Eric chortled. “Well, no biggie. We got no fucking use for it anymore.”
Eric guided the Civic onto the ramp for the eastbound Merritt Parkway. “Let’s see what this baby’ll do,” he said, downshifting, hitting the gas, and merging into traffic. “How much one of these run?”
I was still blotting my nose, thinking.
Eric glanced over. “You know what? I bet I know what’s on your mind.”
I just looked at him.
“Why hasn’t your daughter gotten in touch with you? Or even the cops? Am I right?”
After a moment, I said, “Maybe.”
“Fact is, I don’t think your daughter’s got much to gain by talking to the cops.”
“What do you mean?”
“You ask me, smartest thing she could do is pretend none of this ever happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m sure you don’t.”
“What do you want with my daughter? What’s she done?”
“She’s not the little angel you think she is, that’s for fucking sure.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But I had to.
“What’s she done?” I asked. “She stolen something from you?”
“Oh, Timmy, if only it was that,” Eric said. “Don’t you think, if all she’d done was take something from us, she might have gotten in touch with you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“I mean, she’s got to be scared shitless and all. That’s part of it. But my theory is, she’s just ashamed.”
I blotted up some more blood. Neither of us said anything for about a mile.
It was Eric who broke the silence. “I think we’ll take the next exit, find us a nice place in the woods to continue our discussion. Fact is, I had another one of those inspirational moments when I was on my way to see you today, about what to do if you didn’t know where your girl was, which clearly you do not. I thought to myself, what if we had some sort of an event that would make her want to come home. Then we don’t even have to look for her. We just wait for her to show up. You get what I’m saying?”
“No,” I said.
“You ever read that book?” he asked. “The one where they talk about trusting your gut instinct? How going with the idea that just comes to you is usually a better plan than the one that you think over for months and months? You ever read that book?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I read that book.”
“Well, that was what I had before we left. One of those ‘Aha!’ moments. Sometimes, you know, the simplest ideas are the best ones.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Eric grinned and tossed his cigarette out the window. “Well, if you were a little girl on the run, wouldn’t you come home for your daddy’s funeral?”
The next exit would take me to my execution. Eric Downes was going to take that gun out of his jacket and kill me in the woods.
I didn’t, at that moment, see a lot of options, save one.
I yanked up on the emergency brake.
“Shiiitttt!” Eric screamed as the car suddenly decelerated and lurched toward the shoulder. He threw both hands back onto the wheel as a car coming up from behind laid on the horn and swerved past, narrowly missing the back end of the Civic.
As Eric’s hands went to the wheel I unbuckled my seat belt with one hand, threw open the passenger door with the other, and catapulted myself out of the car.
We probably weren’t going much more than five or ten miles per hour at that point, but jumping out of a car at any speed is an insane thing to try. Except, perhaps, when the guy behind the wheel is getting ready to shoot you.
I tried to maintain my balance as I hit the gravel, but I lost my footing on the loose stones and did a simultaneous tumble and spin, something that might have earned me a 7.2 in Olympic skating, right into the tall grasses beyond the shoulder. I rolled twice, then raised myself on my knees, gave my head a quick shake in a bid to get my bearings, and saw that the Civic had come to a stop on the shoulder about thirty yards up the highway.
Horns blared from several other cars speeding past. One driver stuck his middle finger out through the sunroof.
The driver’s door flew open and Eric jumped out of the Civic, gun in hand. He ran to the back of the car, scanning the side of the road, but I’d thrown myself onto the ground, flattened myself out. I could just make out Eric between the blades, but felt relatively sure he could not see me.
Now Eric was glancing at the traffic, and you could see the wheels turning. Motorists see a guy at the side of the road waving a gun, someone’s going to pick up their cell and make a call.
He knew he had to get out of there. There wasn’t time to hunt me down.
He ran around to the other side of the car, slammed the passenger door shut, then got in the driver’s seat. The car took off, kicking up gravel as it swerved onto the pavement.