Free Assume Nothing by Gar Anthony Haywood Page A

equivalent of hoping and praying for the best. Clarke never hoped or prayed for anything; what he wanted to happen, he took action to make happen. But maybe in Reddick’s case, he hadn’t taken action enough. That was his growing suspicion.
    Reddick’s behavior at the house – all the screaming and thrashing about – had been troubling. It had been above and beyond what Clarke would have expected to see from a man who was simply afraid for his wife and child. There had been an electric quality to it that brought to Clarke’s mind the clinically insane, and if that was the case – if Reddick was in one way or another deranged – how he would react to Clarke’s invasion of his home once his hands were untied and the gag removed from his mouth was anybody’s guess. A sane man could be counted on to do what was reasonable, but a crazed one was unpredictable.
    Adding further to Clarke’s sense of unease was the fact that, from the beginning, Reddick hadn’t looked like the kind of man who would scare easy. Appearances could often be deceiving, but the man Clarke had followed around for most of the day Friday, before he’d been reduced to a trussed-up crybaby curled up in the fetal position on his wife’s living room floor, had resembled nothing as much as a cop or a Marine, somebody who was far more comfortable going through things than around them. He wasn’t a cop, because Clarke never once saw him flash a badge, and if he was US military, he was no longer active. But he had spent over an hour on Friday inside the City Hall East building downtown, where Clarke knew a number of law enforcement agencies had offices, so his being associated with the law in one capacity or another could not be entirely ruled out.
    Were do-overs possible, Clarke would have gone back in time to the moment Reddick walked into his wife’s home and the trap Clarke had set for him there and whacked them both. He hadn’t thought such an extreme measure was necessary then, but he could see now how killing them would have left much less to chance. What he’d done instead was done, however, and Clarke couldn’t change it. All he could do was prepare for the worst in case Reddick chose not to play ball and went to the authorities. First, he had to tell Baumhower what he’d done so the fool didn’t get caught by surprise if the cops came calling. Andy would surely spill his guts otherwise.
    After that, Clarke would spend a few hours throughout the weekend checking in on Reddick and his family, looking for any sign that Reddick had tragically mistaken his threat to kill them all for a bluff.
    Clarke’s suspicions about Reddick were well-founded, but he would prove to be too late getting around to having them. While Clarke was deciding to keep an eye on him and his wife over the next two days, Reddick was already taking steps to make such surveillance impossible.
    He had started by driving Dana and Jake all the way down to Irvine late Friday night, hopping off and on the freeway throughout just to make sure they weren’t being followed, and finding a motel room there for the three of them. Once they were checked in, he remained awake while his wife and son slept, then dozed for a couple hours himself as soon as Dana awoke Saturday morning. She didn’t want to touch the SIG Sauer P220 handgun he’d stopped at his apartment the night before to pick up, along with several other things, but he’d forced the weapon into her hand and shown her how to operate it anyway, determined to leave nothing to chance.
    The minute Jake awoke, they all showered and dressed and found a quiet place near the motel to have breakfast.
    ‘What now?’ Dana asked immediately after they’d placed their orders. Sitting between them, Jake was in his own little world, listening to his mother’s iPod while working the games on a children’s menu, so speaking freely wasn’t a problem.
    ‘Nothing. You two sit tight here until I come back for you.’
    ‘Here? Why