to sprint after him, but almost immediately my right foot submerged in the mud up to my calf and I went to my hands and knees.
I fought my way back to my feet, losing my right shoe when I pulled my leg free, but I was buoyed by the fact that Nolan had fallen into a low spot in the road filled with mud that looked like pudding. He’d gone in face-first and was wallowing around, trying to find his footing, while I took a wider stance and made short chopping strides toward him.
I came around the front of the vehicle. Nolan was up and staggering. Sampson was abreast of me and also charging Nolan.
It felt like old times. John and I had played high-school football together, both defensive ends. Each of us knew what the other was going to do without either of us saying it.
My feet found the far edge of the bog, and I drove off it, hurling my head and shoulders low toward the back of Nolan’s legs. Sampson aimed high.
We hit the Kyle Craig lookalike at the same time and slammed the dirtbag down so hard he made something of a man-shaped crater on impact. And his flimsy knapsack tore open, revealing stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside.
CHAPTER 86
NOLAN CLAIMED WE’D BROKEN HIS knee, separated his shoulder, and cracked his ribs when we tackled him. He demanded a doctor and an attorney and then clammed up, as was his right. Mahoney took him into federal custody, and we parted with plans to meet again in the morning.
Bree drove us home. The storm had passed by the time we’d dropped Sampson at his house and parked in front of our own. I peeled myself off the passenger seat. My clothes were torn and caked in that thick copper-colored slurry.
“You look like an extra in a zombie movie,” Bree said, and she chuckled.
“Feel like one,” I said, rubbing my sore ribs. “I hit something hard.”
We started up the porch stairs, and I barely gave the scaffolding between our house and the Morses’ a second thought.
“You think Nana Mama’s going to let you walk on her clean floors with you looking like that?” Bree said. “Go on around to the basement shower.”
I sighed. “All right. And I’ll hose off my pants before I go inside.”
“Even better,” she said.
I leaned to kiss her. She jumped back and laughed. “Not on your life.”
“Kiss of the zombie!” I said. I threw my hands up Frankenstein-style and chased her a few feet.
Bree shrieked with laughter and then scrambled up the stairs and across the porch. She opened the front door, looked over her shoulder, grinned, stuck her tongue out at me, then went inside.
I loved seeing Bree light up like that, more girl than woman, more regular person than cop, and all because I acted like a little boy. It made me feel pretty darn good at the end of a long and complicated day that had gone sideways more than once.
But all in all, we’d made serious progress. If we didn’t have M in custody, we had someone who knew him. Nolan had said as much. To me and to Marty Forbes.
The shower was long, hot, and wonderful. Dinner—roast chicken in a citrus-mustard sauce, a recipe Nana Mama had gotten from the Rachael Ray Show—was on the table when I entered the kitchen, feeling like a new man.
“You clean up nice,” Bree said.
“Every once in a while.”
“Bree said you were covered in mud,” Ali said.
“Head to toe.”
“I wanted a picture.”
“That wasn’t happening.”
“Dad?” Jannie said. “Aren’t you going to ask me how my first day back went?”
I’d completely forgotten. “School. Yes. How are you feeling?”
She sat up straighter and smiled. “Pretty good, actually. Those vitamins really do work after a while.”
“No tiredness during the day?”
“Just once, in study hall. I put my head down and took a ten-minute nap. When do you think I can start training again?”
My grandmother said, “I know you’re champing at the bit, but the last thing you need is a relapse.”
Jannie looked glum.
I said, “Nana’s right, and you know it. So, let’s say the rest of this week, you stay on that vitamin regimen and stretch all you want while we see how you do at school. Things go well, you can start to run next week.”
My daughter chewed the inside of her cheek before saying, “So, right now, I’m, what, twelve weeks from the first of those meets?”
“Sounds right, but you have to take it easy, no