Nathan's Run

Chapter 8

Nathan awoke naked but warm under a downy comforter in the middle of a king-size bed. The sun shone through the open blinds at just the right angle to sting his eyes into wakefulness. The last time he looked at the digital clock next to him on the night-stand, it had read two forty-three. Now it was nine forty-eight. Annoyed that his rest had been cut short, he grumbled and rolled to his side, turning away from the invading rays of the sun and burying his head between two pillows.

Moments later, the room was filled with the sound of a disc jockey, blaring from the clock radio. Some chatter followed, which Nathan tried to ignore in an effort to recapture the peace of sleep. The content of the conversation drifted in and out of his consciousness, something to do with a health plan and taxes. Whatever it was, it sure sparked a lot of emotion, with people yelling at each other. Finally, enough was enough, and Nathan blindly slapped at the top of the radio until the noise stopped.

At peace once again, and in a quiet room, Nathan settled his head back between the pillows and waited for sleep to return. But it was too late. The spell had been broken. He was awake, and his mind was already beginning to fill with thoughts of what he needed to do to plan his escape.

Kind of hard when you don't even know where you're going.

Whatever he decided to do, he was going to have to think things through very carefully. The nervous, fluttery feeling returned to the pit of his stomach. The images of Ricky were lurking just behind a closed door in his mind. If he wasn't careful, he'd have to look at them again.

He pushed the thoughts away. There was plenty of time to plan, he told himself, and God knew there was plenty of time to worry. He'd get to all of that later. The clock read ten o'clock now; there had to be some good cartoons on cable. Last night-or really this morning, he supposed-as he wandered into the master bedroom in the dark, the first feature he noticed was the enormous big-screen TV in the corner opposite the enormous bed.

Nathan found the remote on the nightstand and thumbed the ON button. The huge screen jumped to life with startling speed.

The channel was set on a news station, with the volume turned all the way down. Nathan looked down at the remote to figure out how to make the proper adjustments, and when he looked up again, he was greeted with a table-sized picture of himself glaring sullenly out of the screen. It was the picture they took of him when he was first arrested. He mashed the UP arrow on the volume control and left it there until the voice-over was plainly audible.

_ _ _ at large. Police refuse to speculate on a motive behind the murder, but sources close to the Braddock County Prosecutor's Office advise that the age of the fugitive will have little effect on the manner in which the case is prosecuted?'

The screen cut to a videotape of an older man wearing a suit, standing in front of the JDC building. Nathan didn't like the man's eyes. They had the heartless look of all the creeps he'd had to deal with in the juvenile justice system. The electronic letters superimposed across the man's chest identified him as J. Daniel Petrelli, Commonwealth's Attorney.

"We cannot overstate the seriousness of this crime," Petrelli said, looking directly into the camera. "We believe that Nathan Bailey killed Mr. Harris, and we will pursue him and the charges against him with all the vigor appropriate to the offenses with which he is charged."

"What will happen to him if he's caught?" a voice asked from off-camera. "Will you return him to the Juvenile Detention Center?"

Petrelli didn't even pause to consider the options available to him before answering, "When he is caught, which we have every reason to believe will happen today, it is my intent at this time to prosecute the young man as an adult. If he can commit a grown-up crime, he can pay the grown-up price."

"Surely you're not suggesting the death penalty," the off-camera voice asked.

Petrelli chuckled coolly and raised his hands next to his face. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, let's get Mr. Bailey back behind bars. We'll worry about his ultimate disposition as we prepare for trial."

"The death penalty," Nathan gasped aloud. "Geez, that means the electric chair." He was completely mesmerized by what he was watching. He'd never heard his name on television before, and he'd certainly never seen his picture there. (He wished they could have found one that made him look less evil.) Filling out a morning of firsts, he had never been called a murderer before, either. "You've really shit in the punch bowl this time, buddy," he scolded himself, swiping a phrase often used by his father.

The screen cut back to the anchorman behind a desk. "John Ogilsvy has been tracking the police investigation for us since this story first broke. John, are the police even close to finding Nathan Bailey?"

"Well, Peter," John Ogilsvy said, "all morning long, the Braddock County Police have been long on details about the effort to locate the boy, but short on information about the results of their efforts." The picture changed again to show a tired-looking man in a redand-blue Izod shirt standing behind a bank of microphones. The electronic caption identified this man as Lt. Warren Michaels, Braddock County Police Department.

The only sound associated with the pictures continued to come from John Ogilsvy. "Detective Lieutenant Warren Michaels addressed reporters late last night and in the very early hours of this morning with what has to be very embarrassing news for the police. According to Michaels, there may have been as much as a two-hour delay in beginning the search for the escapee, and once that search finally got under way, a number of factors conspired to foul up the operation. These factors included everything from traffic delays to last night's torrential rainstorm, which rendered useless the bloodhounds normally used to track down fugitives.

"Before the book is finally closed on this case, somebody may have to answer some very tough questions on the handling of it. With elections just around the corner, it seems likely that J. Daniel Petrelli may be that person, and that the people asking the questions may be the electorate. Reporting live from the Brookfield Juvenile Detention Center, this is John Ogilsvy, Action News."

The anchorman shifted gears to Cuban refugees coming to Florida, so Nathan punched the MUTE button on the remote, rendering the newscaster voiceless. Nathan knew that the news report should have frightened him, and it did a little, but mostly he felt proud. He'd been gone over twelve hours now, and they still didn't know where he was.

That meant he had some time to think.

Cartoons were suddenly unimportant in the extreme. He still had to find clothes and food and a way to stay ahead of the cops. For the first time, Nathan began to believe that he might actually outwit them. The problem with grown-ups was that they always thought like grown-ups. It was funny, really. Kids had never been grown up, yet they knew exactly what older people were thinking, while adults had spent years being kids, but they could never figure out how to think like kids. Nathan had heard countless adults complaining over the years how they didn't understand what was going on in their own kids' heads. It was simple. They were trying to piss off their parents.

Nathan wondered if, normally, any kids lived in this house; specifically, a kid his size. Thoughts of prosecutions and death penalties were foreign to him, and easily pushed aside. But the prospect of being captured naked was too awful to even think about.

The upstairs hallway was arranged in a sweeping semicircle that spanned out to Nathan's left. The bedroom doors, all constructed of heavy lumber and stained mahogany, were closed. The center area leading to the bedrooms was big enough to be the site of a good-sized party. To Nathan's right was a curved stairwell, dominated by a four-tiered gold chandelier with a million glass ornaments dangling from every surface. He'd seen a similar fixture in the lobby of a hotel once, but never in a house.

The carpet in the hallway was every bit as lush as it was in the master bedroom, and it showed very little sign of wear. These people must never wear shoes. As Nathan stepped out into the hall, he felt suddenly self-conscious and covered his privates with his hand. Wouldn't this make an interesting picture for TV?

The first door to the left of the master suite opened into a little girl's room, adorned in pink and lined with shelf after shelf of Barbie paraphernalia.

Okay, he conceded silently, there was at least one thing worse than being captured naked, and that would be getting captured in girl's clothes. He pressed on.

Nathan found what he was looking for behind the third door. The interior was smaller than the first two, denoting the occupant's rank within the family. Decorations on the wall included posters of Michael Jordan-back where he belonged, in a Bulls uniform; the Navy Blue Angels flying in tight formation and spewing red, white and blue smoke; and two versions of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: cartoon and real. Before he went to live with Uncle Mark, Nathan had had the cartoon poster on the wall of his own bedroom. Sad memories again tried to sneak into his mind as he stood there, but he shoved them out of the way. He laughed aloud at the stuffed Garfield that was hung by a perfectly tied noose from the cord to the venetian blinds.

Relieved that the regular occupant of the room was clearly a boy about his age, Nathan rummaged through the heavy pine dresser, selecting underwear, socks, a Chicago Bulls T-shirt and a pair of denim shorts. Everything was two sizes too big, but they all fit better than the monkey suit from the JDC, and they would certainly cover what needed to be covered. The only real problem was the shorts, which were size Nathan-and-a-half. "This kid needs to go on a diet," he mumbled.

"Let's see if Tubbo owns a belt," Nathan said. The first belt was still too loose, even on the tightest setting. Little Nathan No-bottom. My razor-butted son. Finally, in the very back of the top drawer, he found a green Boy Scout belt that was infinitely adjustable. By cinching the waistband tight, the pants felt like they almost fit, even though the material scalloped up in several places. Keep the shirttail out, and no one would notice.

For shoes, Nathan went to the closet, a huge walk-in with cubby holes built in all along one wall. They were stacked full of shirts, pants, sweaters, linens. And shoes; all manner and sizes of shoes. Bedroom slippers, soccer shoes, baseball shoes, dress shoes and tennis shoes. Nathan concentrated on the tennis shoe collection. Judging from the number and condition, this kid must have kept every pair he ever owned. The newer ones were clearly too big for Nathan.

Tubbo has fat feet, too.

Before long, Nathan had his hands on a pair of ancient Reeboks that were the right size, but looked like they had been hiked from coast to coast. The laces on one shoe had been broken and retied, the tread was almost gone, and the leather was severely scuffed. But by God, they looked comfortable, and that was his primary concern.

When he was completely dressed, Nathan returned to the master bedroom and ventured a look in the full-length bathroom mirror. A little scrawny and pale, maybe, but the boy he knew to be himself had returned. No blood this time. His hair was blond again, with a wispy, freshly shampooed look that needed some assistance from a comb. The bruise on his eye had gone down considerably, and was already beginning to turn shades of orange-yellow around the edges. All in all, he approved of what he saw.

Nathan could feel his confidence growing, born of a hope for himself and his future that he hadn't felt in nearly a year; not since Uncle Mark had him thrown in jail.

There he went thinking about that stuff again! He had to stop doing that. Dark thoughts and painful memories only made him feel frightened and confused, neither of which could he afford.

There was a spring in his step as he reentered the master suite. It lasted just long enough for him to realize that the clock radio had cycled back on, blaring a new talk show. It took Nathan five seconds to realize that the people on the radio were talking about him, which was pretty cool at first. Then he heard what they were saying.