“Yep—we gotta get heading,” Gwen replied.
“You two ladies…” The waitress paused, taking them both in and seemingly unsure of how to finish. “Going far?”
“Phoenix,” Gwen said.
“Something for…work?” the waitress said, clearly flummoxed.
“Family reunion,” Abby said.
This explanation seemed to puzzle the woman even further, and Gwen had to bite the inside of her mouth to keep from braying with laughter. She gave the waitress an extra-generous tip and almost raced out the door, bursting into laughter the second they were both outside, back in the broiling heat.
Abby was smiling at her, clearly pleased with herself, and Gwen slapped her shoulder, lightly.
“That was good,” she said, wiping her eyes. “‘Family reunion.’ I’ll have to remember that one.”
“Shall we?” Abby said, gesturing at the car.
Still chuckling, Gwen unlocked Abby’s door before going around to the driver’s side. Abby had unlocked it for her, and she climbed in, rolling down the window again at once.
“Airport? Bus station?” she asked.
“The bus station would be perfect. You don’t have to buy the ticket, though. My friend will wire me the money once I get in touch with her. That’s who I was trying to call earlier.”
Gwen shrugged. “It’s really not a big deal. I could save you a step, and you could send me the money later. I’ll give you an address.” She didn’t have one right now, but Abby didn’t need to know that.
Abby shook her head. “No—really. My friend will be happy to help.”
“Okay—if you’re sure,” Gwen said, knowing already that she’d buy the ticket anyway. No way would she leave Abby stranded in a bus station. She’d been stuck in one herself a time or two, and that was no place to leave anyone, let alone a pretty woman, on her own.
“Shit,” Gwen said. “I forgot to ask where the station is. Let me go inside and ask that waitress.” She moved to open the door, but Abby gripped her arm.
“Oh, don’t bother. I know how to get there.”
“You do?”
Abby hesitated and then nodded. “I used to live here in El Paso. I can tell you where to go.”
Gwen nodded, turning the ignition and pulling back onto the road. They drove in silence for a few more minutes, the city gradually building up on either side of the road—houses, stores, a couple of schools. They were entering from the east, relatively far from the interstate, and this part of the city seemed nicer than Gwen remembered from her trips through town farther south—suburban, clean. Patriotic bunting hung on the light poles, ready for the Fourth of July next week. The road here looked as if they’d been recently swept and cleaned, perhaps in preparation for the inevitable parade.
A mile or so beyond this, she saw flashing lights and a long line of cars blocking their one-lane road. She slowed to stop behind the last car, cursing and craning her neck and head outside of the car to try to see what was happening. A dozen or so cars had stopped in front of them, but she could see very little.
“I don’t think it’s an accident,” she reported, squinting her eyes. “I see some policemen and a wooden barrier across the road. I think they’re talking to the driver at the front. Maybe a pipe burst or something.” She watched briefly. “Nope! They let him through. It must be some kind of sting operation. Maybe immigration or drunk driving or something.”
“Gwen?”
“Hmmm?” She was still trying to see, her head still outside against the window.
“Gwen? Look at me.”
“What?”
Gwen’s heart clenched, and she went cold. Abby was holding a gun, low in her lap, pointed at her.
“Gwen—don’t panic. Just turn around, right now, and I won’t hurt you.”
Chapter Three
Gwen swallowed, her heart pounding so hard it seemed to pulse in her ears. She broke out in a light sweat, and her breathing felt labored and tight in her chest.
“Wh-what’s that for?” she asked, almost whispering.
Abby shook her head. “No time to explain. Turn around. Now. I don’t want to have to hurt you.”
Gwen licked her lips, glancing back at the car in front of her, which had pulled up a bit. She heard a honk behind her and jumped. Abby didn’t flinch. She kept the gun steady, her eyes rooted on Gwen’s face.
“Don’t you think the police will notice?” Gwen asked. “I mean, it will be really obvious if I turn around now.”
Abby shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll have to risk it.”
Gwen was trembling now, but her heart rate had slowed a little, and it was already easier to breathe. She took a deep lungful of air and let it out, putting her hands on the steering wheel. She had two options. She could call Abby’s bluff and start honking to get someone’s attention, maybe even drive toward the roadblock. If Abby wasn’t bluffing, it might surprise her enough to forget about pulling the trigger. She almost shook her head. No—it wasn’t worth the risk.
The car behind her honked again to get her to move, and she did a little, cranking the wheel as hard as she could to the left to turn around. The car was fairly large—an old sedan—so she couldn’t quite make the turn on this narrow road. She was forced to back up a little but managed to swing into the lane going in reverse. Her heart was racing again, and she could hear the squawk of a bullhorn dimly behind them. Someone was yelling at them through it, but she couldn’t make out the words.
Abby had turned almost entirely around and slapped the back of the seat, hard. “Drive! Drive!”
Gwen peeled away, tires squealing, some small part of her brain aware of the stunned shock on the face of the driver of the car that had honked at her. Then she was driving, fast, racing back the way they came. Flashing lights began to follow her, so she pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor. The old car surged ahead, throwing her back in her seat, and she saw Abby slip and almost slide over the top of their bench seat.
“They’re coming! Faster!” Abby screamed.
Almost as if she’d willed it to happen, the car caught its stride, and Gwen watched the speedometer slide farther and farther up—80, 90, then 100 miles an hour, leveling off shy of 110 before the car started to shimmy in protest. The landscape whipped by outside, the houses and schools and small business at the outer edges of the city already falling behind.
Abby dropped back in her seat as the road dipped a little, throwing both of them up in the air for a moment as the car hopped. The bump back down was hard, and Gwen’s mouth filled with blood as she bit her tongue.
“There!” Abby said, pointing at a road to the left. “Turn there!”
Gwen barely had time to hit the brakes, once again wrenching the wheel as hard as she could. For a second, she was sure the car would tip and felt a strange lifting on the right as they sailed onto the side road, the vehicle squealing and grinding with the smell of burning rubber. Gwen had to wrestle the car the last few feet over some dried grass before she pulled onto the side road.
“They’ll see the tire marks,” she said as she managed to straighten the car, once again speeding up.
“That’s okay—we still have a few extra seconds. Look for somewhere to hide—something we can drive behind.”
Gwen immediately saw what she meant. They were in a warehouse district. All the buildings here were enormous, almost like airplane hangars, windowless with blank white or yellow siding.
“There,” Abby said, pointing at a small parking lot in front of the warehouse and a driveway on the far side, obviously intended for semi-trucks.
“Kind of close, isn’t it?”
“They’ll catch up any second.” She sounded almost breathless.
Gwen turned into the little parking lot in front of the warehouse and drove around the side and to the back as quickly as she could. A raised loading dock stood here, blissfully empty—no trucks, no people. She pulled to a stop next to it, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
Seconds later, they heard the police sirens rush by on the road in front of the warehouse, one after another, so fast the sound was dragged off almost as soon as they heard it. Several of them passed, and then there was silence except for their breathing and the ticking engine.
She turned toward Abby to grab her gun, but Abby was quicker, the gun already pointed at her.
“Goddamn it!” Gwen shouted. “What in the actual fuck?”
Abby’s eyes were hard, the pupils so dilated they were almost black. Still, the gun was steady, unwavering, and pointed directly at her chest.
“I’m sorry, Gwen. I tried to get you to leave me alone. You had your chance at the diner. You should have left me there.”
“Well, I’m doing that now,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “You can have the car. I’ll just get out now.”
“No.” Abby’s voice was even and unemotional. “Don’t move.”
“What? Why not? I’ll get out and walk away. I won’t tell anyone where you are.”
Abby shook her head. “Sorry. I can’t take that risk. And anyway, they’ve seen this car now. I’ll need something else.”
“So go out and get something yourself!”
Abby frowned. “On foot? You must be kidding me. They’ll pick me up right away.”
“That’s how I found you. What was your plan then?”
She didn’t immediately respond. “I didn’t really have one. I do now.”
“And how is that my concern?”
Abby gestured slightly with her gun. “Because I say it is.”
Gwen continued to glare at her, an almost overwhelming rage replacing her fright. She was slipping into that dark, angry place that had gotten her in so much trouble before—the kind of trouble that got her fired from so many jobs over the years. Soon, she would lose control, gun or no gun. Once that darkness took over, she wouldn’t be able to stop it.
She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, tightening and untightening them, and taking deep breaths. She tried to remember some of the exercises Dr. Leichman had taught her. She was supposed to fix her mind on something else—something benign, something completely removed from the situation she was in. She chose her usual anchor and started repeating it to herself under her breath.
“Golden retriever puppies. Golden retriever puppies. Golden retriever puppies…” Already, she started to relax and her blood began to cool.
“What are you doing?” Abby asked.
Gwen opened her eyes, pleased to see that Abby’s façade had slipped a little. She looked alarmed, almost scared.
“I’m trying not to beat the living shit out of you.”
Abby moved back a little, almost a flinch. Gwen was glad to see this, and her anger cooled into a low simmer.
She held her hands up. “What do you want from me, Abby? Why can’t you just let me go? Taking a hostage isn’t going to help you.”
Abby’s head tilted slightly. “How will they know you’re my hostage? They might think I have an accomplice.”
Gwen tightened her jaw, almost biting her sore tongue to keep from shouting. “They haven’t seen me yet. They don’t know who I am or even if you’re alone. Let me go, and we can call it quits. I won’t say anything, even if I’m picked up. I swear it.”
Abby’s shoulders rose. “Like I said, I can’t risk it. All I need is a car. You help me get one, and I’ll drop you off somewhere.” She gave her a sly smile. “A bus station, maybe.”
“You asshole,” Gwen said, almost laughing. She sat back in her seat, eyes closed, trying to think. Her anger was mostly gone, but her mind was still whirling, befuddled. She tried to calm herself, tried to focus, but the events of the last ten minutes had unsettled her too much. She couldn’t think of a way out.
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll help you. But we need to do this now.”
Abby’s eyebrows shot up. “Now? Can’t we wait until dark?”
“It has to be now. Pretty soon they’ll get a helicopter out here, and then dogs, and this whole place will be crawling with people looking for you. We won’t have anywhere to hide.” She paused. “I think I remember seeing a couple of trucks in front of a building back the way we came. We’ll have to sneak over there, from behind, but I should be able to get one started, as long as they’re as old as I think they are.”
Abby’s lips lifted in a slight grin. “I thought you said you weren’t a car thief.”
Gwen couldn’t help but grin back. “I’m not.”
“But you know how to steal cars?”
Gwen nodded. “I’ll need my shit in the trunk to get the door open.”
Abby’s eyes grew wary again, but she nodded. “Okay, but let me check it out first.”
“I don’t have a gun, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Gwen said. At least not one she’ll see, she thought.
“Fine. Let’s get going, then.”
“Not before we wipe it down in here. They might think they know who was in here, but we don’t have to give it to them so easy.”
They spent the next few minutes trying to erase every fingerprint in the car. They cleaned every surface—the dashboard, the inside handles and window levers, the seat belts, and the bottle of water. Satisfied, she stopped, and Abby watched her for further directions.
Gwen pointed. “Grab that map—we’ll need it. Don’t forget to do the outside handle and the area around the window on your way out.”
They both got out of the car, and Gwen saw her chance. Abby was on the far side, and Gwen could run away now. Abby might try to shoot at her, but with a handgun like that, her accuracy wouldn’t be very good. Even if she only managed ten or twenty feet before the bullets started, her chances were good. A smart, experienced criminal would have slid out after her instead of getting out on her side, kept her gun on her. Abby wasn’t stupid, so far as Gwen could tell, so that meant she hadn’t done something like this before. She was clearly practiced with her gun, but not in that way.
The chance passed almost as soon as she recognized it, and she sighed, joining Abby at the back of the car. She popped the trunk. She had left a sizeable leather messenger bag inside. Abby pulled it out, closed the trunk again, and then rooted around in it, glancing up at Gwen now and again as she did.
“What is all that stuff?” Abby said, handing her the bag.
“Some clothes. Tools.”
“For stealing cars?”
Gwen nodded. “And other things.”
They both flinched at the sound of sirens. They weren’t far away.
Abby gestured with her gun. “Let’s go.”
Gwen walked in front, the strap to her bag slung across her chest. A little secret compartment at the bottom of the bag held her own gun. She’d been searched before, and no one ever found it—you had to know where to look. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but knowing it was there comforted her. She began to feel like herself again.
After taking a quick peek out front, they walked along the back of four large warehouses. Two of them had fences, but they managed to skirt the back of the fences with little trouble, finally reaching the fourth, which was designed very much like the one where they’d left the car. They made their way up the slanted driveway to the front, sticking close to the side of the building to survey the scene. Three trucks some fifty feet away were parked right next to each other. The safest bet would be to open the far one. The other truck would block the driver’s side door and would be hidden from the road for the most part, especially if they stayed low to the ground.
“It’s an old Chevy—1988, ’89 maybe,” she told Abby. “I should be able to get it started, no problem. Let’s go.”
Almost crawling on all fours, they moved away from the safety of their hiding spot, finally reaching the space between the trucks after a long, breathless scurry. They sat there on their heels, breathing heavily before Gwen opened her satchel. She gave them each a pair of latex gloves and pulled out her set of lock picks. She was practiced at this, b
ut her nerves were slowing her a bit, and it took her several minutes to finally trip the lock. While she worked, Abby kept her gun leveled at her back. Gwen couldn’t see behind her, but she knew it was there.
The door finally open, she hissed at Abby, “Slide in to the far side, and stay down.”
Abby looked scared, the whites of her eyes visible all around the green. She hesitated for a moment and nodded. Gwen followed her inside, closing the door after them. The bench seat was fairly high, but she still had to contort herself to reach under the steering column to keep her head from view. Abby had chosen to squish herself into the footwell on the passenger’s side, propping her back against the passenger door, gun pointed her way.
Gwen struggled to wrench the plastic panel off the column but eventually had to use a hammer and a flat-head screwdriver to pry it off before it finally popped out. Three covered bundles of wires fell out. She found the one connected to the steering wheel and pulled off the cap that held that bundle of wires together. She got her wire strippers out, exposed about an inch and half of the battery wires, and twisted them together. The radio blared on, and they both jumped, the wail of country music filling the truck’s cabin. Gwen flipped it off and chuckled nervously.
“Step one.”
Abby nodded, looking tense and scared.
“Next part’s kind of dangerous,” Gwen explained. “You might want to cover your eyes.”
Abby didn’t, still staring at her, wary now.
“Your funeral,” Gwen said. “If I fuck this up, just make sure you push me away from the wires, okay? No need to catch on fire.”
She stripped the starter wires and held her face as far away as she could.
“Ready?”
Abby nodded.
She touched them together, throwing off a few sparks, and the truck roared to life. She used her foot to rev the engine a couple of times, and then it settled into a comfortable, even rumble.
“Okay,” she said, scooting back on the seat. She motioned for Abby to do the same. “Let’s get out of here.” She let go of the starter wires and threw the truck in reverse. This was the part she’d feared the most. She’d been almost certain she could get it started, but getting back on the road put them in police crosshairs again. She wasn’t sure she was up for another car chase.
On the Run Page 3