Point Last Seen: Blood Will Tell Part 17

His dreams were all gone, stolen from him. His life was ruined. No school. No SAR. And, of course, there was no longer any point of thinking of the army.

Nearly everyone thought he was a murderer. Especially the cops. The only people who didn't were Alexis and Ruby.

He was trapped without any way out.

Except maybe there was always a way. If you were desperate enough.

After he let himself inside the empty house, he went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He sifted through the junk drawer, through the bent screwdrivers and little screws that might come in handy, until he found the box cutter. He undid it, took out the razor blade and hid it under the insole of his shoe.

If they arrested him, he could always kill himself.

Kill himself before he ended up sharing a cell with his dad.

CHAPTER 43.

NICK.

MONDAY.

READY TO THROW IN THE TOWEL.

Kyle came into Nick's room without knocking.

"I don't believe it," he said, looking disgusted. "I thought I smelled cigarette smoke."

Nick took another drag on his cigarette. He had found the hidden pack when he was looking for the box cutter. He hadn't been able to find a lighter, so he had used one of the wooden kitchen matches they kept for when the gas stove was acting up.

"So these aren't yours?" He turned and blew a stream of smoke out the open window. His room was about the same temperature as outside, so he was still wearing his coat. "I found them in the bas.e.m.e.nt."

"They're Mom's. She smokes about one a year when she's really stressed out." One more secret Nick hadn't been privy to. "Why in the heck are you smoking?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Nick sucked in another lungful of pollutants. "I got told I wasn't welcome at both school and SAR today. Might as well act like the bad guy everyone thinks I am." Besides, wasn't this what people did in prison-smoked, b.u.mmed smokes, bartered with them?

"Why did they do that?"

"The cops told SAR and the school that I was a 'person of interest' in a murder case. Everyone knows what that means."

"So now you're ready to throw in the towel?" Kyle gave his head a shake. "Once they get your DNA test back, they're going to know it wasn't you. Didn't they tell you that there were other people who could match?"

"Yeah. Like you." Nick took another drag, suppressing the urge to cough. One thing about the cigarette was that it somehow allowed him to keep his face impa.s.sive, his gaze steady on Kyle.

"You don't really think that, do you?" When Nick didn't answer and didn't look away, Kyle swore, kicking one of the legs of the bed. "I already told you where I was that night. And that I never even talked to that Lucy person, let alone laid a hand on her. There's got to be some other explanation. Like some fourth cousin three times removed we don't even know about."

Did Kyle really believe that? Because Nick didn't. He just shrugged.

"What is wrong with you, man?" Kyle screwed his face up. "You were so eager to believe Dad was some big hero. And now you want to believe that I'm a killer. When neither one of those things is true." Kyle left, slamming the door behind him. Because of the open window, it shook the house.

As Nick was taking another drag, the doorbell rang, startling him. n.o.body ever rang the doorbell. He stilled, straining to hear.

"Kyle Walker?" he heard a man say. Nick didn't recognize his voice, but whoever it was definitely sounded like a cop.

"Yes?" Kyle's voice shook. So much for his certainty.

"We'd like to talk to your brother, Nick."

Without thinking, Nick took three steps toward the window, lay down on the sill, and rolled out.

He landed with a thud on his belly in the backyard. The impact knocked the air from his lungs and the cigarette from his hands.

Their yard was bordered on both sides by overgrown laurel hedges. At the back was a cinder block wall that separated their yard from Mrs. Watkins's. Even with no breath in him, he scuttled toward it, keeping low.

How many times had he crawled through this backyard, pretending to be a soldier? Now all that bear crawling, pretending he was sneaking up on the enemy, served him in good stead.

Because today he was fighting for real. Fighting for his life. He scrabbled across the yard. Through a gap at the root level of the laurels, he saw two cop cars on his street.

How long did he have? Would Kyle even try to stall them?

He was up and over the wall in a second. When he landed on the other side, he saw Mrs. Watkins's back through the window. She was drinking a cup of tea and watching TV. She didn't turn around.

Nick made it through two more yards, keeping low and moving fast. He was just lucky everyone was still at work. But the next barrier between backyards was a seven-foot-tall wooden fence. Even if he could figure out how to scale it, it felt like it would leave him too exposed.

Where was he? On his mental map, Nick thought he might be at the point where the street started to curve. He cut through the side yard and out into the front yard, sticking close to the house. He risked one glance down the street, just one.

Another cop car was skidding to a stop in front of his house. No, no, no.

He cut through three more front yards, darted across a busy street, and then risked a flat-out run, even though it would draw attention to him. Predators-including human beings-were hardwired to respond to sudden movement. But this wasn't a case where playing dead would do him any good. His heart felt like it would beat out of his chest. His breath was coming in gasps.

Traffic was thickening around him. The middle school up the street was letting out and parents were coming by to pick up their kids. At first, he started to cut away. But then he realized what the students were. Protective coloration. Forcing himself to slow to a walk, Nick plunged into the crowd of kids spilling out the double doors. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a few kids glance at him curiously.

Pretending to look at his phone, he got on one of the buses. It was half full. He started walking down the aisle.

"Hey, wait a minute!" It was the bus driver, a plump balding man. "You in the blue jacket!"

Nick turned. Already new kids were climbing onto the bus. He was trapped. There was no way he could push past them and run out the door, not without the driver grabbing him. Could he run the length of the bus and somehow unlatch the emergency exit in the back before he was caught?

"Yeah?"

"You sure you're on the right bus, kid?"

He forced himself to speak calmly. "This is number twenty-one, right?" he asked, using the number he had seen on the front of the bus.

"Yes, twenty-one, that's right." The driver nodded.

"We just moved here from Seattle. This was my first day." Nick had never thought he'd be happy about being the same size as an eighth grader, but for once it was coming in handy.

"And you know your stop?"

What was he going to say when the guy asked him which one it was? He had no idea where this bus was actually going. Nick nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"Okay, then. Welcome to Portland."

He mumbled a thank you and then took an empty seat in the middle of the bus. Keeping his head down, he sat in an aisle seat. If he didn't make eye contact, maybe no one would challenge him or ask questions. Because he was fresh out of answers.

He fished his phone from his pocket and texted Ruby.

The cops came to arrest me and I ran.

The answer came a second later.

Where are you?

He had a fresh appreciation for Ruby. Unlike everyone else, she wasn't giving him a lecture about how he was making a terrible mistake or about how he should just turn himself in and trust that the justice system would sort everything out.

Robert Gray on bus. Pretending I'm a new student.

Turn off your phone in case they're tracking you. Get off somewhere in the middle, not at the last stop. Start to walk away fast before anyone can ask questions. Turn your phone on long enough to text me where you are, and I'll pick you up.

Thank you.

Nick pressed the b.u.t.ton and watched the display dwindle away to nothing.

Just like the chances that he would be able to stay free.

CHAPTER 44.

RUBY.

MONDAY.

KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN.

Ruby made a quick stop at home, thankful that both her parents worked during the day, and raided her dad's closet. Before she went inside, Ruby texted Alexis.

The cops want to arrest Nick. He's safe, for now. But we need to figure out how to prove they're wrong.

After she pulled out of her driveway, she kept an eye on her rearview mirror. That big black SUV. Was it following her? If it was the cops and they put on the siren, there was no way she could outrun them. But if they were hoping she would lead them to Nick, they might hang back and let her go. She had to lose them. As she had before, she took four right turns, one after another. Then she got on the freeway, moved rapidly to the left, and then a second later cut over two lanes to take the first exit without signaling. Finally satisfied no one was following her-if they had ever been-she started working her way in the general direction of Robert Gray Middle School.

While she was driving, she took a black ball cap from the garbage bag and tucked her hair under it. Red hair was just too distinctive. If the police realized she was helping Nick, any all-points bulletin would surely mention her hair color.

Where could she take Nick? Her parents had a cabin at the beach, but it was ninety minutes away. Just contemplating the long drive made the back of her neck itch. If the cops were looking for her car, it would be easy to spot on a lonely coastal highway. Plus what if they got to the coast and Nick needed to run again? It was a lot harder to lose yourself in a spa.r.s.ely populated coastal town, especially in the off-season.

No, in town seemed best. But where?

Libraries? Too quiet.

A hotel? From her daily check of crime stories, Ruby had noticed that a couple of hotels on Barbur Boulevard frequently showed up as places where people got arrested. So it seemed likely they weren't too picky about their clientele, and they probably were happy to take cash and not ask for any ID. But most motel units only had one door, so if Nick got cornered, he wouldn't be able to escape. Besides, it was probably a bad sign that she knew the hotels as places where people were arrested. If they were on her radar, they must be on the cops' as well.

What about the airport? Thousands of people pa.s.sed through it every day. If she bought Nick a suitcase to provide protective coloration, he could probably spend a couple of days there before people stopped believing he was really a traveler.

Another part of Ruby's brain was busy with a different problem of Nick's. If the police had come to arrest him, then his DNA must have matched the DNA found on Lucy Hayes. But how was that possible? There had to be an explanation. a.s.suming the police hadn't made an error or planted the DNA, how could two people who didn't know each other still make contact?

Her phone buzzed. Nick had texted her the address where he was-and, she hoped, turned off his phone immediately afterward. She tapped a b.u.t.ton to get her phone to give her directions. A minute later she spotted him, walking fast down the sidewalk, head down. He still twitched when she pulled up next to him, then scrambled into the car.

"Thank you!" He sounded out of breath. And maybe, she thought, on the verge of tears.

"Put on the cap that's in that garbage bag."

He pulled out an orange ball cap with a logo for the Oregon State Beavers. "Don't you have one with the Ducks?"

At first, Ruby thought he was serious, but when she glanced over in annoyance, he gave her a shaky grin.

"There's a coat in there, too," she said. "Trade your jacket for it." It was her dad's, just like the ball cap. They were only small changes, but they might add up to enough. If they were very lucky.

"Where are we going, anyway?" he asked as she got on Multnomah Boulevard and headed for the freeway.

"Lloyd Center Mall."

"The mall?" He let out a strangled laugh. "I don't think now is the time to go shopping."

Ruby tamped down her annoyance. "It's not just any mall. For one thing, it's on the opposite side of the river. In Portland, people tend to stay on their side of the river. The cops will have no reason to look for you over there. You don't live on that side. You don't have friends there."

"I used to. In grade school."

"Oh." Ruby recalibrated. "Well, they probably still won't look for you there. Besides, a mall is the perfect place. Lots of other kids to blend in with. A food court, so you can eat. Restrooms, so you can go to the bathroom. A hundred stores you can pretend to be shopping at. Lots of exits. Benches to sit on. Even a movie theater. And we can get you a burner phone there."

"A burner phone?" Nick echoed. "What's that?"

"One of those cheap phones you buy for cash. The police won't know you have it, so they won't be able to track you on it. Right now they can ping your phone and if it's on, they can track you down to your exact location." Ruby felt a surge of panic. "Your phone is off, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, it is." Nick took a deep breath. "Maybe it was stupid to take off when they came to arrest me. I know I can't stay on the run forever. Or even very long. But at the same time, I'm not going to just walk up and let them put my head in the noose. I've seen those TV reports where the person is found innocent-after they've spent twenty years in prison. I don't want to not get out until I'm in my thirties. Or get killed in prison. Or never get out."

"I keep feeling like there's something I'm missing." Ruby was checking her rearview mirror every minute, but so far no one seemed to be following them. "Some explanation for how your DNA ended up on that girl's hand." That was an interesting thought. Maybe she should be thinking about something Lucy had touched. Had she been someplace Nick had been, touched something he had touched?

"The cops must have faked it."

Ruby knew she wasn't a great judge of people, but she still rebelled against the idea. "Do you really believe that? Because Harriman? I don't think he would do that." She took the exit for the mall.