Kelley Armstrong - Exit Strategy

When he didn’t answer, I glanced up, hoping the question hadn’t offended him, but he was in the midst of chewing. He finished, then said, “Did. Past tense. Couple years ago. Thought I was ready. Realized I wasn’t.”

He sliced into his ham steak. “It’s like any job. Whole time you’re looking at the exit door. When will I have enough? Money, I had. Still young enough to enjoy it.”

“That’s important.”

“Yeah. But enjoy it how? Piss off to some tropical island? Lay on the beach all day? Work on my tan?”

I grinned. “Hey, you could always pull a Brando. Retreat from the world, buy an island and set up your own little tropical kingdom. Build up a harem, laze around getting laid and getting fat.”

He gave me a look that said he’d as soon stick lit match-sticks under his fingernails.

“Seriously, though, there must have been something you wanted to do, something you always planned to do when you retired.”

“Travel.”

“Now that’d be cool.”

“You like traveling?”

“I’m really more of a homebody, but it would be nice to see the world once. Visit all the places you’ve read about.”

He laid down his fork. “Seeing Paris in the spring. Strolling the Great Wall. Standing under the pyramids in the moonlight. Sounds great. Reality? Standing by a mountain of broken rock. Shoes full of sand. Sweating my ass off. Worrying about my pocket getting picked. Surrounded by strangers…” He shrugged. “Waste of fucking time. Might as well buy a book. Look at pictures.”

“I wouldn’t care. Sand, heat, pickpockets…it’d all be atmosphere. I’d just like to say I saw the pyramids.”

His gaze met mine, studying me, his fingers tapping the side of his mug, probably trying to decide whether he should ask if I wanted a coffee refill.

“Maybe…” he began. “Sometime? You wanna go? I’d go with you. See the pyramids-”

A crash across the diner cut him off.

I twisted to see a red-faced man in a cowboy hat, a toppled canister of sugar at his feet, standing beside two uniformed officers on coffee break.

“Now, just calm down, sir,” the one officer said, keeping his voice low.

“I’ll calm down when I get some fucking answers! And the answer I want is why the fuck I can’t pay this!”

He thrust out a piece of green paper. From here, I could barely see it, but I knew what it was. A one-dollar bill.

“Shit,” I breathed, closing my eyes.

“It’s one fucking dollar,” the man continued. “I can find this much by digging through my sofa cushions. Do you think there’s a person in this room who wouldn’t pay this insurance policy?”

“I wouldn’t,” said the first officer’s partner as she swiveled her chair to face the man. “And do you know why? Because, if I did, what would stop a thousand other freaks from doing the same thing? If you pay once, you have to keep paying.”

I could feel myself nodding, but a glance around showed I was the only one.

“What you have to do, sir,” the second officer continued, “is put that dollar back in your pocket, go home to your family, look after them, and trust that we will look after you, and the FBI will catch this guy.”

“Catch him?” a woman yelled from across the diner. “The FBI has their heads so far up their asses they’re investigating drooling lunatics. They can’t even stop him when he hands them a schedule and directions.”

“Yeah,” a man’s voice boomed. “Tell that poor old fart in Chicago how safe he is. Can’t even take a crap without getting killed. And what about that Indian yesterday? Did the killer tell the Feds where he was going to be then, too?”

“I wouldn’t know,” the first officer said. “The FBI is conducting an independent investigation and we-”

“And you’re sitting on your asses eating doughnuts!”

A rumble went through the smattering of diners. As my hands clenched my mug, Jack’s knee brushed my leg. He jerked his chin toward the door, a twenty already on the table. When I hesitated, he caught my eye and shook his head, and with great reluctance, I stood. Around me, people continued to shout questions and abuse at the two officers. A few were already on their feet. Jack’s fingers wrapped around my upper arm. He leaned into my ear.

“You can’t help. Not now.”

I resisted for a moment, then yanked my gaze away and let him lead me from the diner.

So we knew there had been another killing since Chicago, and that the public knew about the opera house, too. All yesterday I’d avoided papers and radios and TVs, struggling to concentrate on the task at hand. Even now I did my best to resist. I walked past the newsstand at the airport terminal, tuned out other passengers’ conversations, even looked away from a big-screen TV tuned to CNN when the ticker flashed “Helter Skelter killer.” Like Jack said-and said often-knowing didn’t help, didn’t get me any closer to catching him.

On the plane we decided what we’d do about Evelyn. We were halfway to her house when Jack pulled into a strip mall.

“Want a coffee?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Need to use the bathroom,” he said, opening his door. “Smoke shop down there. Could grab a paper.”

I sat there a minute after he got out, wondering whether I should hold out, could hold out, then pushed open the door, went in and bought a paper-well, three of them, two nationals and a local. As I was paying, I noticed the rows of cigarettes behind the counter, at least half of them in packages I didn’t recognize.

“You have a lot of foregin brands,” I said, waving at the display.

“You name it, I got it,” said the old man behind the counter. “Whatcha looking for.”

“I’m not sure. Something…Irish? Maybe English. Probably an older brand, been around awhile. I know what the logo looks like…”

“Then we’ll find it.”

When I climbed into the car, Jack was already back. I put down the bag with the papers and took out a smaller one, then did up my seat belt.

“Candy?” Jack asked with a small smile.

“Uh-uh.” I pulled off the bag with a flourish.

His brows arched. “How’d you figure out-”

“Keen detective work. You seemed a little stressed after that flight, so I figured it might not be unwelcome. We’re not really ‘on the job’ right now so…”

“Appreciate it. Better not smoke in here, though. Bring the papers.”

We found a picnic table behind the strip mall. Jack shook out a cigarette and had it lit before we were seated, and went through another before we finished our reading.

The killer’s last known victim had been killed at noon the day before. William (Billy) Curtis, a twenty-eight-year-old Nebraska construction worker, pushed off the high-rise he’d been working on. At first, police thought it had been an accident…until the coroner found the lone dollar bill in his pocket. While the papers spent little time dwelling on the victim, they were speculating over one thing: had the Feds been tipped off about the killing?

I slapped down the paper. “Just because he forewarned the Feds of the opera house plan doesn’t mean he’s going to keep doing that. He can’t. It’d be stupid.”

Jack took out his third cigarette and lit it.

“My guess is that the opera house was tougher than he expected, and that’s the last time he’s going to pull something like that.”

Jack nodded, head tilted, holding the lit cigarette a hairsbreadth from his lips.

“And the problem with that theory is…?” I said.

He took his time tapping off the ash on the picnic table before responding. “Wasn’t a warning for Nebraska. Couldn’t have been. An occupied building? Sure. Just a construction crew. Nah. They’d have caught him.”