I WAS THREE HUNDRED MILES away when I heard Livermore’s voice coming from Jeannie’s house on the lake. Three hundred miles away when he hung up her phone.
Three hundred miles away from whatever he did next.
I went out the back door at a dead run, and as I did I heard the man coming up behind me. The man who’d been sitting in the car, watching the house, not that I even cared who he was or why he was suddenly right behind me.
“Stop!” he said. “FBI!”
I went over the back fence, waiting to feel the bullet ripping through my back. The shot never came, and I ran up the driveway, almost falling in the snow, catching myself as I got to my car. I started it, put it in gear, and took off, spraying snow behind me. The man appeared in my rearview mirror as I made the turn and gunned it back down Ontario Street, toward the expressway.
I heard a siren in the distance, then another coming from another direction. I caught the lights flashing just as I made the final turn, burying the accelerator as I merged onto I-270.
You’ll need a barricade to stop me. You’ll have to blow out my tires and then shoot me when I come out of the car.
I saw another police car racing up behind me as I got off the expressway and hit US 23. The car blew past as I made the connection. I let out a breath and kept going, knowing that this was the fastest road to Grand Rapids, but knowing at the same time that this was a secondary highway, with slower traffic, and that more snow was starting to fall.
God damn it, I said to myself. Why did I rent this little shitbox car, anyway? Even though I already knew the answer: because I never thought I’d drive it all the way across the country and then have to push through yet another three hundred miles to get to Jeannie.
I’d settle in at around eighty miles an hour, until I’d feel the tires starting to slip and I’d have to back off. Then after a few minutes I’d be back to full speed. I watched a hundred miles go on the odometer, racing through the empty fields of central Ohio. Then another hundred miles until I reached I-75 and took that through Toledo. The traffic got heavier as I hit the late-afternoon hours. People on their way home from work. But I picked my way through the cars, weaving from one lane into the other.
When I hit the Michigan state line, I knew I still had a long way to go. I had to stop myself from imagining what Livermore could be doing to Jeannie at that moment. Had to shut out every other thought from my mind but keeping the car on the road and getting to her as quickly as possible.
I came up behind two trucks driving side by side, leaned on my horn and flashed my lights until one truck finally pulled ahead of the other and I was clear. A few minutes later I cut between two cars with not enough room to spare, and I actually felt my driver’s-side door brushing up against the front corner of his bumper. The driver swerved and fought to keep control, and for one second I thought he was going to go right off the road, but then he got all four wheels under him again and I left him behind.
I picked up my phone and hit the redial button, hoping by some crazy chance that she’d answer. Or even Livermore. But it rang through. I threw the phone on the passenger’s seat and kept going.
The snow was falling harder. Nothing by Upper Peninsula standards, but enough to make everyone around me drive even slower. I was on I-96 now, heading northwest, passing through Lansing as the sun went down.
This will be the last day, I promised myself. Whatever happens, if you kill him or he kills you . . .
Then I saw the flashing lights behind me.
I’m not stopping.
It was a Michigan State Police car, one of the new blue Dodge Chargers. I would never be able to outrun it. The car stayed behind me for a half mile, finally pulling up next to me. I could see the red face of the trooper, and as he tried to wave me over I could see exactly how the rest of the scene would play out. I can usually talk my way out of just about anything—in the state of Michigan, at least. A Detroit cop who took three bullets on the job, I can drive ninety miles an hour anywhere in the UP, and even the troopers will let me get away with it. But I was a long way from the UP, and I was sure the FBI had put me out on the wire.
I knew that as soon as I pulled over, this trooper would come out of his car with his gun drawn. A felony stop, telling me to put my hands out the window. To open the door from the outside, stay facing away from him, move backward to the sound of his voice. Then get down on my knees with my hands interlaced on my head.
You’ll never talk your way out of this one, I thought. And you can’t outrun him.
But then, as I looked ahead, I saw the exit sign about a half mile down the road. Grand Rapids. The biggest city in western Michigan, which meant a lot of streets to get lost on, as soon as I was off the expressway.
I started to slow down, watching my rearview mirror as the trooper settled in behind me, his lights still flashing. There was maybe twenty feet between us.
You need to find some ice, I told myself. It’s your only chance.
I kept my car rolling. The trooper stayed behind me, and through his windshield I could see his face turning an even deeper shade of red. I tested my brakes, hit a little patch of ice and slid, tested them again. There was enough snow on the ground that it was hard to see just how much ice might be hidden beneath it. I hit my brakes one more time and felt the car start to go sideways. I turned into the skid, pure instinct after God knows how many winters on Upper Peninsula roads, until I finally felt the tires hitting solid ground.
That was when I hit the gas, pulling away from the trooper just as he hit the patch of ice I had left behind me. I could see his tires spinning as he used all of his car’s superior power at exactly the wrong time. He went completely sideways, and his front wheels were off the road. I kept pushing it as hard as I could, being careful not to go off the road myself. Fifty yards ahead of him now. Then a hundred.
I checked the rearview mirror and saw him backing out onto the highway and finally getting himself pointed in the right direction, but by then I had hit the exit ramp.
He had already closed half the distance when I hit the cross street and took the right, practically putting my car up on two wheels.
I have to keep this separation, I thought. Just enough to lose him for ten seconds.
I weaved my way through the traffic, watching him in my mirror, until I came to a curve in the road and he disappeared behind me. There was a gas station on the next corner, so I pulled in behind it, making sure I was out of the sight line. A few seconds later, I heard him blasting through the same intersection, heading north. I gave him a few more beats, summoning the patience from God-knows-where to make myself wait long enough. Then I went back out and headed west.
I kept my eye out for him, or anyone else in an official vehicle, as I made my way over to US 37. It was a smaller, secondary road that eventually went down to one lane in each direction. I was back to thinking about Jeannie, now that I had lost the trooper, and I drove with a new sense of purpose. Because I knew I was getting close.
I passed one car after another, cutting over into the other lane, driving toward the oncoming traffic, then cutting back. I had more close calls than I could count, until it was finally just a blur of speed and more honking horns. The plows hadn’t hit this road yet, and one icy spot nearly put me in the ditch. As I straightened the car out, I realized I had an even bigger problem:
I couldn’t remember where the house was.
It was a small lake, in the middle of absolutely nothing, like any of a thousand other lakes in this state. It was right after we were married, how many goddamned years ago, that one time we drove up to this place . . .
Up this road, to a town with a funny name. Then west. That was all I could remember. But I didn’t have time to stop and think about it. I just had to trust that I’d know the place when I came to it.
I drove through Sparta, Kent City, Casnovia . . . Little towns with stoplights that I blew through, barely slowing down enough to make sure I didn’t hit another car. Then Bailey, Ashland, Grant, Newaygo . . . It felt like I’d been driving forever.
It can’t be this far, I said to myself. You missed the goddamned town.
But then I saw the sign for White Cloud, Michigan, and it all came back to me. Driving down this road as a much younger man, with my new wife.
I slid through the stoplight and took the hard left onto the narrow county road. Over one river, past Alley Lake . . .
Robinson Lake was next. Just another half mile.
Jeannie’s lake.
As I drove down that last stretch of road, already seeing a single light coming from one of those houses on the edge of the lake, I could only wonder if I was too late.