On the other hand, they’d remained caught in that same corrupt foster care system I’d uncovered and tried to take down. So who knew what had become of them.

  I meant to find out.

  But first, the business at hand. “How’d you ever hook up with Kevin? Wasn’t he like your dealer or something?”

  “Used to be,” she murmured. “You ruined him for that. He got out of drugs. Cleaned up. Even goes to college.”

  “Really.”

  She nodded. “He’s getting a degree in business, minoring in both digital communications and media.”

  “Impressive.”

  “Yeah, we’re all overwhelmed,” snapped Mel. I frowned at her.

  “Just ‘cause you never liked him don’t make him bad,” Misty shot back.

  “And just ‘cause you do don’t make him good!”

  “Well I like you, too and that don’t make you good!”

  “I don’t pretend to be something I’m not!”

  “Time out,” I bellowed. Both girls shot me pouty looks.

  “All we’re doing is wasting time,” Mel said. “In and out. That’s it.”

  “So go,” Misty said.

  I shook my head. “Can’t. Not with Mr. ‘Citizen’s arrest’ lying over there.”

  “He won’t say anything. I promise.”

  “You can’t make promises for him.”

  “Damn it, Mis. Why couldn’t you just have listened to me?” Mel said.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot about it, okay? Look, it’s totally my fault. I get that. But please, just don’t…”

  “Don’t what?” I said.

  “Hurt him.”

  “If I’d meant to hurt him, I wouldn’t have put him in a sleeper hold, okay? I’d have just snapped his neck.” Her eyes grew wide at the suggestion, which was what I needed. I didn’t mean that I would’ve snapped his neck. I’d only had to do it once in the service, and it wasn’t easy like in the movies.

  But she didn’t know that.

  “But just because I didn’t hurt him doesn’t mean I can keep him from hurting himself. You understand, right?”

  Dully, she nodded.

  “You say he turned his life around. I’m glad to hear that.” In my peripheral vision, I saw Mel roll her eyes. I ignored her and continued. “I wouldn’t want to take that from him. But right now, there’s doing what’s legal, and there’s doing what’s right and smart. You tell me. Is he smart?”

  “Oh boy,” Mel murmured.

  “He is,” she said, glaring at her roommate.

  “That’s good. Because we need him to be smart. We also need to keep you guys out of this as much as possible. So here’s the deal: we’re gonna lay low and watch the news tonight. There’ll be something on there about the prison. If it comes out that they’re looking for me, then you and Kevin can go ahead and call the cops. Tell them the whole story. But here’s the thing: you tell Kevin that we’re going to Canada. We’re heading first for the Adirondacks, and then we’re going to sneak across the northern border.

  “On the other hand, if they think I’m dead, then it stays that way, and you make sure Kevin keeps his trap shut about what he knows. Think you can manage that?”

  She nodded stiffly. Mel caught my eye. “Can we talk?”

  I waved my hand in assent, and she led me into the bedroom, where Misty and Kevin had been enjoying each other’s company just moments before. I wrinkled my nose at the rumpled sheets on the bed and didn’t say anything. Mel sat on the dresser.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re gonna let Kevin walk?”

  “What would you rather I do? Take him with us?”

  “There are other options!”

  I knew where she was going, but I didn’t want to follow. “Such as?”

  Her eyes widened. “O-options,” she repeated. I folded my arms and waited. She gave me an exasperated look. “Geez, Gerald, do I hafta spell it out for you?”

  “Yes. And I’ll tell you why: ‘Cause if you can’t even say it, what makes you think you’d be okay with doing it?”

  Her lip quivered and her shoulders slumped.

  “And let’s not forget Misty,” I continued. “Think she’d be okay with that? You still value her friendship? ‘Cause you can just kiss that good-bye. Hell, she even hears what you’re suggesting, it’s probably over between you two.”

  She nodded stiffly. I reached out and touched her shoulder. “Besides, we may be criminals, but we’re still the good guys, remember?”

  “Yeah,” she muttered. “This wasn’t s’pposed to go like this. I had it all planned out. Nice and smooth, y’know?”

  “You did good. You got us this far. And this is just a small hiccup. We’ll get through it.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Nor should you. Look, all we gotta do is get through tonight. Tomorrow we can hit the road and put some distance between us and them. And maybe Kevin will play it smart and just let it go.”

  “Or maybe he’ll turn snitch and try to get some reward money.”

  “He might. And if it comes to that, we’ll handle it.”

  “How?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I usually make this stuff up as I go along. I think we can scare both Kevin and Misty enough to keep them from doing anything stupid, though.”

  The wry shake of her head let me know what she thought of my confidence. I took her chin between my thumb and forefinger and lifted her lips to my own. “It’ll be okay,” I said after kissing her.

  When she met my eyes, I saw hunger in her own. “I really wanted them not here right now,” she whispered, and bit her lip.

  “I know. We waited this long.”

  “Yeah.” She grimaced and pulled away from me, returning to the living room. As soon as she opened the door, I knew something was wrong.

  Chapter 5

  “You’re kidding!” Mel exclaimed.

  “I tried to stop him!” Misty cried. I pushed into the living room. Instantly, my eyes fell on the empty couch where Kevin had lain just moments before. A curse blew past my lips as I hurried to the door.

  “How long ago?” I pushed open the door and stuck my head in the hall. There was no one there. I turned to Misty. “How long?”

  “F-five minutes!”

  Five minutes?! “You let him go.”

  “You let him go?!” Mel demanded.

  “I tried!”

  “It’s all right, Mel,” I said.

  She hurried toward the door. “He can’t have gone far.”

  “Let him go.”

  “We can still catch him.”

  I caught her arm. “I don’t want to catch him. Let him go.” I turned to Misty. “Find him. And tell him I said this: I’m holding you, Misty, responsible for anything he says or does. He puts Mel or me at risk, you’re going to pay for it. Do you understand? This was your screw up. You brought him here. Your life is now in his hands.”

  Her eyes widened, and her face drained of color.

  “You’d better hope he really does love you,” I added. “And if I were you, I’d find him before he does something stupid.”

  She hesitated only a moment. Then she grabbed her purse and her keys and bolted for the door. Mel slid to one side as she passed. She put her hand to her mouth, watching as Misty fled down the hallway.

  “Ger?” she said, the unasked question etched in her eyes.

  I shook my head. “Pack your things. We’re getting out of here.”

  ***

  “But we don’t know if they’re after us or not!” Mel protested as I dragged her duffel bag to the car. The night air felt chill and damp, seeping through my shirt and making me shiver.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I opened the back and tossed her bag inside. “We’ve got to act as if they are, and get out of here before they find us.”

  I climbed inside the front and started the engine. It roared to life when I hit the gas. I glanced at the heater, wondering how long it’d take to kick in some warmth. “Is this car in your name?”

  She nodded.

  “We’ve got to get rid of it.”

  “I don’t have another one.”

  “What about your friend? Larry? He got a car?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay. We take his and leave him yours.”

  “What’s to keep him from calling the cops?”

  I gave her a wicked grin. “I’m sure we can find a way to motivate him.”

  With that, I shifted into gear and headed back for the medical examiner’s building.

  ***

  Larry was still unconscious when we got there, and it took a little rifling through his pockets to find his keys. I carried him over to Mel’s Civic and propped him in the front seat with the empty bottle of Tequila on the floor by his foot. He moaned when I brushed by his leg, and I froze, almost certain he was coming around.

  Mel grabbed her bag from the back and stood by my elbow. I gritted my teeth, studying the scene.

  “What?” she asked.

  “This isn’t enough. Do you have any blood?”

  She blanched. “You mean besides what’s in my veins?”

  “Preferably.”

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  I massaged my chin. “We need to scare him. Make him think he’s done something he’ll go to prison over. Then we call his cell and give him a way out. That’ll keep him from going to the cops and reporting the car.”

  She nodded and started rummaging through her purse. “That could work.” She produced a pen knife, and before I could stop her, ran the edge across her left palm.

  I swore when I saw what she’d done. “I meant somebody else’s blood. Like maybe one of them corpses you’ve got in there.” I pointed at the coroner’s building.

  She shook her head. “No time. Besides, I’m kinda used to it.” With that, she slipped beside me and wiped her palm down the front of Larry’s white shirt, leaving a deep crimson stain. For good measure, she also stroked his cheeks, painting him red.

  “Get his hands. It’ll be the first thing he sees.” I wanted to ask her what she meant by ‘used to it,’ but thought it could wait.

  She winced as she pressed her wound across both his palms, smearing them in false guilt.

  “Let me see that,” I said as she stepped back. I frowned at the gash. “We’ll need to wrap that up.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she muttered, and reached across Larry to tug a First Aid kit out from beneath the passenger seat.

  “Why? ‘Cause you’re used to it?” I took the kit from her, popped it open, and pulled out the gauze and antibiotic. In short order, I had her hand bandaged.

  She met my eyes. “Thanks.”

  We transferred our stuff to Larry’s car. He drove a reconditioned 1984 black Ford Mustang with red pinstripes. I could tell he put a lot of love into that car, what with the perfect finish and polished chrome. The gearshift was a chrome skull with red eyes—the kind of thing wannabes thought made them look badass. I’d have rather had a classic leather grip beneath my palm. The skull made me think I was constantly grabbing somebody’s shrunken head, and I found myself absently picking at its teeth as I shifted from reverse into gear.

  Still, the car had serious power and a half tank of gas, which was more than I could have hoped for. I pulled onto the street and gunned it, chuckling as the engine growled and the car leaped forward, like a thoroughbred out of the gate. Beside me, Mel leaned back and put her hands behind her head, letting out a joyful whoop and laughing as we hurtled down the street.

  I reached forward and turned on the radio, almost regretting the choice as heavy metal music exploded from the speakers. I swore and turned it down, but Mel reached her hand forward and cranked it again. She started drumming on the dashboard.

  I shook my head. “Hate to spoil your fun.” I hit the channel select button and found an all-news station.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding, Old School!”

  “We’ve got to find out what they’re saying.”

  “You gotta loosen up. You only live once, right?”

  “I already have lived this stage. I moved past heavy metal about twenty years ago.”

  “Yeah? Into what? Hip Hop? Jazz?”

  “Hip Hop? Seriously?”

  “Easy Listening?”

  “Try Country and Western.”

  “Oh dear God! It is going to be such a long car ride.”

  “Yeah, speaking of which, do you know where we’re going?”

  “Florida, baby.” She reached into the back seat and started fumbling through her bag. I was suddenly conscious of the suppleness and curves in her figure, the way her pants clung to her thighs. I took a breath and shifted in my seat. A moment later, she produced a net book, which she plugged into the cigarette lighter with an adapter. “Our good friend Detective Rogan found himself a lovely home outside of Jacksonville.”

  “Jacksonville, huh?”

  She pointed toward a McDonald’s down the street. “Pull into the parking lot.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Need the WiFi.”

  I steered the car into the parking lot and put it in park. Mel logged onto the internet and brought up a mapping program. “I’ll have directions in a minute.”

  I turned off the radio. “Look, umm,” I began, “I know I owe you one, and I know this is why you broke me out. But here’s the thing. I gotta find out what happened. I gotta find Matt and Sarah.”

  “Oh I know.” She didn’t look up.

  “And that’s got to be my first priority.”

  Now she looked up. “So what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I can’t go with you to Jacksonville. Not yet, anyway.”

  She stared at me a moment. “The hell you can’t!”

  “They’re my kids, Mel.”

  “Yeah. No kidding.”

  “So I have to know.”

  She jabbed my chest with her finger. “No. You have to be patient. I know you wanna find your kids. I get that. I do. I’m not stupid. But you gotta pay your debt to me first.”

  “Debt?”

  “Yeah. You owe me. Remember? So get this straight. First, we go to Jacksonville. First, we find Rogan. First, we get that laptop back and take it to the press, and get some frickin’ justice for those thousands of kids who, just like yours, are stuck in that damn system. That’s what we do first. Then, we get your kids back.”

  “Mel—”

  “No! You listen to me! You can’t get your kids back while they’re still in the system. Those bastards still got the law and the courts on their side, and you come at them now while they’re still standing, they will frickin’ destroy you. And they’ll take me down with you. Five years, Gerrold. Five years I’ve been plotting to get you back, ‘cause you’re the only one on my side. The only one who gets what I’ve been through. The only one who knows—who doesn’t look at me like I’m some kind of damaged freak!”

  She fell back into her seat. “My God, Ger. Not even Misty looks at me that way. You know what I see in her eyes when she looks at me? Pity. I am so tired of everyone’s frickin’ pity!”

  She broke down then, tears erupting from her and making her body shake. She put her hand on her chin and turned away, not letting me see.

  I reached for her shoulder, but she twisted away. I collapsed back in my seat, staring out my own window.

  Jacksonville. It was so far away. So far from where I needed to be—where I wanted to be. I hadn’t seen my kids in five years. Five long years of wondering where they were. What they were going through. Wondering whether or not they ever thought of me at all, or knew that I loved them.

  Everything I had done that landed me in prison was born out of an attempt to get them back. And none of it had worked. Instead, it had only driven me further from them. And here I was getting ready to do it all over again, to rush headlong into battle and risk losing everyone and everything all over again. It might be tempting to say I had nothing left to lose, but that would be a lie. I did have something to lose—the hope of winning them back.

  And Mel. I had her, too. I had her loyalty, and if that kiss in the prison was anything to be believed, I had her love. It was a lot to risk. More than I had a right to.

  Wordlessly, I shifted the car into gear, and pulled out onto the road.

  Chapter 6

  We drove in silence for a long time. Mel refused to look at me, even after I got onto the expressway and headed south. The streetlamps over the road created haloed pyramids of coral light cascading over broad stretches of empty roadway. A few headlights greeted us from the other direction, and in the distance ahead I could see the pinpoints of taillights like tiny red eyes retreating into the darkness.

  I turned the radio back on, listening for news of the break out. There were a few updates promising more details at a later hour. I kept it on anyway, grateful for the company, given that Mel still wasn’t talking to me.

  I didn’t really need directions to Jacksonville as it was. All I had to do was get on I-95 and keep driving. I was pretty sure I could navigate my way through Pennsylvania to the interstate. But there were other concerns that forced me to finally break the silence.

  “We’re gonna need gas, soon.”

  Silence.

  “And a place to crash for the night.”

  Still silence.

  “And we should probably start calling Larry’s phone. See if our boy’s up yet. And then there’s Misty. Gotta follow up on that, too.”

  She tossed her cell phone into my lap. I picked it up and scrolled through the menu, looking for Larry’s number. “I hope you got some kind of stash,” I added, “‘cause we’re gonna need to pay cash for everything. Gas, food, lodging. Jacksonville’s a long way off. And then there’s the stuff we’re gonna need once we get there.”

  “Geez, do I have to think of everything?”

  She speaks! “Well, I did just get out of prison.”