Envy the Night Read Free Page B

the idea had been, could tell that he’d just caused a dangerous accident over an utterly absurd moment of paranoia.
    He walked toward the Lexus as the driver began to survey the damage to his vehicle. Frank’s first thought, watching him—
the dude’s on speed
.
    The guy, tall and thin with a shock of gray hair that stuck out in every direction, was dancing around the Lexus. Literally dancing. He’d skip for a few steps, twirl, lift both hands to his face and then prance back around the other side. He was talking to himself, too, a chattering whisper that Frank couldn’t make out, and he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that there’d been another car involved in the collision.
    “Hey.” Frank got no response and walked closer. “Hey! You okay?”
    The guy stopped moving then and stared at Frank in total confusion. Then he looked up at the Jeep and nodded once, figuring it out. Up close, Frank saw that he wasn’t too old, maybe forty, the gray hair premature. He had a long nose that hooked at the end and small, nervous eyes set above purple rings that suggested it had been a while since he’d had a full night’s sleep. His hands were still moving, too, fingers rippling the air as if he were playing a piano.
    “Yes,” he said. “I’m okay. Yes, everything’s fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll just call Triple-A. You can go on now.”
    Frank raised his eyebrows. “Just call Triple-A? I hit
you,
man. You’re going to want to hang around and get this worked out for insurance.”
    The guy was shaking his head. “No, no, I hit my brakes, just slammed on my brakes, not your fault at all.”
    Not his fault at all? What the hell was he talking about? Frank had been tailgating so bad he’d slammed into him as soon as the guy slowed. It was clearly Frank’s fault. The guy must be nervous, that’s all. Shaken up. Collision like that, at nearly highway speeds, who wouldn’t be?
    “What I’m saying is, we need to call the police,” Frank said. “Get an accident report made, so we can make this square with the insurance company, right?”
    The gray-haired guy winced and rubbed his forehead as if a pain had developed there. He probably had a bad driving record. Maybe a few accidents, and driving a car like that Lexus, his insurance rate already had to be high. He was worried about the money. Didn’t understand that Frank was liable for all the damage.
    “Tell you what,” the guy said. “It’d be a big help to me—a
big
help—if we didn’t get an accident report made.”
    So he’d been right—bad driving record. Unless it was something more serious. Hell, maybe the guy
was
on drugs. Frank frowned, studying him closer, looking for the signs. He just seemed amped-up, that was all. Buzzing. His eyeswere clear, and he was cogent enough in conversation. A Starbucks addict, maybe.
    “I’ll pay for your damage,” the gray-haired man continued. “I know what you’re thinking—as soon as I can, I’ll take off and stiff you on the bill. But I promise that won’t happen. We can take care of it right now. Find a repair shop, and I’ll take care of the bill beforehand.”
    “I hit
you,
” Frank said again.
    “Don’t worry about that. It was my fault, my responsibility, and I don’t want an accident report made, okay?”
    Frank shook his head and walked a few steps away, looking at the Lexus. It was even more beat to shit than his Jeep. The front end was crumpled, there was a gash, maybe three feet long, across the passenger side of the car from the contact with the trees, and steam was leaking out of the hood.
    “Please,” the man said, and there was a desperate quality to his voice that made Frank look back with surprise. Whatever trouble this guy had with his driver’s license—if he even had one—was serious. Frank stood there on the shoulder as two cars buzzed past them, nobody stopping, and looked at this weird guy with the nervous hands and panicked eyes. Why not give him