Girl, Forgotten (Andrea Oliver 2)

10

Andrea kept to the shadows as she followed the beat-up old Ford truck.

Nardo was behind the wheel. Star had pushed her body against the passenger’s side door, putting as much space as she could between her and Nardo. He didn’t seem to care. He drove slowly down the road, his arm hanging lazily out the window as he smoked a cigarette.

Andrea searched the dark expanse of road behind her, hoping to spot a government-issued black SUV that told her one of the six surveillance teams had followed the truck from the farm. But the teams were set up on the entrances and exits. They weren’t monitoring an old logging road that had probably been wiped off the map during the last century.

She turned back around. The truck was still moving. There were no payphones on the street. The motel was ten minutes away. This was what Compton had been afraid of, that men like Wexler and Nardo always had an escape plan. Andrea was not surprised to find Nardo making a run for it. He had moved on from Clay Morrow. He could move on from Dean Wexler.

Andrea bolted out in the open, taking a chance as she sprinted up the stairs to the police station. She yanked on the locked door. She looked inside the lobby. There were no lights on inside. She knocked on the glass.

Nothing.

“Shit,” she muttered, running down the stairs. The arrest warrant had to be in front of a judge by now. Any moment, Bernard Fontaine would go from being a person of interest to a fugitive. If Andrea lost sight of him, they might never find him again. He would never face justice. Melody Brickel might not ever see her daughter again.

There was a phone in the restaurant.

The diner was one hundred yards away. Andrea let all the catastrophes rain down in her head as she jogged toward the pink glow of the neon lights.

She had no back-up. Her waterlogged gun was on its way to Baltimore. Nardo had a history of carrying a concealed weapon. She knew by the shape that it was a micro gun, which narrowed it down to one of the most popular 9mms, the SIG Sauer P365. That meant ten in the magazine, one in the chamber. He also had Star in the vehicle with him. In seconds, she could turn from passenger to hostage.

Andrea darted into a doorway as the brake lights glowed. She watched Nardo pull into a space a few yards from the diner. The rumble of the Ford’s engine cut. The emergency brake raked up. Nardo flicked his cigarette onto the sidewalk. He got out of the truck and slammed the door. He stretched up his arms to the sky, bending his back in a stretch that pulled the white T-shirt out from his cargo pants.

Andrea held her breath, waiting.

Star sat in the truck. She didn’t move until Nardo gave her permission by way of a flick of his wrist. She pushed open the door. She turned her body. She slid off the seat. Her feet touched the ground. She trailed several feet behind Nardo as they both disappeared inside the diner.

Andrea did another quick inventory, not to catastrophize but to make herself aware of her physical state. Her fight or flight was going berserk. She was sweating. Her heartbeat was as tight as a cymbal. Adrenaline was making her dizzy. She was on the balls of her feet. Her muscles were tight. Her fists were clenched. She was holding her breath.

She opened her mouth. She sucked in air.

She exhaled, then inhaled, then out, then in again, until the dizziness passed.

Andrea silently listed the things she had not observed. The truck had not been speeding. Nardo had not been constantly turning, looking for tails. He had not continued down the road on his way out of town. Star was not driving while Nardo hid in the back of the truck. There was nothing frantic about either of their actions.

She felt jarred by a sudden realization. Nardo wasn’t making his escape. He was fucking with Ricky. Melody Brickel had told Andrea he was in the diner at least once a week. He always dragged Star along to serve as his audience.

Andrea pushed herself away from the building. She took one last look over her shoulder. The road was clear. There was no one coming. She kept her arms loose at her side as she walked down the sidewalk. Ten more paces and she was in front of the diner. She looked past the neon signs. There were only three people inside. They were arrayed in a lopsided triangle across the restaurant.

Nardo was at the sharpest point, taking up space in the semi-circular booth. Ricky was standing behind the counter near the cash register. Star was sitting on a stool at the far end. She was staring straight ahead at the tiled wall. Her hands were clasped in front of her, which made her angular shoulder blades stick out from her back like two shark fins.

Andrea had reached the entrance. She looked through the glass door. Her eyes found the security camera in the corner. The full bar behind the cash register. The long hallway that led past the bathroom, the kitchen, and exited onto the boardwalk and the Atlantic. Andrea reached for the door handle. Her fight or flight tried to overrule her. Her skin felt clammy. Sweat had pooled into the band of her pants. Her vision was so crisp that her eyes ached.

She reminded herself that they wouldn’t know any of these things. All that mattered was how Andrea looked when she walked into the diner.

She opened the door.

“Oh, shit,” Ricky said.

Andrea looked awful. She had survived a fire. She’d nearly broken her nose. She’d cut open her forehead. She’d split her lip. If she looked sweaty and shaky, there was a damn good reason for it.

Nardo bellowed, “Wut woah Ricky Jo, Porky Pig just showed up. Better not viowate your westraining order.”

Star said nothing. She didn’t even turn around.

“Ignore the asshole.” Ricky used the knife in her hand like a pointer, indicating a red line of tape on the floor. “Twenty-five feet.”

The restraining order. Nardo kept coming to the diner because he wanted Ricky to violate it. Ricky had marked the line so that she wouldn’t. The camera in the corner kept them both honest. Star was there because the game would mean nothing if no one could watch it.