Even Steven Read Online Free

his belly. "Oh, my God, Sue, I killed a cop."
    Terror bloomed in Bobby's chest. Cop killers went to jail, pure and simple; that much he knew just from watching television. Provided, of course, they lived long enough to make it there.
    Susan took a quick three steps forward, then stopped. "But so what?" She tried to sound light and confident, but the brittle edges of Panic showed through anyway. "So what if he was a cop? I mean, he's just another man, right? Self-defence is self-defence."
    Oh, Christ, but was it really self-defense? This cop came into their campsite looking for a child to whom the Martins had zero rights, and when Bobby showed resistance, the cop drew his gun. Whose self was being defended?
    No, don't think that way. He was going to shoot. I saw it in his eyes. He was going to shoot.
    But he didn't shoot, did he? At least not until Bobby lunged at his gun and started to fight with him. What the hell else was he supposed to do? All the cop knew was that some stranger had his kid, and when he moved to get him back, Bobby refused. He was a cop for God's sake.
    "Bobby? Bobby, what's wrong? It was self-defense, wasn't it?"
    All at once, it crystallized for him. They had to get out of there. Right now. They had to disappear, make it look as if they'd never even been there. Stuffing the wallet back into the man's pocket, Bobby stood and whirled to face his wife.
    "We've got to go. Take everything. And I mean everything. I don't want to leave so much as a trace."
    "You're scaring me, Bobby," Susan whined. "Tell me what's happening."
    He didn't have time for this. Neither of them did. "Think about it, Sue. I killed a cop."
    "In self-defense." She said the words as if she were speaking to a dense child. Then she saw the look in his face, and her shoulders sagged. "It was."
    He didn't know where to begin. Everything had happened so fast. Everything was just flashes and impressions. "I don't know for sure,' he said at last, and he saw his wife's eyes widen with terror. "I mean I was sure at the time, but I don't know now. I mean, if I thought he was a cop, maybe I would have done things differently. If he'd identified himself as a cop -"
    "But that's just it," Susan said quickly. "He didn't identify himself. I was here. I heard that. And by not identifying himself, you had every right -"
    "What about the other cops, Sue? The ones who investigate all of this? They're going to see a dead cop, and they're going to hear about a child we don't know from Adam, and a story about an attack that's mak-ing less and less sense even to me. What are they going to think?"
    "So, what do we do, then?"
    "We get the hell out of here."
    "You're at least going to call, right?"
    "I don't know. I don't know anything right now. And to top it all off, we've got him." Bobby gestured to the sleeping boy, who'd finally found his thumb. "Not to mention good old Samuel, whoever the hell he is." Bobby stepped over the body and started policing the area. "For all I know, this is the worst thing we could do, but it's the only thing that sounds right, okay?"
    No, it wasn't okay, and her face showed it. But she didn't have a better idea.
    "Now, put the kid down someplace and let him sleep. I need help here."
    He moved at a frantic pace, darting from one corner of the campsite to the next, playing his L.L. Bean miner's light all around, hoping to find any trace of themselves that they might have left behind. He got the food and the trash, and he remembered to pick up the pot he'd slung at the intruder.
    While the little boy slept at the base of a tree, Susan shoved their belongings into their backpacks. Bobby's sense of urgency had infected her, and she found that her hands couldn't move fast enough. Every second, she felt that they were on the verge of getting caught. She still wasn't sure what that would mean exactly, but she'd never seen Bobby so distraught.
    She made it a point not to look toward the body. Anything left over there was left forever, as