I got that sick feeling again, and with it, a really bad shiver of fear. More than likely, Dewayne had put the box in and that was where the bribe or gun or other illegal funds were kept.
Drugs! Maybe they were all into drugs.
I discarded the notion quickly. I couldn't imagine that either of these guys would last long with that kind of rough crowd, at least the old Miami Vice version of such things. No, it had to be money. But who had put it there? Or did that matter?
The main question that kept zipping through my head and sending panic up my spine was very simple. Would Dewayne kill for the money in the box? I turned on the water, tossed the pain killers aside, my headache now a pounding throb of fear that nothing was going to ease. I had to go back out there and pretend that nothing was wrong. I could do it. I had to. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the main room. Then, I froze.
Dewayne Schuman had my mother's gun and was pointing it straight at me, the little red dot defining his aim. "Leroy was right. You're too smart for your own good, Jolene. I know you found the safe."
I tried to look stupid, and I'm sure I succeeded admirably, but I did not look innocent. I knew, and he knew I knew. "There's nothing in it."
He narrowed his eyes and stood. "There goddamn sure is," he growled, marching his big old hairy gorilla self toward me. "Get out of the way."
I did, and with amazing agility and speed, but the table prevented my escape. He squeezed past me anyway and stomped toward the bathroom.
Not fully in charge of my faculties, but adrenaline pumping stupid thoughts through my head, I grabbed the really expensive vase of flowers off the table. Mother sucked in her breath, but I ignored her, and smashed the vase on top of Dewayne's head.
The effect was not exactly like in the movies because you see, in the movies, the vase conveniently shatters and the bad guy conveniently falls down, instantly unconscious. The lovely leaded glass did not shatter. It did, however, smack against Dewayne's head with a solid cracking thud that reverberated back up my arm and into my shoulder. And I dropped the vase.
Lucille shrieked and lunged.
I figured she was going for the vase, but she didn't. She snatched her beloved Glock right out of the old gorilla's hand. I'd stunned him enough to loosen his grip on the gun, but not enough for him to hit the floor in a heap. Movies ought not confuse people like that. I was kind of intent on seeing him crumple to the floor, the lying conniving bastard.
"Now, Dee-Wayne," Mother said slowly. "You turn your big old hairy self right around and get on out of here. Right now, you hear? Are you listening to me, Dee-Wayne? You git, or I'm gonna have to shoot you."
Dewayne shook his head and rubbed a huge hand across the back of his skull where I had whacked him. I left the pretty silk flowers scattered across the carpet and grabbed the vase again. I held it steady in case I had to bop him again. "Give me the key, Mister Schuman. Just toss it on the floor over here."
Dewayne turned from the bathroom, his eyes a little glazed over. Maybe I'd done more damage than I thought.
He held out his left hand and unfurled the long thick fingers, then sort of just let the key fall from his fingers.
I maintained my death grip on the vase and nodded to Mother to grab the key, which she did handily. "What were you looking for in the safe?" I asked Dewayne, keeping his attention on me rather than Mother.
He swayed from side to side, but seemed to comprehend what I was saying. He took a couple of steps toward Lucille, who pocketed the key and prodded the addlebrained monkey toward the door with the end of her Glock.
"Just wanted my money," Dewayne muttered. "That's all I wanted. It's my money. I want my money."
"How much money?"
Dewayne kept stumbling along. "Supposed to have twenty-two thousand coming when it was all over with. Was gonna move back to I-Way Park. Get myself on the straight and narrow. No more under-the-table dealings for me. This was it."
Nice try, not likely since I was pretty sure the ATF people could find him in Iowa Park, even if it was a good fifteen miles away. I doubted he'd appreciate my realistic assessment of his situation, so I did some really simple math projections instead. Assuming I was close on the cost of the remodel, the twenty-two thousand could be what BigJohn owed him for the legitimate work. Then again, maybe it was payoff money from the gun sales, some kickback scheme or any number of other idiotic activities.
I kept getting more tidbits of information but none of them were really giving me any clear answers. And at the moment, all I really needed to know for sure was that Dewayne was going far, far away.
Lucille waved her gun at him. "You get out of my house, Dee-Wayne Schuman, and don't you ever come near me again. You do, and I'll have your big old fuzzy face on my wall for decoration. Now, git."
I trotted around and courteously opened the door for him.
Dewayne blinked, rubbed his chin and lumbered out. "Durn fool women. All I wanted was my money."
In a few minutes, I heard the roar of an engine and the spew of gravel from his tires. I watched out the door until I saw his white pickup truck go lurching down the road.
A few seconds later, I saw a white sedan trailing after it. Coincidence? I don't think so. I turned back to mother. "We've got to get out of here. Right now. I don't know where we're going, but we're going somewhere. Canada sounds good to me."
Mother clucked her tongue as she gathered up her purse and essential firearm accessories. "You're awfully obsessed about running off to some godforsaken place, Jolene. There's no need for that. This will all work out fine. You'll see."
I did not see. And she might not have seen things so optimistically either if she'd had a peek at the car zooming along behind Dewayne's truck.
It was Velma Bennett's Lincoln.
Within seconds, we were headed toward the Tahoe. Within a few seconds more, we knew we wouldn't be going anywhere because every single tire on the car was flat. And it had not been just an innocuous air-letting either. The sidewall on each tire had a nice, long, vicious slash in it.
I rushed Mother back inside the cabin and bolted the door. I made sure the curtains were pulled tight over the windows and I jammed a chair under the doorknob. It wouldn't stop a gunshot or even a kick, but it was all I could think of at the moment. "All right, Mother, now what do we do, just sit here and wait for Dee-Wayne to come back and kill us? And how could he have had time to slice all our tires, anyway?"
Lucille did not seat herself at the dining table as would be her usual bent. She paced and re-paced a small oval in the kitchen, arms crossed, making mumbling noises. My mother was as scared and clueless as I was. "We have two cell phones, Jolene," she said, her voice a little quivery. "My battery is almost gone. Where's yours?"
"In the car. Why?"
"I think you should go get it."
"Sure, I'll go get it. Just as soon as you find me a bulletproof vest and a baseball bat."
Lucille rummaged around in her purse. "You go on. I'll get the Little Lady and cover you."
"A lot of good that would do. I'd be about the only thing you'd have a clear shot at."
"Well, I'm not going to shoot my own daughter," Lucille said. "I'm not blind, you know."
"Just put the gun away, Mother. I'll be fine."
Lucille sighed and finally settled herself at the table. "Whatever you think best."
I glanced at the door, then back at my mother. Gun or no gun, I wasn't in all that big of a hurry to go outside. It was entirely possible that someone was waiting for us out there. "Do you think Leroy's in on any of this?"
She shrugged. "He did try to trap us and shoot at us."
Dewayne had told a variety of tales during our quizzing, but the one snide comment about me aside, I didn't get the feeling that he and Leroy were very tight.
"What do we do, Jolene?" Lucille said, a little edge of fear in her voice.
Yes, what? Best I could tell we had about two options. One, we could go walkabout and die from the heat or the riff-raff tailing us. Or we could use the one remaining tool we had available to us. "While I'm getting the phone out of the car, you be thinking about who we can call to help us. I'm going to try to call Jerry again, for all the good that'll do, but after that we need some serious help. Maybe we can call Deputy Marshall or Bob."
"You really think they'd listen to us?" Lucille shook her head and clucked her tongue. "You know good and well that Leroy has told them about the, um, radiator problem. You think they'd take our word over his?"
"They might. They might also trace our call and come haul us in," I said.
"Can they do that?"
"In a lot of places, yes. Here, I don't know."
"I don't think it's worth the risk."
Going out to the car to get the phone was a risk, too, but I didn't see a choice in the matter. Better to have the phone than not. I mentally plotted my course across the mine-strewn battlefield to the foxhole, or rather the ten steps across the grass burrs to the Tahoe. The only tree on the place was on the far side of Tahoe, so slinking behind trunks was out of the question. No, the options were definitely limited, and it didn't take a great thinker to figure out that I had to run to the car and back just as fast as I could. Complex plan, that.
I peeked out the cabin door, made sure the coast was clear, pointed my remote at the car, clicked open the latches and made a dash for the
Tahoe. I snagged the phone and was back inside the cabin within seconds--and nobody shot at me.
The unit had been plugged in and was fully charged so I turned it on, sat down at the table across from Mother, and checked for messages, something I hadn't done in a while. I had five.
The first two were from my daughter, who was all of a sudden desperate to talk to me. Over the limit on the credit card would be my first guess, but she could just really need some fine motherly advice. Hey, it was possible.
The third call was from my son, who really had just called to say hi. I smiled.
The fourth was from Leroy, who had somehow found my phone number. His message wasn't anything earth shattering, just your typical turn-yourself-in-or-die kind of thing that declined into a "I know where you are and I'm coming to get you" scenario. Mixed in there was also some gibberish about losing his job over this, and how Uncle Fletch was hopping mad. Old news.
The last call was from Jerry.
My heart leaped and fluttered all at the same time. I was thrilled to hear his voice, thrilled he was doing okay. I got over it rather quickly when he declined to tell me where he was. "In a safe place" was what he said, "with Amy and the kids" was what I heard. My stomach churned and I felt my skin turning green. I am not proud of this reaction, and to be fair, it doesn't crop up except in certain circumstances, most of which involve Jerry Don Parker.
The fact was that eyewitnesses said Amy had picked him up from the hospital. I certainly didn't know where she'd taken him, but I suspected she'd high-tailed it back down to Dallas. At least that's what I would have done. Park him at her mother's where he'd be safe and where she could take care of him. I wanted to throw up.
"Something wrong, honey?" Lucille said sincerely, tapping her nails on the glass table top.
I tried to look like everything was just peachy, but I do not have a poker face. I've also always been a lousy liar, so I didn't bother trying that route. "I think Jerry might be at Amy's mother's house in Dallas. I suspect his kids are there, too. One big happy family again, I guess."
Lucille thought on what I'd said for a few seconds then shook her head. "If Jerry Don did go with her, I'm just sure he had a good reason for it. You're just being silly again. You've got to quit thinking of yourself for a minute and think about what Jerry Don might be going through. You think he'd just run right off with his ex-wife after what she's done to him? And just what about that friend of hers? How does she fit into this? I sure haven't heard anybody saying they aren't seeing one another."
No, I hadn't either. And my mother was making some sense. The green monster had calmed down some, but it had left me neck-deep in self-pity and wanted to wallow in it. "Jerry sounded absolutely robust and cheerful in his message. Could be he's forgotten all about Amy's little dalliance. Forgive and forget for the kids' sake. Happens all the time. Probably for the best anyway. Get the family back together at all costs. I'm happy for him, really I am."
Lucille snorted and rolled her eyes. "Good Lord, Jolene. Why don't you just open a bag of chips and a Coke and have yourself a real good little pity party."
"Maybe I will," I said, knowing how I sounded and not caring. If I just allow myself to be pathetic, I get over it pretty quickly. I buck right up and become a generally decent human being. I propped my elbows on the table and my chin in my hands and hoped that the metamorphosis hurried itself along.
"I'm just sure you're wrong about all this," Lucille said. "Now sit up straight and don't slump."
I automatically straightened before I caught myself doing what I was told. Just to show that I did what I wanted, I leaned back in the chair and crossed my arms. So there.
"He's not making a fool of you, Jolene. I know what it's like to be made a fool of, kind of feels like somebody jabbed an ice pick straight into your heart."
"Yeah, that about covers it," I muttered.
"Speaking of ice picks," Lucille said, her voice noticeably perking up. "Did you see that "Basic Instinct" movie?"
I scowled. "No more movie trivia, please."
"Oh, well, that's not the point anyway, is it?" She paused for a moment and pursed her lips. "But you know it kind of is. That Michael Douglas sure didn't know if he was being made a fool of or not, of course he could have been in the end, what with that ice pick under the bed and all. But he just kept right on acting like nothing was wrong. Only thing you can do. You have to hold your head up high and put on a good front even though you know good and well people are snickering behind your back. You just never let on how horrible you're feeling. And in your case, you shouldn't be feeling horrible at all."