Mikal Ritko traveled alone. Things had gotten out of hand. Bren was abducted and killed by Fussell Duware. Ritko should have killed him years earlier.
Gus had jumped the hospital and fled with Jimmy. They likely drove west toward a story that would end badly for someone, maybe even them.
Agent James was dead in the door of the ER in Andalusia. Duware was good at his job and willing to do anything to get the job done. Anything.
In this case, dressing like a woman and shooting Agent James in the unpleasant daylight. It piled up in his head, ugly and unorganized.
Lemuel Zapata was still alive, probably. He had a talent for it. His son, Zeke, however, had not been so fortunate. Duware was culling.
Zeke lay cooked in cooling wreckage under a pecan tree towards Mississippi. Zapata had lost Bren and Zeke to the same piece of business.
Fussell Duware was still working, a murderer with intentions to kill everyone involved in his perceived slight. Ritko was on that list.
Jolene was out in Texas or Louisiana somewhere, probably killing people who deserved it. Ritko’s office called so much he tossed his phone.
He did not need it anymore. Silence would serve him better than the complication of communication. He stripped his life part by part.
Ritko had been trained to become invisible. Thousands of government dollars went into educating him on the skill of vanishing.
Going off the grid is not an easy thing. There must be a body. There must be a dead end. I.D.s, service weapon, badge, everything.
Fire was good; hard to run a trace on charcoal. CSI was sophisticated, but not like on TV. Cooked bones and a badge would work down here.
He made sure everything that could I.D. him was in the wreck. The men who died, like so many others, deserved it. Perhaps Ritko as well.
He was no longer Mikal Ritko. He was no one when he hot wired the farmer’s truck next to the carport and drove to the end of the highway.
Ritko’s life had been a geometric equation of people, events and evidence. He worked the calculations until he found his result. Not now.
The ordeal before him was blood and loose ends. For the first time in his life, after all of the violent things he had done, he was afraid.
He was not afraid of dying. He expected that. Felt it was overdue. He was afraid of failing. Dying was easy. Failing was unacceptable.
Ritko owed Jimmy Gantt. Jimmy had saved his life once – by not killing him when he had the change. Ironic mercy is enough sometimes.
So he owed the man for that one. More importantly, Jimmy had given Ritko the inside track on cases that made his career in the service.
Ritko came from a poor family. His parents spoke no English. Ritko’s job from childhood on was to succeed. He had done his job – and more.
He had done the worst jobs available because the odds of glory and promotion were quicker. Of course, the odds of failure were inherent.
Ritko did not fail often. And when he did, he was good enough to cover it up. Now he was covering up his entire life by going off the grid.
“No one expects a dead person to do anything,” Jimmy had told him years ago. “So dead people can do everything.”
He was officially dead as society measures life. He was neatly cinched up, freed of the daily mendacity that defines human existence.
For the first time in years, he felt alive. The trees were greener. The leaves had textures he had never noticed. Water tasted better.
Breathing was enjoyable. He had never noticed it before. His lungs felt sweet with each intake. The smell of freedom made him smile.
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