You Can't Escape (8 page)

“Yup.”

She reached an arm around him, and Dance levered himself upward, leaning heavily on her. Her shoulders were small, but she felt tough and wiry beneath the weight of his arm.

“I had to put the plates back on, then take them off again. Hopefully no one’s paying attention to how many times I’m driving behind that empty strip mall.”

He grunted a response. Sweat was beading on his forehead. He hadn’t counted on being so miserably weak.

“There’s a wheelchair in the hall,” she said as they worked their way out the door. He dropped into it gratefully and then Jordanna hurried back in the room. He heard her moving around and realized she was gathering all his meager belongings and putting them into the duffel. She returned a few moments later, dropped the bag in his lap, then began pushing him down the hall.

Two nurses were standing and talking to each other at the end of the corridor, but neither of them gave them more than a cursory glance. “I think I can do the stairs,” he said as they approached the bank of elevators at the far end of the hall. He didn’t want to be in a closed elevator car.

“We’re taking the elevator.”

“I don’t want to risk being in the elevator with anyone else.”

“You can’t make the stairs.”

“I can. I will.”

“Horseshit.”

For a moment, he was pissed; then he almost laughed. “Fine. Hell. The elevator.”

She slammed her palm on the button, then waited behind the wheelchair, inhaling and exhaling heavily, clearly fighting back her own anxiety. When the elevator doors opened, a man and woman in scrubs broke on either side of them and walked in opposite directions. Jordanna pushed him inside, then turned the chair around. Just before the doors closed, a young aide squeezed into the car. She gave them a smile.

“You’re being discharged already?” she asked him, and he wondered if he’d been under her care. He was a little fuzzy about the staff who’d attended him.

“Doctor okayed it,” he told her.

She nodded, her eyes sliding toward Jordanna, who suddenly leaned down and kissed him on the side of his cheek, purring, “I’ll just be so glad to have you home, darling.”

Boo looked through the dirty window to the late-afternoon shadows and longed to be with them. He always wanted to hide in the shadows. It was where he belonged.

He said, pleading, “I want to go to the playground.”

“There is no playground,” Buddy told him. “Not anymore.”

“You promised,” Boo cried.

“There is no playground.”

But Boo knew Buddy was lying. They were always lying to him. All of them. They said they wanted to protect him, but they just didn’t want him to be with his friends. They didn’t
trust
him. He could feel the anger building and he wanted to wish it away but it wouldn’t be wished away. He could never wish it away. He’d tried so many times before. Bad things happened when he got angry, but sometimes he just couldn’t stop the feeling.

“There’s a playground,” he stated belligerently. Belligerently. . . B . . . e . . . 1

“I told you, there’s no playground. How many times do I have to say it?”

“Don’t be mad.” But Boo could feel his own face tighten into its mad look.

“I’m not mad.”

“Yes, you are. You’re lying. You told me not to lie. You told me God’s watching.”

“God is watching,” Buddy said, turning to stare fully at Boo in the darkening kitchen. “Every minute of every day, so you need to be quiet.”

Boo glanced around nervously. Was it really dark outside now? Or, was he making it dark. He could do that. “I just want to play with my friends.”

“They’re not your friends, Boo. How many times do I have to tell you? They’re not like us. They pretend they’re nice, but they’re tainted.”

“They’re what?”

“They’re tainted. Inside . . .” Buddy walked up close to Boo and crouched right in front of him. “Deep inside them is a dark place where they hide from the rest of us.”

Like me?
Boo wanted to shriek, but he kept it inside by chomping down on the insides of his cheek. “No . . .” he finally said. It was scary to argue with Buddy, but he had to. “They climb on the monkey bars and the pirate ship down at—”

“Listen to me, you idiot. They’re not your friends and you stay away from them.”

“Don’t call me names!”

“Then do as I say!” Buddy straightened abruptly and turned away. Boo wanted to hit him. He almost jumped up and punched him in the back, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. But he knew what to do.

“I don’t give a gah-gah-
god
damn!” he blurted out triumphantly.

Buddy was on him in a flash, yanking him out of his chair and slapping him hard across the face one, two, three times. Boo’s ears rang and he was sobbing by the time Buddy was finished.

“You keep your filthy tongue in your head,” Buddy ground out, “or so help me I’ll cut it out!”

“Sor-sorree,” Boo wailed, his throbbing face in his hands. He just wanted to go to the playground, that was all. “I just”—
hiccup
—“wanna go”—
hiccup
—“to the playground!”

“THERE IS NO PLAYGROUND!” Buddy thundered and stomped out of the room. But Boo knew he was lying again. Buddy just didn’t want him to have any friends. He wanted to lock Boo away forever and ever. He could feel his anger again, knew his mad face was getting madder. After a seething moment or two, Boo pulled down his pants and let his fingers find the slightly raised mark on his right buttock. He could visualize it even though he’d only seen it in the mirror. A “C,” that’s what the doctor had said, then, “Looks like a C. How’d you get it?”

“I don’t ’member.”

The doc had looked down at him and said, “It looks like a branding.”

“It’s a scar,” Boo had answered, feeling proud that he knew.

The doc had eyed him in a way that had made Boo real uncomfortable, and he’d wanted to say something else, something that he maybe remembered . . . maybe . . . but the way the doc looked at him had made his stomach feel squirmy so he hadn’t.

He wondered now if he should tell the doc that Buddy was lying.

Boo had trouble thinking things through. His mama had told him that so many times he accepted it as truth. If Mama were still around, she’d be saying it again, he was pretty sure, so when he wandered closer to the window and looked out at the stretch of farmland that swept toward the mountains, he thought of his mama, could almost see her in the shadows out by the apple tree that her grandpa had planted. Could almost hear her again . . .

“You be careful, Boo. Be real careful. Sometimes people are going to be mean to you. I know you have trouble thinking things through, so I’m gonna tell you something right now and you need to remember it. Think you can do that?”

“Yes, Mama,” he’d answered, even though his heart hurt ’cause he was afraid he couldn’t.

“If they come for you and I’m not here, you need to protect yourself. There’s a floorboard in the shed. It’s loose. Back by the wall with Old Nickel’s leashes. You find it, and there’s something inside for you. But don’t look unless you have to, you understand?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“I mean it. Don’t look. Better if you don’t know until you have to, okay? Promise.”

“P-p-promise,” he’d stuttered. “But you won’t leave me!”

“No, honey.” And she’d hugged him close and he’d clung to her, but she’d lied, too, because she was gone before Santa came that year, and Santa didn’t bring Boo any presents so he knew it was his fault.

He hadn’t looked for Mama’s treasure. She’d told him not to, and he’d sort of forgotten about what she’d really said anyway. It was a big jumble, which Buddy had explained was just the way his “screwed-up brain” worked. But the last few nights he’d woken up and seen Mama by the hawthorn tree and her words were back inside his head.

Buddy was being mean to him, that was for sure. Maybe he was going to come for him and be meaner. Maybe now was the time to find Mama’s treasure in the shed beneath Old Nickel’s leashes.

Boo’s eyes and nose got all hot and burny as he thought about the old, gray mutt with the thumping tail who’d been his friend. Now he was gone and so was Mama and Buddy wouldn’t let him go to the playground.

Yep. Maybe now was the time....

Chapter Five

The old, once-white farmhouse looked foreboding in the evening light, its windows balefully watching the car as Jordanna pulled around the back behind the long, long woodshed that connected the house to the listing carport at the far end. “It’s a walk from here,” she said, “but I don’t want anyone seeing us. You can lean on me.”

Danziger threw a glance toward the woodshed, which was all you could see from this point as it sheltered the house. “No one’s going to see us,” he pointed out.

Jordanna nodded, slightly embarrassed. He was right, of course. The house was a quarter mile down a curving lane, and there were fields and rolling hills on either side. The property backed up to the foothills of the Cascades and the nearest neighbor was over a mile away. This was her family home, located on the outskirts of Rock Springs, about three hours southeast of Laurelton. She’d chosen it because it was a helluva hideout for Jay Danziger, though she didn’t like the place at all. She’d never felt completely safe here, for reasons burned into her own psyche.

She aided him from the passenger seat and could see how much his helplessness bothered him. “Stop fighting me,” she had to tell him as they hitched their way toward the woodshed door and then moved slowly along the planks that had been laid down on dirt, a makeshift walkway to the back door. Chunks of firewood were stacked to the ceiling on both sides and the only illumination was from the series of pane-less windows that ran along the southern exposure. Now there was only darkness beyond so Jordanna used her free hand to hold her cell phone, its flashlight app on.

“Woodstove,” she explained as they neared the door to the house.

“I did a story in Rock Springs once,” he mused, though his voice was tense from the effort of walking. “Animal cruelty.”

“Mr. Purdy’s horses,” Jordanna said.

“That’s right. He was a hoarder. More stupidity than out-and-out cruelty. He didn’t realize he was starving them.”

“You defending him?” she questioned as she shoved her shoulder against the sticking door. She didn’t have keys, but unless her father had changed things, this door only needed an extra hard push for entry.

“Of course not,” he said as the door gave. “It was a criminal act and it was lucky the horses were found when they were. But hoarding’s a mental disease. Used to be categorized with obsessive/compulsive disorder, but it’s a whole ’nother thing.”

“You researched it,” she said.

“That’s what I do.”

It was cold in the kitchen, and when she hit the switch nothing happened. “No electricity. Goddamn you, Dayton,” she muttered.

“Who’s Dayton?”

Jordanna didn’t answer as she helped him to the couch. He sank down with a sigh and immediately closed his eyes and laid his head back.

“I’m going to unload the car.”

He didn’t say anything as she returned to the car and started making the trips through the woodshed to the house and back again. She’d changed back into her Nikes when she’d replaced the plates, and now she yanked out her suitcase, trudged upstairs to her old bedroom, then switched into jeans, a long-sleeved black T-shirt and a light jacket, her arms breaking into gooseflesh at the drop in temperature as night descended. Dressed again, she hauled the rest of the boxes of her belongings inside, making a half dozen trips back to the car, feeling her arms quiver from weariness. No surprise there. She was on an emotional roller coaster herself. The fear and thrill of sneaking through his house and helping him to her car—she’d left the wheelchair in the parking lot—and then sliding the RAV behind the empty building, putting on her plates again, and driving to Rock Springs, all the while keeping one anxious eye on Jay Danziger, was taking its toll.

She’d purposely taken a circuitous route, heading into the heart of Portland and around the city before turning further east and finally south toward Rock Springs. Danziger had roused himself about halfway through the journey and looked out at the countryside as they clipped along the two-lane highway that led to the town, the landscape growing more rural by the minute. They weren’t all that far from Portland in distance, but it was a world away in almost every other respect.

“Where are we going?” he’d asked.

“Home,” she’d answered after a moment, and though she felt his eyes on her, she hadn’t turned to look at him.

“Where is that?”

“Rock Springs.”

“It’s a pretty small town, right? What’s the population?”

Jordanna had had no interest in talking about herself and answered with, “How come your wife hasn’t contacted you? Whatever shape your marriage is in, you were hospitalized.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about Rock Springs?”

“Because I want to talk about the Saldanos, and the bombing.”

“Because you want a story.”

Jordanna had really, really wanted to deny it, but he wasn’t an idiot and, well, there was truth in that. “Maybe. But I think you’re in danger, and so do you or you wouldn’t be here, so let’s lay our cards on the table.”

“There’s nothing to say I haven’t already said. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And the Saldanos are angels. All suspicion against them is a load of bull, corporate envy, blah, blah, blah.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “If you’re having second thoughts, we can go back.”

“You know I can’t go back.”

“Do I? Tell me, how would I know that?”

“You’re the one who came to the hospital wild-eyed and trembling.”

“I wasn’t trembling,” she protested.

“Yeah, you were.”

“I was scared for you. I was there,” she admitted. “Across the street. I
saw
the explosion.” He’d stared at her then, a kind of reassessing that made her want to shrink inside her skin. “I was doing my own research on the Saldanos, and that included you. Sorry. It did. And after the explosion, I was scared out of my mind, running on gut emotion. I wanted to see you, make sure you were okay. So, I dressed up like Carmen. I’d seen her take off in the town car with bags. Figured she was on a trip and I had a window of opportunity. But I wanted to make sure you were safe because something’s rotten in Laurelton and it has to do with the Saldanos. You know it, and that’s why we’re here together now.”