Chapter 6
6
So many things had gone wrong during the last twelve hours, it was impossible to count them all. With a feeling of unease, Timothy Jones eased his vehicle farther into the shadows behind a fast-food restaurant he’d just gone inside.
He figured he’d done a pretty good job of scaring the Amish girl and whoever was driving her. Hopefully she was scared so badly that she wouldn’t want to go home. Maybe they’d keep driving for days. They’d end up going so far away that it wouldn’t be possible for him to ever find them. If that happened, he’d be so relieved.
He really didn’t want to kill anyone else.
Thinking about how he wished he’d never joined a gang to begin with, he ate the last of his burger. Tracking the girl all this time had been exhausting. He’d give just about anything to pass out. Instead, he was procrastinating on what he was supposed to do, which was call Kane with an update.
He didn’t want to do it, though. Not yet. Not ever. Kane was going to be ticked that he hadn’t been able to get ahold of the girl, and now he had no idea where she was. Kane wasn’t going to care one whit about him being in an old Buick in a torrential rainstorm. Or that he had no idea what he was doing. It was pretty much a certainty that Kane was going to freak out on him. Threaten bad things.
Which was why his phone was still in his pocket.
It might be for a while longer too. At the moment, the only thing that he wanted to do was enjoy a couple of minutes to breathe. And he needed a cigarette. Maybe if he had a smoke, he’d stop running scared and be able to figure out what he was going to do tomorrow—well, today.
If he survived that long.
He honestly wouldn’t put it past the gang to have someone following him. They didn’t trust him. Not anymore.
Timothy’s fingers shook as he pulled out the carton of Reds and his lighter. It took two tries to get the flame to catch. At last, he could inhale the combo of fortifying nicotine and tobacco.
Man, he hated being addicted to the stuff.
When he was little, his momma used to warn him about the “cancer sticks” that seemed to constantly be in her right hand. “Don’t do this, Timothy,” she’d say. “Folks act like all sorts of things are worse, but I don’t know anyone who got off these things easily. They’re addictive and bad for you. They cost an arm and a leg too.”
That hadn’t stopped her from buying the cartons, though. Just like her words of wisdom hadn’t stopped her from doing a lot of things she shouldn’t.
In the end, it wasn’t the cancer that had gotten her anyway. It had been the needle in her arm.
Or maybe it had been a dozen other things that had piled on until her body had finally given up.
All he’d known was that one day she’d been alive, skinny, and barely getting out of bed, and then the next day the police had been pulling him out of school to tell him that a neighbor had discovered that his momma had passed away that morning.
Inhaling deep, he tried to hold the warm smoke in his chest. But it, like most things, had to come to an end. He exhaled, forcing the smoke out. Breathed in a mouthful of clean, sweet air.
And allowed himself to remember the first time he’d met Bev. Miss Anderson.
She’d walked in through his front door in slouchy pants and a baggy shirt. Her ugly-as-sin canvas tote bag she always carried had been stuffed to the gills.
But she’d looked at him and smiled.
For one sweet second, Timothy had thought that everything was going to be all right. He was going to go to a better house. There was going to be food on the table. Maybe he’d get some clothes that fit.
But even if he didn’t have all those things, he’d have Bev.
Some of his dreams had come true. Well, every now and then they had. He’d spent the next four years living in foster care. Some of the houses were all right. Some were worse than the place he’d lived with his mother. All of them, however, had been temporary.
Which had been the worst part.
Timothy reckoned that it did something to a child’s spirit when he realized that he couldn’t count on much in life. Not even the bad stuff.
By the time he was twelve, though, he knew better than to care about cancer. Lots of kids didn’t make it to eighteen. Besides, he’d had plenty of other things to worry about. Mainly how to not get beat up in the halls at school.
Now he was eighteen, and in the last twelve hours, he’d essentially become an idiot. After almost a year of doing grunt work and gaining trust and showing up, he’d finally gotten noticed by Stew. Kane had handed him a .22 and told him it was time to prove himself.
Timothy had been given a job. At last. All he had to do was go up to the dealer in the dollar store parking lot and scare him a bit. Use a little pressure to get the money he owed the Arrows. Kane had smiled, slapped him on the back, and told him that it was going to be easy.
Holding the gun in his hand had felt good, but there’d still been a little part of him that was scared. Sure, he’d shot a gun before, but that had just been in a field. All he’d had to do was hit a tree and work on his aim.
When he’d driven into the parking lot of the dollar store, he’d been sweating like it was a hundred degrees outside instead of fifty. Kane had assured him that what he was about to do was no big deal and that he’d be nearby but staying out of sight. Just in case something went wrong.
The guy who owed them money was going to have it on him and was probably going to be so freaking scared that he’d give it to him right away.
Within a couple of seconds, though, it became apparent that Kane had been wrong. Real wrong. The guy wasn’t scared to death and started laughing when Timothy asked for the money. Then he turned away.
That was when Timothy realized that everything was going to go wrong. His job would leave without paying, and Timothy would never be able to go home without the money.
Next thing Timothy knew, he was trying real hard to sound mean and tough. But his hand was shaking, and he essentially lost his mind.
Because he pulled the trigger and watched as the guy’s shirt filled with blood.
Then, just when he was sure nothing could be worse, an Amish girl showed up. A red-headed, blue-eyed Amish girl who looked at him directly in the face. And then, instead of running out of sight, she just stood there. Practically giving him no choice.
He’d gotten so spooked, he’d stood frozen for a second, right until a car had come barreling in between him and the girl. The passenger door had opened, the driver had yelled, and he’d freaked out. Because he’d recognized that voice.
He would have known it anywhere because Bev Anderson had once been everything to him. His first crush. His big sister, his dream mother. The woman he’d put on a pedestal and given superhero powers. No matter how bad things had been for him, he’d believed that somehow, someway Bev would make his life better.
But she never had.
Then, there she was again, jumping into his life. But this time she wasn’t on his side. Instead of coming to rescue him, she was there for someone else.
It made him so mad he lifted the gun again.
And his stupid finger pressed down on that trigger and sent out another bullet. Practically the next second, Kane shoved Timothy into his van so they could figure out what was happening to the Amish girl. As he drove, he chewed Timothy out, berating him for killing the guy.
Afraid of the consequences, Timothy didn’t attempt to defend himself and focused more on keeping sight of the car they were following.
He didn’t give Kane any information about the driver, though. It might not make sense, but he didn’t want anything to happen to Bev.
After they’d followed the car to the bus station, Kane went out and bribed the ticket agent to tell him where the girl was headed. After getting the bus’s arrival time for Nashville, he’d checked in with Stew.
Instead of ordering Timothy to stay at the bus station, Stew told Kane to take Timothy back to Batavia. Timothy was supposed to get himself together, get his car, and wait for the Amish girl to get off the bus in Nashville.
The bus was going to make several stops before arriving there. After checking the bus’s schedule again, Timothy parked outside his old girlfriend Audrey’s neighborhood. To the exact spot where they used to make out before he had to get her home by curfew.
Man, he’d loved her. Still loved her. Even though she broke up with him when he joined the Arrows.
Then Kane’s call brought him back to the present. “Timothy, some of the guys picked up the body when we left, but they couldn’t find the money he owed us. Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you take it? Are you trying to pull something over us?”
“No. I never got any money.”
“Well, it wasn’t on him. What happened to it?”
“Kane, I don’t know! Maybe someone else took it.”
“You’re trying to blame someone else in the gang?”
Timothy could feel sweat pouring off of him, but he had to stand up for himself. “Kane, I told you the truth. I never got any money.”
“This is serious, man. Stew’s about to pull a gun on you himself. You’re in really big trouble with the Arrows. You need to get on Stew’s good side again or he’s going to give the cops your name when they start asking around.” He snapped his fingers. “Next thing you know, those cops are going to interrogate you.”
“I can handle them.”
“No, you can’t.” Kane’s voice dripped with derision. “They’ll find a way to make you talk. And then, after you squeal, they’re going to come after us.”
Timothy hated that Kane thought so little of him. Hated that he’d actually thought of the guy as his best friend. Hurt and disappointment colored his next words. “I’m already down here to scare the girl. Isn’t that enough?”
“It might have been if you had the money. Since you don’t, you’re going to have to make sure that witness never says a word to the cops.” He took a breath. “You’re going to have to silence the girl—and soon.”
Everything inside of him froze. “What do you mean?”
Kane’s voice lowered. “Just what I said. Silence her, Tim.”
Kane was ordering him to kill her. Kill an innocent woman. Now that he realized Kane had never really been his friend, Timothy no longer felt the need to hold his tongue.
Not completely, anyway. “Kane. She’s Amish. And she looked scared to death. She’s not going to do anything.”
“She might have looked scared, but if that woman hadn’t pulled her into her car, she would’ve marched right inside that dollar store and told the manager everything she knew. She could still do that. Find that girl and shut her up.”
“And then? Then, if I do all that, what happens to me then?”
“And then, if you take care of that Amish girl quickly, we might let you live. Where are you now?”
“Nowhere. Just, ah, driving around.”
“You’re going to need a burner phone. And then you need to toss yours. Call me once you have it and I’ll let you know if anything happens back home.”
Home. That was a joke. “How long have I got?”
“If you don’t get this wrapped up in a few days, it won’t be good. Hopefully you can at least understand that.”
“I got it.”
“Good.”
Timothy was staring at his phone’s screen. “But ... but what should I do about the gun after it’s done? Should I toss it?” It would have his fingerprints all over it.
“No. Not until you check in.”
“But—”
“Man, what else do I have to tell you? Get going and follow my orders.”
After Kane hung up, Timothy realized he had half a tank of gas and fifty or sixty bucks in his pocket.
He started driving again.
And here he was somewhere in the middle of Kentucky. He pulled over at a gas station, bought a pack of smokes and the burner phone. Thought about calling Audrey. Just to give her his new phone number.
Then he remembered that she probably wouldn’t answer the phone. When he’d told her that he was going to join the Arrows no matter what, she’d said he was dead to her. Bitterness coursed through him as he realized her words might very likely come true.
Now, here he was, driving again. Thinking about that truck. Thinking about how Bev had helped that Amish girl.
Then, at long last, Timothy remembered a conversation he’d had with Bev years ago. He’d been complaining about his future. About how he had no idea what he was going to do with his life.
Bev had stared at him in worry, then began to tell Timothy all about her younger brother, Hardy. About how he was a big, strong guy but hadn’t always been that way. But he’d entered the Army and done real well for himself. So well, that he’d even gotten to be friends with an officer who’d hired him after they both got out.
Bev’s brother, Hardy, was now working on a huge ranch in Crittenden County. It was a place so big and secure that if somebody wanted to, they could hide out there.
Back when she’d told him that story, he’d laughed. Who in the world would want to hide out on a big ranch in southern Kentucky?
He now had a pretty good idea who.