How to Save a Life(78)



“Get your stuff,” I said. “We’re leaving right the f*ck now.”

She spurred into action, helping me grab the rest of our things, and we ran from the room to the parking lot. I didn’t see the clerk’s accomplice, and I prayed he took off in the opposite direction. If he had the make and model of our car and the license plate, we’d be screwed. In the far distance, I heard the sound of sirens.

I tossed our bags in the back seats as Jo scrambled in. She was still buckling her seatbelt as I hauled the little car out of the parking lot. I forced myself to drive the speed limit down East Douglas, hopefully blending in with morning traffic. I glanced at the rearview and saw a patrol car screech into the hotel driveway, only a block and a half behind us.

The damn hatchback started to stall at the first stoplight, but after a few pumps of the gas, it lurched through the intersection. The 135 interchange was just a few traffic lights ahead. I prayed for the signals to stay green. Snowball did fine on the move. She’d stall in stop-and-go traffic.

Our luck held and I turned onto the entry ramp. Only when we were heading north at 55 miles an hour did I breathe a shallow sigh of relief. No cops in the rearview mirror, but that might not last. I didn’t dare push Snowball over 55 or she’d overheat.

“Are you okay?” I asked Jo. “Tell me the truth, did either of them touch you?”

Her hands trembled in her lap but she seemed okay. “No. They were after our money. You came in before they got it but…Oh shit, Evan, the burner phone. Where is it?”

“Gone,” I said. “I took care of it.”

“When?”

“Last night.”

Jo exhaled.

So did I.





Snowball took us north for about four hours, then the temperature needle began to climb. As we drove through a tiny town called Franklin, just across the Nebraska border, the car was threatening to stall at every stoplight and smoke was coming out the air vents.

Evan pulled into the parking lot of the first motel he saw.

“Think it’s safe?” I asked.

“We don’t have much choice. The car’s not going to make it any further today. Better to hole up here than get stuck on the side of the road.”

He parked at the rear of the motel, backing it into the spot to hide the license plate. Buying Snowball from Travis at the salvage yard hadn’t exactly been the most legal of transactions and God knew what would come up if some cop decided to run the plate.

Franklin, Nebraska reminded me of Planerville, only with more personality. And a certain pride: though our motel was cheap, it had a quaint, clean dignity. The lady behind the front desk—Mary Ellen Hildebrand—was pushing sixty and looked the embodiment of the perfect grandma. Her sweet demeanor and welcoming courtesy calmed my nerves.

Mary Ellen hollered at her husband Hank—a picture-perfect grandpa—to man the front desk so she could show us to our room, pointing out some of the old architecture of the place as she went.

“We had the pool put in some ten years back, though I’m afraid to say it’s not heated. But Lord have mercy, who needs a heated pool with the summer we’ve been having?”

“I agree,” I said, shooting Evan a wry look. “Who needs a pool?”

Once unpacked, Evan said he’d go find a deli and get sandwiches.

“One sandwich,” I said. “We’ll split it.”

He didn’t argue. We were running out of money. I thought about calling Del to wire me the four hundred bucks I had in her “bank,” but feared that would implicate her and get her arrested.

I watched the door every second Evan was gone, jumping at sounds. He came back just as jumpy, and we ate in silence, lost in our own thoughts.

Mine were back in Wichita. At the break-in. Some flash of…something that struck me the moment that lamp hit the hotel clerk’s head. I couldn’t grasp it, and wasn’t sure I wanted to.

Evan turned on the TV and we snuggled up to watch reruns of The Munsters and Beverly Hillbillies. The Hillbillies episode revolved around the Clampett family taking a trip to a local fairground. It reminded me of Joyland and despite the horrible scare we’d had in Wichita, I reveled in my restored memory.

Evan shut off the TV. I raised my head from the crook of his arm to look at him. “Tell me something about your childhood. Your happiest memory.”

“My happiest memory.” He rubbed his cheek, fingers rasping over the stubble. “Renting a tuxedo to go prom with you.”

“You weren’t really a child then.”

“No, but it was my happiest memory of being taken care of by my parents. Of them providing for me.”

I snuggled closer to him. “Explain.”

“Well, Norma insisted that I have a suit just as fine as Merle or Shane’s. She made sure of it. She even bought me a corsage to give to you because I hadn’t thought of that.”

“She did?”

“She sure did. Merle trampled on it, of course…”

“Weird how your best memory comes from the worst night of my life?”

“It was my worst night, too. But the day was awesome. That whole week was amazing. Things were still shitty with Merle and Shane, but I felt closer to Harris and Norma. Norma, mostly. For a whole week, I had a real mother and father. And come the weekend, I was going to have you. You were going to wear a beautiful dress for me, go to the dance with me. You’d walk in on my arm in front of the whole school and I knew you’d look astonishing. And after, we were going to be together. I was going to make love to you. I just… I’d never been so happy. I’d never felt so close to normal in my life.”

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