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He ran through the sprinklers again to the neighboring house. Finally, a house with no fence, only a hedge. He plunged through it. The thorny holly plants clawed at his bare legs, tearing skin, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He ran between that house and the one behind it, which put him on the street where he’d left the borrowed car.
He paused in the darkness between two houses, his lungs a bellows, his heart a jackhammer. He could hear shouting, tires squealing, car doors slamming. Hunnicutt’s car was three houses from where he stood. Nothing here was moving. Yet. He couldn’t delay. The search for him would soon spread to this street. He had to risk exposure.
He stepped from between the two houses, primed to sprint.
A police car, lit up like a Christmas tree, took the nearest corner on two wheels.
Griff ducked back into the shadows. Cursed Turner. Cursed his luck. Cursed his whole frigging life.
Then he ran.
Later, he would wonder how in hell he had got out of there. His escape almost made him a believer in divine intervention. Maybe for once in his life, God had suited up to play on his team.
He zigzagged through the neighborhood, moving from one patch of darkness to another. The chopper did appear with its searchlight, which was more powerful than the beam of any lighthouse. For hours he dodged it and the squad cars that either sped or crawled through the streets. Policemen on foot searched, practically going door to door.
He took a few minutes’ refuge in an open garage, where he found a rag to blot the streams of blood off his legs. Sweat made the wounds sting mercilessly. Once, when he got trapped between the approaching chopper’s searchlight and a policeman on foot, he slid into the deep end of a swimming pool. Luckily there was no underwater light, and the pool was one of the pretentious ones, designed to replicate a tropical lagoon formed by lava rock, so it was dark.
He held his breath until he thought his lungs would burst, but because of all the swimming he’d done recently, he was better conditioned than he would have been normally. Looking up through the surface, he could see the chopper’s light sweeping the area. The policeman came so close, Griff could hear him muttering to himself.
Finally both the officer and the helicopter moved on. Griff’s head cleared the surface, and he gulped oxygen. He climbed out of the pool, pruney but revived. His legs weren’t stinging anymore. He didn’t even attempt to return to the car. Cops would have been all over it once they ran the tag number through the DMV and discovered it didn’t belong to anyone living on that street.
He still had his cell phone. Thank God he’d taken it with him. He thought about dialing Glen Hunnicutt, asking him to meet somewhere and pick him up. But he didn’t want to involve the man any more than he already had.
He had no one else to call. No one he could trust. No one who trusted him.
He felt safer when he was out of Wyatt Turner’s neighborhood, but only a bit, because he still had a long way to go to reach the motel. Cops all over the city would now be on the lookout for a man of his description on foot. There would be a lot of harassed joggers in Dallas that morning. Those who ran before daylight were sure to be stopped and scrutinized.
When he walked beneath the freeway overpass and saw the neon vacancy light flickering in the motel office window, he wanted to weep with relief. It wasn’t much, but it was the only hiding place he had. Dawn was just breaking.
He needed to lie down. Close his eyes. Breathe easily. Rest.
But as he neared the parking lot, he noticed that the dope-smoking night clerk was no longer on duty. His replacement was dressed casually, but he looked too clean-cut to work in a place like this.
Griff ducked behind the used-tire store’s portable marquee. From that tenuous hiding place, he watched the guy come out from behind the check-in desk. He left the office and started down the breezeway. He was carrying a foam cup. Steam was rising from it. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee made Griff’s mouth water. But his heart began to feel very heavy when he saw the guy stop at room number seven and knock three times on the door.
It was opened by a man who was as clean-cut as the one manning the office. He took the coffee from his buddy and savored his first sip with a long “Ahhh.” They had a brief exchange, then the office guy left the other inside the room and walked back to the office.
Griff crouched behind the sign advertising the special on retreads and bent his head over his knees.
How the hell had they found him? Was Rodarte fucking clairvoyant?
He remained hunkered down behind the sign for a while, until his overtaxed leg muscles began to cramp, his knees to grow stiff, and the eastern horizon to become limned with orange.
Knowing he had to relocate, he reached into his sock for the bills he’d tucked there before going to Turner’s. The currency was wet from his time in the pool, but it was spendable. He’d hid his cell phone beneath the diving board of the swimming pool, out of sight, before he’d slipped into the water, then retrieved it when he got out. The battery still had juice.
That paltry amount of cash and the phone were the only resources left to him. He didn’t even have a dry change of clothes. But he couldn’t stay here. He had to move. He forced his aching legs to unfold and began walking, being careful to keep something between himself and the office of the motel.
As he walked, he flipped open his phone and placed one short call.
Glen Hunnicutt was in his office, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze with a customer, when the dealership’s receptionist tapped on his open office door. “Excuse the interruption, Mr. Hunnicutt. There’s someone here to see you. A detective with the police department. He says it’s important.”
“Come in.” Hunnicutt rolled his hand, motioning the man into his office.
“Stanley Rodarte, DPD.” He extended Hunnicutt his card.
“Have a seat, Detective,” Hunnicutt said expansively, pointing him toward a chair. “You want some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
