Chapter 15 - Payphone
Harm paced. When he thought he was done pacing, he paced some more. His mind couldn't grasp what Mac's friend had discovered and he almost felt sick that the man he killed now had a name.
Forty two year old John Williams Crenshaw was a former Army Ranger and, most notably, the missing piece that led to Alisson Krennick - a step brother from her father's second marriage. Crenshaw had a checkered past, kicked out of the army for smuggling narcotics, arrested for drunk driving. He'd been in and out of the penal system for over fifteen years and had finally begun to straighten out his life a year before he walked into Harm's cell.
What neither understood was, why? Why would a man who finally found a clean slate ruin his life? Even if he'd gotten away with murder, the why still made Harm pace until he began to think like a lawyer. "The 'why' still gets me."
"Maybe it was a favor for his kid sister?"
"Step-sister." Harm correcred and shook his head, Krennick wasn't the type anyone would give up everything for. "It has to be more to it than that, right?"
"We don't know the dynamic of that relationship. Would you kill for someone you loved?"
"Yes." He'd kill for her even if not prompted to; even if she begged him not to. Harm knew he'd snap if anyone ever hurt her and the rational side he tried to live by would crumble to nothing.
"Maybe she had something on him?"
"He was an ex-con. I bet it was easy for Krennick to threaten Crenshaw using his past." Mac clicked through the pictures of Crenshaw's death, graphic as they were. She's studied them a zillion times looking for clues that just didn't pop up.
The pictures were taken in the cell Harm once occupied and blood coated the grey floors, poolint out of the victim. Beside him a pointy plastic object lay on the ground just a foot away from the body. They'd taken pictures of Harm as well, his prison uniform coated in blood, his hands pink from where it had dried on his palms. His face was ashen, his eyes dark and troubled.
He looked so helpless seeing his new freedom slip through his hands that the picture haunted her. It was all Mac could see when she closed her eyes and fueled her sleepless nights.
She snapped the laptop shut, vowing never to see those images again. But the one picture that came to mind the most was the murder weapon - a 'shiv' fashioned out of the handle of a toothbrush. She never imagined such an innocuous tool could be so deadly. "It was well thought out, the weapon he used. Interesting."
"Why?"
"If I'm a guard and I want to murder an inmate I'd have another prisoner do it. Given where you were, in AdSeg, that was impossible so he had to be the one."
"Where you going with this?"
"Krennick planned it well. Use a weapon only another inmate would. Had it worked, no one would have question it. I suspect Crenshaw believed you were handcuffed or at least subdued enough for him to kill you and pin it on another inmate."
"She knew I was getting out so she got to me first. The fact that he used a shiv made it easy for them to think I actually killed a guard."
"Exactly." Mac's hand slipped into his palm, her fingers threading through his. She lowered her head and pressed a kiss over his knuckles. "It's okay, Harm. We'll bring her to justice. I promise."
The length of time it would take worried him. The longer they remained on the run the easier the chance of being spotted became. It was a cinch that they'd issued a nation-wide manhunt by now, his face plastered everywhere. "How far is the next town over? And I don't mean a little one, something big where we can really blend in."
"What are you thinking?" The determined expression on his face was concerning as was the look he gave her.
"I need to talk to Chegwidden."
Mac stared at him as if he'd lost his mind and maybe he finally had. As far as she was concerned the only communication with her commanding officer would be through email. She was already compressing the files her friend sent and spent the night making sure that the finer points were highlighted.
She trusted Chegwidden to a point but didn't believe Harm wouldn't be hauled in until her information was proven. "I have information, I can send him what I found."
Harm shook his head. "No, Mac. I need to speak to him in person or as close to it as possible. We can drive one State over. Use a payphone and-"
"No."
The iciness to her tone made him flinch. "No?"
"Hell, no." Mac stood and plucked the laptop from the table, tucking it under her arm when she walked to the kitchen. "What are you gonna tell him, Harm? That you didn't do it? Because it's clear that you killed Crenshaw."
"Mac-"
"Please don't let emotions rule you. I can send this to him, all of it. It's empirical evidence, not the words of a desperate man on the run."
Harm scrubbed a hand across his face, wincing when he felt the stubble that had grown so much in the past day. "I hate to admit that you're right because you are, but I'm not gonna let it go. I need to talk to him. We need to know how bad it is or if…if I need to get out of the Country…I know you want to protect me but, I have to talk to him and you can't be involved. Mac, you have a future, a promising one, don't lay it all on the line for me."
She walked back towards him and placed the laptop on the table slightly out of Harm's reach. Mac lowered herself onto his lap, her arms coming around his neck when her lips met his.
"I'm in it with you."
He sighed as she kissed him again, this time a little more passionately. Harm knew this was not a woman he would be able to deny anything. "Fine. Go get dressed."
Mac drove and didn't dare speed even one mile above the speed limit although every inkling told her to rush. She was terrified that highway patrol would pull them over, run the plates, her license and find that none of it really matched.
The SUV, a year old Range Rover, was borrowed from her 'friend' and was once part of an arsenal of vehicles that he collected because his family had money. Any cop with a good gut instinct would know that she had no business driving it.
Before leaving, she pulled out a map and searched for larger cities where the pair of them could hide. As much as Mac was able to discern from the Internet, the manhunt was contained to Kansas, Missouri and some of the neighboring States but had yet to go East. That made her confident that his plan to contact Chegwidden would work.
Without access to a television, she didn't know that the manhunt had started to spread like wildfire and postings with Harm's likeness were appearing across the country. Even his mother was on the news pleading with her son to turn himself in and not make the charges worse.
"I'm nervous." Mac said as they drove into Raleigh after a two and a half hour, 150 mile drive neared its end. She carefully maneuvered around the city that was in the heat of mid-day rush hour and bustled enough to hide just about anyone. His hand held hers, as it had for most of the trip and when his thumb brushed over her knuckles, the electric current crackled to life and eased her nerves somewhat. "You still want to stop at a gas station?"
Harm nodded. "I think it's best. I talk to Chegwidden, we fill up and get the hell out of Dodge." He didn't want to risk a supermarket, a mall or any other large areas where more people could see them. He certainly didn't want to be anywhere near the downtown section and the police department they had seen as Mac guided the car through the town.
The SUV passed one station and then two, a fourth before Mac began to feel desperate to accomplish their mission. For some reason she felt exposed until Harm had her circle back around to a small station at the mouth of the entrance ramp to the nearest highway. Only two pumps were empty and Mac stopped the car at the one farthest from the tiny convenience store.
On the side was a grouping of picnic tables, only half of which were taken, she noted when they both scanned the area for anything out of place.
"Harm, wait." Her nervousness ratched slightly when a local police cruiser stopped just behind them. The officer sat in the vehicle for a good five minutes before he hopped out and bounded towards the small store.
"They aren't looking for two people, Mac. We're fine. Payphone is over there, go fill up and we'll get out of here."
"Yeah. You're right." She cursed him for not wanting to use the satellite phone that was left back in the cabin. Harm wanted the call traced, to make it look like he was moving from State to State and wouldn't take a chance on them being found out, somehow. It was stupid, he was stupid, Mac thought and as he disappeared past the picnic tables to a payphone that was attached to the side of the building, her heart plummeted right into her stomach.
There was cursing. A lot of cursing from his former commanding officer. Harm merely listened in silence until the berating came to an end and Chegwidden took a breath. "I didn't do what they said I did. I mean, it was self defense, sir. I swear to God it was self defense."
"The Major is with you isn't she?"
The question came out of nowhere and Harm felt a deep chill down his spine that made him shake. In the year that he served under Chegwidden, he knew the man was far more astute than his predecessor; it was the Navy SEAL in him that made the man such a good lawyer and a force to be reckoned with. He shot straight and true and if Harm ever thought he could hide Mac from his curse, he was dead wrong. "I know she's with you, Harm. I may have bought that 'leave' crap for a while but, I saw what came into my private email. The only person I know that has those sorts of contacts is Major Sarah MacKenzie."
"I don't know where the Major is, sir."
"Cut the bullshit, Harm."
Harm sighed. He could have cursed her. "I didn't ask her to come. She…We." He took a breath and held it, the status of their relationship was nobody's business and he wouldn't, he couldn't smear her name. "Have you ever been in love?"
"I married my ex-wife after knowing her for two days while on Liberty in Italy. I think I know what it's like to fall for someone I just met. Plus, I saw it in Mac's eyes after she came home, she feels the same doesn't she?"
"Yeah, she does. I swear, I didn't want her involved. This sort of…happened." He searched for her by the pumps and found Mac standing outside of the vehicle, leaning against it and when her eyes found his, he gave her a thumbs up.
"Then turn yourself in, son. I promise it'll keep her out of it. And If the information Mac sent me pans out, you'll be safe. Safe and free."
Free. The thought was truly wonderful but Harm couldn't give himself to the system and wait in whatever Hell they had designed for him until the powers that be let him out. They wouldn't be kind after the escape and although he trusted Chegwidden, he wasn't sure that Mac would survive the fallout. "No. I'm sorry, I'm not turning myself in, Admiral. Not until you come back with word about Krennick."
"Harm-"
"I'll be locked up again and even if it's for a short ime I can't do that again. Not to me and not to her."
"Fine, Harm. Call me in three days. Three days, you got it? And Commander? Don't get caught."