Chapter Twenty Four
Neither of us said anything as we made our way back along the logging road to the highway. The tires thrummed across the cattle guard once more, and then we drove up the short hill to the pavement. Eric turned right on the highway and we headed north, back to Tillamook and the problems waiting for me there.
We’d been driving for a while when Eric finally broke the silence.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. What about you?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to keep a dam from breaking by putting my fingers in the cracks,” Eric said. “With all the budget cutbacks it feels like I’m running a refugee camp on a shoestring budget. Every fix is temporary, there’s never enough time, and it all comes down to me. And the people in the program trust me with their lives. I cannot fail.”
“You’re doing everything you can, Eric. No one could do more.”
Eric rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes. The tires hummed on the asphalt, the chain rattled against the floor of the van, the engine surged and quieted as we went up and then down the hills on Highway 101. The sky over the Pacific Ocean was a color halfway between purple and black, a velvety color that made the horizon impossible to distinguish.
Eric coughed like someone does who’s about to give a speech and said “I’ve been thinking about your problem with Peck.”
“Me, too.”
“I think you have to go public with your story,” Eric said. “Peck is too big to take down.”
“Really? Call Peck out for what he did to my parents?”
“I don’t see any other way.”
“The OKC police department doesn’t think they can prove Peck was involved. What would I get by going public?” I asked.
“Neutralize the threat. The reason Peck wants you gone is so you can’t tell your story.”
“And after I go public, the reason Peck will want me gone is revenge.”
“True, but it would come back on him if something happened to you,” Eric said.
“Eccles told me that Peck’s got a long track record of getting away with murder.”
“Your best option might just be to disappear. Move to someplace remote where Peck doesn’t have connections, like Maine or Rhode Island. Vermont, maybe.”
“How long do you think it would take Peck to find me?”
“I don’t know. It would depend on how low a profile you kept and how much cash you had to live on. Where you were willing to live. What kind of job you were willing to do to support yourself. Whether you needed legitimate I.D. to work.”
“You’re really selling it to me. So if I worked in a cranberry bog for minimum wage and lived in a tent, I might be able to avoid Peck’s people. That’s what you’re saying.”
“It could be a rustic, peaceful, simple life,” Eric said. “It would be better than being dead.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I said. “But I don’t think so. I’m not going to let Peck ruin me.”
“I have to ask you a question,” Eric said.
“What’s that?”
“You were holding hands with Emily when I got to her house tonight. Is something going on between you two?”
“We’re friends,” I said.
“That’s all?” Eric said. “Just friends?”
“We slept together,” I said.
Eric let out a long sigh and shook his head.
“I asked you to protect her, not take advantage of her.”
“It wasn’t like that, Eric, believe me. It’s something both of us wanted. There’s chemistry between us.”
“Under different circumstances, I’d be madder than hell, but in the scheme of things it doesn’t matter. You’re both in so much trouble that it’s a drop in the bucket.”
“It just happened,” I said. “We’re both adults.”
Eric was quiet. Then he said “Do you realize that Sandy has been carrying a torch for you for a long time?”
“What?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know. Why do you think she keeps dropping everything to come to your rescue? When I called her and told her you were in trouble, she couldn’t get here fast enough. What do you think that means?”
“I didn’t realize that she felt that way about me. I’d do the same for her.”
“Really? You never have. You had to know when you saw her in El Paso that she was in pretty bad shape. Did you do anything to help? I don’t have the best social skills, but compared to you I’m pretty good. Does Sandy know that you and Emily slept together?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”
“There’s something I think you should know,” Eric said. “Emily isn’t a damsel in distress. She was engaged to be married to the son of a mob boss. I know that she watched this guy, her future husband, kill several people who got sideways with his dad in a business deal. She never said anything to the police about it. In fact, the only reason she didn’t go to prison as an accessory when he was prosecuted for murder is that she agreed to testify against him. You really think that you two have a future together? How much do you actually know about her?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Just think about it, okay?”
“Okay.”
We made the turn onto Emily’s street. It was 3:15 in the morning.
“What now?” Eric asked.
“My brain is melting,” I said. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll see if Emily will let me sleep on her sofa.”
“All right,” Eric said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I got out of the van and Eric pulled away from the curb. I went to the front door and tried the knob. It was locked. I rang the doorbell, the Doberman went crazy as it always did, and I watched Emily rise from the sofa and shuffle to the front door. She had the silver pistol in her hand when she cracked the door. She looked at me for a moment before she unhooked the door chain and let me into the house.
“C’mon in,” she said.
Once the dog recognized me, she quieted and sat down. Emily’s finger twitched against the safety on her pistol. Click. Click. Click.
“You were gone a long time,” she said. “I was afraid something happened to you.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
She closed the door and locked it, hooked the security chain onto the door, then took me by the hand and led me back to her bedroom. She flipped the light switch on and pulled me inside, still holding the pistol in her hand. The dog was two paces behind and wanted to follow, but Emily pushed the door closed behind us, leaving the dog on the other side of the door.
She laid her pistol on the nightstand. I took my phone and wallet out of my pocket and put them on the nightstand beside the gun. I was between her and the bed, and she put her palm over my heart. She pushed against my chest and I took a step back. I felt the backs of my legs press against the bed frame and I sat down on the mattress. There was something distant in her eyes, as if her desire for intimacy was a practiced routine and she was just going through the motions. The muscles in her face seemed slack, her eyes puffy from sleep. She unbuttoned her shirt and slid it off, then reached behind with one hand to unhook her bra. She shrugged her shoulders forward and the blue brassiere straps slid down her arms. She watched my facial expression as if she wanted to gauge the impact that her body had on me.
She leaned forward and pushed on my chest once again, keeping the pressure up until I was laying flat on my back on the mattress. I closed my eyes.
“You tired?” she said.
“It’s been a long day.”
She got up onto the bed and straddled me with a knee on either side of my hips.
“Just a little longer,” she said. Then she leaned forward and her body pressed mine into the mattress.