Sara waved her fingers toward the bathroom. “Go. Twenty minutes. Besides, I wanted to get a shower myself before we head out.”
“Um…”
Sara stopped. “What?”
“I’m thinking your basic black suit doesn’t go with my new look unless we’re trying for a Willie Tut hanging with the FBI suits on a vid look, or something.”
Sara’s brow wrinkled. “Who’s Willie Tut?”
Zach shook his head. “Wow, they really don’t let you out much, do they? He’s a modo rocker. Came out with a new vid about three months ago. You really haven’t seen any of his stuff?”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How about Boba Funk? Sheba?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “What can I say? You’re right, though, I should stay in jeans and wear a different jacket.”
***
As he stepped from the bathroom, Zach moved to make room for Sara to get past him.
“I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Checking his reflection in the mirror again, he played with his hair, trying to get used to the spikes of newly black hair sticking out at odd angles. After a few minutes, he reached for the wrap-around shades. With them in place, he decided the result was as effective as they had hoped. On the other side of the door, the running shower started him thinking about the legs he’d seen the day before. He cleared his throat and stepped away.
Zach paced the room while Sara showered. While he waited, he switched the screen on and started flipping feeds absent-mindedly to pull his thoughts from the fiasco his life had become. A familiar sight caught his eye, and he had to go back three feeds to find it. He recognized the dark green, concrete-block house in the background at once.
“No,” he said. As dread turned his gut to ice, a young man’s grim face filled the screen, the microphone the newscaster clutched was steady as he spoke.
“Sara.” His voice caught in his throat, little more than a croak. He sat, transfixed, and watched. “Sara.” His voice was louder, this time. He stood as the bathroom door opened, unable to tear his eyes away from the screen.
“What is it? Something new about you?” Sara asked, a smile on her face as she stepped out of the bathroom. A fluffy, white towel wrapped around her torso. Another towel wound around her head like a turban. “Have they dredged up another old girlfriend to besmirch your name and…” she trailed off. “What is it?”
Speechless, his attention returned to the screen as she approached.
Sara stared at the screen. Her curiosity became confusion. Then, realization turned to horror. She moved to Zach’s side as, on the screen, deputies removed two black plastic body bags on stretchers from her parents’ house. Yellow crime scene tape roped off the area. She slowly dropped onto the foot of the bed and sat motionless, her unblinking eyes wide. Shocked disbelief filled her face as the color drained away. “That’s my parents’ house.” Her voice sounded far away.
On the screen, the scene shifted to a cutaway, then to a newscaster in a studio. The woman described a neighbor finding the bodies—a man and a woman—and calling the Beaches Police and Safety department. She added that names were being withheld pending notification of the next of kin.
Sara sat on the foot of the bed, face blank. When the newscaster finished and moved on to another story, she continued to sit, still and white as an alabaster replica of herself.
Zach moved into her line of sight and knelt in front of her. She stared through him as though he were made of smoke. “Sara…” he stopped. Whatever words he might’ve had to say dried up on his tongue and blew away on his breath. “I’m so—”
“Don’t.” Her whisper was soft as the vanilla scent coming off her. “If you don’t say it, it won’t be true.” Her eyes swam in tears and she blinked a couple of times. “Just don’t.”
“Sara.” He took her hand in his. Her skin was cold as frost in February. “Sara, get dressed. We need to go. Now.”
“Yeah,” she said, absently. “I have to get home.”
“Sara?” he asked, as she stood and walked toward the bathroom.
Halfway there, the towel fell off, landing in a heap on the floor. The muscles of her legs and back moved under her skin. Reaching up, she grasped the second towel and dragged it from her head in slow motion. It landed a few feet from the first. She shook her hair loose and turned to face Zach, seemingly oblivious to her own nakedness. “Where’s my clothes?”
“You took them into the bathroom with you.” He fixed his gaze on her face and inclined his head toward the open door.
She nodded. “Right. I’ll just be a minute,” she said, her tone quiet and wistful. She turned and walked back into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
“Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Zach repeated, until it formed a mantra. He threw their few belongings into the small bag they’d brought, dropping it next to the door. His fingers trembled as he slowly peeked out through the drawn curtains. Nothing moved. The quiet unnerved him more than a parking lot full of police cars, or worse, big, black, SUVs with a fresh coat of black tint on the windows would have.
He blew out a breath, closed his eyes, and let the curtain drop into place. “We have to get out of here,” he whispered, to himself. “If they know about Sara’s parents, they know she’s been helping me.” He blew out a breath. “We’re really screwed now.”
He ran his fingertips to his scalp and tunneled them through his hair. “They’re dead because of me.” Tears stung his eyes.
He grabbed the Ford’s keys and paced.
As he approached the door for the sixth time, he stopped. His eyes lost focus. Panic turned his gut to ice. He’d managed to keep it at bay since Sara had rescued him the first time. It surged through him now, tightening in his throat.
A hand was around his. Sara’s red-rimmed eyes filled with tears she tried desperately to blink back. “We should go,” she whispered.
Her cheeks were turning blotchy, her shoulders sagged. She was on the verge of losing it, and the thought scared him more than anything in the past two days. He wanted to hold her, comfort her, but it would have to wait until he got them out of the motel and to safety.
She clutched his hand and cleared her throat, a quiet, choked sound. “I said, we should go.”
“This has to stop, god damn it.”
“It will Zach, but you’re the only one who can stop it.” She stepped closer to him, laid her head on his shoulder, and sniffled.
He let his free arm drift up and around her shoulder. “I will. I promise.” He led Sara to the car, opened the passenger door, and waited while she crawled into the seat. He reached one arm behind the seat and pulled the release with the other one, easing her seat down.
“What’re you doing?”
He spoke softly. “I thought it would be a good idea for you to lie down for a minute and try to get some of the blood back to your head. I’ll drive for a bit. Okay?”
She nodded. Her eyes closed, and she ran a thumb over the corners to brush away the tear forming there.
Zach ran back to the room and grabbed their bag. He tossed it onto the rear seat, climbed in, and started the car.
“Don’t use the Interstate. They’ll be looking for us there.”
“Okay.” He pulled the car to the motel’s exit and stopped. “How about if I take Pine Ridge Road west and catch Tamiami Trail? It’ll take us across into West Miami and Hialeah. If we can’t disappear there, we’re really screwed.”
Sara narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “I grew up in Pembroke Pines. It’s in central Lauderdale Metro.”
“Right. Lauderdale.” She said it like she was reading a stranger’s file. “Your aunt and uncle live in Chicago. That’s where you went to school, but you’re from Lauderdale.”
He nodded and wheeled the little car onto the road in front of the motel. “Wonderful place for a couple of kids from the Sun Belt. Winters blow, big time. We’ll have to go, so you
can meet Uncle Aden and Aunt Mackenzie. They’re vegan, organic pot farmers. It’ll be fun to see the shoe on the other foot for a change.”
Sara stared at him, her brows knit. “That wasn’t in your file.”
He shrugged. “Guess big brother doesn’t know everything, yet.” They shared a forced laugh. He pulled up to the Interstate overpass and stopped at a red light behind a blue mini-van. Three cars waited in the lane next to them.
The light turned green. The two cars in the lead slammed on their brakes as a large, black SUV ran the light and careened around in front of them from the exit ramp. Sara started to pop up at the sound of squealing tires, but Zach’s arm shot out and held her flat.
He faced straight ahead and watched the SUV from behind his mirrored shades. The truck disappeared in the rear-view mirror as traffic started again. On the other side of the Interstate, he motored into a truck stop parking lot, driving around behind the combination sub shop, convenience store, and fuel station. He whipped the little car into an out-of-the-way space and killed the engine it used to charge the batteries on the road.
“Come on,” he said, as he turned the car off, popped the hood latch, and stepped into the morning sunshine. He reached into the back seat and grabbed the bags containing their clothes and equipment.
“What’re you doing?” Sara asked. She slid to her feet and closed the car door.
Zach stepped around to the front of the car and opened the hood. Inside, he found a black box similar to the one in his car. He grabbed the thick, white antenna cable and yanked it free. He dropped the hood, continued around to where Sara waited on the passenger side of the car, and took her hand. “We tried doing this the smart way,” he said, tugging her toward a row of eighteen-wheelers parked in rear of the lot. “Now we’re going to do it my way.”
“What are you talking about? What’re you doing? They’ll be here any minute. The car has…” she trailed off. “A transponder.”
He nodded, continuing to pull her toward the trucks. “Sure does. And if they know where we slept last night, they sure as shit know you rented a cute little white Ford diesel hybrid. Betcha they have the transponder code, and they’re going to shut the ignition off in a minute, try to find it on a tablet screen, and troll around for stalled cars alongside the road.”
“So what’s your plan?”
He chuckled mirthlessly as they walked. “There’s a long tradition in science of exploring unconventional, avant-garde methodology when traditional concepts fail. It’s a standard, accepted, scientific method of accomplishing tasks that call for highly lateral thinking and unorthodox techniques.”
Sara was silent for a few steps. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”
“Not a shred. This is called winging it.”
She sighed. “You’re going to get us killed, you know that, right?”
Zach forced a grin, pulling harder on Sara’s hand. “Maybe, maybe not. If they know you’re involved, they know you’re in charge.” He gestured over his shoulder at her when she inhaled. “Don’t argue. You’re in charge. You’re a planner and a doer. They know what you’ll do next, to some degree. But,” he tugged her into the shade of half a prefab house attached to the rear of a long-haul truck. The open side was covered by a sheet of heavy-grade translucent plastic. “They can’t factor in the unexpected.” Zach placed the bag on the pavement, unzipped one of the side pockets, reached in, and withdrew the parts-store screwdriver. Holding it up to the light, he turned it around, as if inspecting the tool. “Knew I should’ve bought a better one.”
He stepped to the corner of the prefab house section and popped several large staples holding the plastic sheet over the opening. They dropped into his hand. “In you go,” he said. “While you go unlock the door, I’ll tap the staples back in place.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “We don’t even know where this thing is going. It could be anywhere.”
“And anywhere is better than here. Now, don’t argue. If we don’t know where we’re going, they can’t know where we are.”
Crawling through the opening, Sara mumbled, “This is nuts.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Zach replaced the staples, carefully tapping them into the recycled plastic studs at the edges of the prefab house section. Satisfied, he returned the screwdriver to the side pocket, picked up the bag, and walked around to the door on the other side of the building section. Sara held the door open a crack, pulling it wider to allow him to lift the bag in and scramble in behind it. Once inside, he grabbed the bag and her hand, and moved quickly toward the front of the section.
“Where are you going?”
“Bedroom.”
The tug on his hand pulled him up short.
He rolled his eyes at her. “For a closet to hide in. This is too exposed.” He gestured to the plastic sheet with the bag. “We need to keep out of sight.”
“Oh.” Sara allowed herself to be led again.
They crept through the rooms until they found a bedroom with a walk-in closet. Once inside, he pushed the door closed and they sat, leaning against one wall in the gloom, their bag at their feet. Sara let her head drop onto Zach’s chest and he circled his arm around her. She turned into his embrace, pulled her knees into a fetal position, and sobbed, each ragged breath knifing into Zach’s soul. He leaned his head against the wall and fought to steady his breathing as tears ran down his cheeks.
A few minutes later, a rumble from the big diesel engine shook through the floor and walls. The structure shifted around them as they started moving. The truck’s maneuvers through the parking lot and onto the road jostled them until, at last, they started to accelerate onto the Interstate.
Sara’s sobs settled into sniffles. Zach relaxed and let her calm down. When her breathing slowed mostly back to normal, he shifted and pulled the door open.
“Aw, crap.”
Sara moved next to him, wiped her fingers over her eyes, and continued the motion by scraping the back of her hand under her nose. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I was right, they’ll never expect this.”
“Zach, what is it?”
He sighed. “It’s ten in the morning and the sun is over there,” he pointed to the winter sun hanging in the sky beyond the plastic sheet.
Sara’s eyes widened with realization. “Oh, hell.”
“Got that right.” He shook his head. “We’re heading north.”
CHAPTER 23
By noon, the prefab house section Zach and Sara rode in started over the Skyway Bridge into St. Petersburg. They sat on the bare, recycled plastic floor, their backs propped against the wall next to the open closet door. From the top of the bridge, sunlight sparkled off the wave crests like distant diamonds on the Gulf of Mexico even through the translucent plastic covering. Zach was surprised at the relative lack of road noise rumbling up through the wheels.
Sara shifted but kept her head on his shoulder. “My ass is asleep.” It was the first thing she’d said since they entered the highway. Her breathing had finally wound down into a slow, silent, rhythm and stayed that way for over an hour.
In response, he shifted onto his right hip for the fourth time since their stowed-away voyage began and bent his right leg until his foot was under him. “Mine too.” He scowled at the prospect of having to get up. “Wonder where he’s headed?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She sat next to Zach on the floor, her long legs crossed at the ankles. Her hands were folded together on her lap. She held his left hand between hers.
“No, I suppose not.” His right arm was still around her shoulders. His right hand had lost sensation somewhere south of Sarasota. Outside, the horizon tilted the other direction, telling Zach they were on the north side of the bridge. Home. The eye of the storm. “We’ll get this stuff copied and sent, and it will be over.”
“No it won’t.” Her voice sounded distant.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to kill that sonofabitch,” she s
aid with cold finality.
“You’re upset—”
“I’m not asking you to help, Dr. Marshall, but that bastard, Murphy, killed my parents. I’m going to watch him bleed and die like the dog he is.”
“We’re talking about the guy who killed my best friend and is currently trying to kill me. I’ll hold him down while you cut his throat if you want, just please don’t call me Dr. Marshall in that tone.”
“Sorry.” Her voice softened again. “Zach.” She squeezed his hand.
“What about planning?”
“No planning. I’m going to walk up to the bastard, shove the barrel of my gun in his gut, and empty the magazine into him.”
“Sounds good to me.” He watched the waves glitter in the distance, realizing he no longer had any realistic, long-term goals.
“No. I can’t ask you to be a part of this.” The red-rimmed intensity in her eyes pierced him. “I like you—”
“I like you, too,” he smiled. “Wanna go steady?”
A smile flicked over her lips and was gone. “Shut up, Zach. You can be the most ridiculous boob I’ve ever met, but I like you. I’ve liked you since the very first time I laid eyes on you, and I don’t want you involved in this.”
He slid around to face her, letting his numb right arm drop onto his leg. “Have you not been paying attention, Special Agent Goode? We’re way past that. It’s because of me, all this,” he said, pulling his hand from between hers and gesturing in an arc around them, “is happening.” She started to speak, but he touched his fingers to her lips. “In case you haven’t been keeping track, he killed my best friend, burned my house down, trashed my career, tried to kill me, and murdered the parents of the only woman I’ve ever loved.” He blinked back tears. “And in case you missed it, I really liked your parents, too. They died because of me, so fuck all that, because if you don’t kill him, I will. Now, do you want to go steady or not?”
Even as he said the words, Robert Hare’s list crossed his thoughts. He wondered if this qualified as glibness or grandiose self-worth, and decided it didn’t matter.
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