"Or else, the boogeyman will hear?" Kira asked. "Does the boogeyman live in the woods?"
"Shhhhhhhhh."
There. Jessica could see him now. He was the boogeyman, all right. Jessica would have been relieved to see David at this point, would have kissed his feet, but this wasn"t a black man. He had lighter skin, very short hair. He was wearing a sports jacket, either for the Florida Marlins or the Miami Dolphins. He was still twenty yards away, walking toward them.
Panicked, Jessica scrambled from the back of the van, past Kira, to climb back into the driver"s seat. She pumped out her heartbeat on the accelerator, turning the key, praying something would catch, some miracle would start the van. Utter silence.
"Mommy," Kira whispered, "I think somebody"s out there."
Whoever it was couldn"t be up to any good, so Jessica didn"t want to wait around to ask him for a proper introduction. They could run on foot. That was the only thing left. They could run into the rain, right into the road if they had to. There were headlights coming now, way in the distance, and they could take their chances that somebody Christian-minded would stop for a woman and a young girl waving in the road.
"Mrs. Wolde," a man"s voice called from somewhere behind the van, startling Jessica so much that she yanked the keys out of the ignition and clutched them in her fist.
"My name is Officer Rhodes, with the Orange County Police. Your van"s license tag was reported to us by police in Miami. They"ve been looking for you. Your husband is in custody for a murder. Can you please come out of the van?"
Jessica"s mouth fell open as her brain swam in mingled shock, relief, dread. He was with the police, after all! Fernando Reyes must have gotten her message instantly when she called from the gas station. David was already in custody? She gazed anxiously out the rear window at the man, who stood ten yards behind her. Why was he still so far back?
And why was he holding a glistening metal gun, both hands cradling it beneath his beltline? Though his voice was professional and soothing, the man"s stance looked confrontational. "I"m sure you"re understandably nervous. No one is implicating you in the murder. We just want to make sure you and your daughter can return safely to Miami. I understand your sister is very sick, and your mother has been looking for you."
Jessica sobbed. It really was over. Lord Jesus help her, it was over. David was really in jail. This awful escape, this awful heartache, was over.
"Mommy, who is that?" Kira whispered, sitting up.
"It"s the police, baby. They"re here to help us," Jessica said, burying Kira"s head against her chest.
Jessica was reaching for the lock on the sliding door when she saw, as a pa.s.sing car bathed the officer in light, that he was making a movement she"d seen countless times in movies: He was c.o.c.king the weapon he held, as though readying to fire. She also saw his face, which was both familiar and unfamiliar. She couldn"t help thinking that she"d seen him once before, with a beard.
Jessica pushed open one of the side windows, allowing a breath of damp air into the van. "Who are you?" she screamed out. "Why do you have a gun?"
"Mrs. Wolde," the man said patiently, taking a step toward the van, "there"s no reason to be upset. The gun is merely a precaution. I know you"re in a very excited state."
"Stay back!" Jessica screamed at him. To her dismay, the man ignored her, taking two more steps toward the van. He held the gun in one hand, at chest level, taking aim. "Who are you?!"
"Mrs. Wolde," the man said, this time with a very different voice, a lower-pitched voice with an accent she did not recognize, "don"t force me to be discourteous. This will be easier for all concerned if you bring the girl out of the van. Do as I say and I"ll spare her. You have no alternative."
Jessica"s mind went white, stripped of rational thought. All she had left was instinct; she dove to Kira"s seat and huddled over her, sitting on the floor of the van. Both of them sobbed.
There was an explosion, or at least it sounded like one. A gunshot shattered the van"s rear window and exited through the windshield, spraying gla.s.s on all sides of them. Jessica screamed, hugging Kira so tightly against her that she thought she would break. There were gla.s.s shards on the seat cover, in her hair. What nightmare was this? What h.e.l.l was this?
"My patience is gone," the awful voice said. "Come out now, or you"ll both be found dead where you are."
"O-kay-kay ..." Jessica stuttered, barely able to speak beyond the trembling of her jaw. She tried to raise her voice so the man could hear her strangled words. "Please ... don"t ... hurt us."
"Open the door. Bring the girl too. I"ll not repeat myself," the man said.
To Jessica, a woman who believed in miracles, it wasn"t so extremely remakable that, at that moment, a bright light seemed to fill up the van just when she was praying most earnestly. It was many seconds after she heard the roar of an engine and tires screeching across the asphalt and gravel that she first realized another car had come from somewhere.
She heard a sound-an impact, like a heavy sack filled with cracking wood-and then nothing except Kira"s breathless sobs. An eternity pa.s.sed, and then she heard someone"s footsteps trampling through the gra.s.s. She wanted to move, but couldn"t.
She expected a gunshot next, but it didn"t come.
Instead, a face peered down at her in the window. She wasn"t the least bit surprised to see that it was David"s.
51.
Dawit drove thirty miles before he turned on his blinker to signal that Jessica should follow him off of the road (not that she had much choice, since the front b.u.mper of the car she drove was secured to his car"s back b.u.mper with a chain and padlock he"d found in Mahmoud"s trunk). It was midnight. They would be meeting 1-75 soon, toward Gainesville. He"d wanted to stop before then.
Kira sat in the seat beside Dawit, her thumb planted in her mouth, leaning against the door with her eyes fully alert. Dawit had not seen her suck her thumb in at least two years.
"You okay, d.u.c.h.ess?" he asked, touching her hair.
Kira nodded. She stroked the cat, who was at last quiet in her lap. After the initial moment when she saw him, when she ran out of the van to leap into his arms with hysterical-sounding laughter and tears despite Jessica"s warning to keep away, Kira had not said a word.
Jessica climbed out of her car. "Why are we stopping here?" she asked, standing at Dawit"s window.
Though Dawit tried, once again, he could not make eye contact with his wife. The beauty of her face stung him deeply, and the pain surged in him as anger. He looked past her at the thicket beyond the roadway, trying to determine whether or not the tree cover would suffice. It would.
Not looking at Jessica"s face, Dawit held out his palm. "Give me your car keys," he said.
For a moment, she didn"t respond at all. Then he heard a far-off jingling and realized she must have thrown the keys somewhere. So this was her silent retort. The sting came again.
Foolish woman. Did she think he was going to leave her alone and give her an opportunity to ferret out the keys in his absence? And how did she propose to drive the car, chained as it was?
Dawit opened his car door, pocketing his own keys. Where had he found the self-control to refrain from striking her? As a boy, he"d once seen a villager set his dogs on his wife because she uttered an unkind word to him at the marketplace. He remembered the sight of her b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.s even now. With Jessica, there was no end to her offenses against him. Running away, endangering his daughter, forcing him to practically hold her at gunpoint with Mahmoud"s weapon to convince her to go with him.
"We"ll drive this car, then," Dawit said evenly. "But I liked Mahmoud"s. At least his air conditioner produced something besides warm, stale air."
Dawit still felt weak when he imagined what he had seen. He was speeding north and chanced upon the van stalled on the road. If he had not seen them and swerved back around on the median at the moment he did, Mahmoud would have shot Jessica and Kira. Dawit had not even seen Mahmoud the first time he pa.s.sed, driving at ninety miles per hour. He had not seen him until he came back, when Mahmoud was in the direct path of his headlights.
"Where are you going?" Kira whimpered.
"Your mommy and I have to take care of something. We have to use the bathroom."
"I have to go too."
"We"re going in the woods. You just stay here. We"ll stop at a real bathroom for you very soon. I want you to lie down and close your eyes. Keep them closed. Do what Daddy says, Kira."
He leaned over and repeated the words in urgent French, staring into her wondering, frightened brown eyes, just as he had less than an hour ago, when she was in the van and Jessica was clinging to her, half hysterical.
"Come to Daddy, Kira. It"s safe to come to me."
"No! Kira, stay here. Don"t go near him."
"Kira ... avec moi. Maintenant, mon bebe. Avec moi."
And so Kira had come, wriggling from her mother"s arms to leap into his through the rear hatch door he"d opened by reaching through the shattered gla.s.s. Now, as she had then, Kira obeyed when he spoke their private language, the language of entreaties. She slumped down in her seat until she was curled in a ball beside the cat, and he tugged her hair before getting out of the car.
The tree cover was too thick to drive the car into the brush, as Dawit had originally hoped to do, so he would have to empty Mahmoud"s trunk. Because Jessica had thrown the keys away, Dawit had to pry open the trunk with a tire jack. This took ten minutes of too-precious time, more to blame on Jessica. She stood behind him, watching, waiting. When the trunk popped open, Dawit was a.s.sailed by the scent of blood from the fractured corpse.
"Lord Jesus," Jessica said, taking a step back. "I can"t do this. I can"t."
"If you were trustworthy, I would leave you in the car with Kira. Since you"re not, you"ll accompany me. I won"t make you help carry him. I wouldn"t want you dirtying your hands."
Dawit hoped Kira was sleeping by now so she would be spared this sight. Dawit had wrapped Mahmoud"s body in one of Princess"s old blankets, which he"d found on the floor of the cargo bin in the minivan. A few bloodstains had seeped through in a macabre pattern, but not many. Aside from the damage to Mahmoud"s crushed face, most of his injuries were internal. Dawit grunted, heaving the two-hundred-pound load across his shoulder firefighter-style.
Jessica gasped, stepping away from him. "David, don"t make me go. Please. Why didn"t we just leave him back-"
"Someone would have found his body where it was."
"So what?"
"The coroner would have had a mild shock in the morning when his corpse woke up in a bad mood, don"t you think? Come. Let"s be quick so Kira won"t worry. Turn on the flashlight."
Dawit staggered down the embankment, squeezing between the straight trunks of thin pine trees, following the weak beam of light that Jessica directed in his path as insects flurried around them. Dry twigs snapped beneath their feet, and Jessica made a frightened sound. Just a bit farther, he a.s.sured her, slipping into ingrained habits of tenderness. They needed to go far enough to keep Mahmoud out of sight from the road. When they finished, he would have to haul Mahmoud"s car another few miles north and then leave it on the shoulder. Even if someone found the abandoned car with its mutilated trunk, it was unlikely they would discover the corpse before dawn, when it would be a corpse no more.
"I"m trying to protect Kira from all this, David, but I"m not going to allow you to kidnap us. You hear me? You can"t use her to control me. I"ll tell her the truth if I have to."
Dawit"s ears burned as he tossed his burden against the trunk of a peeling paper tree. Ignoring Jessica, he propped Mahmoud into a sitting position, the b.l.o.o.d.y head dangling forward beneath the blanket. It was more kindness than Mahmoud deserved.
"I know you killed Peter," Jessica said, her voice a venom. "And I know you tried to kill Alex. I left a message for a policeman in Miami. They"re looking for you right now."
Dawit spun around to peer into the flashlight beam glowing from where his wife stood behind him. His mind could not swallow her words. How could a woman who"d been so understanding through so much, his own wife, have become so heartless as to turn him in! Would this horrid night never end in its cruel surprises?
"You shouldn"t have done that. You"re wrong about Alex."
"I don"t believe you!" Jessica shouted. "You know you pushed her because of what she found out, how your blood heals."
Dawit staggered, this time from disbelief. Betrayed, yet again! "You ..."-he could barely form the words-"You told your sister about me? How did you get my blood?"
"From the shed. In a syringe."
Dawit raised his fingers to his temples, as though to steady himself from fainting. Had he been careless enough to leave his blood in the shed when he finished the Ritual with the cat? He should be smitten down for his own stupidity, if that were true. And it was, apparently.
Dawit laughed in surrender, hanging his head.
Jessica looked at him as though he were a specter. "What are you?" she hissed.
"What am I? I"ll tell you what I am," he said, stepping toward her. "I"m your salvation, Jessica. Your sister will die soon, and perhaps your mother too. Don"t you see what you"ve done, you fool? Mahmoud is our least concern. I thought he"d chased you as a tactic to prompt me to go. But it"s worse than I feared. He must know what I"ve told you. Mahmoud wants you dead because Khaldun wants you dead. Every day you live, you endanger us all. And you have told your sister too? Who else?"
"No one," Jessica whispered, apparently frightened by his words. Dawit imagined he could feel her trembling, and he longed to hold her despite his rage and sorrow. He was now orphaned in every sense, for the second time; he must be anathema to Khaldun and his brothers. He could no longer claim his home in Miami, nor his true home in Lalibela.
"Mahmoud attacked your sister to protect the Covenant, just as he has attacked you and Kira tonight," he said, weary to his soul.
"But what about Peter? And Rosalie Tillis Banks-"
"Rosalie is none of your business," Dawit said, his body rigid. At the sound of Rosalie"s name, carelessly tossed at him, his heart had dropped. "My daughter is none of your business. You didn"t see what had become of her. Until you have been in my place, and seen your own child as she looked, you have no right to ask me about her."
"Tell me why you killed Peter," Jessica said. "Just tell me why. Was it because of Rosalie? He never made the connection, David. Neither of us had. I don"t understand why."
Dawit took a deep breath, gazing up at the thick darkness above them. Black-gray nimbostratus clouds hung against the skies. "Killing Peter," he said slowly, "was a mistake."
His confession bound them in silence. Then, he heard her sob. She"d known, he realized, but she had not believed. Not until now.
"I would live my entire lifetime from the beginning and suffer everything twofold," Dawit said softly, "to regain that one night, Jessica. To correct that one night. That night, I laid a path to this one, so full of rage and distrust. You have harmed me now in more ways than you will ever know, but I forgive you everything because my forgiveness is unconditional. And you, my love, have forgiven me everything but this."
"I won"t go with you," Jessica sobbed.
"That"s your choice. I won"t hold this gun to you. But Kira is going with me. I suggest you get as far away from Mahmoud as possible by morning. And I can guarantee you that your sister is not safe where she rests. Your police officer friend"s energy would be better spent with her."
Jessica"s sob turned into a wail, half vengeful, half frightened. It reminded him of a wail from another horrible night in the wilderness, when she"d watched helplessly while his body met death. If Dawit had not thought she would strike him, he would have surely hugged her now. Instead, he turned and began to walk back toward the car, where Kira was waiting.
"What can we do?" Jessica called after him.
He paused, but did not turn to face her. "Very little. But there is one way, at least, they cannot harm you or Kira."
"What is it?" Jessica whispered.
Walking on, Dawit didn"t answer because it was unnecessary. She knew. The words need not be spoken. The answer was coursing, silent and hot, through his very veins.
52.
Teacake was dying. It was the last absurdity.
As the shabby rental car rolled beneath the summer sun, David and Kira were in the front seat, and Jessica sat with the cat in the back. Teacake had hurt himself somehow. She"d noticed a small trickle of blood in one of his ears, so maybe he"d been injured from flying gla.s.s. Or hit his head somehow. She didn"t know. He was lying flat and quiet on the seat beside her. So quiet. His eyes were open, but looked glazed. And he wouldn"t drink the water from the eyedropper David had bought at the Walgreen"s west of Pensacola, right before they crossed the Alabama state line. Jessica told him to buy it, along with whatever other things he wanted to pick up, because Teacake looked dehydrated. But he wouldn"t drink. The drops of water were rolling back out of his mouth, dribbling on the stubbly hairs on his chin.
It figured. Like Job, she"d lost everything else she cared about, so why not the cat she"d raised since he was a fur ball of a kitten? Don"t even get started, she thought. She couldn"t dwell there, or she"d start screaming and David might turn around and have to knock her in the head with the gun he was carrying in his jeans. That would be a sight for Kira.
See, Kira, you think Daddy"s this nice guy because he saved us from that other maniac, but did you know he"s a maniac himself? Did you know that?
Every few minutes, Jessica caught David gazing at her in his rearview mirror. For a strange half-second, their eyes would meet where their minds couldn"t. Then she would look toward her window and stare out at the long, unfamiliar miles.
She could run. At Walgreen"s-the only time David had left her alone, except in the filthy bathroom of the burger place at the last truck stop-Jessica sat in the car and realized she was free to go. David had Kira. He always took her with him wherever he went, his unknowing hostage, his peace of mind. But that was okay. If she jumped out of the car to run to the pay phone just across the street, he wouldn"t have gotten far with Kira yet. The police would find them.