Run With Me (28 page)

I can see the two guards off to
the side, their own weapons unholstered and aiming towards Colt. For
the first time I also catch glimpse of Rugger, standing behind
Carmine's car, a gun casually hanging in his grip.

There's a moment of pause as
Colt stands there, staring just over my head at Carmine. I can feel
his grip shiver slightly, as if contemplating whether to break my
neck and have Colt gunned down simultaneously. Then, slowly, his hand
slips from my throat and he releases my wrist.

“
Go,” he whispers to me.
“But remember our deal.”

I'm off and running as his last
syllable falls, covering the short distance to Colt, whose arms fall,
ready to meet me. They wrap around me as I reach them and I feel
suddenly safe. For the first time since he left me in the cabin, I
feel safe.

I'm still in his arms, my head
buried in his chest, when the sound of engines fills the air, then
tires rolling slowly over cracked twigs and leaves. I hear one slow
down as Carmine's voice comes from inside.

“
Remember our deal Mr Tanner,”
he says. “I don't expect to be seeing you any time soon.” The
engine growls again, tires roll, and gradually the sound of the
forest is all that reaches my ears.

I'm back in the woods. Back safe
with Colt. Back on the run.

Colt

Kitty doesn't loosen her grip on
me until Carmine's long gone. When she looks up into my eyes I see
that she's breaking down, tears quickly filling up and falling down
her cheeks.

“
I didn't think I'd ever see
you again,” she whispers. “I thought I was going to....” She
doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.

I hug her tighter and speak
softly. “Did they harm you? Are you injured?”

She shakes her head and presses
it back to my chest. I stroke her newly blonded hair and tell her
that everything's OK now, that she's safe, that we're both safe. Then
I lead her to the car and sit her down in the passenger seat. She's
shaking slightly as she sits there, her tears starting to dry.

“
What happened?” she asks.
“Why did he let me go?”

“
Because it's mutually
beneficial,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “If he'd have killed
you then he'd be risking his own life. I'd have never stopped hunting
him.”

She
smiles and squeezes my palm, tears filling her eyes once more. “Thank
you...I don't know what to say.”

“
You don't have to say
anything Kitty...”

She cuts me off with a kiss.
It's sudden, her body darting forward and her lips lunging towards
mine. I'm so wired that I almost back away, despite my desires. Then
I remember myself, and kiss her back.

She pulls back quickly and eyes
me sheepishly. “Sorry, I shouldn't have...”

Now it's my turn to cut her off.
I pull her in and kiss her deep, her lips wet and salty with tears.
When we part both her lips and eyes are smiling and the tears are
gone. “That's twice now you've kissed me as a thank you,” I say
with a wink.

Her reaction is priceless. Eyes
wide, semi state of shock mingled with embarrassment, head shaking
slightly. You'd think that with all she's been through a case of
being caught out stealing a kiss would be the least of her concerns.

“
You were awake!” she says,
her expression quickly turning accusatory.

I can't help but release a
hearty laugh. “I wanted to spare you the shame. If I'd have woken
up you'd probably have had a heart attack!”

“
I can't believe you knew,”
she says, still shaking her head in admonishment.

“
Well, it wasn't really the
time for all that,” I say, still chuckling a little. “We had a
job to do.”

The
words have an immediate impact on both of us.
A job to do
.
She knows there's still work to be done. Run, hide, change her
identity, just like before. This time, though, it's only the police
that we need to evade. But she doesn't know the rest. The final job I
need to fulfill. Teddy Klein, the man who ordered the arson attack on
my house, the attack that lead to the deaths of my family. That's the
final job I'll do before turning straight. The job that will give me
some closure before starting a new life.

Our expressions both grow more
glum, lose their life. The brief period of levity following
everything that's happened has been replaced with the realization
that it's not over yet.

“
So....what now?” Kitty
asks, voicing what we're both thinking.

“
We move. I know another guy
who can help set you up with a new life. I...I found Dale.” I
assume she already knows, but can't be sure until her eyes show
sorrow.

“
I'm so sorry about him,”
she says. “I don't know how Rugger found him.”

I shake my head and lightly
shrug my shoulders. It's something that I haven't been able to work
out either. It's possible he's listed somewhere in my file as an
associate of mine. I didn't scour it enough to find out.

“
That's OK. I guess it's a
hazard of the trade with guys like us. He was a good man though.”

She smiles and nods
reminiscently. “He was. He brought me some nicer food a couple of
days after you'd left. I thought maybe you asked him to?”

I shake my head.

“
So it was just him them. That
was sweet.”

We both sit in silence for a few
moments, sharing our grief over our dead friends and family. I know
that she must be thinking of her friend and aunt and uncle. She's
strong to still be going after everything she's been through.

When Kitty speaks again, it's as
if she's just remembered something. “So, are you not coming with
me?” she asks with an anguished frown over her eyes.

My answer is quick and
reassuring and brings an immediate smile to her face. “Of course,
we're in this together now. And we'll go somewhere warmer, how about
that? Somewhere with a beach and the sea.” I hope the image
conjures some joy in her. It always does with me. “There's
something I have to do first though. One more job, then we can
leave.”

Her face screws with worry.
“What?”

“
It's about my family,” I
say. “I know the man who killed them.”

Her face lights up in surprise.
“Really? How? Did you see the book?” She shakes her head at the
last words as if she's not making any sense. Which she isn't.

“
What book?”

“
No,
that can't be it,” she mumbles. “Because....” She reaches to
her back pocket and pulls out an old, folded piece of paper. “I
took this from this book in the cabin. It was a sort of confessions
book for people like me who were about to start a new life.” She
hands me the folded paper. “
Last Words
it was called.”

Suddenly it springs back into my
mind. The book that was on the table, the one with Kitty's drawing in
it. The one of her smiling, of her looking happy. The image I wanted
to replicate in real life.

“
I saw your drawing,” I say,
the folded paper still in my hand. “So, what's this?”

Now her excitement is gone and
she's turning sombre. “I'm not 100% sure it's about them,” she
says. “Just read it...”

I eye her curiously before
unfolding the page and reading the first line:

The Final Confession of
Robert Pullman

The name bursts like a firework
in my mind. It's the name given to me by Carmine only this morning.
The name of the man who burned down my house, who killed my family.

I begin reading down the page,
reading of a man whose life had been a mess. A criminal who'd lived
hand to mouth his whole life, struggling to make ends meet. It's the
sort of person I've encountered so often, often the sort of person I
track.

I read further as he describes
his guilt, his fear, his optimism over starting a new life. My hands
shake as I read the words. Words which confirm Carmine's story, that
confirm that the coward ran, changed his identity, and went on to
live a normal life. He speaks of it being an accident, of the fact
that he'll never forgive himself for what he did, but it brings me no
solace.

I feel Kitty's hand rest lightly
on my shaking arm as she whispers quietly. “How did you know
already?”

Her voice brings me back and I
glance up at her. “What?”

“
You said you already knew who
the man who killed your family was. How did you find out?”

“
Um, Carmine,” I say, now
staring again at the page. “He killed him.”

Kitty's voice registers serious
surprise again. “Robert Pullman? Carmine killed him?!”

I nod. “Although he wasn't
Pullman any more, he was Mark Lambert. It was the man you witnessed
him murder,” I say absentmindedly.

I've
had the revelation, but for Kitty it's fresh. I don't look at her but
I know by her silence that she's trying to piece it all together. She
starts to ask questions, but stops halfway each time, maybe coming to
a conclusion herself or seeing that I'm in no mood to speculate right
now.

She gives me time with the page,
time to decide whether I'm going to tear it to shreds or soak it with
tears. I do neither. I just read, over and over, until the words
jumble and lose their meaning. Until I grow numb from it all.

The words are faded at the
bottom of the page, so much so that the last few are almost
unintelligible. I run my finger over them, feeling the lightest bump
of the old dried ink. Then my finger drifts to the space below, so
faded it's blank, and I feel the same bumps, dotted along the length
of the page.

There's more.

I step, quickly, out of the car.
I see Kitty jump at the sudden movement and sound of the door
opening. “What's going on?” she calls after me, but I don't
answer.

I'm at the trunk and opening a
small compartment on the left hand side. I rummage briefly before
lifting out a pen, then shut the trunk and lie the page flat on top
of it. I press a small button on the pen and the end begins to glow,
shining a narrow beam of ultraviolet light onto the paper. I move it
over the bottom line beneath the last of the illegible writing, and
more words begin to glow.

I heard the woman had a
husband. I was told this by...

The words cut off again at the
end of the page. I flick it over and check the other side, but its
unrelated, another confession. Then I check the tear, which is on the
right hand side. He must have continued onto another page, still in
the book in the cabin.

I'm quickly back into the car
and looking into Kitty's concerned eyes. “What's going on?” she
asks again, still trying to catch up.

“
The confession,” I say. “It
continues onto the next page. Do you remember....was there space on
the next page before the next person's note?” My words are fast and
frantic.

She shakes her head as she tries
to recall. “I can't think. I don't know. A lot of the pages were
quite faded. Why, what's going on?”

At the third time of asking I
give her a response by handing her the page and UV light. “There's
more to it. He must have carried on writing onto the next page.”

“
Yeah,” says Kitty, “I
see. So...”

“
So I need to know what it
says.”

Kitty's eyes narrow slightly
like a parent about to dish out some advice to their child. “Maybe
you should...let it go.” she says.

I sit back. “Let it go! How
can I let this go!”

“
Because it's not helping you.
How are a few more words going to change anything?”

I shake my head because I don't
have an answer. “I just need to. I can't explain it.”

She nods and takes my hand. “OK.
I do understand,” she says quietly. “If it was about Tara or my
aunt and uncle, I'd want to read every word. But...that means going
back. Back to the cabin.”

I see in her eyes a hint of
unease at the thought of going back there. The place probably holds
bad memories for her. But there's another reason I'd want to go back
anyway.

“
I want to bury Dale,” I
say. “If he's still there.”

Kitty's expression turns from
anxious to sombre. “Why wouldn't he be there?”

“
The wolves, the bears. They
might have got to him. But whatever is left of him I want to send off
properly. He deserves that much at least.”

I can see Kitty reflecting on
his death, on the deaths of her loves ones. Their funerals have
probably already been held, and she didn't even get to say goodbye.
She turns away and I see her lift her index finger to her face to
brush away a tear. Then she speaks, her voice croaking slightly. “How
do you want to get there.”

“
We have to drive,” I say.
“You won't be able to get on a plane without being taken by the
police.”

Now she turns back to me.
“Maybe...you should go alone.”

My reaction is instantaneous.
“No,” I say, “I'm not leaving you alone again. Whatever deal's
been made, I don't trust Carmine. We stay together.”