Chapter 1
This is a story about how entirely different kinds of people, from completely disparate backgrounds, can be brought together in a dance of sorts that will have profound effects on all of their lives.
Normally, when we think of "people," we tend to think of those we are friends with or see at work. Maybe they're in an organization we belong to or are part of our extended families. In any case, we usually think of them as being mostly like us.
We HEAR about other kinds of people-rich people, very poor people, victims of crime, lottery winners-the list goes on and on. But we don't KNOW any of those people, by and large or, if we do, we know lots of them. We tend to gather those around us who we are most like, even if we think of them as being like us.
But sometimes, the paths of very different kinds of people cross. Fate plays a role in that, perhaps. You could call it luck-either good or bad, depending on the circumstances. In any case, when that happens, things get shaken up. Lives get shaken up.
And things change-sometimes drastically.
The first person you must meet is Kris. And it's important that I tell you a lot about him, because you need to understand him, to understand the choices he made, which form the core of this story.
When the average person looked at Kris Farmingham, he ... or she, for that matter ... normally didn't look twice. Just like the average person, Kris was ... well ... average.
At forty-seven years of age, he stood five-ten and weighed around one-sixty. His light brown hair was thinning on top and, rather than try to do the comb-over, he just kept it closely cropped all over. It was easier, even if he didn't think it did much for his looks. His facial features were mixed. A smallish nose, with a straight bridge and rounded tip sat above full lips, though the bottom one looked larger than the top. When he smiled with those lips it was a tight smile, usually, as if he didn't want people to see his teeth. That tight smile created dimples in his cheeks which, along with his twinkling chocolate brown eyes, sometimes gave him the appearance of being mischievous. He could look like trouble, but generally didn't display that.
His tanned skin and, perhaps, the freckles on it (depending on what dermatologist you talked to) were the result of spending time in the Australian sun. That outdoorsy life was also responsible for the washboard stomach that most people didn't know he had. There wasn't an ounce of fat on him, with the possible exception of enough skin to grip at the waist, though he currently had no significant other in his life to grip it. He had a girlfriend, named Lola, but didn't consider her a "significant other" at this point. Living in Australia was also responsible for his accent, even though he hadn't been born there.
His hands and feet were average sized and his voice, while pleasantly deep, wasn't anything special either.
In short, he could blend into a crowd rather easily. This was to become important, though he'd never have thought blending in might be something to crave. As it turned out ... it was, but we'll get to that later.
While no one on the street would take a second look at him, people he passed on that street might very well know who he was if they heard one of the names he used. Kris was an author-a popular author at that.
Kris came to writing almost by accident. The son of a preacher man, he already had fire in his soul when a chance trip to a summer theater camp enabled him to express himself in ways he'd never been able to before. Eventually, his college education was put to use teaching music and theater. He traveled the world, for a variety of reasons, and became something of a proverbial renaissance man.
We are, say the philosophers, the sum of our existence-which is to say that what happens to us ... what we experience in life ... molds us into the people we become. That sounds like a lot of double talk to some, but the fact is that we don't necessarily turn out to be who we WANT to be. In youth, we have dreams of what life will be like later on. We often view the future as something we can manipulate, if care is taken to cause things to happen. But the fact is, largely, that our past has more effect on our future than our mind does.
Kris' past had had a lot to do with him becoming an author.
His parents divorced, which caused his older sister to seek solace in the arms of a brand of religion far more conservative than the one she was raised in. Apparently that religion was a good hugger, because she hugged it for all she was worth. Some people, including Kris, sometimes, thought of her as a loony religious fanatic.
His mother had a tendency to lie about her age and there were step-siblings, which can work for or against one. He grew up in two families, in California, which was as forgiving of parents who didn't know how to handle money, when they had some, as anyplace can be. He didn't want for much, on a physical plane, even though the family purse was usually empty. Emotionally, though, he was hungry. As a result, football became his center of emotional fulfillment. He memorized the stats of every player that ever held a pigskin in his hands and played the game avidly until an Achilles tendon injury sidelined him. That also killed his dream of being a sports star, which gave way to different dreams that were the result of his discovery of drugs. A good dose of common sense saved him from that.
He suffered the same kinds of slings and arrows most people suffer. His father died. His relatives were all odd, in one way or another. He was plain enough, and shy enough, that girls weren't all that interested in him. That is to say that while there was nothing wrong with him, most girls thought, perhaps unconsciously, that they could do better.
And so he dreamed. Dreams filled in the passion and excitement that real life wouldn't supply, and those dreams were what later became the muse that helped him create the books that people would come to love and buy in large enough numbers to support him while he wrote fulltime.
College, which he'd extended far beyond the average four years, taught him many things that had nothing to do with formal education in pursuit of a degree. He'd had to support himself and he'd knocked about, working at one time or another in a steel mill, a slaughterhouse, and as a hospital orderly. Every young boy's dream to run off and join the circus was realized, and went well until he was caught in bed with one of the female aerialists, which is an offense on the level of a stable boy fucking a princess.
One of the things he learned was that most people were normal, unlike his family members. Moving to Australia after college got him about as far away from his crazy family as it was possible to get.
There is nothing in the world like being in a strange, faraway place to make one want to tell one's story. And, it's fairly normal for one to write down the story, to arrange it in one's mind. Some discover that they're not all that good at that. Others, like Kris, find release in writing that is second only to sexual completion.
And so, once in Australia, Kris became a writer. Others recognized his talent for writing and, quite suddenly, he was a published author.
But New York City still reigns supreme in terms of the publishing world and when his first book took off like a rocket, he decided to move back to the States, where there was the kind of stimulation that might fuel more best sellers.
He hoped there might also be a woman in New York who might bring out the "father in hiding" he thought himself to be.
There was a woman, as it turned out, but she was much more avid about forming a long term relationship than he was. She had already asked for a key to his apartment and offered him one to hers.
The problem was that Kris had only zeroed in on her because of one of his personal kinks. Kris was an ass man. He didn't know why he was an ass man, but he was. And Lola had a luscious bubble butt that had made Kris' mouth water the first time he saw it-encased in a pair of skin tight toreador pants, with no panty line.
But, as it turned out, Lola's ass was about all there was about her that made his mouth water. She was OK as a female. She was neither smart nor stupid. She worked at an ad agency, but had no drive to rise higher than her current position. She had no hobbies and no work experience other than her current job. That she was twenty years younger than him didn't really bother him. She looked older than her twenty-five years and he looked younger than his forty-six.
But there was just something about Lola that made her seem vapid, once he'd spent a few months with her. When he thought of her in the role of a mother, he thought his children would be bored senseless during their formative years.
The real problem with Lola, however, was that the one dream she DID have was to be rich and famous. She made that quite clear when, after she asked "what he did" for the third of fourth time, he casually mentioned that he had written a few things that had been published. He'd made reference to obscure technical journals. She'd immediately waxed poetic about how someday he'd be a rich and famous, well-read author and that they'd live the high life then. When he wrote the books that she had in mind, and people found out how talented an author he was, she said, they'd be invited to all the best parties and treated as VIPs. At one moment, as she'd planned their fantasy popularity, she'd even sketched out a plan for personal security ... for both of them.
He knew that if she became aware that he had published three best sellers, it would only be natural for her to want to brag that she was sleeping with the author of those best sellers.
And the problem with THAT was that Kris had come to treasure the anonymity that writing books under a pseudonym gave him.
It may seem odd to you, the reader, that an author who, after all, puts his work out in the public eye for all to see, might not want the public to see HIM. But there are good reasons for an author to want to stay invisible on a personal level.
One of them is that readers, particularly readers of fiction, have a natural tendency toward amateur psychoanalysis. And they always have questions. Why did you write that book? What does it all mean-between the lines? Where did the inspiration for that character come from? Is this book autobiographical? What was your childhood like? Do you REALLY have a sister who is a wacko religious nut? What denomination is she? Readers' appetites for personal details are voracious and unending.
And then there are those readers who have their own story they'd like to tell, but can't, because they can't write. They just naturally dream of seeing THEIR story in print ... written by the author whose books they love to read. And how could that author object? It's a GREAT story!
Of course, another pitfall is that there are those who want to be around the great man. They perceive themselves as destined to be part of his entourage-perhaps even to become the inspiration for a new character, based on their own intriguing and interesting lives and characteristics. Lola was one of those. She was forever suggesting that his "first big book" should contain HER as the main character.
And the fact was that Kris just wanted to write. One cannot write when surrounded by people asking questions and making suggestions and wanting to know when their fascinating life will be represented in print.
He was caught in a situation he didn't want to confront. If Lola had free access to his apartment, it would be difficult to write and she would likely discover that he wrote much more than articles for obscure technical journals. She would find out, eventually, who he really was and he would have to insist that his identity not be revealed to others. Which would cause her untold misery, because her natural urge would be to brag-though she certainly wouldn't have characterized it as bragging-about how she was intimate with the man who had created "Living With an Aardvark" and "The Cereal Killer" and "Diagnosis - Steatopygia!". That would lead to people wanting to meet him ... and ask all those questions.
He took his privacy so seriously, in fact, that even his publisher did not know his real name. He received checks under his pseudonym, which was connected to his bank account. The bank didn't care a bit that he did business under one name, while the account was technically under another. People did that all the time.
His publisher, whose voracious appetite was for profits rather than personal information, was pushing him for another book. He'd been given a hefty advance and six months to produce that book. With the advance also came the requirement to provide progress reports once a month.
The outline was done. The characters had been roughed out. The plot was generally identified. About a third of the book was already written in what he called 'preliminary paragraphs'. He knew he was ready to write it. The story bulged inside him, demanding to be let loose. His muse was impatient. But the distraction of Lola was preventing him from letting his muse take over.
The answer was to find someplace to go where there would be no Lola ... no publisher ... no distractions.
Surfing the net, he found a vacation house on a lake shore in Connecticut. It was winter, the off season, and the rates were good. He made all the arrangements, using the new pseudonym of Larry Phillips. It was likely that during the six months he would be staying in Pembroke, people would find out what he was doing there. He didn't want anyone in that town to connect Kristoff Farmingham with the book that would be written there. He sent a money order and received a contract in the mail, with a key and directions on how to find the place.
He packed three bags. His landlord had almost had a stroke when he'd paid his rent ahead for the five months he'd be gone. The advance was severely depleted, but that was all right. He'd get the rest when he turned in the manuscript. Then he'd probably start the whole process all over again.
The car was packed. The manuscript, printed off in case something happened to his laptop, was in his briefcase. He agonized over whether to take his cell phone or not, then decided it could be turned off and would be handy for those monthly progress reports.
He started the car.
And THIS is where the story really begins.
Three men sat around a card table, finalizing plans to commit a heinous crime. They were vicious men, though seeing them on the street, patronizing a hotdog vendor perhaps, one wouldn't recognize that viciousness. They, too, had the capability to blend in with the crowds in New York City.
The crime they had planned was bold. It might turn out very badly for the victims. They didn't really care about that. All they cared about were the rewards that they imagined the crime would provide.
These men that fate would bring together with Kris and others in the unfolding series of events were as different from the others as it was possible to be. Their story had an inauspicious beginning.
Many years earlier, Wanda Higginbotham had found herself pregnant. It had been unplanned, and unwanted, but not unexpected. Wanda was a hooker.
She found that some men would pay more for her services if they didn't have to engage in safe sex and, after all, money was what it was all about. She took her pills religiously, but pills don't always work.
Completely by accident, therefore, she learned that there is a different class of customers who are very interested in ... and willing to pay more for ... sex with a pregnant woman. Such men would take her from behind, with their hands on her pregnant belly, and fantasize that the child within was theirs. They got all the thrill of believing, if just for a few moments, that their seed had taken root, but could then abandon the product of that seed, and avoid the complications of actually getting a woman with child.
It was by chance that she was watching reruns of The Three Stooges while she was in labor. She named her little boy Moe, both because she didn't have much of an imagination and because Moe was the smartest Stooge, in her opinion.
Because the pregnancy thing had been more lucrative than anything else she'd done, she promptly got pregnant again. And then again. Larry and Curly were the results.
Having three boys to take care of was a pain in the ass, and she'd found out that eager but infertile parents would pay a lot of money to get a newborn. She was already stuck with "the three stooges," but sold the next four babies. It was the best of all possible worlds, as far as Wanda was concerned.
Until she found out how ravaged a body could become as a result of having unprotected sex with strangers and what amounted to a litter of children.
She died when the boys were in their middle teens. They stuck together, living hand to mouth. They dropped out of school and lived by their wits. Which meant that they were lean and homeless, most of the time, because their wits had been inherited from their mother and, in a twist of humorous irony, resembled those of the men they were named after.
But, there was no humor in how they chose to survive.
Eventually, Larry got his hands on a gun, bought cheap, and which he thought was probably stolen. He didn't care, though. Petty theft, muggings, and the infrequent armed robbery had kept them alive from that point on. But they were looking for the score that would put them on easy street.
Their first attempt at kidnapping had gone very badly. They'd stolen a car, and snatched a little girl from in front of a private school. Instead of being cowed and subservient, though, the girl had fought bitterly and cried incessantly. They'd gagged her-too well, as it turned out, because she'd died when her allergies flared up and she'd become unable to breathe through her nose. They had already made the ransom call, though, so they'd simply waited. When Moe called to give the parents directions to the drop off point, he was told they hadn't been able to raise the money and would need more time. He'd been sure he'd heard clicks on the line. He had also been sure that meant the police were tapping the line, so he'd hung up. They'd dumped the body in a dumpster. The media, always eager to report a tragedy, had said that the girl was most likely killed because no ransom had been paid.
Their second attempt hadn't gone any better. A boy had been chosen as their second victim. When they'd called the boy's parents, they'd made two demands. One was money and the other was that the cops not be involved in any way.
"Remember that girl they found in the dumpster?" Moe had asked, trying to make his voice sound sinister. "That was us, and we mean business."
The parents had agreed. But when Moe had called back to arrange the trade, he'd been sure that he was talking to a different man and, again, sure that the police were involved.
This time, they killed the victim intentionally and left a note with the body that said next time, people had better follow instructions.
The media loved it, as they always love heinous acts of the worst sort. Moe, Larry and Curly loved it too, because now they had a reputation.
They were sure the next caper would make them all rich.
And it was the next attempt that they were planning as they sat around the card table. The victim would be one who could not be ignored-could not be allowed to die-whose husband had tons of money. Jean Chantal Custer would provide the millions that would put them on a Caribbean island somewhere, where they would have anything they wanted.
The proposed victim of the crime was well known; the talk of New York, both the city and the state. She was married to Randall Custer, who was currently in his third year as the governor of the great state of New York. His messy divorce, barely six months into his governorship, had caused a scandal. Taking up with a supermodel half his age, then marrying her, had cemented his fame. He was a lackluster governor, but the tabloids loved him and a preponderance of the unwashed, which represented a preponderance of the population, in his opinion, loved him too. He had it all. He had money from his parents and he had Jean Chantal. He was an important man, who people wanted to please. What more could any man want?
Jean, who used her middle name professionally, had made her mark as a swimsuit model. That had led to runway work in which her body had most likely been more important than what she was actually wearing. Few people could afford the clothes she modeled. But everyone could enjoy looking at her and did. She had even made a lot of panties damp.
Along the way, she'd gone from being a shy, tall, well built girl from New Orleans, who'd graduated high school squarely in the lower third of her class to a woman who could get anything she asked for, simply by asking for it. Men had always pursued her, but the intelligence she DID have had led her to believe that the one real gift she had to give a man needed to be parlayed to the RIGHT man.
She'd decided that Randall Custer was that man.
They'd met at a party. He had been almost embarrassingly taken with her. When, the third time he took her to dinner, she confessed, through lowered eyelashes, that she was still a virgin, he took the bait hook, line and sinker. If he'd been embarrassing before, he was pathetic now. He promised her the world and she thought he might just be able to deliver it.
The fact that she was obviously telling the truth about her virginity was borne out on their wedding night, on a yacht, on the way to Bermuda, where her screams of pain were heard by the captain and crew. It was a rocky start, but at forty-eight, he didn't regenerate all that quickly, so she'd had time to heal up a bit before the next session. And things since then had been fine. Too much booze and poorly controlled blood pressure had hardened blood vessels that needed to be flexible for things to work well in the erection department, but Viagra got him laid and he was ever so cute when he was horny. A year into the marriage she actually liked her husband; now that another year had passed she was quite sure that real love was in the offing.
And he doted on her. She went shopping at the drop of a hat. After all, one could no longer wear a hat once it had been dropped ... now could one?
There were only two burrs under her saddle, as her husband would have put it. He styled himself a Western man, hinting that General George Custer was in his bloodline, though never actually claiming it. Flirting with a relation to the famous man was one thing. Actually admitting to have inherited genes from a complete idiot was another.
The first burr under her saddle was her inability to do anything privately anymore. Her husband took great glee in telling the world where she was going and what she'd be doing. That was because he wanted the world to know that his young and beautiful wife was more than just a young and beautiful woman. In her role as the governor's wife, she went here and there, doing this and that. Shopping was always included, but only after she took care of business. He also took great pride in the fact that she drove herself everywhere. No wasting of taxpayer dollars could be alluded to, because she always took her own sports car. The paparazzi, always knowing where she'd be, were a constant pain in the butt. And, wherever there was a bevy of cameras, there were curious onlookers too-and they sometimes wanted some time with her as well.
The second was that Randall was pathetically eager for his wife to do something else she'd never done with any other man-have babies. She shuddered at the mere thought of having to live with a distended, disfiguring, ugly belly. It would ruin her career.
On this particular day, Chantal was going to visit a daycare center on Long Island, where other women's babies could be cuddled and kissed. She liked to stress childcare in the state. Everybody needed it. It was good press. And then, of course, shopping on 5th Avenue.
It had, as usual, been announced in the papers.
The Higginbotham boys knew where Chantal would be, because they'd read the paper, which they stole every day from a number of hotel lobbies. Curly had established a route for this purpose, so that he didn't become too well known in any one hotel. They knew what time she would be at the childcare center and, roughly, where she'd go shopping later.
They'd decided to take her as she left the childcare center, since there would likely be fewer cops around then. There would be photographers, but they were pansies, so who cared. Besides, they planned to keep their heads down and the cameras from getting the kind of pictures that would be a problem.
The crowd of photographers actually helped their plan, since it gave Curly a reason to be close to where she'd walk. Those photographers were currently lounging around, hoping that something would happen. What did happen not only exceeded their expectations ... it exceeded their wildest dreams.
Moe was driving the van. It had been stolen only hours before-chosen because it was plain white. It belonged to a company that was not open on Saturdays and wouldn't miss it until Monday. Twelve cans of Krylon paint, purchased with money taken under the pretense of acquiring it for a teenage tagger-whom Larry had then told he was an undercover cop and pretended to chase for half a block-had made the upper half blue, just in case-including parts of the windshield where Larry hadn't applied the taped on newspapers quite correctly. Magnetic signs had been applied to the sides and back, indicating that it belonged to a fictitious delivery company and giving them an excuse for double parking on the street.
Curly had a camera draped around his neck, but had no idea how to use it. It had been taken from a tourist, who they'd lured into an alley to buy a Rolex watch for fifty dollars. The camera allowed him to loiter near the entrance to the center, blending in with the other photographers.
Larry was standing by a lamp post, reading a paper-apparently engrossed in the sports pages-looking simply like he was waiting to see what all the fuss was about.
The plan was simple, since Moe was a firm believer in the KISS system of planning. Not only was it easier to keep things simple, but he was convinced that his brothers were stupid and incapable of following a complicated plan.
Curly was to give Moe, who was currently double parked a hundred feet down the street, the high sign when he saw the woman coming out. When Curly signaled him, he'd drive forward, get out of the van and open the double side doors, position himself within the open side of the van, and begin shooting repeatedly at nothing in particular. All the paparazzi would hit the dirt, while Curly and Larry manhandled the governor's wife to the street and into the van. Larry had an ether-soaked rag in a plastic bag, to knock her out with, and Curly would grab her legs. Moe would keep shooting, occasionally, to keep heads down and the path to the van clear.
The getaway route had been carefully planned. It didn't matter if the van was involved in a few bumps, since it would be abandoned within five minutes. Getting the unconscious woman to their hideout was the crowning part of the plan. They'd rented a hearse, complete with a coffin, telling the owner it was for a practical joke. You could rent anything in New York City. It was parked in the garage of another business that wasn't open on Saturdays, which they'd broken into that morning. They could make the transfer of the woman to the coffin in the garage where no one would see them. The hearse would get them off the island and they could then work their way out of town, where an abandoned warehouse would become their hideout and Chantal's temporary prison. When the money was electronically deposited into an anonymous off shore account, her husband would be told where he could find her. He'd find her naked and well fucked, of course, but then who wouldn't expect that?
Kris was already thinking about the book as he negotiated the Saturday morning traffic. He'd dropped off a copy of the half completed manuscript at his publisher's office, but hadn't told them he was leaving town to finish it. He'd locked up his apartment in Brookdale and was working his way toward I-95.
His plan was to go north, taking I-287 to I-684. Continuing north from there would get him to Interstate 84, which would take him east into Connecticut. Highway 37 would take him north to Pembroke, on the shores of Lake Nassequa, where the vacation house was located. He'd never been out of the city in this direction, but he had the route written down and wasn't worried about it. The rental agreement was in the inside pocket of his sports coat and the key to the house was in his right pants pocket. His mail would be forwarded, so he wouldn't miss any bills.
Moe saw Curly give the sign and threw the van into gear. He lurched forward and then came to a stop. He threw open the driver's door and put his left leg out, pulling the gun out from under his right thigh.
Chantal put on her most sincere smile and pulled her fur coat tightly around her. It was cold. She had on sunglasses, to moderate the flashes from the cameras, and the six inch stiletto heels she favored because of the way they forced her to walk, in case there was any video being shot. She stepped confidently from the childcare center, being escorted out by the beaming owner, to face the press.
Lola's phone had been busy since he'd gotten on the road, and Kris was trying to call her for the third time, to let her know he was leaving town. His eyes were on the buttons of the phone when the door of the van he was about to pass was thrown open and half a body appeared. He didn't even know he'd hit the man until he heard the grinding tear of metal on metal and looked up, astonished, to see the door being pushed forward by the right front fender of his car. He heard a scream and saw, just for a split second, the agonized face of a man between his car and the van. He was completely past the van before he reacted and his foot went to the brake.
Moe knew instantly he was fucked. He felt his left leg break as it was crushed between the front of the car and the van door. He watched the door slam forward and felt his leg being pulled in the same direction. His body spun, being rolled by the side of the car and, for a split second, he stared into the eyes of the driver. He knew instinctively that his leg was crushed, but still tried to stand on it as the car swept past him. He fell to the ground, knowing that the plan was fucked too. The pistol was still gripped in his hand. In a rage, he pointed the gun at the car that had ruined everything, and started shooting.
Larry and Curly were on either side of Chantal, in the act of actually reaching toward her, when there was the grinding tear of metal and the squealing sound that is instantly recognizable as an automobile accident. Their quarry, who had noticed Larry pulling a rag from a plastic bag, looked toward the van, just like everyone else did. The car that had obviously hit the van lurched to a stop, three or four car lengths past it.
Shots rang out. Larry and Curly were galvanized into action. The side doors of the van weren't open, but they knew what to do while Moe was shooting. Larry's hand reached toward the broad's face.
Chantal knew instantly that something was wrong and that she was part of it. She saw a man's hand coming toward her face and whirled to pull her knee up, connecting solidly with Larry's balls. He gave a strangled "OOF" and wilted like a cheap suit. Feeling other hands on her right arm, she whirled again, planting her foot in preparation for driving her knee up again.
Curly had seen what she did to Larry, though, and turned his hips sideways to block her knee. That put his left foot out, flat on the ground, and Chantal, seeing that her primary target wasn't available, elected to go to target number two. Her knee rose past where it might have and, with a gasping shout, she drove her heel down.
Her aim was true and the tip of a six inch stiletto heel contacted the top of the cheap deck shoe Curly was wearing. He felt the tip hit the top of his foot and heard the tip hit the pavement ... under his shoe.
He looked down in horror as the woman lurched away, leaving her shoe imbedded in his foot.
"SON OF A BITCH!" he squealed.
Kris had just twisted around in his seat, to look through his back window, when the window exploded. Glass chips flew everywhere and he felt like somebody had hit him in the head with a baseball bat. The force of the blow turned him back around and he flopped forward, bouncing his forehead off the steering wheel. His brain told him he'd just heard a gunshot and he opened his eyes to see blood spattered all over the dashboard.
Instinct made his foot change from the brake to the accelerator and his tires squealed as the car shot forward. His vision was blurry. He lifted a hand to his head. It came away wet with shiny crimson staining it.
"I've been shot!" he gasped. He heard more shots and peered forward, suddenly aware that the windshield had a hole in it, with a web of tiny cracks spreading away from it.
He drove instinctively ... away from danger ... and his eyes picked out a sign that his brain said meant he should turn. He didn't think-he just took the onramp. He was on I-95 before his mind began to clear.
He'd hit someone. He knew he'd hit someone. He'd heard the scream and seen the twisting body as his car crashed by it. Someone had shot at him-shot him! He'd already left the scene of the crime. He thought about turning around and going back, but he was on the interstate. Even if he DID turn around, he wasn't sure now where it had all happened.
He didn't know what to do. He felt as though someone was pressing a red hot poker to his temple. He was bleeding. He put his hand up to staunch the flow of blood and kept going.