Velva/Balfour, North Dakota
Pavlik followed the Winnebago east on Highway 52. Twenty minutes later the Winnebago pulled into the town of Velva. Pavlik drove past the town, then made a U-turn to head back.
He used Main Street and drove across train tracks into the town itself. He saw the Winnebago had turned west onto Third Avenue. He drove up to Fourth Avenue, then drove around the block until he saw the Winnebago parked alongside a white station wagon. Pavlik drove past and caught a brief glimpse of the black man behind the wheel. He drove into a driveway further up the block and slumped down low in his seat.
Half a block ahead he saw a big man carrying two suitcases across a front yard. The big man walked around the front of the station wagon and opened the front door before he turned toward the Winnebago.
Pavlik watched as the man talked to someone inside the camper. Then the blonde woman appeared out of the side door and Pavlik sat up straight. She was hiding a handgun. She stepped toward the big man and pulled the gun. The big man jumped from the first shot. Then there were three more shots and Pavlik ducked as the woman turned around. When he looked again, he saw the woman carrying the two suitcases inside the camper. It was pulling away when he sat up straight again.
* * * * * * *
The last time he had tried to flee the country and the witness protection program he had made the mistake of involving people he couldn’t control. The Russian gangster had ruined it for him by doing stupid shit at the last moment. Singleton/Stewart had become trapped in a bad situation when things became chaotic and a bullet took out his eye, half his cheek and had nearly killed him.
The fiasco back in New York had left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Now he was playing the game with a home-field advantage he never could have imagined ten years ago. Thanks to the United States Federal Government he had a new identity, four kilos of heroin, and four hundred thousand dollars in cash.
And this time he’d made his own game plan.
“What time you got?” Lynette asked.
Stewart glanced at the digital clock in the dashboard. “Two minutes to outa here,” he said. “It’s just over the hill there.”
Lynette leaned across the console and held Stewart’s right hand. He felt for her. Somehow he knew she could sense they wouldn’t be together, that he was using her to help him get away. It was another con, but in Lynette’s case he didn’t enjoy running it. He’d hoped taking the beauty queen out of her usual spotlight might make Lynette feel better. The only attention Lynette had received until he came along were the stares from strangers because of her scars.
It was Lynette’s feelings that had kept him from raping Miss North Dakota half an hour ago. Once he had torn the blouse off the beauty queen and exposed one of her breasts, Stewart saw the look on Lynette’s face and stopped.
“They probably fake,” he had said, but it was too late.
Lynette had pulled her sweatshirt up to examine her own breasts and Stewart had seen her frown.
Lynette had fallen in love with him. As much as he cared for her, this was about his survival and he couldn’t let his feelings interfere. Morris had once called him a fucking sociopath for the way he’d treated another blonde he’d once used before he killed her. At least this time, he thought, he wouldn’t have to kill Lynette. Not physically anyway.
“It’s okay,” he told her. “We close to Balfour now. You take this road to Jamestown. Give them both a dose each and catch that afternoon flight to Sioux Falls. We meet up tomorrow in Nebraska.”
“What about the money?” Lynette said.
“You sure there’s only twenty there?”
“Not even. Nineteen and change. He must’ve spent a few hundred.”
“You sure?”
“I counted it twice.”
“You take something for yourself. For the trip to Jamestown. Just in case.”
“How much?”
“A few hundred. Put the rest in my bag.”
“Will he be there, the colonel?” Lynette asked as she did what he’d asked. “I hate to leave you there and we don’t know.”
Stewart checked his side view mirror. He spotted a car off in the distance. “He’ll be here,” he said. “Man wants out of here just as bad as me.”
“I can drive you in, just in case.”
“No good. You keep going straight to Jamestown. Just in case anybody following. I can’t see it now, but there was a car pulled in a driveway back in Velva. They had to see what happened to Ahearn. Anyway, you get pulled over, remember what I said, you tell them it was a guy named Jimmy Singleton killed Ahearn. Jimmy Singleton.”
“I’m afraid for you,” Lynette said.
They creased the top of the hill and Stewart could see the abandoned farmhouse, the barn with the collapsed roof and several small shacks about a quarter mile off to the right. He rode the brake down the hill as he slowed enough to stop at a dirt road.
“There it is,” he said.
“I don’t see a helicopter,” Lynette said.
Stewart looked off beyond the barn and could see it flying low over a wheat field. He pointed to it. “There,” he said. “Now, come here and kiss me good-bye.”
He pulled her into his lap. They embraced. He kissed her long and hard on the mouth. She sobbed. He kissed her again before guiding her off his lap.
“Okay,” he said. “You be strong. I’ll be fine but you might run into something. This not over yet.”
He gathered his bags and opened the side door. Lynette ran into his arms and they hugged one more time. Then Stewart stepped out of the Winnebago and jogged along the dirt road leading to the farm.
* * * * * * *
It was the hardest moment of her life, watching Washington Stewart leave. She had come to love the man. He had protected her from the first moment they met. Now she wanted to protect him.
As she watched Stewart heading toward the barn, Lynette sensed they would never be together again. Until the final moment when he left she had hoped that he would change his mind and take her with him.
Or he could’ve gone with her. They could have driven to Jamestown together or taken the Winnebago to Canada to start over up there. She’d wanted a second chance at life and she’d wanted it with Washington Stewart.
It had been wishful thinking, she realized. The best time of her life had just ended. There was nothing to go back to. She had one chance for happiness again. If she could make it to Jamestown in time for the flight to Sioux Falls, then the connecting flight to Omaha, Nebraska, they might be together again. If it was where Stewart was actually heading. She couldn’t be sure.
She waited until a small car raced past the Winnebago. She watched Stewart once more as he neared the end of the dirt road. He stopped behind a small shack and turned to her. He set his bags down and waved at her to keep going. She sobbed one more time before she eased her foot off the brake.
She drove along the side of the road until she gained enough speed to veer onto the highway. She kept her foot on the gas as she tried to put distance between herself and the barn. She turned the radio on to hear if her murder of John Ahearn had made the news, remembered the helicopter and looked for it in her side view mirror. A bend in the road removed everything from her view and Lynette choked down another sob.
She was driving less than five minutes when she spotted the flashing lights up ahead. When she saw the ambulance, she thought it was okay and that she would just have to wait to pass the accident. It looked as though the patrol troopers on the scene were taking the drivers’ information.
Then she saw the car that had raced past her a few minutes earlier. A tall man was talking to one of the troopers. He was pointing directly at the Winnebago.
* * * * * * *
Pavlik was surprised to see the Winnebago stopped along the road when he first crested the hill. It was parked at the end of a dirt road that led to a farm off the highway. He maintained a steady speed as he passed, then checked his side and rearview mirrors until he spotted Singleton running toward the farmhouse.
He picked up speed to put distance between himself and the Winnebago. What he planned was to turn around as soon as the camper was out of his rearview mirror. Then he would double back to the barn and hope to hell that a state trooper would see him speeding and give chase.
Pavlik knew his luck was finally changing when he spotted the accident directly ahead. Two police cruisers and an ambulance were parked alongside the wreck. Pavlik drove off the highway and leaned on the horn as he pulled up behind the ambulance.