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Deadline(98)

By:John Sandford


            Kerns said, “I tried, but the problem is, I didn’t. And if he doesn’t know who I am tonight, he will in a week.”

            He told them about following Flowers up into the school attic, to some kind of hideout. “I don’t know what’s up there, but there’s a room, and there are lights. I think Bacon built himself some kind of hidey-hole, or maybe even a whole private room up there, because Flowers went straight up there. We got in a gunfight. I couldn’t get at him, he was barricaded in, he’d called nine-one-one so I had to run for it. He never saw me, but . . .”

            He rolled up the sleeve of his long-sleeved shirt and showed a large bandage. “He shot through the walls and I got hit by a big splinter. The thing is, I was bleeding pretty hard, and I think I probably left some blood behind. If I did . . . they’ll get the DNA, and I’m cooked.”

            Vike had stumbled back into his chair, where he said, “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus, Oh, Jesus . . .”

            Jennifer Barns recovered first: “What do you want from us?”

            Kerns said, “It takes time to do DNA—a few days, anyway. I’ve got cash stuck away in a safe-deposit box in the Cities, and I can get to that. I’ve got a few thousand in my truck. You all know I used most of the money to buy a place up on Lake of the Woods. I can make it across the border, all right, I’ve got a new name up there. But I gotta leave everything behind, even my truck. So what I want from you all is money. I know you all got cash, we talked about it. What I want is, I want fifty grand from every one of you. One of you can get it all together, next month, and I’ll meet you someplace up north and come get it.”

            Gedney asked, “You’re gonna leave tonight?”

            “I got to,” Kerns said. He rolled his sleeve down, fumbling with the cuff button. “I’m afraid they’re all looking for me right now. I can sneak up to the Cities, I think, back roads, get to the bank tomorrow morning, get the money, unless they already got me on TV. I’m going to have to leave the truck there, and go north in a fuckin’ bus. My problem is, they might have my blood, and they sure as hell know I’ve been cut up—and that would be enough to hold me until the DNA comes back. I gotta go. I gotta run.”

            They argued about the necessity for flight, and Kerns convinced them: no other way out. He had a Canadian ID and passport with a different name, he said, so crossing the border wouldn’t be a problem. “I can ditch myself up in Kenora, grow a beard, stay close to the cabin, and in a year or so, sell out and go far away. But I need the money. I need the cash, until I can establish myself up there.”

            Henry Hetfield said, “Leaves the rest of us in the lurch.”

            “That depends,” Kerns said. “We burned all the records. You can afford good attorneys—and you can blame the killings all on me. I’m done anyway, if they’ve got that blood. And they will find Bacon’s body, sooner or later—if not right away, when he starts to . . . smell.”

            Jennifer Houser: “I can’t believe this. I can’t.”

            Kerns: “Where’d you put your money?”

            She shook her head: “I’d never tell you that. But it’s safe. And I’ll chip in fifty thousand, that’s not a problem.”

            “If any of you run, they’ll know for sure you’re guilty,” Kerns said.

            Another argument flared: Jennifer Houser and Kerns and they thought Del Cray, the finance officer, who wasn’t there, might be able to run. The others, for one reason or another, were anchored by their money. Couldn’t run with it, if it was all in stocks and bonds or real estate, but couldn’t run without it, either.

            “All they’ve got now is Randy,” Houser said. “The fire took out most of the other evidence. And Randy did most of the talking to outsiders, like that bus driver. We can still blame this all on him . . . that he set up a ring. But if I were you, I’d start cashing in stocks and bonds. If Flowers gets any closer, we might have to run ourselves.”