John Lescroart - A Certain Justice

On this street, whichever one it was, three adjacent buildings had burned, and the acrid smoke hit him with every turn of the wind, making him cough, tearing at his poor sore ribs.

He had no idea how far he 'd run – maybe five blocks, over three fences. The good neighbor wasn't much inclined to give up the chase, but finally Kevin felt like he'd lost him. The chase had had the salubrious side effect of bringing him closer to USF, through the worst of the Addition.

But so what?

He doubted Wes Farrell had waited all afternoon for him there – but he would check. Certainly he hadn't been back home. Kevin had called Wes's place when he'd woken up after crashing in the borrowed apartment – it had been going on five o'clock, and there'd been no response, no answering machine.

Ergo Melanie.

A truly last resort, but she 'd have come through for him on that last call if he could have stayed in the apartment and waited. He was sure of it. And that was a good sign. It could be the entire world wasn't lined up against him.

But for now his lungs ached from the run, pinched from the coughing. He wondered if one of his ribs was broken, if a broken rib could puncture a lung, if a punctured lung could suddenly collapse, bring on a coma…

He was coming up to a bigger cross-street, with traffic flowing. Geary? Was normal life going on someplace in the city? He found it difficult to believe but there was evidence of it right in front of him.

Shivering, coughing some more, he crossed with the light at Masonic, found another phone, and called Melanie again, telling her where he was. It was only another couple of blocks up to St Ignatius. Melanie knew where that was. She'd meet him there in fifteen minutes.

He sat in a pew in the back of the church, pretending to pray. He hadn't prayed much in the past five years, since the Houston diocese had refused to bury his father – a suicide – in the family plot in which his father, Kevin's grandfather, had been buried. Kevin's faith, never particularly strong, wavered after that. In the army, in Kuwait, after Joey's cleaning up on the Road of Death, it disappeared entirely.

But his hands were folded. He was on his knees. A priest came up the center aisle and nodded at him, blessedly without recognition, then he stopped, paused – about to say something? – thought better of it and moved along. Kevin let out a breath.

The door opened again. Please, he thought, don't let it be the priest coming back. He was too weary to run any further.

Melanie Sinclair slid in beside him. It startled him. Underneath her concern, the fear in her eyes, she looked radiant, alive, beautiful. Had he really dropped her? He must have been out of his mind. But she'd been, had seemed , such an uptight pain in the ass. He thought he remembered that – was sure he did – but the plain fact was that right at that moment he had never in his life been so glad to see anyone. Ever.

'I think you ought to get out of here.'

She was driving and he was slumped in the passenger seat, his face below the window line.

'I might do that,' he said.

'Kevin, you should do it…'

He glanced over at her, a look she'd seen before. 'Let's give the should a rest, huh, Mel. What do you say?'

Biting her lip, she almost, instinctively, corrected him again, telling him her name was Melanie. Not Mel. But she found she really didn't care if he called her Sweet Sue. She half-smiled at that, almost said it to him, could just see herself saying, 'Hey, Kevin, why don't you just call me Sweet Sue?'

'What's funny?' he asked.

'Nothing.'

He didn't pursue it, but Melanie wanted to make sure the air was clear. 'I didn't mean should like I knew, Kevin. I meant should like it seems like it might be a better idea to get away until this blows over a little. You're just too visible here. I could drive you right now. Just keep going.'

'You'd do that?'

She looked over, biting her lip again. 'Yes, I would.'

He took that in, satisfied. 'Except then I'm really on the run. If I'm caught…'

'But you're on the run now.'

This is true.'

They stopped at a burned-out streetlight where a policeman was directing cars through. 'Don't keep too low,' she said. There was more National Guard presence here, camouflage trucks lining the street, the traffic coming down to single file.

Kevin straightened up slightly. 'You're right.' He waved, smiling at a few of the soldiers. 'We're having some fun now.'

'Don't overdo it, okay. Please.'

He came back to her. 'You remember Farrell…?'

'Yes.' Wes, another unrepentant partyer, had been a sore point between them. 'Well, I figure my only decent shot is to get the story out on what really happened. Anything else – running, turning myself in, whatever – anything else and when they do get me I'm totally screwed.'

'What can Wes do?'

'Wes is a lawyer. He can get through.'

'He's not anymore.'

'Sure he is. He knows the ropes. He can do it.'

'Will he?'

'Sure. I'm sure he will.'

'And then?'

Then at least I figure I've got a chance. I just didn't do this, Mel, you know.'

She reached across and laid a hand on his, pulled it away. She wasn't pushing anything. She was helping him. He didn't need complications. 'I do know. I'm just saying I think it's a big risk, that's all.'

He shrugged. 'At this point, everything's a risk. This whole thing's gotten so out of hand. And then, if I run… anyway, I don't want to run.'

'It would look like an admission that you'd done it?'

'Yeah, that, I guess. But more because it just feels wrong. I mean, I know the truth. I know what happened. I was there, Mel.

And that's got to come out. What really happened. It's not just me.'

'And you think Wes Farrell is the man who's going to get you in a position to clear yourself?'

'I think Wes Farrell's a pretty good human being for a lawyer.'

She couldn't help herself. 'A lawyer who drinks too much and has a pretty low view of life, including his own.'

Kevin almost snapped back but held himself. This wasn't the time to get into it with her. She was there for him now. What was more important than that? He took her right hand from the steering wheel and held it on the seat between them. She looked down at it, smiled and took his hand firmly.

'Not here,' Kevin said.

They had swung by Wes Farrell's place and the 'pretty good human being for a lawyer' still wasn't there. Melanie was of the opinion, and Kevin couldn't deny it outright, that he was out getting drunk someplace. He had tried joking her out of it – 'doesn't mean Wes isn't a nice person' – but Melanie wasn't much in the mood for jokes, and, truth be told and though it had been his own protective reaction to stressful situations for as long as he could remember, Kevin wasn't either.

Small wonder that he couldn't shake the feeling that the whole damn city was after him. The elderly lady in whose doorway he'd huddled had recognized him earlier. The cruising cops had also seemed to. Maybe the guy upstairs from the apartment he'd borrowed.

Isolated occurrences? Maybe. Maybe not. These things had happened to him . It wasn't as though somebody might know who he was. Somebody – random and disinterested – already had .

And now Melanie was turning them into the drive-thru lane – into a line of cars – front and back, get out of here – at a hamburger place off 19th Avenue.

'Not here!' he repeated. 'What are you doing?'

'We've got to eat,' she said. 'We're not going inside.'

'Inside isn't the point. We've got to-'

All at once it was too late to back out. Somebody had pulled in behind them. Now it was either sit in Melanie's car or get out and make a run for it. But a run for what? And what were the odds on going unrecognized out on the street? Were they better than this, where he was a sitting duck? Did he want to bet on it? Bet his life? Hers, too?