Three months after his arrival, Hardy found himself at the same gas station as Maria. Not even the one he was monitoring at the time, but, just a random station they both chose for a fill up. He was filling his tank when she pulled up to the pump across the aisle. He gave her a good long look as she exited her vehicle, not out of recognition, but, for the same reason many men gave her a good long look, admiration. He turned his back to her to finish his task and noticed a big convex security mirror hanging over the pump. He cocked his head a little to surreptitiously get another look at the beautiful girl behind him. He got a very good look. And while Lovelle was correct in his belief that her altered appearance would prevent any spark of recognition that might prompt a greater inspection, he hadn’t anticipated her beauty as the impetus of that scrutiny. He should have, considering how she had turned his own head that first night outside the 7/17 club. Not to mention all the times he jealously watched other men admire her in their many years together. Not that there was much he could or would have done about it.
Nevertheless, Hardy put her face, her name, and his nagging curiosity about why Lovelle had been hiding his girl, together. He realized that he had just found the final piece of the puzzle he had been assembling for more than a lifetime.
What he knew of Maria was that she had been a semi regular at the club after finally escaping Cuba. She had pulled back from the club in the last life after settling down with a non-repeater, but, had kept in touch with Caroline Berghdorf. Baker expected they would see her again once she found her way out of Cuba. In the last go around she had supposedly waited for the same boat, not wanting to risk failure when she already knew a sure way out. Hardy hadn’t expected to see her for another four years. That had been something he had figured in to his own timetable. Yet here she was.
He wondered how she had managed to get out while she was still a teenager. Was she that resourceful? Was she just lucky? Or did Lovelle go down and help her? That must be it, as he couldn’t imagine someone like the vigilante leaving the fate of his wife to chance. He’d managed several assassinations while Hardy wasn’t looking. It wasn’t too big a stretch to think he could pull off an extraction as well. Hardy’s admiration for the man just continued to grow.
Hardy stopped pumping at half a tank. He’d formulated a plan almost instantly and he needed every second to do what he had in mind. He got in his car and quickly pulled out in to the street. He shot across the road into a side street, pulling as far in as he could without losing sight of Maria. He watched in his rear view mirror as Maria closed her door. His hand was poised on his shifter as he watched her pull onto the road. The moment she was out of sight he slammed his car into reverse, spun the steering wheel, and backed into a driveway, one wheel clattering over a curb. Throwing the car into drive, he laid tracks of rubber, fishtailing back onto the street. He charged for the corner then skidded to a stop, leaving more of his tires on the pavement.
He had seen which direction she had turned out of the station. But she could turn down another side road almost immediately. He wanted to have her in view before that could happen. At the corner he spotted her cruising in a straight line down the main road. He waited for another car to get between them then rolled out onto the avenue to follow. Tailing her all the way home was simple.
***
The newest Las Vegas subdivisions were set up to have minimal access from the main roads. Typically there would be only one or two entrances in a half mile stretch. Lovelle’s house was near enough to one of these entrances to make it unlikely he would enter the sub from another point. Hardy was able to park at the entrance to an adjacent subdivision and watch for the vigilante. In less than an hour he was rewarded with the arrival of his subject.
By a stroke of luck the tables had turned. The advantage was now Hardy’s and he had no intention of losing it. Lovelle had spotted him in Detroit, even though he had no reason to suspect he was being watched and no idea what Hardy looked like. This time Lovelle would be looking out for him. He couldn’t just sit in his car at a safe distance. How far would a safe distance be? Probably too far to be useful. But, for now he wouldn’t be watching Lovelle. He could watch Maria.
Hardy felt confident that she did not have Lovelle’s counter surveillance skills. He was sure that had Lovelle been at that gas station he would have spotted Hardy in an instant. Still, he would not underestimate her. He had been careless in Detroit. He had followed too closely. He had been too repetitive. This time he would make damned sure he wasn’t detected.
***
Just five days after Hardy picked up Maria’s trail, Lovelle had a conversation with his father. This was a rare occurrence since neither man was much of a phone conversationalist. Lovelle got most of his news of home from his mom. Not that any of it was news to him. Variations in his own life sometimes put a wrinkle in the continuity of his parent’s, but, for the most part, it was a ‘been there, done that’ story from home.
On this occasion he had hit on a topic of interest for his father and they ended up speaking for a while. He had invited him to come out and golf over the winter, something he knew appealed to the man. Unbeknownst to his dad, this had become a tradition for them. Ever since Lovelle started relocating to Vegas, he had been hosting his father, who always mourned when he had to pack the clubs away for the winter, on these golf vacations.
As their conversation wrapped up, his dad threw Lovelle an unexpected curve, “Hey, did your friend ever get a hold of you? The kid from the Taco Hut?”
Lovelle was immediately suspicious. He had no friends at the Hut. Although he got along with his coworkers just fine he had never, in any of his lives, struck up a real friendship with one of them. That was why he always went back to work there. It never led to any entanglements. He liked as clean a break from home as possible. “No, did someone call from there?”
“No, some guy just knocked on the door. He said you told him to come by some time.”
“Oh,” Lovelle pretended to know what this was about, “A big guy with short blonde hair?” He described Hardy.
“Yeah, that’s him. He said he wanted to call and congratulate you on getting married, so I gave him your number.”
Lovelle was surprised again, “He knew about the wedding?”
“No, I happened to mention it. He just said he felt bad about not getting in touch sooner. I guess he didn’t feel too bad if he still hasn’t called. That had to have been a couple of months ago.”
Lovelle sort of unceremoniously extricated himself from the phone call then cradled his chin in his hands, muttering “Damn it. He’s been here for months.”
Unless the man’s skills had improved markedly Lovelle was pretty sure he wasn’t being tailed. But, he wasn’t sure if that even mattered now. The fact that the man had gone to see his parents meant that, far from being ready to give up, he was willing to risk exposure to pick up the trail. In Lovelle’s mind that indicated a pretty high level of interest. And, whatever it was that had peaked the man’s interest, the news of their wedding must have ramped it up another notch. Lovelle had scrupulously kept Maria out of sight, and his marriage would certainly have been suspicious.
The observer had to at least be right at the tipping point of deciding he had his man. So, if he had located them, would he even bother with surveillance? Lovelle supposed it depended upon the club’s agenda. Maybe he would call in reinforcements. If it were Lovelle, he would check out the mystery wife. That was assuming he didn’t already know who she was. So what were the chances of convincing the club that he wasn’t the vigilante once they knew for sure that he was a Skipper? He couldn’t plead ignorance of the club with Maria as his wife. Would there be any question why he was keeping clear of them? Or why she was in the country but had failed to contact anyone she knew? He thought not. If they knew what he now suspected, they would certainly have little or no doubt of what he had been up to.
In that case, what were his options? He could quit working and rob them of proof, but, hel
l, that’s what they were after anyhow. And if he did quit, it couldn’t be just a temporary cessation. They would know it was no coincidence that the killings had stopped once they had identified him. And even if they didn’t come to that conclusion, they would figure it out as soon as he started working again.
As he figured it, the club had him backed into a corner. He was down to two choices. He could surrender and hope they would leave them alone. If they were vindictive, a tip to the police could make life miserable for him and his family for the duration of the current skip. He already had plenty of blood on his hands in this life. The other choice was what he had dubbed the nuclear option. He could blow up his life as Lovelle and become Mark Ridge full time. This option would allow him to continue to work, but, it was a guarantee of misery for him and everyone he loved.
For as long as he had been working as a vigilante he had known it might come to something like this. He had been willing to risk his freedom, and his life, because he believed the victims he was sparing were worth the trade. He felt the same way now, but, he was no longer flying solo. And he no longer believed he was risking just a single life with a reset in a few years. He didn’t yet know how, but, he knew that a Skipper’s death could be permanent. And he would be dragging Maria, who had already endured more than a hundred years of communist Cuba, into a life of subterfuge and constant looking over her shoulder. It meant misery for his parents for as many lives as there were left to be lived. They would have to endure the disappearance of their son over and over again, at least until he was erased from existence. It was a horrible thought that he might be placing his parents into a position that their only relief would come with his final death.
He consulted Maria that night to see if she could clear some of his confusion. She approached things from such a different perspective that she often raised issues or proposed solutions he hadn’t considered. This time however, all she could do was assure him that he needn’t worry about her. She was totally committed to his mission and was ready to make whatever sacrifice that required. She could sympathize with his anguish over his family. She had taken six lives to decide that freedom outweighed loyalty to her own family, who refused to shake off the bonds of communism.
“I’m afraid you can’t wait too long to decide, my love.” She told him. “If you are right and this watcher has decided that you are the vigilante, with Cedric’s help I don’t think it will take long for them to find us.”
Finally, Lovelle decided that his work had to take precedence. Just because the weight on his end had escalated, the scales were still heavily tilted in the favor of the many victims he could spare. The couple began preparations for leaving their current life behind. To most of the world, in two days the Lovelle’s would essentially be no more. There had been an emergency exit strategy in place almost since they had arrived. Lovelle had discovered another identity for Maria during the last skip and she had a fully stocked life as Carlota Nueve-Ridge to step into. Carlota and Mark Ridge were about to take up residence in Laughlin, Nevada.
***
When Maria failed to go to work the following day, Hardy went to their house to check up on her. He posted himself as far down the street as he could and still keep an eye on the Lovelles’ garage. After several long hours of stakeout the couple exited in their separate vehicles. Not wanting to risk being spotted by Lovelle, Hardy nearly let them disappear. But, curiosity over why they were on the move overwhelmed his trepidation. He decided that he could safely follow for at least a little while. If the couple parted ways before too long he could just continue on behind Maria as he had been doing.
What Hardy ended up with was a marathon. When both cars entered the freeway his suspicion increased. When they rolled right out of town together it tripled. He could think of no other reason why they would take separate cars on an extended journey than that they were vacating their current residence. As difficult as it was going to be, Hardy was compelled to follow. Lovelle took the rear position, presumably to watch for a tail. Hardy fell back until the couple was just a distant pair of specks.
If they were to exit now and make a quick turn he could lose them altogether. He just had to hope that didn’t happen. As the journey stretched on, Hardy even allowed the pair to go completely out of site a few times. He did so after passing a turn off, trusting that there wouldn’t be another exit immediately available. He was hoping that if Lovelle was monitoring the distant traffic he might believe that the car behind them had left the road, and that it might be a different distant car when Hardy reappeared in the rear view mirror.
When a sign announced the upcoming exit to Laughlin, Hardy decided to shorten the distance to his quarry. If they took that exit, he worried that there were too many potential directions they might go and he would lose them. If they didn’t exit, then he would jump off and back on the expressway, which might further allay suspicion and give him back his cushion of space.
They did leave the freeway and he eased up to give them some breathing room. As he would have suspected, they did not simply pull in to the first hotel off the freeway. In fact, if he had been certain that a hotel was their destination, he would have dropped off right then Laughlin wasn’t so big that you couldn’t check all the hotel parking lots. But he couldn’t be sure they didn’t have some place else to stay, or even if Laughlin was the final destination.
In the end he was able to follow them right to the hotel where they were going, apparently undetected. They had caught him off guard, but, he had recovered nicely. Traveling all that way in separate cars, they certainly must be on the run. He could only assume that they were running from him, presumably tipped off by his visit to Lovelle’s father. That had been a risk, but, as he was here now with his quarry in sight, it had been a good risk. Not only had he not lost them, but, the pile of circumstantial evidence grew just a little bit more. Luck favored him again.
Comfortable that they would be staying for at least a little while, Hardy procured some fast food and took up vigil at the hotel lot across the street. The next couple of days were not particularly pleasant, but, as an old soldier he had endured much worse. Afraid to abandon his car for fear they would bolt, Hardy lived in it for the next 48 hours. Occasionally breaking for food and the restroom, he survived on copious amounts of coffee and cat naps. Twice during his watch the couple ventured out. Since they did so together, leaving her car and their luggage behind, he decided it was safer to await their return than to try and tail Lovelle in the close quarters of the city streets. He had been fortunate not to be spotted during their journey and he did not want to push his luck.
On the third night Hardy decided that they were in no hurry to move, so he checked himself into the hotel where he had been parking. From there he was able to safely watch their comings and goings. As in Vegas, whenever Maria ventured out on her own, Hardy followed. And when, after a couple of weeks, the couple moved into an apartment complex, Hardy decided he could move along. He felt sure they believed they had made a clean break and would be settling in for a while. That left him free to go on to other tasks.
Chapter 15
Before he and Maria shoved everything that mattered to them into their cars and abandoned their home for good, Lovelle had called his parents and told them he had accepted a freelance assignment in Central America. Maria was going with him to work as his interpreter. This would keep his parents from panicking for a while and let him keep tabs on his old life to see if and when the police came around to nab him for the vigilante killings.
His parents were concerned about the assignment, despite Lovelle’s assurances that he and Maria were not going there to cover any sort of revolutionaries. Once again their son was going off on a tangent that they could not understand. “It’s a story about the condition of the poor, Mom.” He told her for the third time. “I wouldn’t take Maria along if I was going to be running around the jungle with soldiers.”
“Yes, well, journalists have been known to disappear down there, especia
lly American journalists.” His mother chided, “Kidnapping is like a cottage industry in some countries.”
“Sure, and people get killed by drunk drivers in this country every day. But, I don’t go around worrying about it.”
“Don’t be smart with me. I can still come out there and spank your butt.” His mother teased.
His parents would be worried, but nothing like he expected them to be if he became the focus of a manhunt for the now infamous sniper.
***
For the next several months Lovelle kept close tabs on his old life. To the extent he could he even maintained it. He never went back to the house, but, he had gone to the post office and forwarded the mail to a private postal box. He then forwarded that mail to a second box in Henderson, a suburb of Vegas. He drove up to collect that weekly, figuring he could safely do so for at least a little while. He paid the rent, the bills and the neighbor kid who did the lawn. He cleared the messages off the answering machine daily, and called his parents every couple of weeks.
He saw no sign that anyone was after him. He wondered if the club was looking for more proof. Although his complete departure from past actions was ample evidence that he was a Skipper, it did not rule out the possibility that there was still another. Or maybe they had decided to give him a chance to retire quietly. Either way, they were about to find out that he wasn’t going to be stopped that easily. Time had run out and there was a killer that had to be dealt with.
Lovelle had never waited so long to remove a target. He meticulously kept a record of when has targets became active. He spent the final weeks before the skip committing it to memory, and the first days of the new life writing it all down. So he knew that he wasn’t too late to stop this particular killer from taking his first victim. But, he hadn’t left himself very much time to work. In the past, Lovelle had done his work months, or even years ahead of the deadline. But trying to avoid the 7/17 club had caused him to cut his latest mission much closer. He had only a couple of weeks, which would normally be more their adequate, but, left him little cushion for dealing with contingencies. In this case it was time he would prove to need.
Time Skip (Book 2): The Time Skippers Page 12