Dirty Weather Page 2

  “Not before I stop the bleeding.” She was pulling bowls and plates from the cabinet. She found the first-aid kit and returned to him. He was sitting, arms braced over his knees, smiling at her in the orange glow. She felt his stare as she worked. He seemed oblivious to the pain. She didn’t really know what she was doing, but she cinched a tourniquet midway up his foot and wound an Ace bandage over some sterile pads, applying pressure on the entry wound.

  “That happen a lot around here?”

  “A correctional officers’ bar? You kidding me? A normal night, someone came in here, they’d get beaten within an inch of their lives.”

  She finished and patted his calf. She could see the fire’s glow reflected in his eyes and she touched his face, gently, letting her fingers drift down over his lips.

  His face darkened, his gaze shifting nervously to the window. “Let’s get going.”

  “My Bronco’s out back.” She helped him up.

  He leaned on the walls, making ginger progress. “What are you doing?”

  Laura was on her knees, rolling back the shitty carpet by the jukebox. She worked the dial of the floor safe until the gears clanked. She withdrew three tight rolls of hundred-dollar bills and stuffed them in her pockets. “There’s fifteen grand here. My life’s savings. If that guy comes back, he’ll have plenty of time to tear the place apart. If he doesn’t already know where the safe is.”

  “Let’s go, let’s go.”

  She put an arm around his waist and kicked through the back door, waiting for the gunman to fly out of the white haze at them. But it was just the wide swath of alley, the soggy stack of Budweiser cartons under the overhang and her truck. The wind hit them hard, whipping flecks of snow into their faces. It tore at her collar, the cuffs of her jeans. She deposited Brian in the Bronco and waded around to the driver’s seat, her eyes holding fearfully on the Subaru. The gunman’s car remained maddeningly motionless, its headlights beaming forward like a dead man’s gaze.

  Brian was shuddering by the time she got the engine turned over. She’d left the heat blasting and the radio on—Don down at KRZ was spinning the Highwaymen, Kris Kristofferson as smooth as good scotch, save for the pulses of static from the weather. She blasted the heat. The Bronco bucked over drifts of snow past the Subaru, its shadowed interior drawing briefly into view through ice-misted windows, and then they were skating on the frontage road, heading for the interstate entrance. She studied the rearview, frightened. As if on cue, the radio went to fuzz, then warped into silence.

  The windshield of the Subaru continued to stare after them, but the car didn’t pull out. She watched it recede, her heart pounding.

  Barely visible up ahead through the snow were two sets of flashing red lights. Laura eased up to the sawhorses, fighting down the window. Four deputies blocked the overpass.

  Before she could say anything, Earl leaned in and shouted over the wind, “We just got word there’s been a break at the prison. Miguel’s dead—bastard caved his head in on the escape. That’s all we know except to lock down the road.”

  “I just had a guy try to rob me. His car’s still back at the Furlough. We think he’s still around there.” She brought a trembling hand to her face. “My God. Miguel. I just saw him over at the garage yesterday, getting a new radiator in his…” Her eyes welled. “Has someone told Leticia?”

  “Thinning blond hair,” Brian shouted past her. “Five-eight, five-nine, maybe. Skinny.”

  Earl’s brows rose as his eyes shifted. “Who’s this?”

  “Brian Dyer. He’s a CO up at the big house. He got shot protecting me. I gotta get him to the hospital.”

  “Okay. Go. Go. We’ll take the Furlough.” Earl squinted through the falling snow. The Subaru’s headlights were barely visible. “That car up there?” He turned to the others. “Move it, let’s move.” He rapped a gloved fist on Laura’s hood and she pulled past the roadblock, coaxing the Bronco back to speed.

  They crossed the overpass, veering toward the south entrance, and started the long curve around to the interstate.

  The radio crackled and Don’s distorted voice came audible in waves. “—deadly escape from the prison…Miguel Herrera’s body found stripped and frozen in the east yard…”

  Blocking the bottom of the on-ramp, just before the merge, was a felled tree. Brian shouted and Laura hit the brakes, sending the Bronco sideways. They coasted peacefully to a stop, an upthrust branch screeching up Brian’s door. She let out her breath in a rush, and he laughed. Up ahead, on the interstate, was a furrow where some poor soul had trudged across from the frontage road, probably a half-frozen construction worker seeing to the sewage drains beneath the overpass.

  “I’ll steer us around,” she said.

  Brian leaned forward and punched the cigarette lighter. His other arm was up around her headrest and he dropped it to the back of her neck. His hand was warm, so warm—he’d been holding it over the dashboard vent. The backs of his knuckles drifted down, grazing her cheek, her chin. She felt her neck muscles unclench, her body softening to his touch.

  The radio reception came back in, if barely. “—security tapes show…used a starter pistol in their escape…one of the inmates shot in the foot going over the…”

  Laura’s eyes widened. Her gaze jerked to the base of the tree—ax marks, not splinters. A mosaic of images pressed in on her. Miguel’s wife’s Subaru. The Furlough’s empty parking lot even after Brian had arrived. His limp as he’d entered. The belt with the baton ring, poking out from the bottom of his state-issue button-up shirt. His face, already pale from the injury. The sweat on his brow—pain suppressed. And his stolen boot, thrown in the fire after the ruse so she wouldn’t see that it had no bullet hole.

  Brian’s hand continued to play across her face. Trembling, she lifted her gaze but the stare looking back was unrecognizable. The snow beat against the window behind him, the branch scraping against the door. And then she saw the pale hand reach up over the tree trunk outside like something from a horror movie.

  Brian’s hand tightened and he drove a fist down across her chin. Her head smacked the window, her head lolled, and she slumped against the door. Digging in her pockets, he removed the rolls of cash. Then he reached past her ample breasts, tugged at the door handle, and shoved her with his good foot out into the snow.

  Teddy slid down off the tree trunk, stamping his feet and rubbing his arms. Bits of ice stuck to his thin wisps of blond hair and his lashes, which framed bloodshot eyes. Brian fished the pack of Marlboros from his pocket, tapped out a cigarette and extended it between two fingers across the console. Teddy stepped over Laura’s limp body and climbed in, his breath clouding against the wheel as he slammed the door against the cold. He took the proffered cigarette and set it between quivering lips. He removed the beige rectangle from his pocket—a carefully shaped block of used chewing gum—and tossed it into the back seat. Then he cranked the heat even higher, shivering violently and pressing his white fingers against the vents.

  The cigarette lighter popped out and Teddy pulled it from the dash and tilted his head, inhaling the warmth.

  Brian made a gun with his hand and pointed south. “To the sunshine.”

  Teddy maneuvered the Bronco through the soft snow of the shoulder, forging a path around the tree. As they pulled out onto the interstate, sheets of snow began to layer Laura into oblivion.

  * * * * *

  Author Biography

  Gregg Hurwitz is a New York Times bestselling author of fifteen thrillers, including Orphan X. His novels have been shortlisted for numerous literary awards, graced top-ten lists, and have been translated into twenty-six languages. He is also a New York Times bestselling comic book writer, having penned stories for Marvel (Wolverine, Punisher) and DC (Batman, Penguin). Additionally, he’s written screenplays for or sold spec scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed and produced television for various networks. Gregg resides in Los Angeles. Explore more online at gregghurwitz.net.
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  Discover more thriller stories that will tantalize and terrify. Offering up heart-pumping tales of suspense in all its guises are thirty-two of the most critically acclaimed and award-winning names in the business.

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  ISBN-13: 9781488094507

  Dirty Weather

  Copyright © 2006 By Gregg Hurwitz

  First published as part of an anthology of works entitled Thriller in 2006.

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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