren’s life that he had taken her there.

When I pulled up in front of his camp and got out of my car, Ray walked out onto the porch holding his gun.

“Ray,” I said.

“Jimmy,” he said.

We were quiet a moment, the nocturnal noises of the woods the only sounds, the chirping of the crickets nearly deafening, maddening in its monotony.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“Protecting her,” he said.

“From?”

“Guys like you,” he said.

“And Cab?”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

Walt hadn’t lied. He had no reason to. Ray had killed Cab. He had been following Lauren, attempting to protect her. It was how he knew Pete and Butch had taken me to look at Cab’s crime scene—not from a friend at police headquarters.

I had been as wrong about Ray as I had about Lauren. My own distorted perceptions leading me to make the mistaken assumptions that always kept me a step behind. He hadn’t been spending nearly as much time in court as he claimed. He had been following Lauren.

“But it was yourself you were protecting from July,” I said.

His knees seemed to buckle a bit at that, and he had to steady himself against the railing, but he didn’t say anything.

Beyond the cabin, the deadhead cypress trees rising out of the moonlit lake were eerie, their jagged edges traced in fog.

I looked at the cabin door. “Did you fall in love with Lauren when you were following her for Harry?” I asked.

“It’s not like that,” he said. “I just want to protect her.”

“You’re obsessed with her—or protecting her. You didn’t stop following her when the job was over, did you?”

“I stopped,” he said. “For a while.”

“Not long I bet. And lately you’ve been back on but good, haven’t you? Damsel in distress. Ray Parker’s specialty. She thought I was following her, but it was you. You were outside my hotel the night Lauren came to my room, but Freddy was, too, and I chased him. You’re an elusive bastard, I’ll give you that. I never got close enough to actually see you. But July did. She saw you that night in the park. It’s why she was acting the way she was, why she went back to the office. She was looking at our logs for what I thought was the way I had covered up following Lauren when we first broke up, but it was actually your cover-up that she was confirming.”

“I didn’t mean to kill her,” he said.

“I never thought you did,” I said.

“I followed her back from the park.”

“While I drove Lauren home and Clip took care of Carl—who you hired to distract us.”

“I was just going to talk to her, but the way she looked at me . . .” He trailed off and was silent a long moment. “Like one of the goddamn perverts I put away. Like that Somerset fella. Just like that. I just couldn’t take it. I . . . I lost it. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t.”

“And if she told, you would lose your reputation,” I said, “your agency.”

He nodded.

“I was just trying to reason with her,” he said, “but I was so angry, so . . . I slung her around a little . . . I thought I could calm her down, get her to see, but . . . she hit her head.”

We were silent a long moment.

The dense woods around us made it seem like we were the only two people on the planet, the isolation nearly as palpable as my desperation.

“I’m here to get Lauren,” I said. “She needs medical attention, and I’m taking her to get it.”

“I’m gonna get a doctor out here in the morning,” he said.

“Be too late. Besides, she’s leaving with me tonight.”

I took a couple of steps toward him and he pointed his gun directly at me.

“You gonna shoot
me
?” I asked.

“If I have to,” he said.

“Ray, she’s got to get help tonight. Might already be too late.”

“Then I’ll get her some help tonight,” he said.

“She loves me,” I said.

“Some women are only attracted to the wrong men for them.”

“You talking about Dorothy or Lauren?”

He didn’t say anything.

I took a few more steps toward him.

“I’ve got the drop on you,” he said. “Could kill you easy even if I didn’t.”

“Do you hear yourself?” I said. “Kill me? Really? Ray?”

He didn’t say anything, but I could see in his face he was willing to kill me.

I pulled out one of Walt’s guns and pointed it at him as I continued to walk toward the house.

“Jimmy, don’t make me shoot you,” he said. “I don’t want to. I truly don’t.”

My friend had become my enemy, my mentor my nemesis. I could tell he was willing to shoot me, but would he? Would he actually pull the trigger? Look me in the eye, kill me in cold blood?

“You’re gonna have to,” I said. “I’m here to get Lauren. She loves me. I love her. I owe her. She’s leaving with me.”

I continued walking toward him, going all in, betting my life he wouldn’t shoot, feeling good about my chances right up until the moment he pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out through the woods, the rapport ricocheting off the pine, oak, and cypress trees, silencing all sounds.

I fell to the ground, searing pain in the right side of my abdomen. The acute ache of the wound was so intense I thought it unbearable, but then it vanished as quickly as it came, and I didn’t feel anything at all.

The gun I was holding had fallen a few feet away. Ray stepped down off the porch and kicked it away from me.

“Toss your backup away and I won’t shoot you again,” he said.

I slowly reached down and pulled out the piece from my ankle holster and tossed it a few feet away.

“Smart boy,” he said. “You’re shot bad, but you might make it. You need to get to a doctor right away.”

He reached down and started lifting me up. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll help you to your car.”

As he lifted me, I came up with Walt’s other gun and shot him straight in the heart at point-blank range. He let go of me and fell down. I fell on top of him.

It took me a few minutes, but I finally got up. My shirt was soaked with blood, and, as I climbed the steps to the cabin, I wondered how long I had before I lost consciousness and bled out.

Chapter 47

I stumbled into the cabin to find Lauren sleeping on the bed, relief washing over me to hear her breathing. I knelt down beside her and just watched her for a while.

Her beauty was heightened by her vulnerability as she laid there, her dark hair splayed out on the shoulders of her elegant white silk gown. She looked like the angel she had become.

She opened her eyes.

“Hey, soldier,” she said.

“Hey.”

As if to make sure I was real, she reached up and tenderly touched my face with the back of her delicate hand, and I imagined how abrasive my whiskers must be on her soft skin.

“I found you,” I said.

“Thank God,” she said.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, fighting against the sting in the back of my eyes. “I . . .”

“I love you,” she said.

For a long moment I couldn’t speak. She had just said what I most wanted to hear and I didn’t want to just move past it. I wanted to enjoy it, revel in it.

“I’m sorry for the all the cruel things I said to you.”

“I forgave you the moment you did,” she said. “You were speaking with the voice of love.”

“It’d take someone like you to recognize it.”

She smiled up at me.“How much do you know?”

“Everything.”

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve got to take you to a hospital,” I said.

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t do that to Harry.”

“Harry’s fine,” I said. “He’ll be the next mayor of Panama City.”

“Still, I can’t—”

“Lauren, I’m taking you to a hospital.”

“It’s too late for the treatment now.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she said. “Just sit here with me for a while. You look tired.”

I was tired. I was so tired. If I stopped, if I rested just for a moment, I’d never get up again.

“We have to go,” I said. “Come on. I need you to help me.”

“Okay, soldier,” she said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll go with you anywhere. Just one condition. Take me somewhere other than Panama City and have me admitted as Lauren Riley.”

Chapter 48

My jacket closed to keep the blood off her, Lauren was leaning on me as we drove toward Tallahassee in the diminishing fog.

Since losing my arm, I had not missed it as much as I did at this moment. I wanted to wrap it around her, to pull her close to me, to hold her tight.

I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “I can’t believe what I’ve done to you.”

She looked up at me. “This isn’t something you did to me. It’s just something that happened. Too many things went into it for you to be the blame. We’re both guilty.”

I shook my head. “I’m—”

Covering my lips with her fingertips, she said, “You’re my epiphany, my very own love letter from God. He used you to change my life, Jimmy.”

“I—”

“Don’t rush past that, soldier,” she said. “Listen to me. In the whole universe, you were the one thing that could convince me of God’s love. I’m dying. And I wouldn’t change a thing—not a single moment—except to spend more of them with you. I’m thankful, not resentful.”

I leaned in and kissed her forehead.

“I’m just glad you found me,” she said. “I was so afraid I’d die alone.”

“You’re not gonna die,” I said.

“Come on, soldier,” she said. “We both are. You gotta face—”

“If I can be an epiphany and you can be a saint . . . anything’s possible.”

“Well,” she said, “see what you can do, soldier.”

I did.

I drove as fast as I could, speeding past deer grazing on the shoulder of the road, atop the moon-dappled, pine-tree patterns on the grass, my old Ford piercing the remaining wisps of fog.

She fell asleep again, her breathing loud and labored.

I drove out of Gulf County and into Calhoun, over the Apalachicola River at Scott’s Ferry, through Blountstown, over the Apalachicola River again, and into Bristol—the serpentine river coiling around us, slithering in the moonlight.

I felt lightheaded, as if I might pass out, but I kept driving.

I raced down Highway 20, through Hosford and past the turnoff to Wakulla Springs.

I wouldn’t stop, no matter what.

The gas gauge needle was bouncing on E, but I kept driving.

I felt as if I had nearly bled out, as if everything around me were spinning, as if I didn’t have the strength to even turn the wheel, but I kept driving.

I could no longer hear Lauren breathing beside me, no matter how hard I listened, but I kept driving. And I wouldn’t stop. No matter what. I wouldn’t accept any fate but the one I wanted, the one she deserved.

Just outside Tallahassee, I regained consciousness when I ran off the road and sideswiped a light pole. We were close, and I was still alive. Beside me, I thought I heard Lauren breathing, but I couldn’t be sure, and I was afraid to check.

Directly in front of us, the rising sun burnished the buildings of Florida’s capital and emblazoned the tops of pine trees along the eastern horizon. I was witnessing the birth of a new day, and it gave me hope. Maybe I had been right after all. Maybe anything was possible. Maybe we really could get through this. We had survived the night, hadn’t we?

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About Michael

Multi-award-winning novelist Michael Lister is a native Floridian best known for literary suspense thrillers and mysteries.

The Florida Book Review says that “Vintage Michael Lister is poetic prose, exquisitely set scenes, characters who are damaged and faulty,” and Michael Koryta says, “If you like crime writing with depth, suspense, and sterling prose, you should be reading Michael Lister,” while Publisher’s Weekly adds, “Lister’s hard-edged prose ranks with the best of contemporary noir fiction.”