“That’s strange, Robin. Don’t you think that’s strange?”
“I thought maybe he was reporting on it.”
“Still.”
“I saw him talking to Nicola Crane.”
“Your babysitter.”
“Yes.”
“Okay, listen. When she came to our house for your dad’s gathering, she told me she’d just had a very disturbing conversation with someone. A reporter. That he’d taken her out to interview her about the shootings and she couldn’t leave soon enough. She said he scared her, Robin.”
Robin exited the radio station’s website, the back of her neck tingling. “You think it was Garrison?”
“She didn’t say, but, I mean who else could it have been?”
“Do you think he went to my parents’ house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think he got into some kind of argument with them and lost control?”
“I’m just saying, he’s not exactly looking like an objective reporter.”
Robin’s phone buzzed—a text message. “Probably Eileen,” said Robin. “We need to figure out when I’m going back to work.”
She picked up the phone. Looked at the text.
I’m sorry for any pain I’ve caused you and your family. I am not a good person.
Robin felt weak, her head spinning, an uncomfortable feeling spreading through her.
Eric said, “Who texted you?” A question she would have found surprisingly invasive a week ago, four days ago. But not now.
“Quentin Garrison,” Robin said. Then she showed it to him.
“I think we should talk to the police,” he said.
Twenty-One
June 17, 1976
6:45P.M.
Dear Aurora Grace,
The police are onto us. I don’t know whether someone saw me shoplifting at Mervyn’s and put two and two together or if we got recognized from a composite sketch or what, but when we got back to the Drop Inn, there were three police cars in the parking lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as scared by the sight of anything, and you need to think about that, Aurora Grace. Think about what I’ve seen.
I’m changing. Faster than I ever imagined I could. Three days ago, I would have felt nothing but relief at the sight of the flashing lights. I would have opened the car door and run for those police cars with everything I had. But now I’m telling Gabriel to drive away faster, faster. My voice is hoarse from screaming. “Fast as you can,” I tell him. “Don’t look back.”
We are close to the freeway now. My heart is pounding so hard I feel like I may pass out from it, but I know Gabriel is more nervous than me. I can’t see his eyes behind the mirrored aviator sunglasses and baseball cap, but his skinis a deep red and there are sweat rings on the collar of his T-shirt and under the arms and he keeps saying “Oh shit,” over and over again.
I just told him we’ll be okay. I said it in a calm, steady voice. He asked me what I was writing in this notebook. I told him it’s lyrics to a song about the two of us and that I’ll show him later. He believes me. He asks me what the song is called. I tell him “Outlaws.” “I like that,” he says. It seems to calm him, and I need him to be calm. I wish I could drive.
Now we are on the freeway, the 134. I think we are safe, but Gabriel is still driving superfast just to make sure.
“We’ll have to buy new clothes and shit,” Gabriel says. It makes me think of everything we left behind. All the clues and evidence. Gabriel’s marked-up map. Papa Pete’s wallet, his driver’s license in the little plastic window, clear as day. That damn Starsky and Hutch mug. And buried deep at the bottom of my suitcase, between the pages ofOnce Is Not Enough, the knife I’d planned to kill Gabriel with.
