Greg Iles: 24 Hours

“Help him, Daddy!”

Will set Abby down and ran to the driver ’s door. It had not been jammed shut in the crash, but Huey was most definitely jammed behind the wheel. He weighed over three hundred pounds, and Will could scarcely budge him.

“Huey!” he yelled. “Help me! Move!”

The man’s left forearm was like a ham. Will grabbed it with both hands and pulled with all his strength. With a groan like an annoyed bull, Huey twisted in the seat and heaved himself out onto the ground. There was just enough slope for Will to roll him down and away from the car. That was all he could do.

“Let’s go find Mom!” Abby called.

He had told Abby they would do that, but he really wasn’t sure what to do. The smart thing would probably be to duck into the woods and wait for the police to show up. But what if Hickey had been in that silver Camry? And what if Karen was still with him after all? She might be bound and gagged in the backseat, or lying wounded in the trunk. He wished he had Cheryl’s pistol, but there was no point in wishing. The gun had exploded with the plane.

He scooped Abby into his arms and looked up the shoulder. A dozen people stood along the crest, looking down at him. There were probably hundreds of cars backed up already. A world-class traffic snarl. If Hickey was up there with them, so be it. Somebody up there would have a gun. This was Mississippi, after all. They might all have guns. He hitched Abby up on his hip and started up the shoulder.

Cheryl sat down in the trees on the ridge that divided the northbound and southbound lanes and tried to catch her breath. The scene below was like something out of a Spielberg movie. It was like watching a parade from the roof of a building. Cheryl had done that once as a child. With her real father. But this parade had gone terribly wrong.

The doctor ’s plane was still burning, throwing up a column of black smoke like a refinery fire. The driver of the log truck was stumbling back toward the fire, to see the damage his truck had done, she supposed. Cars were lined up behind the plane as far as she could see, and hundreds of people were beginning to get out of them. By the plane, though, there were still only a few, as if the spectators sensed that the show might not be quite over. At least the little girl was okay. Cheryl had seen the doctor carry her up onto the road.

She needed to get moving, if she wanted to stay out of jail. Her best bet was probably to go down to the northbound lanes and hitch a ride with some horny salesman. She probably looked rough after the crash, but the truth was, men didn’t care. Not when you were twenty-six and had a body tailor-made for the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

Cheryl was standing up when when she saw Joey rise from behind a parked car and walk toward the knot of people that had gathered around Dr. Jennings and his little girl.

Will was stunned by the reaction of the people on the shoulder. They all talked at once, and he could only catch fragments of their conversations. A couple of guys slapped him on the back, but another yelled, “Where’s the stupid son of a bitch who was flying that plane? Somebody needs to arrest his ass!”

Will just held Abby tight and asked someone-anyone-to call the state police and the FBI. Three men detached themselves from the crowd and trotted back toward the line of cars, presumably to use their cell phones.

“Daddy, your plane,” said Abby, pointing at the mangled wreck.

Will heard himself laugh. “That old girl did what I needed her to do. That’s all that matters.”

“Look at my bear, Daddy. Huey made it.”

Abby held out an intricately carved figure of a bear holding a little girl. Will was no art expert, but he was an experienced collector, and there was something in the little figure that moved him deeply.

“Everybody back!” screamed a male voice.

Will thought it was a cop until the men around him began to scatter, half of them sliding down the shoulder behind him, the other half running back to their cars. Among the running bodies, his eyes picked out a man standing still as a pole, thirty feet away. He had dark hair and black eyes, and one of his pant legs was soaked with blood from groin to ankle. As Will watched, he raised his arm. A revolver gleamed blue-black in the sun.

Hickey.

There was nowhere to run. He and Abby were caught between the burning plane and the steep shoulder. If he made a dash down the hill with Abby in his arms, Hickey could simply take a few steps and shoot them as they tried to reach the trees.

“Who’s that man, Daddy?”

“Shh, punkin.” Will had thought he might remember Hickey from the time of his mother’s operation, but the man’s face was a cipher. It was hard to comprehend, facing a total stranger who hated you enough to kill you and your children.

“Where’s my money, Doc?” Hickey asked, his eyes smoldering like coals.

Will pointed at the burning plane. “In there.”

“You’d better be lying.”

“I’m too tired to lie.”

“Where’s Cheryl?”

“I don’t know.” He wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t lie a little. He wasn’t going to tell Hickey that his wife had burned up in the plane with the ransom money.

Keeping his gun trained on Will and Abby, Hickey backed to the edge of the shoulder and looked down.

“That’s the way, Huey!” he shouted. “Come on, boy! You can do it!”

Will looked around for signs of help, but he saw none.

“You know what happens now?” Hickey asked, focusing on Will and Abby again.

“What?”

“This.”

He fired, and Will felt his right leg buckle. He almost collapsed, but he managed to keep his feet long enough to set Abby down and move in front of her. She was screaming in terror. He considered telling her to run for it, but he doubted she would, and any such move might cause Hickey to shoot again. He felt her clutching his pants from behind.

“Shot by your own gun,” Hickey said. “How does it feel?”

Will looked down. The bullet had caught him in the meat of the thigh, but on the lateral side, away from the femoral artery.

Hickey yelled back over his shoulder: “Come on, Buckethead! Train’s leaving! Show me you’re not a wheelie-boy!”

“Get out of here while you can, Joe,” Will said.

Hickey laughed darkly. “Oh, I’ll be gettin’ on soon. But you and me got an account to settle. And that little girl behind you is the legal tender.”

He took a step closer, then another. Will was about to snatch Abby up and try to run for it when a female voice stopped Hickey in his tracks.

“I got the money, Joey!”

Cheryl was standing on the far side of the road, by the median. The smile on her face was as forced as an Avon lady’s on a poor street, but she was making an effort. “Let’s get out of here, Joey. Come on!”

“Well, well,” Hickey said. “The prodigal slut.” He shook his head. “Gotta finish what you start, babe.”

Her smile cracked, then vanished. “There’s no reason to hurt that little girl, Joey. Not anymore.”

“You know there is.”

“Killing her won’t bring your mama back.”

His eyes blazed. “He’ll feel some of what I’ve felt!” Hickey lowered his aim to Will’s legs, which hardly shielded Abby at all.

“Joey, don’t!” Cheryl opened the ransom briefcase, took out her Walther, and aimed it at Hickey’s chest. “It wasn’t even his fault! Let’s go to Costa Rica. Your ranch is waiting!”

Hickey looked at Will and laughed bitterly. “Turned her against me, didn’t you? Well… she always was a stupid cow.”

He turned casually toward Cheryl and fired, blowing her back onto the median and spilling hundred-dollar bills across the grass. Then his gun was on Will again, his aim dancing from head to chest to legs. As he played his little game, a strange beating sound echoed over the slab of the interstate. Will recognized it first: the whup-whup-whup of rotor blades. Hickey soon understood its meaning, but instead of bolting, he took two steps closer to Will.