Nick of Time (4 page)

“Are you going to pay me?”

“After I get some money, I will.”

The cabbie was of some Middle Eastern descent, and his glare did not project trust.

She wasn't going to argue with him; he'd stay or he wouldn't. She crossed the sidewalk and entered the lobby, turning right to get to the ATM. She slipped in the card and entered her PIN with one finger while she kept another two fingers crossed that Dad hadn't yet found the card missing from his wallet and canceled it. It'd been two weeks, and she'd been counting on his inattention to anything but his work. She had him pegged as more of a check-cashing kind of guy than an ATM guy anyway, ever dedicated to anything that was out of date.

When the “Welcome, Carter Janssen” screen greeted her, Nicki smiled. “Time to milk the cash cow,” she mumbled, smiling at the image her words conjured.

Her attempt to withdraw $5,000 choked the machine, prompting it to clatter and beep, finally displaying on the screen that $500 was the maximum she could take. So much for a turn of good luck. She'd had no idea that banks limited withdrawals. According to Brad, they needed a couple thousand, minimum, to make this work. As the machine spat out twenty-five $20 bills, Nicki tried to figure out how to make up the difference. She thought about running the card through a second time, but worried that the machine might sense a theft in progress and eat it.

She'd think of something later. As it was, she was spending way too much time in front of a security camera.

The driver was still waiting at the curb, the engine running, when Nicki walked up to his window and asked, “What's the fare so far?”

He pointed to the meter. “Twelve dollars and eighty cents.”

She gave him a twenty. “Here. Is this enough to keep you waiting for a while longer?”

“How much longer?”

“Ten minutes, max.”

“I will wait for seven minutes,” he said.

Nicki rolled her eyes, knowing instantly that she'd misplayed that hand. If she wanted ten minutes, she should have asked for twelve. “Fine. Just don't leave me here.”

“Where are you going?”

“To the coffee shop.”

She walked across the street to the Square Cup and Saucer, a coffee bar/Internet lounge. Nicki had been a coffee fan for as long as she could remember. Even when she was a little girl, her mom would fix her a cup that was mostly sugar and milk, but she'd always loved the taste. Yet another favorite pastime crossed off the list by her death sentence. No caffeine, period.

But God, the aroma of the place. She wondered if this was how an ex-smoker felt when she sat in a bar.

Oh, what the hell. Brad said this was a whole new beginning. When the barista looked to her, Nicki ordered a large coffee to go.

It took a minute to figure out how the pay-for-computer-time thing worked, but only a minute. She paid her three dollars, slid into a booth, and clicked on her service provider. The page opened up in a blink, the wonders of a high-speed connection. Back home, Dad was too cheap to pay for a DSL connection, so she was stuck with a screechy modem. She logged on under her regular screen name and briefly scanned the headings of her incoming e-mail, finding nothing but junk, three of which were offers to make her penis longer. Go figure.

She still had three and a half minutes of the cabbie's time reserved when she opened the “Write Mail” window and tapped in Brad's address.

“Okay,” she wrote. “You win. It's 2:37 now, and I'm on the next bus outta here. Don't stand me up. Luv, N.”

She read it four times to make sure that it said all that it needed to, but not a word more, then clicked the Send button. Just like that, at the speed of light, her new life began.

Sipping her coffee, aglow with the feeling of guilt, Nicki again concentrated on keeping her movements smooth and as normal-looking as possible. She ran the plan through her head one more time.

Looking back, it was probably a mistake to leave the message on the home phone so early. She just didn't want Dad to worry.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Three

S
itting on the edge of Nicki's bed, Carter listened to the message on the machine a dozen times before his mind shifted out of neutral.

“Hi, Daddy. I know how you think, so I'll tell you now that I haven't been kidnapped and I'm not doing any kind of suicide-y thing. I'm just being me, okay? And it's not about our argument last night. I just had to get away from everything. I'm not living my last months with tubes sticking out of me. You were there for Mom and I know you'd be there for me, but I don't want to go that way.

“By the time you hear this, I'll already be on my way to where I'm going. If I knew where that was, I'd tell you. There's a lot I would tell you if I could, but you'd never understand. I know you try to, but you just can't. And I don't say that to be mean.

“I can tell you that we'll be safe, though. And that I'll always love you.”

It was almost two o'clock. God only knew what kind of head start she had. His heart hammered in his chest and his hands trembled as he tried to think logically. Nicki was a smart girl, a little impulsive, but very smart—the kind of smart you got from books, though; in the street smarts department, she was a zero. His mind whirled with possibilities. She wasn't suicidal and she hadn't been kidnapped. How reassuring.

Not.

Where would she go? How would she get there? He didn't keep any cash in the house, and she didn't have access to his credit or debit cards, so what could she possibly have been thinking?

Carter's head flooded with dozens of images he'd witnessed over the course of his career: the rapes, the mutilations, the murders. Didn't she ever listen to a thing he told her?

Think, Carter,
he commanded himself.

It was useless. The very notion of seeing the world though her eyes made his head hurt.

Come on, think, goddammit.
Nothing was ever hopeless.

As he sat there on the bed, awash in stuffed animals and a little unnerved by the come-hither look from Leonardo DiCaprio and the largely shirtless cast of
Dawson's Creek,
he tried to wade his way through what little information he had.

He rewound the tape and played it again. And again. One more time.

Then he heard a clue. It was near the end of her message:
I can tell you that we'll be safe, though.

We.

So, at least she wasn't alone. He tried to think which of her friends might agree to something like this. Whom would she choose to run away with?

As he cast his glance toward the telephone on Nicki's nightstand, he realized with a heaviness in his gut that he no longer knew who Nicki's friends were. Rachel Raty was a name that popped into his mind, but it was a name he hadn't heard in a long time. They were great buddies a while ago, but did they even talk to each other now? Carter knew how it was with teenage girls; he knew that a single transgression could separate best friends from worst enemies, and for the life of him, he didn't have a clue where Rachel currently stood in the hierarchy.

There
had
to be a name. Nicki was a terrific kid, and terrific kids all had friends. So, how come he couldn't come up with one?

* * *

Nothing on earth quite matched the odor of a Greyhound bus. The faint aroma of diesel combined with the sickening sweetness of the chemical toilet to form a mixture Nicki could almost see. It hung thickly in the air like humidity, made even worse by the two dozen varieties of perfume and aftershave that surrounded her.

For a while, she'd been able to keep the seat next to her empty by pretending to be asleep at every stop, but as they pulled into Baltimore, she knew that the charade would have to end. By her cursory count, there were only five seats left unoccupied, and at least that many people waiting to board. Unless a lot of people got off, some of the new arrivals would have to stand.

She moved her purse closer to her feet and tried to stuff it deeper under the seat in front of her. A black couple led the parade down the center aisle, each of them about a century old and hanging on to each other for balance that neither could provide. They doddered down three or four rows before a young guy wearing a Caterpillar baseball cap stood from his single window seat and joined a college kid who'd been trying to reserve a seat for his leg.

Caterpillar-man tossed a quick glance toward Nicki, but before she could return it with a flirty smile, he looked away and planted himself in his new digs.

She felt herself blush. Guys were always like that around her—something about her gaze made them uncomfortable. Her dad told her that she was crazy—that she was beautiful and everyone could see it for miles around—but she knew better. She was ugly. Born that way and getting uglier by the day.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a guy who looked more like Brad Pitt than Brad Pitt did refused to meet her eyes at all.

By the time it all settled out, Nicki's seatmate turned out to be somebody's grandmother, her thick body wrapped in a sundress the likes of which Nicki hadn't seen in years. She'd zeroed in on Nicki's seat the instant her head had cleared the door.

“Well, hello, young miss. May I sit here?” The woman's voice had a squeaky quality to it that put Nicki in mind of a man trying to impersonate a woman.

Nicki looked at the seat and shrugged.

“I'm Dora,” the woman said, settling in. “I'm going all the way to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I've got grandchildren down there.”

Nicki smiled as politely as she could, and tried not to notice that the woman smelled vaguely like salami.

“How far are you going?” Dora pressed.

“Just to Brookfield.” Nicki tried to sound abrupt and unfriendly, in hopes that Lorna Doone, or whatever her name was, would get the hint.

No such luck. “Brookfield, Virginia? Well, then you're almost home.” She paused a beat then added, “You
are
going home, aren't you?”

Nicki shook her head. “No, I'm meeting a friend.”

“How old are you?”

This time, Nicki's look exactly matched her tone. “How old are
you
?”

“Seventy-two.” If Dora thought her seatmate was being rude, she didn't show it.

Nicki rolled her eyes. “I'm nineteen,” she lied.

Dora clucked. “I'd have guessed seventeen and a half.”

Jesus, she nailed it perfectly.

“Do you feel all right, dear? You don't look so good.”

Nicki sighed dramatically. “Why, thank you so much. You, on the other hand, are the very picture of health and fashion.”

The irony missed Dora by a mile. “I really don't mean to pry,” she said. “Maybe I'm just a nervous traveler, but I always like to get to know my seatmates. It's one of the real pleasures of taking the bus. I just thought that if you were ill, then maybe—”

“I'm not ill, okay?” Nicki snapped. “I'm just dying. There's a difference.”

* * *

Vinnie Campanella eyed the sweet rolls and tried to make temptation go away. He'd come into the shop for a cup of coffee, dammit—something to while away the ninety minutes that stood between him and the boarding call for his flight—not for a sweet roll. He'd had his diet shake for breakfast only two hours ago, and they were going to serve two meals on the plane, so he had no right to the snack-urge that haunted him. He'd promised Bets that he'd be strong this time, that this was finally the diet that was going to work.

But honest to God, that cinnamon spiral in the case just to the right of the cash register had a voice, and it was calling to him in that lovely, intoxicating way that only warm pastries could manage. How could such a tiny treat be harmful?

No!
he commanded himself. This was only the second day of his new way of life, and he wasn't going to let himself be booby-trapped by an inanimate object, even if it
was
slathered in vanilla cream cheese frosting. If only the guy in front of him would move a little faster getting his wallet out, Vinnie could pay for his coffee and get the heck out of there. And wouldn't you know it? That asshole bought a chocolate chip cookie. The guy was only thirty years old, had a full head of hair and looked as if he could run ten miles without breaking a sweat, and he treated himself to a cookie! Where was the justice in the world?

Finally, it was Vinnie's turn. He ordered his grande coffee, proud of himself for stopping there.

“Is that all?” the clerk asked. At least that's what he thought she asked. It was hard to tell through the accent.

“No,” he said. “I mean, yes. This is all. Just the coffee.”

“No pastry?”

What was this, a conspiracy? “No, just the sweet roll. I mean, just the coffee.”
Goddammit.

The lady smiled at him. It was a friendly, knowing smile, entirely harmless, and he hated her for it. The smile only reminded him of the similar pitiful glances he'd gotten all his life from exotic-looking women. They dared to be friendly because he was too fat to be a threat. Always was, and always would be.

Vinnie made a mental note to return to this very shop a year from now, after he'd dropped his seventy-five pounds. See what kind of smile he got from her then.

I can do this,
he thought.
Keep your goddamn sweet rolls. I'll eat rabbit food for a year if I have to.
He pulled his wallet from his suit coat pocket and finger-walked through the bills till he found two singles and laid them on the counter. He didn't bother to wait for the change.

At the little kiosk where the half-and-half and the honey and the sugar beckoned him, Vinnie added a dollop of skim milk—it didn't even change the color from black to brown—and two packets of Equal. As he turned away and headed into the main traffic of Dulles Airport's C Concourse, he actually felt proud of himself. That was a lot of temptation coming in a short burst, and he'd withstood all of it. Maybe this really was—

The collision came from nowhere. One second, Vinnie was lost in his thoughts, and in the next he was lost in a fountain of scalding coffee. A guy—a kid, really, maybe twenty years old—moving too fast for the crowd hit him with the force of an NFL tackle. The impact knocked him off his feet entirely, and sent his coffee flying in an arc that somehow missed everyone and everything but the floor. Vinnie said “Oof” as he fell—actually formed the word—and closed his eyes as he anticipated the inevitable impact with the tile floor.

But the impact never came. His assailant caught him by the lapels in midair and kept him from hitting the floor at all. “I am so sorry,” the boy gushed. “Are you all right?”

“What the hell are you doing?” Vinnie shouted.

“Really, I'm sorry.”

“For God's sake, you could have killed me. Are you out of your mind, running like that through an airport?”

“I'm late for my flight.” The young man seemed to know the emptiness of his words even as he said them. Vinnie could feel the strength in the kid's arms as he set him on his feet again and brushed him off. “Honest to God, sir, I am so, so sorry.”

“You should be,” Vinnie said.

“I am. Truly, I am. Are you hurt? Should I call an ambulance?”

The thought hadn't even occurred to Vinnie. “No, I'm not hurt. I'm fine. But great God almighty, you have to be more careful.”

The young man nodded. “Yes, sir, you're right. I was stupid. I'm just glad you aren't hurt.”

Vinnie scowled as he brushed himself off. It was hard to be angry at someone so genuinely apologetic. “No, really, I'm fine.”

“Let me at least buy you another cup of coffee.”

Vinnie shook his head. “No, that's all right.”

But the kid was already on his way back into the coffee shop. “How do you take it?”

“A little skim milk,” Vinnie said. “And two Equals.” He had to smile at the ease with which the instructions came out.

Three minutes later, the matter was settled. Vinnie gratefully accepted his new coffee—this one a venti size as a form of compensation—and three times told linebacker-boy that everything was truly all right. Finally, they went their different ways.

As Vinnie headed toward his gate, it never occurred to him to wonder why the kid who was in such a hurry to catch his flight was now on his way back to the main terminal.

* * *

Rachel Raty hadn't spoken to Nicki in over three months. In fact, according to her, no one in the old crowd had spoken to her. “I don't mean to be mean or anything, but Nicki's gotten kind of weird recently. I know she's sick and all, but sometimes, when she walks into class, she like just doesn't talk to anybody. Try to talk to her and she bites your head off. I don't think she hangs around with anyone anymore . . .”

Carter made an excuse and hung up. The clock was ticking too fast to waste time listening to some bitch dis his daughter. A second call, this one to Leslie Johnson, another name he pulled out of memory, brought essentially the same result. He stared at the phone after he hung up with her. Maybe Nicki really didn't have any friends anymore. Given the way she'd been behaving recently—the huge mood swings and the general nastiness—how difficult was that to imagine?

Okay, so if the “we” of her note wasn't someone from school, then who might it be?

Carter's eyes scanned the room and fell on her computer. Good God, that was it. The Internet.

Nicki's computer was an old IBM workhorse with few bells and no whistles, but it had nonetheless claimed that part of her existence once owned by the television. He couldn't count the number of nights he'd been on his way to bed at some ungodly hour and heard Nicki tapping away at her keyboard. Sometimes, he'd hear her laughing as somebody typed something back at her. Once or twice, he'd mentioned to her that it was getting late and that she should get to bed, but she'd responded with one of the withering glares that always seemed to be in special reserve just for him.