Free The Devil's Bag Man by Adam Mansbach Page A

probably.”
    â€œFair enough. You want this iced coffee? Fresh from Dunkins. I haven’t touched it.”
    Boggs raised his eyebrows, nodded. Nichols handed it over and leaned back. The deputy’s smooth cheeks went concave as he drew on the straw.
    â€œOh, and Oklahoma put out an APB on that Knowles guy. Apparently, he escaped from the lockup in Ardmore a few days ago.”
    Nichols sat bolt upright. “What? How? And they’re just putting it out now?”
    Boggs turned red. “Um, no. Actually, I just kind of forgot to tell you. It came in right at the end of my shift, and then I had to—”
    â€œGoddamn it, Boggs.”
    â€œSorry, Sheriff. I—”
    Nichols took a deep breath, let it out through his nose. “Don’t be sorry. I obviously didn’t make clear to you how important this son of a bitch is to me. We’ve got . . . history.”
    Escaped . The word chimed in Nichols’s head, abrasive and off-key. This wasn’t the Wild West. Nobody escaped these days—not without a whole lot of help, or some very willing incompetence. Which came down to the same thing, really.
    Who the fuck would expend that kind of energy on a scumbag like Knowles? His club was tattered and scattered, those once-ubiquitous convoys of True Natives absent from the local landscape since the Night. Aaron Seth’s organization had shown no signs of rising from the ashes either; cut the head off the charismatic leader, and a cult usually folded.
    A man always stepped out of jail with a sense of purpose. And if he was a fugitive, the clock ticking down on his freedom, every day quite possibly his last?
    There were only a couple of things a man like that might have on his mind.
    Settling scores, or disappearing.
    Or both.
    Putting whoever he blamed in a world of hurt, and then making for the border.
    Whoever he blamed .
    That’d be Nichols, and everyone he loved.
    Before he knew it, he was brushing past the deputy and heading for the door, cell phone out in front of him like a compass, stone-faced and scrolling through the numbers.
    Boggs raised up, stepped into his wake.
    â€œBoss?”
    â€œI’ll be back.”
    â€œAnything I can—”
    â€œNo.”
    He jumped into his car, the seat back still warm from the journey over, the cell wedged between his ear and shoulder now, the home phone on its tenth ring.
    Where the fuck was Ruth?
    He hung up, tried her mobile. Twice. Nothing.
    Her office, even though she wasn’t scheduled to work today. Straight to voice mail, the answering service telling him that if he was having a medical emergency, he should hang up and dial 911.
    Nichols felt the sweat ooze through his pores. He gripped the wheel tighter.
    It made no sense to panic. The old Nichols—the Nichols of three months ago—would not have.
    The new one was downright prone to it.
    Calm down , he told himself. Knowles was on the loose for months before this, and he didn’t beat a path to your door . Hell, he’d busted out nearly a week ago, and it had been all quiet on the Western front.
    There’s no need to do eighty in a thirty-five, Nichols . She’s probably in the shower or something .
    He hung up, held the phone at arm’s length to search for another number, phone inches from the windshield, Nichols’s bifocals still lying on his desk. Get it together, you fucking dinosaur .
    Three rings.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œSherry! Are you okay? Is everything all right?”
    A desultory sigh. “Why is everybody asking me that today?”
    Nichols felt his throat constrict. “What do you mean?”
    â€œMy dad called. He sounded, like, freaked out. Is something going on?”
    Without meaning to, Nichols accelerated. “What did he say?”
    â€œHe had some dream or something.” A pause. “What’s happening, Nichols?”
    Should he say anything? Infect her with his own panic, or be the rock Sherry