Nick of Time (12 page)

Nicki protested, “But I'm in here.”

Brad's eyebrows did their dance. “I know. But I don't like baths.” As the glass on the shower fogged from the heat, he turned his back to Nicki, then scooped his hands into the waistband of his shorts, which he let drop to the floor. “I'm a shower guy.”

He stepped into the stall and closed the door, transforming himself into an apparition behind the glass. Nicki watched, mesmerized, as he turned this way and that to get his whole body wet, and she continued to watch as he lathered himself with soap, and she felt her pulse quickening.

Jesus, he was
naked.
Despite the fog and the water droplets clinging to the glass, she could see his whole body. His
whole
body.
Everything.
And while she knew what all the parts were, there was one in particular that she'd seen only in pictures.

* * *

Warren and Monique Michaels could not have been more gracious, serving up an impromptu snack of cheese and crackers. While Warren worked the phone from the family room, making call after call, Carter stayed in the kitchen and met the family. Kathleen and her younger sister, Shannon, were both stars in their local soccer league. They showed him their trophies. His interest was not entirely feigned, but as he listened to them prattle on about school and sports, it took real effort not to let their words worsen his melancholy over Nicki. It was a terrible thing to envy little girls for their carefree lives.

And, of course, there was Nathan, a taller, darker, yet still-slight version of the boy Carter remembered from four years ago. Unlike his sisters, the sixteen-year-old never grew comfortable around Carter—a living remnant of the boy's pitch-black past. Monique sensed it early on, and gave Nathan an excuse to make his leave. He disappeared upstairs, and she followed a moment later, returning to the kitchen after ten or fifteen minutes.

“He doesn't mean to be rude,” she said. “He's just not completely over it all.”

“I understand,” Carter assured.

“Nathan says you wanted to throw him in jail,” Shannon added. She drew sharp and simultaneous rebukes from her mother and sister. “Well, that's what he said!”

Carter held up a hand and tried his best to smile. “No, Monique, that's all right. I did try to put him in jail. That was my job.”

“But you're also the one who got all the charges dropped,” Monique said. “And that was far more important.”

Carter appreciated the spin. “True enough,” he said. Then, to the girls: “But only after your father worked very, very hard to change my mind.”

Warren appeared in the kitchen doorway. “So, have they talked your ear off yet?”

The girls groaned together, “Dad-dy!”

The burst of indignation made Carter laugh. He pulled on his ears just to make sure. “No, I think they're still attached.”

Warren's entrance marked the end of the small talk. He announced that it was bedtime for the girls. They protested, but to no avail. Monique led the parade upstairs, leaving Warren and Carter alone in the kitchen.

“Here's where we stand,” Warren said. “I've put word on the wire up and down the East Coast to keep an eye out for both Nicolette and her friend. Locally, we're sending patrol units to every hotel, motel, and flophouse to make sure that they have pictures available. Ditto the bus stations, train stations, and airports. One of my sergeants—you may remember him, Jed Hackner?”

Carter shrugged. Anymore, it seemed that every name rang a bell somewhere, but that particular one didn't clang very loudly.

“Anyway, at the suggestion of Sergeant Hackner, we're alerting the National Park Service, too, so that they can get word to their parks and campgrounds.”

Carter had to chuckle. In New York, it would take hours to coordinate that many agencies.

“One last note,” Warren went on. “The public information officer at our department has arranged for you to get some face time on the news tonight. Gather your thoughts, because they're coming here in about twenty minutes.”

“God, you're good,” Carter said.

“Just be thankful it's a slow news night,” Warren replied.

Chapter Twelve

“I
had a nice time tonight,” Brad called over the rush of the water. “Better than I thought I would.”

What was she supposed to say now? You can't just have a conversation with a naked person—a naked
man.
She sank lower into the tub, trying to disappear below the bubbles. She silently cursed herself for not having thought to lock the door.

“Are you still there?” Brad asked.

“Yes.” But she wouldn't be for long. She had to get out of the tub and back into her bathrobe. She had to cover up before he had a chance to see what she really looked like.

Her father's dark stories invaded her thoughts. She knew where this was going, but Brad could have any girl he wanted—girls who at least would know what they were doing.

Nicki felt her chest thickening as the wild thoughts screamed though her brain.

She had to get out of here. Out of the bathroom, out of the hotel, out of this mess. She had to go somewhere.
Anywhere.
And this was the time.

Moving as quietly as she knew how, Nicki eased herself out of the tub, her body covered with a thick pelt of bubbles, and padded across the expanse of marble tile to lift the expensive terry cloth bathrobe off its hook and pull it on. If she hurried, she could get dressed and be out before Brad even knew that she was gone. She didn't know where she'd go, but that was a problem for later.

As she opened the bathroom door, Brad slapped the shower off. “Hey, where are you going?” he asked.

She moved faster, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the lush carpet as she hurried across the master bedroom toward the bed, where she'd left her travel clothes from earlier today, the clothes that were really her. The ones that had nothing to do with anybody's fantasies.

“What are you doing?”

She jumped at the sound of Brad's voice and whirled to see him standing in the open doorway to the bathroom, soaking wet, with a towel wrapped around his waist.

Keeping one hand on the waistband of the towel, he moved toward her, the other arm outstretched. “Jesus, are you okay?” He was at her side in two seconds, and she jumped back, as if shot with electricity.

“No, please don't,” she said.

“Why? What's wrong?”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm really so sorry.”

“For what? What's wrong?”

“I can't,” Nicki said.

“What happened?” Was she having some kind of an attack? Had he said something or done something—

He saw it in her eyes, and then he understood. He became aware of his near-nakedness. He eased away from her. “Oh. I invaded your space, didn't I? I'm sorry.”

The look on Brad's face was one that Nicki had never seen before. The confident, strutting raconteur now seemed like a little boy caught doing something bad in school. He hurried into the bathroom and reappeared a moment later wrapped in a robe identical to Nicki's. His blond hair was still matted and dripping and Nicki noticed that he still had soapsuds clustered behind one ear. He still looked uneasy and apologetic, and this time when he approached, he kept his distance.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.

Nicki nodded, despite the tightening in her chest and the light-headedness. That would all pass. It always did.

“I'm really sorry,” Brad repeated.

She appreciated his words, but could see the confusion in his eyes still. He was sorry, but he had no idea what for. He thought it was for invading her space. How could she possibly make him understand? It was awkward. Neither of them knew where to look or what to say. Finally, she settled on his beautiful eyes. “Tell me why you're doing this,” she said. “All of this. I mean, really. What's in this for you?”

“I already told you,” he said. “I want an adventure. I thought this would be fun. A kick.”

Nicki tried to read his mind. “That's only part of it. You could have any girl you wanted. Why me? Why hang out with a dying recovering anorexic?”

Brad wondered how in the world he was ever going to put it in words. “Can I sit on the bed?” he asked, stalling for time. “I promise I'll keep my hands to myself.”

Nicki moved farther away. As he sat, his robe parted, exposing his thigh, but he quickly covered himself back up. “You want the whole story, right?” he said.

“I just want things to make sense.”

He gathered his thoughts, then took a deep breath. “Do you remember the day when I was edging the sidewalk out in front of the Bensons' house and you brought me a glass of chocolate milk?”

For a second, Nicki thought that he was making fun of her, but then she knew better. “Vaguely,” she said.

“It was a hot, hot day, and Old Man Benson had me working like a mule. You just wandered up with a glass of chocolate milk.”

“Was it bad or something?”

He laughed. “No, it wasn't bad. It was delicious. It was the first time I'd ever tasted chocolate milk. You know, the kind out of the carton. I thought it was wonderful.”

Nicki's jaw dropped. “I don't believe that. You were fifteen.”

“Seventeen,” he corrected. “I've had it a thousand times since then, but that was a first.”

Nicki didn't understand the connection. “So, this is all payback for a glass of milk.”

Brad's ears turned red when he was embarrassed, and he could feel them heating up. “Maybe you can't understand if you didn't grow up in the system. You spend your whole life bouncing from one stranger's house to another. You're never part of a family, not really. I mean, if you happened to be there on Christmas, you'd get some presents, but they were like presents from the fire station or something. Sympathy presents. Every night, you sit at the dinner table and there's this forced small talk about what the kids did at school and stuff, but you always knew that they
endured
your turn, waiting for the blood-kids to have their chance. Am I making any sense?”

Nicki said, “Not really.”

Brad shifted again on the bed. “By the time I got into the system, I was too old to be cute and cuddly. I was what, ten, eleven years old when my mom went to prison, and I was pissed. I wasn't the kind of kid that people hurry to adopt. I pushed everybody away, and they were more than happy to stay away. Nobody cared about me, and I told myself that I liked it that way.”

“But I cared,” Nicki said, finally seeing the chocolate milk connection.

“Exactly.” Brad shifted uncomfortably on the bed. “You brought me that glass and you had that look in your face.”

“What was I, panting?” Nicki blushed.

“No.” Brad's blush deepened. “Well, yeah, there was some of that, but there was more. It was a look I'd never seen before and it made me feel good.”

“That was a long time ago,” Nicki said.

“Not for me. Time kind of stops when you're in jail.” As he spoke, he watched Nicki's eyes, trying to read her reaction. What he saw was empathy.

“You still haven't told me about any of that,” Nicki said.

Brad smiled. “You're right.”

“But I want to hear.”

“No, you don't.”

“Yes, I do. I'll tell you if I need you to stop.”

Another deep breath, this one leaden with dread. “It's ugly, Nicki. It's embarrassing.”

“It's who you are,” Nicki said. “That's all I want. I just want to know who you are.”

* * *

Of the four Washington broadcast stations, three sent camera crews. For the better part of an hour, all Carter did was talk. By eleven-thirty, it was over.

The Michaels house was a standard 2,000-square-foot suburban colonial, not all that different than the one Carter called home. They put him up in Nathan's room, having transferred its rightful owner to the floor of the little home office down the hall. “You don't have to put him out of his room,” Carter said. “I can sleep on the sofa.”

“Don't you worry about that,” Warren scoffed. “That boy can sleep standing up. Really, he doesn't mind.”

As Carter lay atop Nathan's bed staring at the ceiling, he felt guilty about the wasted sacrifice. Who did he think he was kidding? There'd be no sleep for him. His imagination kept taking him to the conclusion of this adventure, and no matter how he cut it, he had a hard time devising a happy ending.

He racked his brain trying to find one last
i
to dot or
t
to cross. There had to be something they were forgetting to do, and whatever that something was, it was bound to be the one thing that would mean the difference between success and failure.

But what was it? What hadn't they thought of? They'd gotten the pictures out to the media, they'd alerted all the police jurisdictions, they'd raised the awareness at all the transportation portals. What else was there?

Carter tried to think of a place that Nicki might want to go, but she'd never been to Virginia. Outside of seeing the sights in Washington, DC, what else was there? More to the point, what
wasn't
there? He'd spoken to Chris Tu on the phone in the car, and his review of all the e-mails and chat logs revealed that Brad and Nicki talked about everything and everyplace under the sun, from the beaches to the mountains, from Paris to Hong Kong. But according to Chris, the beach theme seemed to carry a lot of weight. When Brad Ward was putting on his hard sell to come this way, he'd talked a lot about the beaches in the Southeast, and Nicki had seemed impressed. That rang true with Carter. Back when Nicki was healthy, she used to beg to go to the beach with her friends, but Carter would never allow it.

So, why Brookfield, Virginia? Why not go to Miami or Fort Lauderdale? Or Nag's Head or Hilton Head or Myrtle Beach or Wilmington or Virginia Beach or Ocean City . . .

God, now that he thought about it, the list was virtually endless. For that matter, why wasn't Carter on his way to one of those places?

Because he didn't know for sure. He needed at least an inkling of where she might go. Otherwise, he'd merely be chasing shadows and hunches.

For the time being, he was powerless, completely neutered. And the clock continued to tick.

* * *

“They sent me up for murder.”

There, he'd said it out loud. Led with it, so that she could wrap her mind around the worst part first. She flinched, but she didn't run.

“You know that I ran away from the shelter where they sent me, and from there, I never went back. I just stayed on the streets. I got to be a pretty good pickpocket, and you can always steal enough to live off of, but that shit's really intense, know what I mean? You're always having to come right up to someone and hope you don't get caught. It's fun. It's a kick, but it gets to you after a while. Your nerves start to get raw, and when that happens, you're doomed to get locked up.

“So I tried mule work for a while, carrying drug money back and forth, but that was even more intense. There are some crazy people into street drugs. Kill you just because it's Thursday, or because they don't like your name. That didn't last for more than a couple of weeks for me. I'm not built for that.”

Nicki held up her hand to stem the flow of his words. “Did you ever think about just getting a regular job?”

“Sure, I thought about. I even tried it, but here's the thing: I don't have a high school diploma. What grades I got all sucked, and I didn't know how to do anything. It all came down to economics. I could make five dollars an hour your way, or ten, twenty times that doing it my way.”

“But it was
against the law,
” Nicki protested. The comment drew an impatient look.

“You are your father's daughter, aren't you?” He made sure to smile so she wouldn't take offense. “This legal/illegal shit is easy to talk about when you've got choices. For me, it was steal or starve.”

Brad cringed as he heard himself playing the role of victim. He could hear the voice of the prison psychologist lecturing about the need to take
ownership
of his actions, how life was all about the choices we make.
Yeah, well, bite me.

“Anyway, I hooked up with two buddies—Jamal and Barry—and we, like, hung out and shit. When we needed something, we'd pick a place, scope it out for a while, and then we'd do our thing. You know, mostly it was just petty shoplifting crap, or maybe boosting a purse out of a car.”

“Or boosting the car itself,” Nicki offered.

Brad smiled. “Yeah, that, too, sometimes. It wasn't any really serious stuff, but you know, it adds up over time. It was fun. I gotta tell you that much, it was a lot of fun.”

“You said you were arrested for murder.”

“I'm getting to that. One day, almost three years ago, we were taking down a gas station—you know, one of those places with the little grocery store attached? Anyway, I wasn't taking much. I think I had maybe a package of Twinkies or something. So, when I'm on my way to the door, the guy behind the counter sees me, and he starts yellin' and shit. ‘You there! You! Stop!' So I stopped.

“But Barry, the idiot, brought a gun. He told the guy to stop shouting, but he just kept going on and on and on. So, Barry shot him. Right there. Right in the head. Jesus, blood flew everywhere, and the guy dropped to the floor, dead.”

Nicki's jaw hung nearly to her chest. “So, what did you do?”

“What do you think we did? We ran. But the security cameras caught it all. I was arrested that night.”

“But you didn't kill anybody.”

Brad allowed himself a bitter chuckle as he shook his head. “That's not how it works. Because we were committing a crime when the shooting happened,
all
of us were guilty.”