Naked Justice

Chapter 68

CHRISTINA GLANCED UNHAPPILY AT her watch. “This isn’t like Ben.”

Jones shrugged his shoulders. “He’s probably exhausted. Wouldn’t you be?”

“But that doesn’t explain why he didn’t come back to the hotel room. He told me to meet him here.”

“Maybe he saw a bar on the way and decided he needed a couple of quick shots.”

Loving chuckled. “The Skipper? More likely he stopped at Quick Trip for a quart of chocolate milk.”

“Guys, this isn’t funny. I’m worried.” Christina paced around the hotel room. “He tells us to meet him in the hotel room, and then he doesn’t show up. It isn’t like him.”

“Give him a little more time,” Jones said, trying to relax her. “He’ll show. Don’t you think, Loving?”

Loving slowly moved his head to one side. “I dunno. It is strange. And Christina’s instincts are usually pretty darn good.” He pushed himself off the sofa. “You want I should go look around at the courthouse?”

Christina shook her head. “He wasn’t there when I left. Why would he be there now? No, he must’ve been waylaid somewhere after he left.” She paused for a moment, thinking about what she had said. Waylaid. The word echoed in her brain. “Oh, my God. You don’t think—”

“Think?” Jones jumped to his feet. “What? What are you thinking?”

“Sick heart,” she said succinctly.

Their eyes moved from one to another. “But how?”

“I don’t know,” Christina said. “And we won’t find out sitting here.” She grabbed the phone and punched nine for an outside line. “I’m calling Mike.”

The man holding the transmitter was still laughing.

“Surely you didn’t think we were done. Oh, no, Kincaid. We’re just beginning! After all, we have to get you in shape.”

Ben leaned heavily against the bridge. “What do you want now?”

“Same drill, but this time we’ll go back up the trail. I left another transmitter on the pavement.”

“Look,” Ben said breathlessly, “I’m totally winded. I don’t think I can do this again in five minutes.”

“Can’t do it in five? Very well. I’ll give you four minutes and thirty seconds.”

“That’s impossible!”

The man clicked the top of the stopwatch. “Go.”

“But—”

“Four minutes and twenty-five seconds. And counting.”

Ben shoved himself away from the bridge and started barreling down the jogging path. It was harder this time. Much harder. His side already hurt from the last desperate run, and the two kicks in the stomach hadn’t helped any. And he had to be faster this time. Much faster.

He was running against the wind now. It braced his face, chilling him, numbing him. Just as well. He had to ignore the pain. He had to focus on the goal. To break through the wall, as the runners said. To be faster than he had ever been before.

As he ran, he ticked through a mental checklist of everyone who would surely be in his boardinghouse right now. Mrs. Marmelstein. Mr. Perry, who he had still never met. Joni and Jami, their twin brothers, their parents. Giselle. And Joey.

Joey.

His teeth clenched tightly together. He had just made a small inroad, just broken through to the boy. It was finally looking as if they might be able to make a life together, that Ben might not be the miserable substitute parent he had thought he was. He was looking forward to seeing him at the end of each day. He was learning to love the kid, just as if he were his own son.

He wasn’t going to let this son of a bitch take him away now.

Ben forced his legs through the motions, willing them to move. They were aching, erring. His gait was slowing, and he knew it. He tried to make them go faster, but they weren’t responding. He clenched his fists and poured out everything he had. He had to make it. He had to!

He saw the transmitter up ahead of him. The bastard had stuck it on the back bumper of Ben’s rental car. Ben raced toward it, hands extended. Squeezing every last erg of energy out of his body, he threw himself forward and pushed the button.

He collapsed on the pavement, beneath the car bumper, panting for air. A few short moments later, the man with the stopwatch ran up behind him.

“Well, well,” he said, grinning. “What a performance.” He looked down at Ben, sprawled on the ground. “Get up.”

“I—I can’t—”

“I told you to get up!”

Ben’s voice was barely a whisper. “I can’t move,” he lied.

“What a wimp. Pathetic. And here I was about to compliment you. Your time was good.” He checked the stopwatch. “But, alas, not quite good enough. Four minutes and thirty-four seconds. A valiant effort. But not successful.” His eyes diverted to the transmitter. His thumb twitched. “So now I’m afraid I have no choice—”

Ben sprang forward, fist extended. Before the man could react, Ben knocked the transmitter out of his hand. It flew up into the air in a concentric arc, then plummeted downward and splashed into the water of the Arkansas River.

“You stupid little—”

Ben didn’t wait to hear what name he came up with. He sprinted into his rental car, shoved in the key, and started the engine.

“You can’t do this!”

Just watch me, Ben thought. He threw the car into reverse, aiming straight for the creep, who was fumbling to get his gun out of his coat pocket. He leaped out of the way, barely in time. Ben threw the car into drive and floored it.

Maybe a second later, Ben heard the first gunshot, but it went wild. In his rearview mirror, Ben saw the man run up to the other car in the parking lot, gun in hand. He dragged two men out of the front seat and started their car.

Damn! He was after him.

Ben pulled onto Riverside Drive, hoping to lose him in the darkness. It was no good. The man was too fast; he pulled onto the street bare seconds after Ben did. Worse, Ben soon saw that he was in some kind of souped-up sports car, while Ben was stuck in a Chrysler sedan. Nice car, but not one you’d pick for a high-speed chase.

He was gaining on him.

Ben tried to think what to do. Go to the police. For help? The problem was, this maniac was right behind him, and Ben knew if he stopped anywhere, much less stepped out of the car—

A bullet struck the back window. It shattered, flinging bits of safety glass in all directions. Ben clenched the wheel tightly, trying to maintain control. He couldn’t risk stopping anywhere. He couldn’t even slow down.

The light was with him, which was fortunate, because Ben knew if he had to stop at a light he was history. At the end of Riverside, he swerved onto Seventy-first Street and barreled past the neon lights of every fast-food chain known to man. He could see his friend pulling up right behind him, his headlights getting closer by the second. The glare practically blinded Ben; he looked away and concentrated on the road ahead.

What the hell was he going to do? He needed a plan. He couldn’t just keep driving; eventually that creep would catch up to him and one of his bullets would connect. But he couldn’t stop, either. And even if he were lucky enough to lose this nut, Ben knew what he would do. He’d head back to Ben’s boardinghouse and try to kill Joey or Joni or Mrs. Marmelstein. Or he’d get another transmitter, tune it to the right frequency, and detonate the explosives.

It wasn’t enough to just get away, even assuming that was possible, which at the moment, it wasn’t. He had to stop this man. Quickly.

Ben jerked the car to the right and hit Lewis doing almost eighty miles an hour. He cruised past Oral Roberts University. Maybe if he closed his eyes and said a prayer by the giant praying hands … or maybe not. The light in front of him turned yellow. Didn’t matter; he sailed through just as the light changed. He checked his rearview; Sick Heart was still behind him, but he’d had to apply his brakes and swerve a bit to avoid a collision in the intersection. Ben had gained a few feet and a few seconds.

Maybe even more. He saw his pursuer apply his brakes and hesitate momentarily before following. Ben had to think a minute. Why—

But of course. He wasn’t from Tulsa. He didn’t know his way around, at least not well. He might have the gun and the faster car, but he didn’t know where he was going.

That was the key.

Ben swerved onto Eighty-first Street and made a beeline for Yale. He had a plan now, but he had to bring it off before that clown put a bullet through one of his tires. Or his head. They were deep in south Tulsa now. Even if this maniac had been staying in Tulsa since his campaign of terror began, which Ben doubted, there was no reason why he would come down here.

Sailing through another yellow light, Ben turned onto Yale, and there it was before him.

Dead-Man’s Curve. Tulsa-style.

He surged downhill, into the darkness. He checked the rearview. Yes, of course—the crazy was still behind him. Ben screeched around the first sloping curve in the road, taking it on two wheels, barely slowing at all.

And as soon as he was around the curve and out of sight, he pulled off onto the side of the road and slammed his brakes down for all they were worth.

The instant his car was stopped, Ben turned off the lights and killed the engine. A millisecond later, the maniac came whizzing around the curve. Ben could see him grappling to maintain control of his car. He saw the next curve coming, and the next one after that, but he was going much too fast. He couldn’t possibly hang on. His car swerved wildly, first left, then right, then crossed the road and careened into a ditch, bounced out, plowed through a fence, and slammed into a tree trunk.

The sound of the crash was like the hammer of God.

Ben ran down the hill after him. The tree trunk had been driven halfway through the hood of the car. Smoke poured out; flames were beginning to lick at the engine. Debris was scattered all over the area. The car was totaled.

And the man crunched behind the steering wheel was not much better.

About half an hour later, Dead-Man’s Curve was a hubbub of activity. Four patrol cars and ten officers, including Mike, who had been searching for Ben since Christina called him, surrounded the accident site. An ambulance was pulling up, trying to get close. Spectators had gathered on the opposite side of the street. And predictably enough, a few reporters and minicams were pushing forward as well, trying to get a good shot for the late-night broadcast.

Ben watched as the rescue team used the jaws of life to pry the man out of the crumpled driver’s seat. Eventually they removed him, lowered him onto a stretcher, and loaded him into the ambulance.

Ben stepped cautiously toward the ambulance. “Is he dead?” he asked Mike.

“Unfortunately, no.” Mike pushed away from the wreckage, then wiped his hands on his trench coat. “He’s going to be pretty miserable for a while, but he’ll live.”

“He needs help,” Ben said.

“He needs to be put out of his misery,” Mike replied, teeth clenched. “This world is bad enough without homicidal creeps like him running around.”

“If things had only been different…” Ben said. He searched for the right words, words that didn’t seem stupid and futile. “He might have been perfectly normal.”

But then, he thought, so might we all.

“You’re kidding yourself,” Mike grunted back. “With someone this bad off, it’s in the genes. Nothing you can do about it. He’s just nuts. Psychopathic. Insane.”

Ben shook his head. “He wasn’t insane.” He picked up a bit of glass and metal he found lying in the grass—a shattered stopwatch. “He was just sick at heart.”