Page 51 of Out of Sight

Will looked at his watch. “What time will we get there? Claire’s gotta be starving. We haven’t eaten since breakfast. We skipped lunch.”

The smile he directed toward me was sincere, if apologetic. He was still trying to take care of me. I blushed at what we were doing instead of having lunch, a bit of my tension releasing. We could still be okay… if we made it out alive.

“Mt. Hood Estates,” I read as we entered the campsite. “Estates. Is that some kind of euphemism for shitty campsite?”

“Maybe,” Jim shrugged. “Don’t care either way.”

We found a spot near the back of the “estate” so our car wouldn’t be seen from the highway. Jim popped open the trunk, pulling out a tent and a couple duffle bags.

“The problem is we’ve only got cash to stay here a day or two, though, so we gotta get our shit together before that.”

Will looked a little uneasy. “I have more cash if we need it.”

I whipped my head around to him. Wasn’t it just an hour or so ago that he said he didn’t have any? What was going on with him?

He avoided my eyes, looking at Jim as he continued. “On the night Mario Costa died, Antonio stole two thousand dollars from him. He gave me half. I kind of forgot I had it for a while, and then it never came up before we had to go into hiding, and, well I have some money because of that. I kept some of it in my wallet, you know, just in case.”

I couldn’t hear anything else Will said in his defense. My vision was going hazy I was so mad. He stole from a dead man. That was low.

“We’re in an extreme situation here so I’m gonna pretend I don’t know how you got this money,” Jim said, accepting the bundle of bills from Will. “This is good. We can have a bit more time to figure things out before we need to get out of dodge.”

“At this point isn’t it kind of expected that they’ll find us again?” I fumed. “It’s like they’ve got a GPS lock on us or something!”

Jim shook his head. “I’ve checked for bugging equipment every day. Every morning while you two love birds chase each other around the block, I sweep the house. There’s been nothing.”

“I didn’t mean you haven’t been doing your job,” I said, calming down. Jim wasn’t the one I was mad at. “I know how much pride you take in it and how thorough you are.”

“Damn right, I am,” Jim huffed. “Now let me set up the tent so we can triage the rest of these injuries.”

I didn’t know a damn thing about pitching a tent, so I let the men fumble through it, Will mostly one-armed. What was wrong with his left side? Jim seemed to notice as well, telling Will to have a seat inside once it was all set up. Jim pulled out the first aid kit, slapping some disposable gloves on.

“Looks like you’ve got a dislocated shoulder, kid. We can set that right in a minute. How’s that burn on your leg feel?” I dropped my eyes down and saw a massive hole burned through his jeans, the skin underneath red and blistering. How had I not noticed that before? He didn’t complain about himself once.

“It’s fine,” he grunted, twitching when Jim’s gloved finger prodded the raw flesh.

“It’ll do for now,” Jim concurred. “You’re up next, Claire.”

I skooched over toward them. “Alright, this head wound is superficial; it’s already stopped bleeding. Those butterfly stitches should do ya. But this wrist… Yeah, that’s probably broken. Did you land on it?” I shrugged. “I’ve got a brace to last you for a little while, but we really should get that looked at by a pro.”

After his efficient assessment he set to work, putting my wrist in a brace and then slathering Will’s leg in burn cream before bandaging it up. Will tensed, knowing his dislocated shoulder was next. That was gonna hurt like hell.

“Can I clean up your head better before you get to his shoulder?” I asked Jim, trying to give Will another moment to prepare.

“Sure,” he shrugged.

His head wound wasn’t bleeding freely anymore, but it still looked pretty gruesome so I cleaned up the mess down to his neck, then taped a new bandage over his temple. Soon there wasn’t any other choice but to let Jim give it a go relocating Will’s shoulder.

“Have you done this before?” Will asked, voicing my nervous thoughts.

“Once or twice,” Jim replied vaguely. “We need a solid surface for you to lean against. What do you think: tree or car?”

Was he serious? He had to be since he was already crawling out of the tent. Will exchanged a glance with me before following. I scurried after the both of them, shuffling myfeet nervously. Just because I was mad at Will didn’t mean I wanted to see him in pain or permanently deformed if Jim did something wrong.

But Will did as Jim said, bracing his good arm against the nearest tree trunk.

“One,” Jim warned, positioning his hands on the injured shoulder. Will tensed. “Two,” he continued, making eye contact with Will who nodded his readiness. “Three!”

Will let out a loud grunt, visibly grinding his teeth together as Jim rotated his arm in an impossible direction until I could hear it click back into place. I studied Will’s face to make sure he was alright. He was grimacing and rubbing at the joint, but seemed to be alright. I shouldn’t have doubted Jim.

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