Free Time to Hide by John Gilstrap

know that he’d drifted off. He came awake groggy and confused. “What? Where?” He checked his watch. 3:04 A.M.
    â€œThe Ritz Carlton at Mason’s Corner.” Carter’s eyes cleared enough to see that Warren was wearing boxer shorts and a Nike T-shirt. “I just got the call from a patrol unit who got a hit off the picture we sent around.”
    â€œNicki is there?” Carter asked. It seemed almost too simple.
    â€œWe’re leaving in two minutes to find out.”
    * * *
    Brad needed a drink. And a cold shower. Jesus, what had he been thinking? He never should have moved so far so quickly. But after such a long stretch without being close to a woman, nature was a tough beast to tame. He thought about that as he re-dressed in his khakis and Polo shirt, being particularly careful as he zipped his trousers.
    He hated the look he saw in her face after he walked into the bathroom. At first, it was shock—he’d expected that—but then it looked like fear, and that was when he should have left her alone. He’d thought that she would get a kick out of seeing him parade naked in front of her. In their e-mails, she’d told him how she used to fantasize about that when she was watching him mow the lawn.
    A part of him wondered if it had been a mistake to tell her so much about his past. Maybe he should have made something up that wouldn’t have made him look like such a criminal.
    No, he decided, that would have been a mistake. There’d been too many lies in his life, told by too many people, and he had way too many sins on his soul as it was.
    When Brad saw that clerk in the gas station fall with a bullet through his head, he knew that he’d crossed a line from which there was no return. He understood that every good thing he’d ever done in his life had become meaningless. It had all been wiped out at a muzzle velocity of a thousand feet per second. As he watched the lights go out in that kid’s eyes, he realized that he really did care.
    And because of what he’d done, nobody would ever care back.
    Except for Nicki Janssen. She was the single exception. Back when he was in prison, lying on his bunk at night, listening to the sounds of men snoring and fighting and jerking off, he used to imagine what Nicki would look like as the years passed. In his mind, she’d become a cheerleader, or maybe even a model. So beautiful a girl had to grow up to be a beautiful woman. She had to.
    After his escape, when he had five states under his belt and he felt that the heat of the search had cooled a little, the first thing he set out to do was find Nicki. He never dreamed that the Internet would make it so simple. Once they started up their dialogue, he discovered the good deed that might balance the accounts for his soul.
    He’d find a way to make her final days livable, while doing the same for himself. There was one certainty that they faced together: that neither of them would likely see another Christmas—Nicki because her body would kill her, and Brad because he knew how pitiful the odds were of staying ahead of the law in the long run. When they caught him, he would die; he would see to that. He’d never allow himself to be taken back to jail.
    This knowledge of impending death was liberating in its own way. It took all the pressure off of living. With a future that you could measure in a thimble, and a past that didn’t matter anymore, he and Nicki were left with only the present, and the freedom that brought made his head swim.
    When he was dressed, Brad stopped at the minibar long enough to slip two miniature bottles of scotch into his pocket. That done, he opened and closed the door to the suite as quietly as he could, and slipped out into the hallway, checking to make sure that he’d remembered the plastic card key.
    What were the chances that the bar might still be open at this hour? At three-thirty in the morning, not likely. Still,