Above the Law Read Online Free PDF

Maybe found in a week, maybe not for a month. Whatever the time, they would die.
    The girls shivered as they heard this. “Like we would have been,” Jo Ellen said.
    Joe looked at her. His partner was the principal storyteller; he’d sat there quietly, adding a detail here and there. He’d had his eye on Jo Ellen since he had recovered—she’d been his principal Florence Nightingale. She wasn’t bothered by the attention; she was a sexy young woman who had been ogled by men since before she was a teenager and could handle anything a Joe like this could throw at her.
    “You were lost out there, too?” Joe asked.
    “Luke saved us,” Pauline informed him, pointing at me. “Our car was stuck in a ditch.”
    Joe gave me the once-over. “You get a merit badge for that.”
    That was an unnecessary remark, but it was no big deal. He had inaccurately sized me up as a potential rival. He didn’t know what had happened, and it didn’t matter. Not to me, anyway.
    “I never got past Webelos,” I said, smiling to defuse any possible tension. We were all stuck here together for a long time, there’d be enough natural uprightness without letting egos get in the way. At least my ego; I couldn’t speak for anyone else’s.
    “He saved you, too.” This from the father, who was a big guy, a good six-three, 225, oak-solid. If he’d said he played linebacker for the Vikings, I wouldn’t have been surprised. “In case you’d forgotten.”
    Joe blinked. He realized he’d overstepped himself. “I know. I appreciate it, believe me. We both do.”
    Bill went on with their story. They shouldered their packs, which didn’t weigh much now, but contained their wallets, Swiss Army knives, etc., and took off on foot. They walked on the highway, following the broken yellow line, at times actually crawling on their hands and knees away from the direction they’d come, because they knew there was nothing behind them for miles. Their only hope was that some civilized outpost lay ahead.
    “And you found it,” Deedee said.
    Bill nodded solemnly. “We found it.” He smiled at Roger, the little boy who had first seen them through the window. “It found us.”
    Roger grinned, ducking his head, shy and self-conscious.
    “You’re safe now,” said one of the executives. “That’s the important thing.”
    Deedee, garrulous and inquisitive, asked, “How long were you out there, out of your car?”
    Bill turned to her. “What time is it now?”
    She craned her neck to look at a wall clock that hung over the kitchen stove, back in the service area. “Five till ten.”
    “And we’ve been in here about forty-five minutes?”
    “About that.”
    Bill calculated in his head. “About three hours. Three hours and change.”
    The collective gasp sucked all the air out of the room.
    “Praise be to God,” one of the lady motor-homers sang out fervently from where she was sitting with her husband and friends. They, like everyone else, had stopped what they were doing when we brought the two in and were listening intently.
    Joe looked at her. “Amen.”
    The new arrivals cleaned up as best they could. Ray the cook, a heavyset man with a high, squeaky voice who reminded me of Andy Devine, the old western-movie character actor, fixed two chicken-fried steak specials. They devoured the food, washing it down with pitchers of beer.
    It was getting late. The parents laid out makeshift beds for their children. Most of the rest of us would be up all night, zombie-watching a succession of talk shows and old movies.
    Deedee had brought out her manicure kit and was polishing the girls’ nails. “I used to do this for a living,” she told Marilyn as she carefully applied a coat of dark crimson lacquer. “I’ve done a bunch of things in my time.”
    “Why’d you quit?” Marilyn examined the nails of one hand as Deedee switched to the other. “You’re good.”
    “Of course I am.” Deedee snipped a piece of cuticle. “I got tired of it,