Out of Sight

Then stopped and watched as it took off, tires squealing as the rubber hit pavement. They watched the taillights until they were out of sight down the turnpike, neither of them saying a word.

EIGHT

At Good Samaritan they told Karen she was lucky, all she had was a concussion, but they'd keep her here till tomorrow, do a few more tests to make sure.

Her dad came with newspapers and magazines to camp here and watch over his little girl. Milt Dancey, her supervisor, came up from Miami to stand by her bed for two hours. Flowers came. Ray Nicolet came, he kissed Karen on the cheek and touched her hair but could only stay a few minutes; he was on the Violent Crimes Task Force hunting the escapees. More flowers came. When Daniel Burdon, FBI special agent, arrived he asked her dad to please wait outside, they had some business to do here. He had in his hand a copy of the statement Karen had dictated to a court reporter that morning.

It was midafternoon now, sunny outside, the private room pleasant enough, flower arrangements gathering along the window ledge.

Burdon asked her, "What's in the IV?"

"I think just glucose."

"You sweet enough, Karen. Tell me how you got the bump on your head."

"Isn't that my report?"

"Read it," Milt said.

"That's why you have a copy."

"I have read it. What I want is to hear Karen tell it, if it's all right with her," Burdon said.

"I don't give a shit if it's all right with you, Milt, or it isn't all right. You don't even have to be in the room. This is my investigation."

Karen's gaze moved from the black special agent who looked like a lawyer to the overweight old-boy marshal who was all cop, and said,

"Don't hit him, Milt, Daniel's being important. I don't mind."

Burdon smiled at her.

"I love the way you talk, Karen, like you one of the boys. So tell me what happened. You tried to grab the wheel-where was this?"

"Coming to the Okeechobee exit. I wanted to get to a phone and thought of the tollbooth. We went off the exit ramp, down the grade and I guess hit the abutment."

"Must not've had your seat belt on."

Milt said, "For Christ sake…"

"No, but I did think about it," Karen said, "once I was in the front seat. I climbed over…" Swung her leg over the seat in the tight skirt and told Glenn not to look. Actually told him that, Don't look.

And smiled for just a moment remembering it. Burdon was frowning at her. She said, "Glenn had it up to a hundred and twenty, blowing past cars… I don't mean when we went off the road. As soon as I saw the exit and grabbed the wheel, he hit the brakes. We were going about fifty when we went off."

"When he had it up to speed," Burden said, "where was he going in such a hurry?"

"He didn't know, he was running, getting away. I tried to talk to him.

I said, "Look, if you come in with me you'll be okay.

You haven't really done anything yet."

" Burdon said, "Hadn't done anything? The man conspired to aid a fugitive and he's driving a stolen car."

"I told him not to worry about the car; you have to be brought up on grand theft at least three times before you go down, and even then it isn't a sure thing. Forty thousand cars stolen last year in Bade County, three thousand arrests and half of them never went to court."

"Recite all those stats to him," Burdon said, "it sounds like you're aiding and abetting."

"I wanted to bring him in."

"After you piled up, you didn't see him?"

"The next thing I knew, the paramedics were taking me out of the car."

"And nobody else saw him," Burdon said, "that we know of."

Milt stepped in again.

"That's all. Leave her alone now."

Burdon raised his hand to the marshal without looking at him.

"There a couple of points I keep wondering about have to do with the two guys that grabbed you. Buddy is it? And this fella Jack Foley. I looked him up, I swear the man must've robbed two hundred banks in his time."

Karen said, "Really?" Impressed, but sounding tired.

I asked him how many, he said he wasn't sure. He's been doing it since he was eighteen."

"You talked to him, uh?"

"In the trunk, yeah."

"What'd you talk about?"

"Oh… different things, prison, movies."

"This fella has you hostage, you talk about movies?"

"It was an unusual experience," Karen said, looking right at Burdon, the dude Bureau man in his neat gray suit, pale blue shirt and necktie.

"But I wasn't a hostage."

"What were you then?"

"I was his treat after five months of servitude."

Burdon frowned.

"He assaulted you, sexually?"

"I wasn't that kind of a treat," Karen said.

Now Burdon was studying her lying there in her hospital gown, sheet up to her chest, something dripping from the IV into her arm. Maybe he didn't know where to go with it now, and Karen felt no desire to help him.

"Wanted to be close to a woman, so he crawled in the trunk with you."

"I don't know," Karen said, looking up at Burdon, standing ten feet tall by the bed.