Storm Gathering (21 page)

Donning his favorite workout clothes, a worn Dallas Cowboys tank top paired with his gray cotton sweats and Nikes, Aaron walked out the front door of his house and threw his gym bag into the back of his truck, which he never did.

It was all for show.

There wasn’t a car in sight, but he figured the police wanted him to think that they’d stopped watching. After Crawford’s threats, though, Aaron assumed they were somehow keeping a good eye on him. He didn’t doubt his house was bugged either. And Prescott could have easily put a locator device, which the cops called a “bird dog,” on the bottom of his truck the other day.

He had spent the entire morning thinking out the plan.

Driving against city traffic, Aaron checked his watch. It was six thirty Thursday evening. He hoped he had this timed right.

Aaron thought he’d seen a tail twice in his rearview mirror, but then the car would disappear into the traffic. He turned on the sports news, trying to drown out the paranoia that was definitely following him.

Ten minutes and a hundred glances back later, Aaron pulled into the crowded parking lot of Gold’s Gym. He got out, retrieved his gym bag with great deliberateness, and strolled toward the gym, as if he had nothing better to do.

Once inside, a spandex-clad woman, her blonde hair lusterless and sticky with hair spray, greeted him with a fixed smile.

“I’m interested in joining the gym, but I wanted to see if I could get a pass to try everything out, maybe for a day or two.”

She reached under the desk she was standing behind and came up with a red laminated ticket. “Sure. This will get you in three times, and then if you want to join, you’ll just need to fill out some paperwork.”

“Great.” Aaron smiled at her, but his delight was coming from the fact that his plan—so far—was working. He glanced out the front window of the gym, looking for Big Brother. Nothing caught his eye.

She smiled back. “I’m Trisha.”

“Aaron.”

“I’ll show you around.”

“Oh . . . that’s okay. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

“Sorry. Policy. We have to go over all the rules with you or we might get sued,” she recited.

Aaron followed her into the gym, where she pointed a perfectly manicured fingernail toward different equipment as she walked him to the locker room. But Aaron was hardly paying attention. He was scanning the gym rats for someone.

“Hello?”

Aaron looked at Trisha. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

Her hands were on her hips. “Gawking is allowed but not preferred,” she snapped, her attention on a beautiful woman near the StairMaster. Her gaze cut back to Aaron.

“I’m looking for someone I know,” Aaron explained.

Trisha didn’t look sold. “Anyway, do you have any questions?” she asked in a tone flat with skepticism.

Aaron shook his head.

“All right. You’re welcome to use any open locker to put your bag in. The next two times you come in, you need to have this ticket punched.”

“Thanks.”

As Trisha walked away, Aaron watched her eye the StairMaster woman, apparently hefty competition with her tighter spandex and silkier hair.

He looked around the gym, trying to form a strategy and hoping it would work. He prayed that Liz Lane’s new commitment to a healthier life would get her here.

But in the meantime, he might as well take out some of his frustration on the leg press.

Climbing the hill—which Mick thought of as the Hulk for its patchy green, bulging surface—turned out to be a difficult feat. His legs barely found balance, and as he clawed his way up, grasping at parched grass and unstable dirt, he thought he’d never make it all the way to the top.

The polluted air didn’t help. Behind the hill, the fire roared and hissed, and Mick was unsure what he would find once he reached the top. The heat could be felt even on this side of the hill.

The police were more than a hundred yards behind him. The helicopter that had been just a dot in the sky earlier was now lower and crossing the fields behind him like an advancing scorpion.

Insanity. What did he think he was going to do when he got to the top of this hill?

As he clambered upward, the sound of the fire, which he now guessed was either a large grass fire or a controlled burning of the field, swallowed up every other sound, hollering like a rushing wind.

When he finally reached the top, his hair was blown backward by the thermal wind and his face flushed from the heat. Angry orange flames greeted him below. It was a large fire, stretching at least twenty acres in length, spreading south with the slight wind. Groupings of trees crackled, the smoke intensely building upward, floating from one tree to another, while spreading fluidly across the ground.

But the fire was still in patches, and the black and smutty ground it had already claimed fumed with ghostly smoke trails.

Mick was suddenly glad he was wet. He glanced behind him. The helicopter was gaining, and a cruiser was less than twenty yards away on the gravel road below. Studying the fire, he wondered if he could race around the flames. Hide beneath the dark gray smoke. And not kill himself.

It was his only option now. From the top of the hill, he could see the end of the train rolling away. With a hefty shove, he slid down the grassy hill toward the fire. As he tumbled downward, the heat intensified and he found it even harder to breathe.

Surrender, you fool.

There was no indication of what was ahead. He could see nothing beyond the thick veil of smoke. It was an odd feeling, seeing light from the fire but running completely blind in the dark.

He wondered if hell was like this strange paradox.

Stopping near the bottom, Mick gulped down a breath and ran forward. The sound was like a curtain being whipped and snapped by a stiff breeze through an open window.

Mick dashed around the patches of flames, so far finding it fairly easy to maneuver. Much harder to breathe. His eyes stung, watering so badly he could barely see. Clutching the bottom of his wet and muddy T-shirt, he held it over his mouth, hoping to create a small amount of breathable air.

As he ran farther in, blackness swallowed him. His other hand tried to shield his eyes, but it was worthless. He stumbled forward, stepping over small hot spots, darting flames that shot overhead from one tree to the next.

Choking and gasping, he kept running, sweat pouring down his face. In front of him, a large wall of fire hissed, its flames slithering against the air that fed it.

No longer worried about being caught, Mick fell forward, splashing into the ashes, his face charred by their glowing embers. Crying out, he leaped to his feet, the skin on his hands stinging.

Go back
.

He turned, but disorientation swirled around him. Peering through his watering eyes, all he could see were spots of orange, flags of black smoke, snowy gray ashes floating listlessly through the air. The intensity of the fire created its own breeze, but it slapped his face like an angry hand, choking his throat and clawing at his eyes.

“God!” He’d walked straight into hell. He’d delivered himself here. As he turned in circles, fire surrounded him everywhere, and he saw no place where he could break through.

Mick gulped down the air thirstily, drinking in its dusty grit, swelling his lungs with poison. He would suffocate himself so he wouldn’t be burned alive.

Then he gasped. And gasped again. He couldn’t breathe. Falling to his knees, his senses raged with acuteness. The vinyl fabric of his duffel bag seared his arm. His feet were hot. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

He was not certain about his state of being, but he found himself standing again and sprinting toward the fire in front of him, as if two hands were gripping him under each arm and dragging his cautious feet toward his own death.

Right as he confronted the wall of flames, he jumped higher than he ever thought he could, trying to clear it like a hurdle.

Pain shot through his calves and knees. And then he felt cold, as though his body were being lowered into the icy earth, and the images around him contorted like a reflection in a warped mirror.

His eyes, wide-open, stared toward a skyless horizon. He felt weightless but not free. An invisible heaviness closed in around him, and his hands reached upward, trying to find something to hold, but there was nothing.

It had been forty-five minutes, and though Aaron had worked up a sweat, he had not found whom he was looking for. He leaned against a nearby wall, next to a poster of a man with rippling muscles. He dried his face with his white towel, scanning all those around him, looking for Liz Lane.

His mind wandered to Mick, his thoughts uttering desperate, wordless prayers energized by fear but filled with little hope. He couldn’t imagine where his brother might be. The next state over? Two miles away? It sickened him to have no control. For so long, he’d tried to control Mick, tried to push him in the right direction. Mick always pushed back.

Aaron broke from his thoughts when he saw Liz Lane toting a large workout bag over her shoulder, looking decidedly out of place while managing to hold her head high. She eyed a skinny brunette working two dumbbells, rolled her eyes, and journeyed forward with a heavy sigh. Aaron watched her drag into the women’s locker room, and a minute later return with a fluffy white towel around her neck and her frizzy blonde hair in a high ponytail. Scratching her face nervously, she looked like she didn’t know what to do next.

After several seconds of deliberation, she decided on the leg press, and Aaron trailed her from a distance until she got situated. She did a rigorous set. When she stopped to rest, Aaron approached her. Her attention was on a woman whose bones were protruding from her overly tanned skin.

“She could use a trip to KFC, eh?” Aaron said.

Liz looked at him, chuckled, and then recognition lit her eyes. “You’re the—”

“Yes. Aaron. How are you?”

Her expression turned disturbed. “You work out here?”

Aaron maintained a smile. “Just finished.” He wiped his forehead for effect.

“You’re the guy’s brother,” she said suddenly. “The cop.”

Aaron tried to play it as casually as he could. “I am. My brother is Mick.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” she said, “when you came to interview me.”

Aaron sat on the bench next to her. “My brother wasn’t a suspect then.”

“What do you want from me?”

“Liz, my brother didn’t do what they are accusing him of. But I think you may know who did.”

“Why would I know?”

“I think Taylor Franks told you more than you told me.”

“I don’t know anything about her disappearance.”

“I believe that. But I think Taylor may have indicated more about Sammy Earle than you said earlier. Maybe you were trying to protect your friend. She may have told you some things in confidence.”

Liz shook her head. “I told you all I know.”

“You mentioned she was on antidepressants. What was the reason for that?”

“You already know everything I know about her boyfriend. Yeah, the relationship hit her hard. Breakups hit a lot of people hard.” Her expression told him she wasn’t pleased with the questions. “This isn’t official police business?”