Committed (2 page)

Molly walked back into the kitchen. From her right hand hung a red gas can. “The guy had a couple rifles that I tossed into the RV. You never know,” she said.

“Was the money there?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, it looked like a bit more than four grand, but it was close,” she said.

Nick nodded to the gas can in her hand. “What are you doing with that?”

“I figured we’d torch the place,” she said.

He smiled and walked to her. “No, no, no.” He took her head in his hands and wiped a bit of blood from her cheek with his thumb.

“But what’s the difference?” she asked.

“Well, lighting the place on fire will only draw the cops. They’ll find the bodies, put together that the couple’s RV is missing, and then be on the lookout for it. Now, if we don’t torch the house, we can leisurely drive the RV until it’s out of fuel, dump it, and no one will be the wiser. Now, go put that gas can in the RV in case we need it.”

Molly looked down. “Fine,” she said.

Nick lifted her face by the chin and gave her a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said. “I just… I don’t know. You know I like fire. It’s fun for me.”

“I know. Just not right now.”

“Fine,” she said.

“Are we ready to go?” he asked.

“Yeah. Unless you wanted to grab anything else from here. I think we’re pretty much set.”

Nick reached his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of smokes. He tapped out a cigarette, held it in his lips, and fished through his pocket for a small box of matches. He found them, slid the box open, and struck one across the side. He saw Molly’s eyes sparkling as she watched the flame. Nick shook the matchstick until the flame went out and squinted one eye at the smoke rising from the cigarette’s tip. “What the hell. Douse this dump,” he said.

“Really?”

“Sure. Knock yourself out. By the time they figure everything out, we’ll be in Omaha. We can get a different vehicle there.”

Molly scrunched her face and rocked her head back and forth. “But I like the RV. Seems like a nice way to get up there. All comfortable and stuff.”

“We can always just stop at an RV park and get another one. I saw some maps in there. We’ll find a place.”

“You really don’t care if I do?” she asked.

“Baby, if you really want to light this place up, go for it. We’ll figure it out.”

“Aw, I love you so much, sweetie.”

Molly went to the table and soaked the couple in the fuel. The liquid rolled off their heads and collected between them on the floor. She spread the remainder of the gas in the can around the kitchen.

“Are the keys in the RV?” Nick asked.

Molly tossed the empty gas can into the far corner of the room. “Yup,” she said. “Got a light?”

Nick threw her the box of matches. “Hurry up. I’ll be outside.”

I shoveled another forkful of organic, fresh-from-the-farm scrambled eggs into my mouth. I couldn’t tell the difference between them or store bought, but apparently Karen could. I looked down at my feet and my open-mouthed, tongue-flopping bulldog. He closed his mouth, cocked his head to the side and did his best sad eyes at me in hopes of getting some of my breakfast. I waited for Karen to look out the window and snuck him a chunk of turkey bacon.

“Hey!” Karen said. “Table scraps.”

I looked over at her. She was dressed for work—dark blazer, matching pants, and a teal blouse. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun.

“These aren’t scraps. Plus, look at him. Poor little guy just wants some flavor other than dry dog food.”

“He eats the best dog food made, and it’s organic,” Karen said with a nod.

“So are these eggs.” I picked up a small chunk of my scrambled eggs and let him take it from my hand.

Karen shook her head at me. “You spoil that damn dog so bad.”

I reached down and gave him a pat on the head. “Go on, get,” I said.

Porkchop went to the living-room couch and lay down on his cushion.

“See how good that dog is? How good he listens? He deserves his treats.”

Karen rolled her eyes. “He only listens to you so well because you feed him from the table.”

“That’s called training,” I said.

“Mmm hmm.”

I smiled, reached out for my coffee, and brought it to my lips.

“Are you sure he doesn’t want some of your coffee as well?”

“I tried giving him some the other day. Apparently, he’s not a coffee drinker.”

“Right,” Karen said. “So did Bill and Scott get anywhere since the last you heard?”

I took a sip and set the cup back down. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll find out in a few hours.”

“So how exactly is it working with them chasing these two from state to state?” she asked.

“I guess they’re just getting help from local Bureau offices along the way. Them trying to coordinate with all the local departments on actively fleeing suspects was getting a little much for just Scott and Bill to handle, which is why Ball is sending us to lend a hand. The last victims were in the Kansas City area, which is where we are starting.”

“What happens if they get to Canada?” Karen asked.

“I don’t know. Damn well going to try to keep that from happening. That is, if that’s even where they are going. Scott seems to think they are heading for somewhere in Montana.”

“They could be trying to cross there. Lots of countryside,” Karen said.

“And the girl knows the area. She’s originally from somewhere up there. They could be heading there and then trying to cross the border. Up in the air right now,” I said.

“Did they ever find out how he picked this girl up or if there was a relationship already there?” she asked.

I reached for my coffee, took a drink, and scooped some more eggs onto my fork. “Don’t know. The guy, Nick, was from somewhere in Louisiana. That’s where Bill and Scott originally ID’d him. When they got word of him in Jackson, Mississippi, they went back out after the guy. They think he picked the girl up somewhere between Jackson and Fayetteville. Her prints were found at the crime scene there as well as the ones in Joplin and Overland Park.”

“So a fleeing serial killer has time to meet and convince a woman to accompany him in both running from the law and committing homicides?”

“Don’t know how they got together, but she’s no saint either. Laundry list of priors—criminal mischief, battery, drugs. The sheet is pretty impressive for a twenty-three-year-old female.”

“And how old is the guy?”

“Thirty-five.”

Karen shook her head, picked up her plate, and headed for the sink. I finished the bit of breakfast left on my plate in another two mouthfuls and followed her to the kitchen. Karen rinsed our plates and set them in the dishwasher. She dried her hands and looked at her watch. “Damn, I have to go, babe. My meeting starts in an hour.” She looked over at the pans still sitting on the oven.

“I’ll take care of cleaning up. Beth won’t be here for, like, a half hour yet.”

“Thanks,” she said.

“No big deal.”

She gathered her car keys and bag from the counter.

I walked her to the door leading out to the garage.

“Call me when you get there,” she said.

I grabbed her by the waist and gave her a kiss. “Okay. It should be later this afternoon.”

She smiled and ran her hand through the hair on the side of my head. She craned her neck and appeared to be looking at the hair she was moving around. “Getting grayer, old man. You’ll be completely white in another year at this rate. Maybe we should dye that a bit.”

“Hold on a second. One, it’s not that bad, and I think I have about another twenty years or so until it goes full white. And two, weren’t you the one who wanted my hair grayer on the sides, to the point of you dying it in there? But now that it’s doing it naturally, you don’t like it?”

She shrugged.

“I think you just like to tinker with my appearance,” I said. “Try to make me look like different guys from your soaps and movies.”

Karen smiled. “You got me.” Then she went quiet for a moment. “No, I just want to, you know, hang on to our youth.” She pulled me in close and stared at me. Then she raised her right eyebrow. “We’re not that old, are we?”

I grumbled a bit on the inside. Karen had a real knack for starting the type of conversations that I knew to tiptoe around right before—or shortly after—I went out of town for work. I took a swing at diffusing what I assumed was her feeling old.

“Babe, I fell in love with you the day I met you and will feel that way when you’re a little old granny with a walker. Most beautiful woman in the world to me then, now, and always.”

She swatted my chest, shook her head, and smiled. “Gotta go, the bullshit is getting deep in here. Love you. Be safe.”

I smiled. “Love you too. And I’m serious.”

She pulled open the door into the garage. “Yeah, yeah. Be careful and call me when you can.”

“I will.” I gave her another kiss and saw her off.

My cell phone buzzed in my pocket against my leg. I pulled it out, clicked Talk, and stepped back into the house.

“Hello,” I said.

“Be there in five. Be ready,” Beth said.

“Five?” I asked. “Minutes?”

“Yup.”

“Um, okay.”

I clicked off from the call and walked to the kitchen to quickly clean up. I scooped up my laptop bag and wheeled my suitcase to the front door. Porkchop left the comfort of the couch and came to see me off. I crouched next to him and gave him a petting until Beth pulled up out front. I left the dog with the usual instructions to be a good boy and headed out.

I wheeled my suitcase toward Beth’s black Cadillac as the passenger-side window lowered.

“Hustle, Agent!” Beth shouted. “We’re going to miss our flight!”

I picked up the pace and tossed my bags in the trunk then jumped in on the passenger side.

“I thought our flight didn’t leave until nine forty-five,” I said. “We have, like, two hours.”

She pulled away from the front of my townhouse. “We got a different flight forty minutes earlier, and traffic is looking like a real bitch.”

I checked the time and did a little mental math. “I think we should be good on time. So why the different flight?”

Beth looked over at me and tucked her hair behind her ear. “They have a new scene south of Des Moines, Iowa. The couple is still heading north. They’re past Kansas City.”

I leaned back in the seat. “Are Bill and Scott meeting us at the airport, or are we meeting them somewhere?”

“We’ll get a rental from Des Moines and meet them wherever they’re at.”

“Sure,” I said. “What info did you get on the new scene?”

“Um, I’m drawing a blank on the victim’s name, but Bill said the guy was in his seventies. The man’s daughter is who found him, which is awful. The house looked ransacked, the man’s truck gone. The prints already came back as the couple. There is a BOLO out on the truck across the state.”

“The man at the scene? Nailed to the kitchen table?” I asked.

Beth nodded.

“And…?” I made a motion of having something around my neck.

“Yeah. Same as the others.” Beth glanced over her shoulder to check her blind spot and put her foot farther into the gas. “Shit, we’re going to miss our flight.”

“Plenty of time,” I said.

Beth took every opportunity to weave through cars and use the road’s shoulder to avoid traffic. She held her badge out the window five or six times and shot down surface streets at fifteen over the speed limit.

We arrived at the airport forty-five minutes before our plane departed. Beth parked her car in the long-term lot, and we made our way inside. She maintained an almost jogging pace, only taking a second here and there to yell back at me to hurry up. We had our bags checked, made it through security, and jogged to our gate with minutes to spare. Beth and I boarded the aircraft. The stewardess closed the airliner’s doors at our back as soon as we stepped on. Beth and I took our seats one row from the front.

I looked over at Beth wedging her laptop bag under the seat ahead of her. “Told you we’d be just fine on time.”

She shook her head, chuckled, and rubbed her eyes.

“What?” I asked.

Our flight was nonstop and mostly empty and took us just under three hours in the air.

When Beth and I stepped from the jetway into the airport, I looked left and right. “Um, is this place open?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I see a guy pushing a broom over there.” I jerked my chin at him. “And, wait, there’s a woman and small child back over there by the tumbleweed blowing through. This place is a ghost town.”

Beth shrugged. “Small regional airport, I guess.”

“Do we know if this place even has rental cars?”

“Yeah, Jim booked us one. We’ll be fine.”

I followed Beth through the empty corridors until we found the baggage claim. We grabbed our suitcases when the belts started rolling a few minutes later and made our way over to the rental-car counters. With the airport being exceptionally dead, we were off in our rental car inside a half hour of landing.

“Where are we meeting these two?” I asked.

“They’re at…” Beth grabbed her phone from the rental car’s dash and clicked on the hotel name the navigation was guiding us toward. “The American Lodge in Osceola.”

“Oh yeah, the ol’ American Lodge in Osceola. I know right where that is.”

“Smart ass. The navigation says we have about a half hour yet.”

“Got it,” I said.

Beth spent the rest of the trip talking about her ex-husband and how he was coming to Virginia the following week. She asked if Karen and I would like to go out and have dinner with them. Karen had yet to spend much time with Beth, and I figured, seeing as how she was technically my partner in my new arrangement, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if she and my wife knew each other a bit better. I left her with the answer that I’d see what Karen’s schedule was like.

“That is our hotel back there,” Beth said.

She put on her turn signal to exit the freeway and pointed out the windshield at a hotel sitting tucked in behind a pair of gas stations and a fast-food restaurant. I got a better look at it as we made a few turns and neared. The main building, closest to the street, resembled that of a ski lodge with a large peaked roof over the drive-up entryway for dropping bags. Huge wooden pillars with brown stone facades at the bottom supported the overhang from the front of the building—tucked behind it was the hotel itself, looking far less lodge and more rectangular three-story hotel. Beth pulled into the parking lot and found a spot. She dialed Bill, said a few words, and clicked off.