The Girl in the Glass Box

by James Grippando

  He jumped out of the car, grabbed the keys from the dead cop, and climbed into the Clinton County Sheriff’s squad car. The engine started. He had no idea how to turn off the flashing beacons, so he left them on, nearly driving over the cop’s body as he pulled onto the highway and headed toward town.

  Jorge glanced in the mirror and, as the mess he’d left behind got smaller, he knew his problems had just grown exponentially. A dead cop and a stolen squad car were a death sentence anywhere, from San Salvador to Plattsburgh. Law enforcement and immigration would soon be all over him, and there was only one way out of this alive.

  He checked the tracking app on his phone. Beatriz was at the Plattsburgh Inn, just two miles away.

  Jorge needed a hostage. And he knew exactly where to get one.

  Chapter 67

  The breakfast bar at the Plattsburgh motel smelled of scrambled eggs and bacon. Jack found Theo and Julia together, alone, at a table near the toasters and waffle makers. They were seated opposite each other, and Julia’s hand was in Theo’s, their fingers interlaced on the tabletop. Julia retracted her hand and wiped away a tear with a napkin as Jack approached. He’d walked right into their good-bye.

  “You guys okay?” asked Jack.

  “Fine,” she said with a sniffle. Another tear rolled down her cheek, which seemed to embarrass her. She excused herself for a moment, headed to the ladies’ room, and left Jack with Theo at the table.

  “Where’s Beatriz?” asked Jack.

  “Still in the room. She didn’t want to come down. Kind of a shitty morning. I think it finally dawned on us that this was the end of the road. Literally.”

  Theo picked at his eggs. It was the first time Jack had ever seen Theo touch food with a fork and not put it in his mouth.

  “You really like Julia, huh?”

  Theo shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  “You shouldn’t take her to Roxham Road,” said Jack.

  “That’s not up for discussion. Julia made up her mind. She has to do what’s best for Beatriz and her. Sitting around waiting for that judge in Miami to deport her doesn’t make no sense.”

  “Listen to me,” said Jack. “The first thing the Canadians will do when they take Julia into one of those immigration tents at the border is run a computer check on Julia’s status in the States. The minute they see she has a pending asylum claim in the United States, that’s it. They will kick her back. The loophole in the treaty that’s drawing all these migrants to Roxham Road won’t work for someone like Julia.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The best thing for Julia and Beatriz is to go back to Miami, hope ICE never finds out she violated the conditions of her release by leaving, and let me take Judge Kelly’s order up to the Board of Immigration Appeals.”

  “You’re that certain the judge is going to deport her?” asked Theo.

  “I’m that certain,” said Jack.

  “The problem is she’s afraid to go back to Miami if her husband is there. I’m not too cool with it, either. I’m already packing a pistol wherever I go.”

  Jack lowered his voice. “Do you have a gun with you?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Theo, you don’t have a license to carry a concealed firearm in New York or any of the other states you drove through. That’s a felony.”

  “It’s not on me. It’s locked in the trunk of the car.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  Julia reappeared at the table. The tears were gone, and her hair was brushed. “Where’s Beatriz? Didn’t she come down for breakfast?”

  “We haven’t seen her,” said Theo.

  Julia’s sadness turned to concern. “She’s not in the room.”

  Chapter 68

  Snow was falling as Beatriz wheeled her roller board toward the motel parking lot. She’d seen snow for the first time in her life on the drive through Pennsylvania, which was exciting. By New York, though, she’d had enough of it. She was having serious doubts about Canada.

  Beatriz retrieved a knit cap from her backpack, pulled it on, and kept walking.

  Her mom must have known that she’d lain awake all night. Beatriz was in bed but with eyes wide open when her mother had kissed her on the forehead, told her to try to get a little sleep, and quietly gone down to breakfast with Theo. It wasn’t that Beatriz couldn’t fall asleep. She was afraid that, if she allowed her eyes to close, she might slip into that strange place she’d landed before, trapped in her own fears, sealed off from the rest of the world, encased in a glass box.

  “Good morning,” a hotel worker said to her. The snow was falling faster than the old man could shovel it from the walkway, which meant that it really wasn’t a “good morning” for him or Beatriz.

  “Bonjour,” she said, but she immediately felt silly, not sure if New York actually bordered a French-speaking province. Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t. Why should it even matter to a girl from El Salvador?

  Beatriz continued past the carport at the motel entrance, the tight squeak of new-fallen snow punctuating each footfall. A whip of wind brushed her face like an icy wisp of hair. A flake as big as a dragonfly hit her in the eye and immediately started to melt, soaking what was left of her eyelashes. All night long, in her fight against sleep, she’d refused to let her eyes close, and when her eyelids grew heavy, she’d tug on her eyelashes to snap herself awake. It was a bad habit she’d started as a little girl, when the sound of her father shouting and her mother screaming made her afraid to go to sleep at night. She was angry at herself for acting so weird, but losing a couple of eyelashes was worth it if she could avoid sinking back to that place. Mom wouldn’t be happy when she got a good look in the daylight and saw that Beatriz had been plucking again. Rather than go down to the breakfast bar and face the music, Beatriz had packed up her things and headed down to load them in Theo’s car. Maybe she could convince her mom that she hadn’t been pulling on her lashes again, that they’d frozen in the wind and broken off.

  Not my fault, Mom.

  Theo’s car was parked beside a snow-covered pickup truck at the end of the row. It was locked, but like a lot of people who’d been locked out of a car, Theo kept a spare key in a small magnetic box that attached to the frame near the front driver’s-side wheel well. Beatriz retrieved the key and opened the trunk. The other bags were still in the motel room, so everything Theo had left overnight in the trunk was in plain view. The tire and the tool kit were no surprise. The same could not be said for the pistol, which was tucked into the side-panel pouch made of cargo netting. Beatriz had had no idea it was there, but it did explain why Theo had told her to stay out of the trunk—which, to a teenager, was as good as a direct order to open it.

  Beatriz slid her backpack off her shoulder and placed it next to the spare tire. As she turned to lift her suitcase, the swirling blue beacons caught her eye through the falling snow. A police car entered from the highway and was speeding across the parking lot. Beatriz froze. It felt like the day they’d come to her house in Miami to take her mother.

  The squad car was heading straight toward her.

  The roads of Plattsburgh had been salted, but the motel parking lot hadn’t. Jorge gripped the steering wheel tightly as the Clinton County squad car transitioned from the wet highway to snow-covered asphalt. His cell phone was resting on the dash, and the blinking GPS signal on the screen was drawing him just ahead, toward the girl who was standing behind the car with the open trunk. Definitely the black guy’s car.

  He’d found them.

  Jorge was just a few car lengths away from the prize, the hostage he would need in order to bargain his way out of trouble with the police. Beatriz had the classic deer-in-the-headlamps expression, her gaze locked onto the swirling lights. It was a little unnerving, causing Jorge to freeze up for a moment—just long enough to make him hit the brake pedal a second too late, which sent the squad car sliding across the snow. Jorge slammed the brake even harder, which was exactly the wr
ong thing to do. He’d lost control, but it was as if everything were in slow motion. The front end spun around gradually, until Jorge was looking through the windshield at where he’d just been. The back of the car was now the front, the red taillights leading an unstoppable slide that Jorge knew wasn’t going to end well.

  The squad car slammed into the rear of the pickup truck that was parked beside Theo’s car. Jorge’s head snapped back against the headrest as the car came to a sudden stop. Jorge didn’t even check to see if he was okay. He grabbed the dead cop’s pistol, jumped out of the car, and stood in the blue swirl of authority as the snow continued to fall. From the driver’s side of the squad car, his gaze cut like a laser over the hood of the vehicle, locking onto Beatriz.

  “Get in the car!” he shouted. “Now!”

  Chapter 69

  “Beatriz!” the man shouted. “Get in the damn car!”

  He was speaking in Spanish, but it was the familiar voice, not the language, that threw her. Beatriz had expected a police officer and had gotten the furthest thing from it: the chilling voice that had never failed to make her freeze up with fear.

  “Beatriz! Get in!”

  The back of her neck tingled with a surge of horrible memories, and Beatriz dug deep for the strength to fight off the emotional paralysis that was overtaking her body like the shadow of a solar eclipse. The police beacon continued to swirl in silence, lending a strange blue hue to the anger on her father’s face. He’d run out of patience, but as he hurried around the front of the squad car to grab her, he lost his footing on a patch of ice. The soles of his shoes were suddenly pointing at the sky, and he landed with a thud flat on his back.

  Beatriz sprang into action. Instinct told her to simply run for her life, but the gun was right there, within easy reach. She swallowed her fear and went for it so quickly and with so much determination that she ripped the entire cargo-net pouch from the Velcro fasteners on the side panel—and sent the gun flying through the air. She watched it spin through the falling snowflakes, bounce on the ice, and skid right under the squad car.

  “No!” she shouted, but there was nothing else to do. She ran.

  Toward the motel would have been her first choice, but that would have been running straight into her father’s arms. She raced toward the highway, her body flushed with adrenaline, arms pumping and legs moving like an Olympic sprinter’s.

  Jorge lay flat on the sinister patch of ice, stunned and breathless from a fall unlike any he’d suffered before. It took a moment, and by the time he could breathe again and climb to his feet, Beatriz was already across the street and still running. An old man with a snow shovel was fifty feet away and hobbling toward him.

  Jorge considered getting back in the squad car but noticed the rear tire resting on the pavement at a much-less-than-perfect angle. Victory in the collision had gone to the pickup truck, leaving the squad car with a bent rim, if not a broken axle.

  “Are you okay, Officer?” the old man shouted.

  Jorge didn’t wait for the man to get close enough to see that Jorge wasn’t actually the police. He turned and ran after Beatriz, more careful with his footing this time, and making sure that his gun was secure in his coat pocket.

  Jack heard the crash in the parking lot. He and Theo jumped up from the breakfast table, and Julia joined them as they raced through the lobby and through the pneumatic entrance doors. They stopped beneath the carport to see what was going on. The swirling police beacons caught Jack’s attention, but Theo seemed more focused on his own vehicle.

  “Somebody broke into my car,” he said.

  Jack ran straight down the row of parked cars toward the accident. Theo and Julia followed, all oblivious to the fact that it was way too cold to be outside without a jacket. They quickly caught up with the old man holding the snow shovel.

  “What just happened?” asked Jack.

  “Cop came in from the highway like a rocket and slammed into the pickup truck. Wanted the girl to get in the car with him.”

  “That’s Beatriz’s suitcase!” said Julia.

  “And her backpack,” said Theo, as he removed it from the trunk.

  “Where’s the cop?” asked Jack.

  “Went running after her. More I think of it, I’m not sure he was a cop. Wasn’t wearing a uniform.”

  “I’m calling nine-one-one,” said Julia, as she pulled her phone from her purse.

  Jack was on the same wavelength. “Which way did they run?” he asked the old man.

  “My gun’s gone,” said Theo, showing Jack an empty cargo pouch.

  “Yes,” Julia said into her phone, speaking to the 911 operator, “my daughter was just taken from the Plattsburgh Inn parking lot.”

  “Across the street and then up the hill,” the old man said. “There’s a fork in the road ’bout a quarter mile from here. One way takes you into town. Other way there’s nothing but a gas station.”

  “She’s five feet tall,” Julia told the operator.

  Theo dug his car keys from his pocket. “Let’s go!”

  They jumped into the car with Theo at the wheel and Jack shotgun. Julia was in the back seat, still on the phone with the 911 dispatcher, as Theo drove way too fast out of the parking lot—as fast as Jack would have driven had someone been chasing Righley. The car fishtailed, but Theo recovered as they started up the highway. The whump-whump of the windshield wipers and the hiss of speeding tires on wet pavement stayed with them all the way to the fork in the road.

  “Straight or left?”

  “I don’t know!” said Jack.

  “What’s your gut tell you?”

  Jack didn’t have a gut on this one. “Straight!”

  “Left it is,” said Theo, and so they went.

  Chapter 70

  The snow was falling harder. Beatriz kept running. And her father was gaining ground.

  Beatriz had done an all-out sprint up the hill, hoping that on the other side she’d find a bustling city center filled with helpful people and, most of all, police cars with actual police officers. She found none of that. It made her heart sink to see nothing but snow-covered pastures that went on and on, all the way to the forest-covered hills in the distance. She wished she’d gone the other way at the fork in the road. But she couldn’t turn back now. Her thighs burned, and she felt a side stitch coming on; her father was still charging up the hill behind her. All she could do was continue down the long stretch of salted wet highway lined with barbed-wire fences and previously plowed snowfall.

  “Beatriz! Stop!”

  The sound of his voice only propelled her, and gravity pulled her down the hill almost faster than she could move her legs and feet. The road curved at the bottom of the hill, and a ray of hope arrived through the snowstorm in the form of oncoming headlights. Beatriz continued down the hill, running, jumping, and waving her arms to get the driver’s attention. He zipped right past her, never slowing down and spraying her with salty snowmelt.

  “No!” she cried.

  “Beatriz!” her father shouted.

  She glanced back. He’d reached the crown of the hill. It gave her heart to see him hunched over, hands just above his knees, as he paused to catch his breath. Each step she took while he rested was another yard gained in the footrace to—where?

  A faint glow of light reappeared in the distance. This time, if she had to, she would throw her body onto the highway in front of the oncoming car. She wiped the snow from her eyes—lashes really did serve a purpose—and saw that the fuzzy glow in the snowstorm wasn’t a pair of headlamps. The light was from a gas station. Beatriz dug inside herself, found another gear, and made a dash for what seemed like the last outpost of civilization between her and the Canadian border. The yellow signage got bigger and brighter with her every step. Soon the pumps came into view, but it worried her that she was less than a hundred yards away and hadn’t spotted a single vehicle.

  “Please be open, please be open,” she said over and over, still running, still closing in on
this oasis, as if the mantra kept her going.

  It was one of the newer-style mini-stations: no service garage, no car wash; just a cashier’s booth in the middle, a row of pumps on each side, and a flat canopy-style roof to cover the whole operation. But Beatriz had been wrong about no vehicles. A covered jeep was parked by the air hose behind the station. Inside the booth the lights were on. The cashier was seated behind the window. Her prayers were answered, but Beatriz was figuratively out of gas. The test of endurance had pushed her to the limit, and like the ancient Greek Pheidippides on his fatal run from Marathon to Athens, she stumbled and collapsed ten yards from the mini-station. She tried to pick herself up from the pavement but couldn’t find the strength. She checked behind her, and though her father was a silhouette, it was enough to make her find the breath to cry for help.

  The door opened. The cashier emerged from the booth.

  “Help!” she said in a stronger voice.

  The cashier hurried over, and Beatriz grabbed onto the sleeve of his flannel shirt as he helped her up.

  “Are you okay, girl?”

  “Hide me!” she said.

  “From what?”

  “My father,” she said, pointing. He was just twenty yards away and closing. “He’s going to kill me!”

  The cashier smiled, as if he knew better. “Dads get mad sometimes, sweetie. He ain’t gonna kill ya.”

  “No, you don’t understand. He beats my mom. He killed two people in Miami. The police are after him!”

  The cashier’s smile vanished. “Get in the booth. The glass is bulletproof.”

  Her legs were like rubber, but the cashier was one of those Paul Bunyan–type men who wasn’t particularly buff, just big and strong as an ox. He practically carried her to the booth, yanked open the door, and took her inside. It was tiny, barely big enough for the stool at the counter, the cash drawer, and one person, let alone two. The cashier closed the door, shutting out the weather and worse, and locked it. Then he picked up the landline and dialed 911.