The Heart Heist (26 page)

I shouldn't want him to call, Kerrin chided herself. It had been a trial over the past week, to maintain a mature, civil attitude toward Gary. It was a one-sided battle. Gary wasn't making any attempt whatsoever to treat her in a like, mature, civil manner. On the contrary, his attitude toward Kerrin was more like that of a longtime outdoorsman to poison oak.

Allyce Horton spoke on the house side of the intercom. "It's a telephone call for you, Kerrie. He said he'd hold, even though it's long distance."

Long distance. So, it wasn't Gary. Fighting disappointment, Kerrin jogged down the path.

The worst part of the whole thing was the tiny seed of doubt the man had managed to plant in her mind.

Maybe he was right.

They had an extremely limited amount of time to be together. Their future was nonexistent. Maybe it was better not to start something that had nowhere to go. And yet...and yet Kerrin just couldn't accept that something that felt so right could be wrong.

By the time she reached the house she was panting, her jog having turned into a more exerting run. Without even considering the fact she might require more privacy, she picked up the kitchen extension.

"Kerrin? It's Marty Simmons here."

Kerrin's already hard-working heart skipped a beat. "Marty?" Now vividly conscious that her mother was puttering around in the kitchen not ten feet away, Kerrin watched the words she spoke in between breaths. "How nice to hear from you. What's up?"

"It's not good," Marty baldly warned her. "We may have to pull Gary in."

Now Kerrin's heart stopped. Pull him in? Take him back to Chino?
No!
Every cell in her body cried out in protest.
No! Not yet!
As if she'd ever be ready to hear they were taking him back.

"Wh -- why?" Her voice came out hoarse and breathless. "What's happened?" Kerrin eyed her mother, who was making quite a racket trying to fit a small pan into the back of a cupboard.

A heartfelt sigh sounded over the long distance wires. "You remember I told you about Gary's friend, Willie Deere? Well, I'm afraid he died last night. Massive coronary. Nothing anybody could do."

A shock wave rolled through Kerrin. Stifling a moan, she pressed a fist to her teeth and steadied herself against the kitchen counter.

"Naturally, this complicates everything," Marty went on, back to business. "Willie was our trump card with Gary. Our leash, if you will. If he finds out about this..." His voice trailed off meaningfully.

Kerrin felt her voice go cold. "What do you mean...'if he finds out?'" Her mother, meanwhile, straightened from the lower cupboard and turned the water on in the sink to rinse a sponge.

"Well, that's the thing." An eager note crept into Marty's voice. "If you think there's a way to keep him from knowing, we can go on just as we are. I can take care of things at the Chino end, if Gary tries to call Willie, but I need you to take care of your end. Make sure no publications or letters get through that might clue him in."

He was asking her to lie to Gary, and to lie to him about the most important person in his life. Kerrin's eyes blankly watched her mother wipe off the stove. Lying to Gary was antipathetic to every ethical, caring nerve she owned, but the alternative was letting them take him back to prison.

"So, Kerrin," Marty asked impatiently. "What do you think? Think you can take care of him?"

A third choice occurred to Kerrin as her mother went back to the sink with the sponge. "Yes," she answered Marty, wondering if she were signing her own prison warrant. "I can take care of the matter."

Kerrin's mother turned and smiled as Kerrin hung up the phone. "Everything all right?"

Kerrin met her mother's bright, inquisitive green eyes. Was everything all right? She was going to have to tell Gary that his closest friend was dead. In all likelihood he'd be in Mexico by morning and she'd be charged with -- with whatever criminal act she'd committed by unchaining his leash. But she wasn't going to lie to him, not about this.

Gary had been right. The time they had left together had turned out to be nothing at all.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The echo of the telephone's shrill ring shivered through the Wilson house, unheeded. Down the street, past the darkened, sleeping homes, past the closed and shuttered business block, the current tenant of the Wilson house stood outside the solid-looking bank.

There were seven hundred and fifty of his own dollars in that bank, and yet Gary still felt the urge to break in. For a week now he'd been fighting off the worst impulses to larceny he'd had since hitting town. If he'd ever imagined his compulsion might go into remission, he had to revise that dream now.

Gary shook his head and moved on down the street. The anger and frustration roiling inside of him didn't calm, however, as he got further from the bank. Two raging monsters rose and fought inside of him. One of them was an animal he'd been living with all his life. It was the being he knew himself to be: no account, amoral, useless to society. Of no use to anybody whatsoever. The other animal was new, having recently been let out of its shell by the incubating warmth of this crazy town. This animal whispered sly, unbelievable things into his ears, the kinds of things that Kerrin would say.

Gary thought he hated Kerrin most of all for waking up that monster, for putting such wishful, ridiculous lies in his head.

Coming to a halt at the top of the slope leading down to the DWP facility, Gary released a weary sigh. He fell down on his haunches and absently ran a hand through the soft, too soft, soil.

He was looking at this all wrong. After five years in prison he'd gone soft, lost his edge. Spending the days -- and nights -- in honest celibacy wasn't doing his edge any good either. Gary squinted at the floodlit building surrounded by its high, electrified wire fence. If he wanted to get inside of that he ought to look at it as though it were someplace else he wanted to get inside of: a woman.

Slowly Gary lowered onto his rear, hugging his upraised knees as he continued to regard the heavily fortified building. A familiar excitement shivered through him. That's right, she was a female. But every female had her weaknesses. Every one had her particular vulnerabilities. Gary studied the squat building, nestled down by the side of the river.
The river
.

Just like that Gary saw it. He didn't know how he could have been so blind. There it was, staring him in the face. He knew exactly where that tunnel was going to be.

Elation spread up from his toes and he started to rise, eager to discover if his guess was correct. But instincts were even stronger than his sudden delight. As he straightened his knees, he was dimly aware of the moon at his back, silvering his position, and the relatively low ground cover. But it was a shot of pure prescience that sent him dropping flat on his stomach in the dust. The whining hiss skimmed bare inches over his head.

A variety of prime oaths got blasted into the dirt against which his face was plastered. His heart was going like a scared rabbit, which was exactly what he felt like. A very, very scared rabbit.

Lord I hate guns
. From the sound of it, the bullet had come from a distance, which meant a rifle. In the joint Gary had seen the results of fist fights and stab wounds. They were bad enough, but there was nothing like the mess a bullet made. He was far from pleased to be the target of a firearm.

Gathering his remaining courage, and bolstered by the cold knowledge that the owner of the rifle knew where he was, Gary rose just enough to scurry further into the brush. He had about fifty long yards until he reached the eucalyptus grove of the park. From there he figured himself home free.

Gary made the fifty yards in short, heart-stopping bursts, landing each time low and flat on his stomach. The back of his neck prickled, but there were no more shots. He made it into the park safely.

But he was far from safe and Gary knew it. Someone knew what he was up to. Correction. Not just 'someone' but
him
. Mr. Holiday. A shiver ran up his back as he made the journey through the town streets, hugging the shadows and keeping invisible. Mr. Holiday was in Freedom and he knew who Gary was. For his part, Gary still hadn't a clue which of the townspeople he'd come to trust was the mad bomber.

Not quite true. He had one clue. Now. Whoever Mr. Holiday was, he knew Gary's true identity and true job in Freedom. Unfortunately, there were only two people in town who knew this: Kerrin Horton and her father.

~~~

Kerrin peeked out her office door. As usual, Gary had waited until the last minute to stride up the arcade for his morning class. It gave Kerrin very little operating room to get his attention. While he made brief, chatty comments to the students lounging on the pavement, Kerrin emerged from her office.

He looked up as she called his name. His hand was on the doorknob, the key fit inside. His expression was completely blank, as though he didn't even know who she was. "After class," he brusquely told her.

This wouldn't do. She'd already had to live with this information all night, thanks to him refusing to pick up his telephone. "Gary, I really wish -- "

"After class." Saying which, he turned his back on her to open the door. His students started filing in, several giving her curious glances as they went past. Kerrin met her brother's eyes as he brought up the rear. Concern and a good dose of sympathy could be seen there.
Since when had Matt gotten so old
? He caught her hand just as he wheeled past. The brief contact gave Kerrin a shot of fortitude.

All the same, the next three hours were hell. It was impossible to read a book, futile to try getting any work done. Kerrin had never had this sort of commission, to deliver the news that a beloved one was dead. She dreaded Gary's reaction and felt inadequate to the task. The last thing in the world she wanted was to hurt Gary, and she was being forced to do just that.

"You wanted to see me?"

Gary's low, rasping voice startled Kerrin from a useless regard of the map of the world on her opposite wall. He was leaning against her open door frame. She got up from her chair. "Yes. Please come in." She had to force the words out.

He hesitated a moment, clearly debating the wisdom of such a proceeding. Then, with a barely visible shrug, he stepped inside her office. Kerrin quickly walked to the door and pulled on it. It closed with a solid thunk. Gary wheeled around like an animal that had just been trapped.

"Please," Kerrin begged, "have a seat." Her palms were damp and she could barely breathe for the thumping of her heart.

Gary gave the heavy-duty sofa a distasteful glance. "I'd rather stand, thanks."

Great; he'd rather stand. Kerrin clutched her hands to keep them from wringing. Just get it over with. There was no right way, she suddenly saw, to do it. "Gary, Willie's dead."

Whatever reaction she'd expected, it was not the absolute lack of any response at all. Gary continued to look at her as though still waiting to hear something of consequence.

"Did -- did you hear me?" Kerrin had to ask.

"Yes." He sounded all business. "I understand. When did it happen?"

"Yesterday. A heart attack."

He nodded. In a neutral tone, he asked, "Was it fast?"

"I -- I don't know. It sounded like it must have been, yes."

"That's good." Gary's eyes shifted to a point past her, although his even expression didn't change. Kerrin could only watch him in abject helplessness. She wanted to tell him how sorry she was, wanted to offer what pitiful sympathy she could, but his calm, unimpressed demeanor made it impossible to offer a damn thing. "So," Gary observed in the same neutral tone, "I guess it's all over for Willie."

His gaze went around her room, taking in the shelves full of books, the maps and calendars on the walls. "Well, I've got papers to grade. Thanks for letting me know, Kerrin."

"You're welcome."

Gary paused with his hand on the door and turned around as though to say something more. Then, frowning, he shook his head and left. As Kerrin watched him leave, it dawned on her that she was watching a classic case of denial. It was the natural self protection of the psyche upon receiving a blow too hard to bear.

She could only guess what was going to happen once Gary's psyche figured out that Willie was dead.

~~~

Gary turned the knob of his classroom door and gave some serious thought to the state of his soul. After letting the door close behind him, he went over and sat behind his desk. He did have papers to grade. Automatically he lifted the first one off the pile and ran a red pencil down the multiple choice answers. He made two correction marks and reached for the next paper.

I don't feel a damn thing.

This exam paper was perfect. Of course. It was Elaine's. Bright, hard-working, organized, she reacted to the hell of her environment in a way diametrically opposed to how Gary had reacted to his. She was honest, determined, and definitely going to end up making something of herself. Gary picked up the next paper.

That man was the closest thing to family I ever owned and I couldn't give a damn that he's dead
.

With a calm that frightened him, Gary made one correction mark on the exam and reached for a fourth. His concentration was sharp, unhindered in any way. He recalled his last conversation with Willie, from the telephone booth in Bishop. Willie had given him hell for staying on with the FBI project. He'd warned Gary he'd better head back to Chino while he could, that it was clear as a window pane they were setting him up for a fall and he wouldn't be surprised if it was a fatal one. Ironic that Willie had been the one to die instead of Gary.

Just barely, Gary reminded himself, thinking of that soft, lethal whine shooting over his head the night before. Willie'd been a paranoid, but it was funny how paranoids were often proved to be right.

Gary went through the rest of the exam papers, mentally noting at the end that he'd have to have a talk with Matt about his recent lapse of attention in class. He rose from the desk, walked to the door, and opened it a crack. Just enough to spy on the door to Kerrin's room.