Харлан Кобен - Run Away

The kid just stared at Ash, who was wearing a ski mask.

And he stared at Dee Dee, who wasn’t wearing one.

Shit , Ash thought.

No choice. He aimed his gun and fired, but the kid was on the move. He ducked behind the dumpster. Ash started toward him, taking another shot. The kid scrambled on his hands and knees, the bullet flying over his head. The kid ducked back in through the exit door and slammed it shut.

Damn it!

Ash had chosen to use a revolver for this murder, a six-shooter. He’d already fired four shots, leaving him two. He couldn’t waste them. But he couldn’t waste time either. It would take only a few seconds for the kid to call the police or...

An alarm shattered the air.

The sound was so loud Ash stopped for a moment and started to cover his ears with his hands. He spun back toward Dee Dee.

“Go!” Ash shouted.

She nodded, understood the protocol. Take off. He was tempted to do the same — get out of here before the cops came. But the kid had seen Dee Dee’s face. He could describe her.

So the kid had to die.

Ash tried the knob on the back door. It turned. Maybe five seconds had passed since he took the first shot. If there was a gun in the store, it was doubtful the kid would have had time to find it. Ash burst in and looked around.

No sign of the kid.

He’d be hiding.

So how long did Ash have? Not long enough. But.

The mind is a computer, so in the brief time it took him to make a step, a lot of probabilities and outcomes flowed through him. The first one was the most obvious and instinctive: The kid had seen Dee Dee’s face. He could identify her. Leaving him alive was thus a clear and present danger to Dee Dee.

Conclusion: He had to be killed.

But as he took the next step, he began to realize that his gut reaction might be a bit too extreme. Yes, the kid had seen her and perhaps he could make an ID. But what would he say exactly? A beautiful woman with a long blonde braid and green eyes who didn’t live in New Jersey, had no connection to New Jersey, who would soon be out of state and perhaps back on her commune or retreat or haven or whatever the fuck she called it... how would the police even know how to find her?

Then again, suppose Dee Dee didn’t make it that far. Suppose the police caught her now, before she could get away cleanly. The kid could identify her. But again — see how the mind works? — so what?

Strip it down: Dee Dee had been standing in a parking lot when Damien Gorse was murdered. That’s all. So had a man with a ski mask and a gun — why would anyone assume that the two of them were together? If she was in on the killing, wouldn’t she have worn a mask too? Wouldn’t Dee Dee be able to easily claim that she had nothing to do with the killing, that she’d stumbled upon the scene, even if she was somehow caught and somehow identified because of the kid’s testimony?

Inside the tattoo parlor, Ash took another step.

More silence.

Really, when he thought about it, what were the odds that if this kid lived, it would bring danger to Dee Dee? When you added it all up — when you weighed all the pros and cons — wouldn’t the best route, the best chance of a successful outcome, derive from Ash getting away now, before the cops came? Was it worth the time lost pursuing this scared kid and risking getting caught — versus the miniscule threat that this witness’s survival could really harm Dee?

Let the kid live.

Ash heard a siren.

He didn’t relish killing him either. Oh, he’d do it, sure, and with no problem. But killing the kid now seemed wasteful, and when you can, you might as well err on the side of the angels, no? He didn’t believe in karma, but then again there was no reason to poke karma in the ribs.

Sirens. Getting closer.

This was the kid’s lucky day.

Ash turned. He sprinted toward the back door to make his escape, because in truth his options were down to one — flee.

That was when he heard the click come from the closet door next to the exit.

Ash almost kept going.

But he didn’t.

Ash opened the door. The kid was down on the floor, his shaking hands on top of his head as though readying to ward off blows.

“Please,” the kid said, “I promise I won’t—”

No time to hear more.

Ash used one bullet, a headshot, leaving himself one last bullet just in case.

Everyone fled the tenement basement.

Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw Rocco toss Luther over his shoulder like a laundry bag as he sprinted out. For a few seconds, maybe longer, Simon stayed in position, shielding his wife. When he realized that the danger had passed, he reached for his phone to dial 911. Sirens sliced through the stale air.

Maybe someone had already called. Maybe the sirens had nothing to do with this.

Ingrid’s eyes were closed. Blood poured from a wound located somewhere between her right shoulder and upper chest. Simon did all he could to stop the flow, ripping off his own shirt and pressing it hard against the wound. He didn’t bother checking Ingrid for a pulse. If she was dead, then he’d find out soon enough.

Protect her. Save her.

The 911 operator told him that help was on its way. Time passed. Simon didn’t know how much. They were alone in this dank, disgusting basement, he and Ingrid. They had first met in a restaurant on Sixty-Ninth Street, only two blocks from where they now lived, when Ingrid was finally back in the country and Yvonne had set them up. He had arrived first and sat nervously waiting at a table by the window, and when she entered, head high, the regal catwalk strut, he’d been blown away. Corny or not — and maybe everyone did this — but whenever Simon was on a first date, he let himself imagine a full life with the person, looking waaaaay ahead of himself, picturing him and this woman married and raising kids and sitting across the kitchen table as they aged and reading in bed, all that. How did he feel when he first saw Ingrid? He thought that she was too gorgeous. That was the first thought. She looked too put together for him, too composed and confident. He’d later learn that it was for show, that Ingrid had the same fears and insecurities that plague all of us, that part of the human condition is that all decent people think they are phonies and don’t belong at some point or another.

Whatever. Their relationship had started at that bright window table on West Sixty-Ninth Street and Columbus Avenue and now it could end in this dank, dark basement in the Bronx.

“Ingrid?”

His voice came out as a pitiful plea.

“Stay with me, okay?”

The police arrived, as did the EMTs. They pulled him away and took over. He sat on the concrete, pulling his knees up to his chest. A cop started asking him questions, but he couldn’t hear, could only stare at his still wife as the EMTs worked on her. An oxygen mask covered the mouth he had kissed so many times, kissed in every single way imaginable, from perfunctory to passionate. He didn’t say anything now, just watched. He didn’t demand to know whether she was still alive, whether they could save her. He was too terrified to disturb them, to break their concentration, as though her lifeline was so fragile that any interruption could snap it like an overused rubber band.

Simon wanted to say that the rest was a blur, but it actually crawled by in slow motion and vivid color — loading Ingrid onto the gurney, rolling her to the ambulance, hopping into the back with her, staring at the IV bag, the rigid expressions on the EMTs’ faces, the paleness of Ingrid’s skin, the screams of the siren, the maddeningly frustrating traffic along the Major Deegan, finally stopping, crashing through the emergency room doors, a nurse firmly but patiently pulling him away and leading him to a yellow molded plastic chair in the waiting room...