Thomas Perry - Blood Money

The driver pulled to the wrong side of the road and swung the car in a tight half circle, the left tires bumping on the shoulder as the headlights swept across empty brush, over Jane and Rita’s hiding place, then settled on the road again. The two men climbed into the back seat, and the car moved up the road the way it had come.

Jane tapped Rita. “There’s another way. Come on.”

Jane rose and began to trot into the field, making her way farther from the road and back toward the house.

Jane could hear Rita’s footsteps behind her, but suddenly they stopped. Rita’s voice reached her from twenty feet back. “Wait,” she said. “I’m not leaving Bernie out there to die.”

Jane stepped close to her. “Keep your voice down,” she whispered. “If Bernie did what I told him to, he’ll be fine until we catch up with him. If he didn’t, nothing we do is going to help him.”

“Where are we going?”

“Remember the arroyo?”

“What’s an arroyo?”

“That dry streambed where I set Bernie down. It runs north-south. The road runs east-west. Water doesn’t stop just because there’s a road. It has to cross.”

Headlights appeared on the road again, and Jane and Rita had to drop to the ground until the car passed. Then Jane was up and trotting again, and Rita had to trot too, to keep her in sight. Almost as soon as the road went dark, the lights from the next car appeared.

Rita stopped and crouched as they had before, but Jane pulled her on. “They’ve got their intervals figured out now. There’s not enough time between cars to wait for them.”

When they reached the arroyo, Jane stepped down into it. When Rita joined her, she said, “See? It’s deep. When it rains, there must be a lot of water.”

“But which direction does it run?”

“It doesn’t matter. It has to cross the road.” Jane bent low and hurried along the bottom of the arroyo toward the road.

As they came closer to the road, Rita could see that Jane had been right about the cars. They were moving faster now, and the intervals between them were even.

When they were a hundred feet from the road, Jane stopped and waited. When Rita caught up, Jane pointed at the road. “See?”

Rita strained to see what Jane was pointing at. There was the road. It went across the arroyo, but it didn’t dip down and go up again. It was level. From here it looked as though the road had been built on a pile of big rocks. Did the water seep through between the rocks?

The next car approached and Jane turned her face away from the road and said, “Get ready. As soon as it goes past, we move.”

The car flashed past; Jane rose to her feet and ran. Rita felt an instant of panic. Jane seemed to be on her way, but Rita had no idea of what she was running to. It wasn’t until Jane was at the edge of the road that Rita could see her stop. Jane was below the level of the road on her hands and knees beside a set of low, thick plants. Jane pushed the plants aside and bent lower, then disappeared.

Rita came to the spot and knelt in front of the plants, then fought them aside with her forearms to see. Beyond the plants, she touched something hard and cool like rock, but it was a perfect circle. She reached farther in. It was a big cement pipe. Rita felt relief, and embarrassment at the same time. This was what Jane had meant. Jane had known there would be a big pipe—what did they call it?—a culvert. Otherwise, the arroyo would fill up after a rain and the water would wash out the road. That’s why the plants were so thick here. This was where there was the most water.

Rita could hear hollow, echoing scraping sounds from inside the culvert. She felt a swelling in her chest as she dropped to her belly and slithered into the round, dark hole. It was dirty, and the cement scraped her elbows and knees. Moving was hard and painful, but she was crossing the road by going under it, so she ignored the pain and moved.

Jane’s echoing sounds ahead of her suddenly stopped. Rita waited, and heard a low hum, then felt a sharp vibration as a car passed over her head. Then Jane began to move again, and Rita struggled to keep close to her.

A moment later, Jane’s sounds simply faded and were gone. Rita knew that Jane must have made it to the end. Rita struggled and strained to go faster, and finally she felt a fresh, cool breeze on her cheek. Jane’s whisper came from close to her ear. “You did a great job, Rita. Stay still for a second.”

This time Rita could see the glow of the headlights on the plants on the left slope of the arroyo twenty feet ahead of her. The lights brightened, and the engine sound got louder and lower. Then there was darkness and the engine sound went up the register until it was a distant whine. “Time to move on,” said Jane.

She helped Rita out of the culvert and pulled her to her feet, then set off again. This side of the road seemed to be the same random arrangement of rocks and bushes and plants as the other side, but Jane appeared to know where she wanted to go. After what seemed to be a long run, Rita could see the other road that they had been afraid to cross.

Jane stopped fifty feet from the road, then began to walk along it in a parallel course, staying low and staring at the rocks and bushes ahead of her. Suddenly she turned and hurried toward the road, and knelt down as though to pick something up. When Jane stood up again, Rita could see that what she had bent to grasp was Bernie’s arm. She was pulling him to his feet.

Rita trotted to catch up, then watched Jane set the shotgun on the ground and kick dirt over it.

Jane said, “We cross the road here, and make our way two blocks straight ahead before we get back on Canyon. The car is a black Ford Explorer, parked on the right about three blocks farther on.”

Jane hurried them to the shoulder of the road. Rita could see the car that had stopped to look for them parked in its spot a few hundred feet away. “You and Bernie go first,” Rita said. “If they see you, I can still pick up the—” and Jane’s hand grasped her wrist and yanked her onto the road. They ran a few steps and they were across, moving into the shadows of buildings and trees.

They were on a road parallel to Canyon Road, walking fast. After a few minutes of walking, Jane turned to the left, and then right. Jane said, “There. See it?”

They walked on until they came to the black shape Jane had pointed to. Jane swung the door open, climbed up into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. Seconds later, Rita had pushed Bernie into the back seat and was beside Jane, closing the passenger door. Jane pulled out, moved up the street, and took the first turn before she switched on the lights.

It seemed to Rita that it took a terribly long time for Jane to drive across town. At each intersection, Jane would look into the mirror over her head before she brought the Explorer to a stop. But then she accelerated, took a turn, and they were moving up the ramp onto the freeway. They passed under a sign that said ALBUQUERQUE.

Jane drove, and they sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Rita spoke. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” asked Bernie.

“This was my fault,” Rita said, louder. “I did this. Jane made us safe, and I threw it away.”

Jane waited for Rita to speak again for a minute, then another minute. Finally she said, “It was not a smart thing to do. It also wasn’t an evil thing, or a selfish thing, or a cowardly thing. You made a mistake, you did everything you could to fix it, and it’s over. We’re all alive, and they don’t know where we went.”

“Where did we go?” asked Rita.

“Good question,” said Jane. “I don’t know yet. I guess we’ll have to do some thinking. We’ll pick a place, and I’ll try to start getting you settled: rent a house, buy clothes—”