Alez Kava - One False Move

This time he glanced at her, shifted in the recliner then went back to the TV.

"You knew that other poem," she said. "That one.Tared asked you about. Do you know any of Emily Dickerson?"

" Dickinson," he mumbled without looking at her.

"What?"

"Her name is Emily Dickinson."

"That's what I said."

"Sure, whatever."

He still didn't look at her. Melanie propped herself up on one elbow and said, "Hope is the thing with feathers.'"

This time he turned, interested or maybe just curious. Melanie didn't care. She had his attention.

"What does that mean?" she asked.

"Why do you want to know?"

"Hey, if you don't know, just say so."

"Hope is the little bird inside us that won't be silenced," he said, meeting her eyes before he continued. "It's what sustains us. It's the thing that keeps us from giving up, even when everything is looking pretty fucking hopeless. It takes something massive to stop that relentless song. Something like watching a plane fly into your tower or knowing an innocent woman was killed because of something stupid. Hope is the thing that sells lottery tickets and enters the Olympics and gets us through illnesses or deaths. That's what it means."

Then he looked back at the TV, as if he hadn't spoken at all.

She didn't have time to think about what he had said because suddenly a news reporter was talking about them on TV.

"Randy Fulton's body was found by his wife in the kitchen of their farmhouse just south of Nebraska City. Helen Trebak, a clerk at the Auburn Gas N' Shop, was also found murdered this afternoon. Law enforcement officials are certain both murders are the work of the bank robbers who attempted to rob the Nebraska Bank of Commerce yesterday and are on the run. This brings the number of their victims to six. The names of the four victims of the bank robbery were released earlier today. They are-"

Melanie fumbled with the remote. She had heard enough. They were lying now. She knew Jared hadn't killed that farmer. She was with him the whole time. It was impossible. She looked back at the TV and suddenly recognized the picture of one of the victims they were showing. She turned up the volume as she tried to place where she knew the woman from. Or did she simply look familiar because she reminded her of someone? Yes, that was probably it.

"Rita Williams, age thirty-nine, a waitress for seven years at the Cracker Barrel restaurant."

Then she knew-that was where she remembered her from. A waitress. Their waitress, the one who Jared had harassed.

Melanie looked over at her son to see if he, too, recognized the woman. Charlie had appeared detached from this entire nightmare, but now he sat with his back up against the bed's headboard, his knees pulled up tight against his chest. He was rocking back and forth as if he was going to be sick to his stomach. And before she could ask, he yelled, "Shut it off. Shut it the fuck off."

10:15 p.m.

Max Kramer sat in his den, the only room in the fucking house that his wife had allowed him to decorate as he wished. He stared out at the night as he sipped the expensive wine from Lucille's collection. She hated it when he dared to open a bottle from the reserve she kept for her stuffy, boring dinner parties. Tonight's selection was an old-style Beaujolais imported by Alain Jugenet, one of a handful of small estates that supposedly still did it the old-style way and were said to even hold the wine for up to ten months before bottling it.

He knew little about wines-almost nothing compared to his wife-however, he remembered reading something about Beaujolais being called "the only white wine that happens to be red." He liked that. It had something to do with the "vivid color and its expressive, thirst-quenching qualities" or some such crap that Max didn't really care about. No, what he liked about it was that the wine was different from what it appeared to be, kind of like him. He held up the glass, swirling the wine around the edges, and he smiled, wondering how much this bottle would set his wife back.

His cell phone started ringing. He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner. It was too late to be anyone he wanted to talk to. He didn't recognize the caller ID number. He knew he should just shut off the phone and let the voice-messaging service pick it up. He took another sip before setting the glass down and deciding to answer the stupid phone.

"This is Max Kramer."

"Are you alone?"

He recognized the voice but still insisted on making him tell him. "Who is this?"

"Who do you fucking think this is? Can you talk? Is there anyone else there?"

"I'm alone. Go ahead," he said while thinking, yes, go ahead and tell me why the fuck I should even listen to what you have to say?

"We're gonna need some new IDs. Make them driver's licenses." Jared Barnett was taking charge. "And cash. Don't get funny with the cash. Keep it small bills. We'll probably need about twenty-five thousand dollars."

"Hold on. Where the hell do you think I'm going to get three new IDs?" And twenty-five thousand dollars? Max wanted to slam the phone against the wall. How the hell did this get so turned around? He wanted to tell Jared Barnett that he owed him. That he still owed him.

"You're a resourceful guy, Max. You figure it out."

"I think you should turn yourself in."

"What are you, fucking crazy?"

"No, now listen. I can get you off." Max stood up, staring past his reflection in the window out at the full orange moon. He wondered what a liar's moon looked like as he said, "I did it before, I can do it again."

"Yeah, well, I'm not waiting in prison for five more fucking years while you do it. Besides, I thought you were pissed. You sounded pissed. How can I trust a fucking lawyer who's pissed?"

"I was surprised. That's all." Max kept his cool. This bastard could ruin everything. He needed to convince him he was on his side, "You can't blame me for being surprised. I never expected things to get so screwed up, to go so badly. That's all. What the hell happened?"

There was silence, and for a few seconds Max thought he had lost him.

"One false move," he mumbled.

"What's that?"

"Isn't that what they say? That ajl it takes is one fucking wrong move to change everything? It doesn't matter. Not now. How soon can you get the IDs and money?"

"How am I supposed to get them to you?"

"Don't worry about that. Just get it. I'll call back tomorrow."

"If you tell me-" But he heard the click.

Max stayed at the window, wondering how the hell he'd take care of this. How the hell he'd fix this. One little favor- that's all he had asked from Barnett to pay off his attorney fee. Who could have predicted it'd get this fucked up.

10:32 p.m.

Andrew leaned against the wall of the shower and let the warm water massage his wounded head. The throbbing wouldn't stop. Nor would the image of that Gas N' Shop clerk, her small body scurrying back and forth from one task to the other. Full of life, and now she was dead because he had tried something stupid. Thanks to Jared, Andrew felt like an accessory to the farmer's murder. But he felt completely responsible for that poor clerk.

There had to be something he could do to get out of this. It was clear Jared wasn't going to ever let him go. Eventually, he'd have to kill him. At first, that realization paralyzed as much as it panicked Andrew. But at the moment, he was too exhausted to be either. Especially after examining the bathroom's contents and being disappointed to find only the miniature shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash and soap. The shower had a Plexiglas door instead of a rod and curtain, not that he had had much success with the rod he had found at the cabin. He had even checked out the in-sides of the toilet tank, only to find that almost all of the mechanical guts were made of plastic. He wasn't sure what he'd expected. He knew hotel rooms didn't provide razors or nail files. He had spent enough time in the best of them over the course of the last two years, traveling to promote one of his books or do research for the next.