Idiot.
There was a tracker taped to the underside of the cooler lid. Small, jet black, about the size of an old iPod. The red light was blinking, sending back the coordinates of her location to a satellite somewhere in space. Mike must’ve put it there while Andy was passed out in the Muscle Shoals motel.
She chucked the cooler lid across the street like a Frisbee. She reached into the hatch and pulled out the sleeping bag and beach tote. She threw both into the front of Mike’s truck. Then she grabbed two weedeaters and a set of trimmers from the back and dropped them onto the sidewalk. The magnetic signs easily peeled off the doors. She slapped them onto the hood of the Reliant. Andy thought about leaving him the key, but fuck that. All the money was sitting in storage units. He could drive around in the Maxi-Pad box for a while.
She got into Mike’s truck. Her messenger bag went onto the seat beside her. The steering wheel had a weird fake leather wrap. A pair of dice hung from the rearview mirror. Andy jammed the key into the ignition. The engine roared to life. Dave Matthews warbled through the speakers.
Andy pulled away from the curb. Her brain summoned up a map as she drove toward the university. She figured she had about one thousand miles ahead of her, which was around twenty hours of driving, or two full days if she broke it up the right way. Dallas first, then straight up to Oklahoma, then Missouri, then Illinois, where she hoped like hell she could find a person or thing named Clara Bellamy.
July 31, 1986
12
Alexandra Maplecroft’s screams were like a siren pitching higher and higher. The sirens from a police car. From the FBI. From the prison van.
Jane knew that she should do something to stop the wailing, but she could only stand there listening to the woman’s desperate pleas for help.
“Jane!” Andrew called from downstairs.
The sound of her brother’s voice broke Jane from her trance. She struggled to put the gag back in place. Maplecroft started thrashing in the bed, pulling at the restraints around her wrist and ankles. Her head jerked back and forth. The blindfold slipped up. One eye spun desperately around before she found Jane. Suddenly, one of the woman’s hands was loose, then a foot. Jane leaned over to hold her down, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Maplecroft punched Jane so hard in the face that she fell back onto the floor, literal stars dancing in front of her eyes.
“Jane!” Andrew screamed. She could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs.
Maplecroft heard it too. She struggled so hard against the ropes that the metal bed frame tipped over onto the floor. She worked furiously to untie her other hand while her leg jerked back and forth to work away the bindings.
Jane tried to stand. Her legs felt wonky. Her feet would not find purchase. Blood was streaming down her face, gagging her throat. She somehow found the strength to push herself up. All she could think to do was throw her body on top of Maplecroft’s and pray that she could hold her down long enough for help to arrive.
Seconds later, it did.
“Jane!” The door flew open. Andrew reached her first. He pulled Jane up, wrapped his arm around her.
Maplecroft was standing, too. She was in the middle of the floor, fists up like a boxer, one ankle still tied to the bed. Her clothes were torn, her eyes wild, her hair matted to her skull with filth and sweat. She screamed unintelligibly as she moved back and forth between her feet.
Paula snorted a laugh. She was blocking the door. “Give it up, bitch.”
“Let me go!” Maplecroft screamed. “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t—”
“Stop her,” Nick said.
Jane didn’t know what he meant until she saw Quarter raise his knife.
“No—” she yelled, but it happened too fast.
Quarter slashed down. The blade flashed in the sunlight.
Jane stood helpless, watching the knife arc down.
But then it stopped.
Maplecroft had caught the knife in her hand.
The blade pierced the center of her palm.
The effect hit them all like a stun grenade. No one could speak. They were too shocked.
Except for Maplecroft.
She had known exactly what she was going to do. While they all stood transfixed, she wrenched her arm across her body, preparing to backhand the blade in Jane’s direction.
Nick’s fist snaked out, punching Maplecroft square in the face.
Blood shot out of her nose. The woman spun in a half-circle, wildly slicing the air with the blade that pierced her hand.
Nick punched her again.
Jane heard the sharp snap of her nose breaking.
Maplecroft stumbled. The bed frame dragged back with her foot.
“Nick—” Jane tried.
He punched her a third time.
Maplecroft’s head jerked back on her neck. She started to fall, but her pinned leg pulled her sideways. Her temple bounced against the metal edge of the bed frame with a sickening pop before she hit the floor. A pool of blood flowered from beneath her, rolled across the wood, seeped into the cracks between the boards.
Her eyes were wide. Her lips gaped apart. Her body was still.
They all stared at her. No one could speak until—
“Jesus,” Andrew whispered.
Paula asked, “Is she dead?”
Quarter knelt down to check, but he leapt back when Alexandra Maplecroft’s eyes blinked.
Jane screamed once before she could cover her mouth with both hands.
“Christ,” Paula whispered.
Urine puddled from between the woman’s legs. They could almost hear the sound of her soul leaving her body.
“Nick,” Jane breathed. “What have you done? What have you done?”
“She—” Nick looked scared. He never looked scared. He told Jane, “I didn’t mean—”
“You killed her!” Jane screamed. “You punched her, and she fell, and she—”
“It was me,” Quarter said. “I’m the one who put the knife in her.”
“Because Nick told you to!”
“I didn’t—” Nick tried. “I said to stop her, not to—”
“What have you done?” Jane felt her head shaking furiously side to side. “What have we done? What have we done?” She couldn’t ask the question enough. This had crossed the line of insanity. They were all psychotic. Every single one of them. “How could you?” she asked Nick. “How could you—”
“He was protecting you, dumb bitch,” Paula said, unable or unwilling to keep the derision out of her voice. “This is your fault.”
“Penny,” Andrew said.
Nick tried, “Jinx, you have to believe—”
“You punched—you killed—” Jane’s throat felt strangled. They had all watched it happen. She didn’t have to give them a replay. Maplecroft had been spinning out of control after the first hit. Nick could’ve grabbed her arm, but he had punched her two more times and now her blood was sliding along the cracks in the floor.
Paula told Jane, “You’re the one who let her get untied. So much for our ransom demand. That’s our leverage pissing on her own grave.”
Jane walked to the open back window. She tried to pull air into her lungs. She couldn’t witness this, couldn’t be here. Nick had crossed the line. Paula was making excuses for him. Andrew was keeping his mouth shut. Quarter had been willing to murder for him. They had all completely lost their senses.
Nick said, “Darling—”
Jane braced her hands on the windowsill. She looked at the back of the house across the alley because she couldn’t bear to look at Nick. A pair of pink sheers wistfully furled in the late morning breeze. She wanted to be back home in her bed. She wanted to take back Oslo, to rewind the last two years of her life and leave Nick before he had pulled them all into the abyss.
“Jane,” Andrew said. He was using his patient voice.
She turned around, but not to look at her brother. Her eyes automatically found the woman lying on the floor. “Don’t,” she begged Andrew. “Please don’t tell me to calm—”