Page 40 of Goodbye Girl
“Get out!” Amongus shouted, and Theo realized he was speaking to him.
They were halfway around the roundabout, with traffic flowing like a giant wheel around a granite monument at the axis. At such high speed, the centrifugal force created by the SUV’s circular path had shifted the other passengers to the left, their weight pressing Theo against the door.
“Say what?” said Theo.
“Jump, or I’ll blow your head off!”
Benjamin unlocked the door from the driver’s control panel, but the vehicle didn’t slow down a bit. Jumping out of a speeding SUV was Theo’s first worry, but rolling across two lanes of traffic to the sidewalk was an even bigger concern.
“Now!” shouted Amongus. He reached across, yanked the handle, and pushed Theo out the door.
Theo tucked and catapulted like a human cannonball from the vehicle, landing feet-first and fighting to roll—not skid—toward the perimeter. The pavement ripped through his leather jacket at the elbow, and somewhere in the tumble he lost a shoe. Cars swerved and horns blasted, but somehow he found daylight between bumpers like an urban cat with nine lives. It was a blur but, to his amazement, he was alive and fully conscious as he rolled up the curb and onto the sidewalk.
The SUV continued through the roundabout without him, exiting on the other side of the monument. A police car raced toward Theo,hopped the curb, and screeched to a halt so suddenly that the front bumper nearly kissed the sidewalk. Two officers jumped out.
“Hands up!” they shouted.
Theo couldn’t even begin to explain. A trail of blood ran down his forehead to the bridge of his nose, but he didn’t dare make a false move and wipe it away. He raised his arms in the air, hoping Jack knew a good lawyer in London.
“Don’t shoot!” he said. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
Chapter 15
Jack’s phone rang on the nightstand. His cellphone was set to silence incoming calls during bedtime hours, with the exception of Andie and his closest friends and relatives. He reached across his mattress, grabbed the phone from the charging stand, and checked the screen:theo.
Jack was tempted to ignore it and go back to sleep. But the last time Theo had called him at 5:00 a.m. was to tell his lawyer that the prison barber had shaved his head and ankles for placement of the electrodes so that “Old Sparky”—the affectionate name for the electric chair at Florida State Prison—could do its work. Jack picked up.
“What’s up, Theo?”
“I’m in jail.”
Jack sat up in bed, his mind still cloudy. “Nobody calls from their own cellphone in jail.”
“You do if your ‘one phone call’ is to a lawyer overseas. I tried calling you collect from the phone here, but you didn’t answer. The custody officer said I could have three minutes.”
Jack was suddenly wide awake, and his thoughts cleared enough to recall Theo’s telling him that Imani had put him on a plane to London.
“You’re in jail inLondon?”
“They call it a custody suite. One of the other guys in the pen said they can hold me at the station for twenty-four hours before charging me.”
Andie grumbled in her sleep and stirred beside him. Jack quickly climbed out of bed, hurried to the master bathroom, and closed the door.
“Listen to me carefully,” he said into the phone. “As much as I’d like you to tell me what happened, I’m not going to ask because I have no idea who else can hear us. Do you understand me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Answer my question yes or no. Have the police mentioned or threatened you with any specific charge?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Kidnapping.”
Jack was expecting something on the order of a bar fight. “Are you sure about this? They’re threatening to charge you with kidnapping another human being?”
“Not by myself, but with—”