Chapter 20

2:49 p.m. 10:29 to Termination

A lie has seven endings —Swahili proverb.

Nick put the car seat into the back of Celeste’s car. Jane had grown quiet, sleeping fitfully.

School would be out any moment.

“Get behind the wheel,” he told Celeste. “We need to go.”

He pulled the baby bottle from his pocket and got in the back seat while Celeste climbed in front. He slouched as she started the car and put it in drive. Jane started crying again, her pitiful voice exhausted and filled with sadness. Staying low, he buckled in the car seat. Jane arched her back and screamed, her eyes clenched shut.

“Shhhhh,” Nick said. “The food’s almost here.”

“Where do you want me to go?”

“Head north. On State Street.”

“I don’t know where that is.”

“Turn right, then right again at the light.”

No sirens. Not yet. It was possible that some or even most of the police had gone to Logan to help with the search for Jane there, leaving behind only a skeleton crew in Preston. But somebody would have been left behind, and that somebody would be here sooner rather than later.

Nick finished strapping in the car seat. He opened the formula and tore off the foil top. After reading the side of the container and checking the bottle, he poured two scoops of the clumpy powder into the bottle—managing to spill a good portion of it on his lap—and shook the bottle up. He placed the nipple in Jane’s mouth. She screamed a moment longer as if to let Nick know she didn’t like the late dinner, and then sucked greedily at the plastic nipple. Her cheeks were stained with dried tears, and she stared at Nick as she drank.

Roughly four minutes had passed since dropping Leslie off in the middle of the road. Even if the clerk had run into somebody’s home, by the time she’d convinced them to let her use the phone, Nick and Celeste had already abandoned her car in front of the high school.

Nick rubbed the bridge of his nose.

His plan had been shot to hell. He’d hoped to escape north. Through Preston, over to Idaho Falls, and up I-15. But now the police would put together the pieces. A kidnapping in Preston. A man carrying a baby. Hell, Celeste had said his name at least twice. They’d know it was him.

But for a time, at least, they’d be looking for an orange Ford Bronco driven by a white male, not a Ford station wagon driven by a female. If he stuck with Celeste, he was relatively safe. Nobody could place him in this car. It was the last buffer between him and the police.

Celeste stopped at a red light on Main Street, and Nick looked out the side window. A man and woman crossed the street. The woman glanced at their car and then spied Nick in the back seat. She held his gaze for a moment and then looked away.

Every timer still ended at 1:18.

A minivan pulled up next to them. A young boy stared out the window with a bored expression on his face. When he saw Nick, he waved. Nick waved back.

He fought a rising panic. He clenched his eyes shut and took a deep breath through his nose. He didn’t release the breath until they were moving again. His stomach felt sour, and he wondered if it was nerves or hunger pangs. Maybe he should have gone to the Polar Bear after all. Get some greasy fries and a burger. A grasshopper shake.

And then he heard the siren. It came from the north, directly in front of them. Nick slid lower in the seat.

“No motions, Celeste,” he said. “Don’t give any signal.”

Celeste stared straight ahead as the siren grew louder. Nick chanced a quick look when the patrol car passed them. The officer tapped at a laptop mounted in his car, his eyes on the screen. And then he was past them. Nick allowed himself to sit up straighter.

He needed to regain control.

Preston slid past him on either side of the car. It was a small town. They’d started at one end of Main Street and had almost reached the other.

His original plan would no longer work, so he needed to adjust. What would the police do when they discovered he was in Idaho?

Those in Logan would turn north. Police in Malad, Montpelier, and Soda Springs would be notified and come east and south. All officers converging on Preston.

And what about the FBI? They might be called in now that he’d crossed a state line. Or maybe they already had been called in because it was a kidnapping. They’d be coming from Salt Lake, or perhaps Boise. His immediate concern would be the police, but in a few hours, he’d have to start factoring federal agents into this hide-and-seek event.

He used to play a board game called Scotland Yard with his sisters, Beth and Jane. Sometimes Mom joined in as well. The way the rules worked, Beth, Jane, and Mom would team up against Nick who played a villain called Mr. X. He raced around a map of London, his movements hidden except for certain moments during the game when he had to reveal his location. He always enjoyed pulling his token from his lap and hovering it over the board. Jane and Beth would watch with bright eyes and wide grins, waiting to see where he’d place it. When he finally dropped his token on the board, they would squeal and clap and plan how they’d race to capture him. His sisters would always go to where he had been, instead of where he might go next. By the time they got to where he’d surfaced, he was no longer there. In all the times they’d ever played the game, they’d only caught him once.

He played the same game today, only with the police, and Celeste had revealed his position.

Maybe he could turn this to his advantage.

“Which way do you want me to go?” Celeste looked over her shoulder at him.

They’d reached the north end of State Street, the road ending in a T.

“Left.” West. The road leading to Pocatello.

He didn’t have much time.

Kicking through the phones on the floor, he found Mr. Howard’s phone and the matching battery.

He pulled the bottle out of Jane’s mouth, and she immediately started screaming. Placing the battery in the phone, he pressed the power button and pulled out the gun. He held the weapon between the two front seats and tapped Celeste on the arm with it. He kept it low so other drivers wouldn’t see.

“I’m calling the police,” he said. “If you make any noise, or try to tell them where we are, then things get desperate. If things get desperate, then I have nothing to lose. Do you understand?”

Celeste looked down at the gun, then back to the road, her face stone. She nodded once, gripped the steering wheel, and continued to drive.

He turned on the phone and waited for the right screen. He tapped 911 and pressed the green call button. He heard two rings before a voice sounded in his ear.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

Nick counted to five. He didn’t know how long it took to trace a cell phone location. Maybe it was immediate. Either way, the operator had plenty of time to hear Jane screaming.

“Hello, is anybody there?”

“Yes. My name is Nick Carson. About five hours ago I took a baby from a Logan Walmart.”

It was the operator’s turn to fall silent, but she was a professional. A moment later she’d regained her composure.

“Excuse me?”

He repeated his words louder, to make sure she heard him over Jane’s crying.

Muffled voices and then the operator came back on the line.

“Sir, where . . . where are you right now?”

“Listen to me,” Nick said. “The baby is safe, but I need the police to stay away from me. If the police get involved, I can’t control the situation. I can’t make any promises if I see the police.”

“Mr. Carson, you took a baby. The police are already involved, and they will continue to be involved until they get the baby in their custody.” The operator didn’t sound like she was trying to stall. “I hear the baby crying. Are you sure the baby is safe, Mr. Carson?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Mr. Carson, you have to understand that this is a very serious situation. You have kidnapped a baby. You need to tell me where you are, and then you need to wait there until we can get a police officer to your location. Can you do that?”

A police officer. They’d send an army of police officers.

“I’m keeping the baby safe. Tell the police to stay away.”

“Mr. Carson—”

Nick ended the call but didn’t turn off the phone. Mr. Carson. Everybody kept using his name over and over as if that would make him realize all of this was a simple mistake. Well, since you used my name, it would be rude NOT to return the baby.

Idiots.

He rolled down his window, tossed the phone outside, then rolled the window back up. He tucked the gun back into his pants, slid down in the seat again, and gave Jane the bottle. She began eating and the car fell quiet.

He breathed deep and long, trying to slow his pounding heart. He’d just lit a fuse. Now it was time to back the hell away.

Back to Logan.

“Turn around.”

“What?” Celeste asked.

“Turn around. Drive back toward Preston and take your first right.”

Celeste pulled off the side of the road and turned around.

Nick heard a single faint siren coming from the direction of town. A single wail, crying out as if in protest of all the wrongs committed this day.

After getting the car back up to speed, Celeste looked into the rear-view mirror. “What’s going on here, Nick? I want to know.”

“What did you do in the bathroom?”

She turned right onto Eighth West. They rode in silence for a while. Finally, Celeste spoke. “I wrote on the mirror using hand soap. I said I’d been kidnapped.”

His anger flared again. “What did you write? Tell me exactly what you wrote.”

“I wrote Kidnapped. Call 911.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes. The soap didn’t work so well, and I didn’t have time to write anything else.”

He swore and then swore again, louder. But if she was telling him the truth, and she hadn’t used her name, then they were still safe in this car. If she had used her name . . . things would get ugly. Fast.

He directed her to turn right onto Oneida Street, and then left on Frew Hill Rd.

“Keep driving on this road until I tell you to stop.”

Nick slid deeper down into his seat. The afternoon sun came in through the front windshield, warming the car. Jane continued to suck at the bottle, her eyes wet and wide. They stared at Nick, and Nick wondered what information the infant’s brain was registering. She was too young to recognize him as a friend or stranger. She was too young to realize she should be full of fear. She had a bottle in her mouth. Nick was filling her stomach, and for now, that was enough.

She is the key to all of this.

He looked up at Jane’s symbols. They hadn’t changed. She still had her entire life ahead of her.

There was no denying it now. He could see his and Celeste’s life thread through Jane’s rift. They were not almost pink, they were pink. A definite shade. The mist behind was the same color. Pink. All of it.

Nick brought his face close to Jane. He searched her eyes, looking for . . . something, though he didn’t know what. Her eyes were gray-blue. They focused on Nick for a time, then glanced to the right, then back to Nick. She paused in her drinking, took a deep breath, and then continued sucking at the bottle. It was already almost empty.

He saw nothing out of the ordinary. The blue-gray orbs kept their secrets.

“What are you?” he murmured.

He caught Celeste staring at him in unmasked horror through the rear-view mirror.