A Stranger Lies There Read Online Free

Including you.” He looked at me, frowned. “And it didn’t take much coaxing to get you to step on the gas back there.”
    He was right about that, and I felt like a coward and a traitor for leaving my friends behind. Please God, I thought, let them be alive.
    Alone with those dark thoughts, sick with worry and regret, I didn’t notice that Turret had pulled off the freeway into a deserted rest area. When he stopped in front of the restrooms I came back to myself.
    â€œWhat the hell are we doing?” I asked, confused.
    Turret didn’t respond. Just leaned over the seat and reached for something in back, pushing the bag of money aside impatiently. He stopped suddenly in surprise and our eyes met, and that’s when I realized that he’d been going for the gun. The gun that we’d left in the other car in all the confusion.
    I was a split second faster than he was and turned to throw open the door, getting one foot on the pavement before he grabbed me and tried to wrestle me back into the car. Cramped by the steering wheel in front of him, he couldn’t get a grip on me with both hands. I used my leverage against the doorjamb and the edge of the seat to tear myself away, scraping one side against the open door before landing on the other shoulder on the ground outside. I got up and took off the way we’d come, toward the highway to flag someone down. I looked back. Turret had started around the back of the car, then stopped and pounded his fist angrily on the trunk before scrambling back behind the wheel and screeching away in the opposite direction. When I reached the freeway he was already gone, blending in with the traffic down the road.
    I sprinted back to the restroom for the pay phone, frantically searching my pockets for change. Then I realized I didn’t need it for an emergency call and hit “0.”
    My breath was loud in the earpiece before the connection went through. A disinterested voice said, “Operator,” and a few seconds later I was talking to the police. I gave them a description of Turret and the car, as well as my own location and a rundown of the crime.
    It wasn’t until much later the following day, after I’d been arrested, that I found out exactly what had happened. By that time, the robbery was all over the news and a tape from the bank’s security cameras had been released. It showed a grainy, black and white view of the lobby and teller counter, but the carnage it depicted was all too clear. Everybody was on the floor. Rory was near the entrance guarding the door. Ellen stood in the opposite corner. Their guns covered the room. A second angle from a different camera showed Turret near the vault urging the attendant to fill the bag quickly. He brandished his weapon threateningly. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, Rory toppled to the floor. His gun went off, spraying the ceiling with automatic weapon-fire, the rounds bursting from the barrel in white flashes before he hit the floor. The guards came up firing, pointing toward Ellen, who seemed to be in shock. Somehow, they both missed her. Turret came rushing forward, gun blazing. One of the guards dove behind a desk and the other one got hit and folded to the floor, blood staining his shirtfront. On his way out Turret leveled his weapon at Ellen and blew her over the desk she’d been standing in front of.
    A few seconds later Turret disappeared out the front door. Rory tried to stand, shaking his head dazedly. The guard that dove for cover shot him twice in the chest. Rory didn’t move after that.
    I told the police that Rory had probably fainted as a result of his surfing mishap earlier that morning.

DESERT

CHAPTER ONE
    â€œHope you can drive fast.”
    The dream always ended with those words, reaching through the years in that half-state between sleeping and waking, when my defenses were down. I was used to it, though; had been for quite some time. It brought guilt