He’d attempted to gag her, trying to stop the flood of foul and abusive language. But Steve’s skill wasn’t up to it, and he’d given up. He simply closed the door on her, partially muffling the screams.
Kyle was sitting by the fire, head down, trying to overcome his shakiness. He’d managed to reload the rifle.
Steve had picked up the fallen automatic, finding it was an ancient German Beholla Pocket Auto, a seven-shot, .32 caliber handgun with a stubby three-inch barrel and ribbed rubber stock.
He’d also found a couple of boxes of ammunition in a kitchen drawer and given half to Kyle to load up the empty Mondadori automatic.
Sly had thrown himself down on the sofa immediately after Randy’s death and refused to move or even speak. He was a large, clumsy-looking boy, in a dark sweater and baggy jeans. Kyle still hadn’t had a chance to see his face, wondering if he favored his mother or Steve.
His friend walked back into the room. “We’ll stay the night and move at dawn. It’s a long hard road. If the snow’s still falling, we’d best wait.”
Kyle nodded. “What about Alison?”
“Stays where she is. If someone comes along and finds her, then she lives. If not…” He allowed the sentence to trail away.
“Taking Sly?”
“Of course.” Steve sat down and patted the boy on the back. “Sly’s a part of the family now. But what about you, Kyle?”
“What?”
“Leanne in Albuquerque?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, fact is she and I were sort of breaking up before the Aquila blasted off. Been seeing a lady called Rosa, just now and then. No, I’ll join you on the road to Calico.”
SLY FELL ASLEEP, face down, breathing heavily.
Alison had become quieter, though she still shrieked out occasional threats promising them that she’d come after them and that there was some mysterious group of men who would hunt them down.
Steve had gone in to try to gag her again, leaving Kyle to stand and stare out at the steadily falling snow. A shuffling sound from behind him made Kyle turn around.
Sly was standing up, rubbing his eyes. He dropped his hands and stared curiously at Kyle.
“You’re a friend of my dad’s?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Now that he could finally see the eighteen-year-old clearly, a lot of things made sense. Sly had a round, soft face, with a gentle, moonish smile. He also had the distinctive hooded eyes of someone with Down’s syndrome.
THE SNOW DIDN’T STOP until the middle of the next morning, but the two friends agreed that they’d get moving immediately. Alison’s repeated threats about the vigilante groups made them feel they wanted out of Aspen as soon as possible.
They’d stocked up their packs with what food they could find, and Steve had spent some time helping Sly to get dressed in thermal underclothes and several layers of jumpers and shirts.
The boy was excited about their journey.
“We going to meet all the other astronauts, Dad?” he’d asked.
“Yeah. Hope so, son.”
They looked in on the woman before they left. But she refused to speak to them, trying to spit at her ex-husband as he turned away.
They heard her through the closed door. “You fucking wait, Steve!”
Sly decided that he had to take a last-minute pee. Waiting for him in the kitchen, Kyle and Steve looked out at the white mound that was Randy’s corpse.
“Does it make any difference to you having the boy along, Kyle? The way he is, you know?”
“Yeah. The difference it makes, Steve, is that I’m even more pleased we came to Colorado to get him.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The days in the Jackson Street apartment drifted by in a bizarre, almost timeless world.
Nanci Simms had totally taken over the running of Jeff Thomas’s life, imposing her forceful personality on him.
She refused to allow him into San Francisco, pointing out she’d already rescued him once and didn’t intend to have to do it again.
Every now and again she would leave, generally just after midnight, with the Port Royale machine pistol slung over her elegant shoulders and a pair of matched Heckler & Koch P-111 automatics at her hip. Both held fifteen rounds of 9mm full-metal-jacket ammunition.