John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

“Do you think you’ll catch him?”

“Oh, we’ll catch him, all right,” Warren said. “Once we figure out where to start looking for him.”

Monique led her husband into the living room and sat him down on a chair, where she moved around behind him and began massaging his shoulders. “I guess that means you don’t have many leads.”

“Leads,” Warren snorted. “It’s not that we don’t have many leads. We don’t have any leads.”

“What about your man Thompkins?” Monique teased. “He seems hard-charging enough to turn up some clues.”

Warren dramatically dropped his chin to his chest and rubbed his forehead. “You heard that, did you? Could you believe it? He was supposed to get their permission, not beat them into submission. What a bonehead.”

“Now, Warren, I’m sure he was just trying to do his job and make a good impression.”

Warren snorted again. “Yeah, well, so was Barney Fife. And I can assure you that Patrolman Thompkins made an indelible impression on a lot of people. The county executive even called me today and asked me to send his regards. I have a meeting scheduled tomorrow afternoon for just that purpose.”

Monique hugged him from behind and kissed his ear, crossing her forearms under his chin. “Now, you go easy on him. It wasn’t so long ago that you were a stupid rookie.”

“I was never that stupid,” Warren grumped.

“Oh yeah? How ’bout that time you shot at yourself in that lady’s house?”

Warren’s head sagged even further. He laughed. He reached up and rubbed the back of her head as she rested her forehead on his shoulder. “You just don’t forget anything, do you?” That incident had occurred fifteen years before, when he was in the process of tracking down a prowler in an old woman’s house. As he swung into the bedroom in a full crouch, he saw a man crouched down on the other side of the door, aiming a pistol directly at him. Not until Warren had squeezed off three rounds did he realize that he was facing down his own reflection in a full-length mirror. The woman nearly had a heart attack, and he was suspended for a week while Internal Affairs did an investigation. Worst of all was the merciless ribbing to which he fell victim for years after the incident. Unbeknownst to him, the ribbing continued to this day, only now it was always behind his back.

“Tomorrow should be interesting,” Warren said, changing the subject. “I understand Petrelli’s taking the radio station to court tomorrow with an emergency petition to compel release of the telephone records:’

“Do you think it will work?”

“Hell, no, not a chance. I’d pay a thousand dollars, though, just to see Petrelli get trashed one more time in front of the cameras. The only good thing about my day today has been the thought of how really shitty a day he’s had.”

Monique slapped his arm playfully and stood up straight again. “You’re terrible,” she scolded. “What happens if the judge says no?”

“Then we’re left with plain old police work. I think the kid’s holed up somewhere. He can hang loose for a day or two, but sooner or later he’ll have to move, and when that happens, he’ll start leaving another trail. That’s when we’ll get our next good shot.”

Monique came around the chair and kneeled down in front of her husband, resting her elbows on his knees. “Do you think he killed that guard—or supervisor, or whatever—in self-defense?”

Warren shrugged and closed his eyes. “Doesn’t really matter right now. He still has to go back.”

“But what do you think?”

“Honestly? In my heart of hearts?”

“Yes.”

“I really don’t care. I think it’s a red herring, something I have no business thinking about. At least not until we get him back in custody and he goes to trial for killing the supervisor. The escape and the murder are separate issues.”

From out of nowhere, their conversation was interrupted by the thunder of footsteps coming down the stairs. “Daddeeee!” His seven-year-old, Shannon, turned the corner into the living room at full tilt, and vaulted into his lap, followed closely by her sister Kathleen, two years her senior. A round of hugs and kisses followed, along with a couple of tickles.

“You’re home early!” Kathleen proclaimed, genuine delight twinkling in her eyes. “Mommy said you wouldn’t be home till late.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I probably shouldn’t be home till late, but I just couldn’t stand the thought of not tucking you two characters into bed for a second night in a row.” He kissed her on the cheek.

“Can I ask you a question, Daddy?”

“Any time at all.”

“Are you trying to put Nathan in the electric chair?”

Warren shot a look across to Monique and got a shrug in return. Incredulous that his daughter considered herself on a first-name basis with an accused murderer, Michaels leaned back in his chair and gently repositioned his older daughter on his lap so that she was facing him directly. “What kind of a question is that?”

“I was playing with Benny Parker today, and he said that you were going to kill that boy on television by putting him in the electric chair.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him that he was a liar, and then I popped him in the nose.

Warren laughed in spite of himself. “Kathleen!” he scolded, embarrassed by the pride he felt at his petite little girl punching a kid the size of Benny Parker. “You can’t hit people just for saying something you don’t like.”

“It is a lie, isn’t it?” From the look in Kathleen’s eyes, Warren suddenly was not sure who was scolding whom.

“Honey, they don’t put children in electric chairs.”

“So what’s going to happen to Nathan?”

Warren fought the temptation to lie. It would have been easy to give her a fairy-tale answer, but he had long believed that truth was the only way to maintain credibility with his kids.

“That’s really not for me to decide, Kathleen. That’s why we have courts. My job is to arrest Nathan and bring him back to the Juvenile Detention Center so that a judge can decide what ultimately happens to him.”

“But Nathan says that people tried to kill him in the Juve… whatever that place is. Are you going to send him back to that same place?”

Warren looked to his wife for some help. Monique gave it a try. “Kathleen, sweetie, this boy Nathan isn’t like boys in your school. He was in jail for stealing, and he killed a man to get out of jail. That makes him a bad guy. And bad guys go to jail.”

“The kids don’t think he did anything wrong,” Kathleen protested.

Warren’s patience for all of this suddenly evaporated. “Well, he did do something wrong!” he erupted, far more loudly than he had intended. “He killed a man, and you can’t go much more wrong that that! My job, Kathleen, whether you like it or not, is to put murderers away in a place where they can’t harm other people. Just because he’s a kid doesn’t make him any less dangerous!”

Both girls fell silent and slid down off his lap, disappearing back upstairs. Kathleen looked as though she might cry; whether for herself or for Nathan, he couldn’t tell. When the children were out of sight, Monique returned to Warren’s shoulders and started massaging them.

“Did I overreact?” Michaels asked.

“Mm-hmm,” she replied, leaning over to gently bite his ear. “You always overreact when you lose your sense of humor. Remind me in a couple of hours and I bet I can help you find it again.”

It was nearly ten now, and it was dark, inside as well as out. Nathan put the finishing touches on his note to the Nicholsons—he’d found his hosts’ name on a magazine—and walked from the kitchen into the garage. His stomach was in a knot again, but he knew there was no turning back now. The one thing he needed more than anything else was distance between himself and the JDC. The fulfillment of his need lay just on the other side of the garage. The seat and the steering wheel were already adjusted, and he’d killed an hour or so in the afternoon memorizing the locations of all the important levers, switches and buttons, so that he could make the BMW do as he commanded, even in the dark.