“What are we going to pawn?”
Just say it. Quick. Clean. A knife between the ribs and as close to painless as she’d be allowed. “My watch. It’s a vintage Rolex Submariner. Worth several thousand, easy, even at a pawnshop.” And completely irreplaceable. Georgia smothered the flash of grief that threatened to drown her.
“You don’t have to do that,” Parker said, reaching for her, sympathy lacing every word.
Georgia pulled away. “Unless you’ve got something valuable on you I don’t know about or another way to get a lot of cash fast, yeah, I do.”
He sat back in his seat, quiet for a long moment as he ran through possibilities. “The only thing I can think of would be trying to get to one of the Somerton Security safe houses. I know Ethan usually has them well stocked. But . . .”
“But that’s too predictable.”
“Yeah.”
A thought occurred to her. One she hadn’t yet considered. “Couldn’t that work to our advantage? If it’s that obvious, isn’t it possible the program would take into consideration that you’d know it was risky?”
Parker shook his head. “It’ll factor that in. But it’d still consider those safe houses likely outcomes. If we can’t come up with an alternative, then our options narrow considerably. It’s too risky.”
“Any other ideas?”
“No.” Frustration and regret mingled on his face.
For a split second, Georgia found it all too easy to resent him. This was his fault. The situation, their limited choices—and what was he being asked to sacrifice to secure their safety? What was he being forced to give up?
Nothing. As usual, she was on the losing end.
It wasn’t fair.
But then, life never was.
Suck it up, Buttercup. An expression her father had been fond of and one he’d said often, even when she’d been a little girl, too young to really understand the truth of the words.
“Right.” She shook off the memory, wishing it had bolstered her resolve more than it had. “So we go to the pawnshop, then find another place to crash. I’m guessing your program has access to facial-recognition software?”
“Yeah,” Parker said cautiously. “What are you thinking?”
“That all the DC Metros have plenty of security cameras. How long do you think it’ll be before your program is scanning feeds for our faces?”
Parker grimaced.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Once we leave DuPont station—and we need to be ultracareful when we do—no more trains. Which means we need transportation.”
“We can’t risk my car.”
“No. And I don’t think we can risk mine, either. Not if you think your program has flagged me as Ethan’s employee.”
“I’m sure it has.”
“Then we need to consider all my assets off-limits, too.”
“Then what? We can’t exactly walk onto a lot and buy a new car.”
“No,” Georgia agreed, thinking through their options. “And we’ll need to be conservative with our cash. Pull up Craigslist,” she said, nodding toward his phone. “Search for a late-model Toyota or Honda. Something reliable and common. Private sellers only. The last thing we need to do is try to talk our way out of registering the car with the dealership. We’ll have to settle for something high mileage, but make sure the ad says it runs. Fifteen hundred dollars or less, if you can manage it.”
“Okay,” Parker said, tapping the screen on his phone. “Then what?”
Then . . . then the hard part. “We’ll arrange a meet to look at the car, preferably within walking distance of a big-box store that sells computers and has Internet access. I’ll buy the car, you’ll take down your program—we’ll need to scout for security cameras, try to find a route that lets us meet up without getting caught on surveillance—and then, God willing, we disappear.”
“That easy, huh?”
“It’s gonna have to be.” The whole idea was risky and in no way Georgia’s first choice. But it was her best choice, so she’d find a way to make it work.
“Then we hole up and let you work on the thumb drive Ethan gave you.” Somewhere they could pay in cash, where people wouldn’t ask too many questions. Somewhere they could start digging through those files. Their options were depressingly limited. Did they stay in the DC area? Head back to Baltimore? What was most predictable, most obvious? Georgia shook her head. A motel that took cash without requiring a credit card to secure the room would eat up funds quickly.
“How long do you think you’ll need to go through those files?”
“I can’t know. Not until I look at them. Ethan said he grabbed fifty or so files, but each file could be like a Russian doll. I have no way of knowing how much information is in here—or what I’m looking for.”
“Days?” Georgia pressed.
“Maybe.” Parker shook his head, dropping his gaze to the floor. “Weeks, even. I just don’t know for sure.”
So she had to plan long-term. Even if she got a fair price for the watch—a long shot, as she had to settle for pawning it—the money wouldn’t last forever. And a car was going to put a dent in their funds. Even if they were lucky and found somewhere that could pass for decent for less than fifty a night . . . The math just didn’t work in their favor. Not to mention staying anywhere typically rented by the hour for more than a night or two was likely to draw suspicion.
So, a monthly, in-cash, no-questions-asked rental.
Running from what was fast becoming the most obvious option was beginning to wear Georgia down.
Suck it up, Buttercup.
“Ever been to Pittsburgh?” she asked, staring out the window as DC slipped past them in a blur of white and gray.
“No.”
“Me neither.” Though it hardly mattered. For what she had in mind, any big city would do.
“Would that make it more or less likely to ping your program?”
“Less, probably. If neither of us has any personal attachments there, it becomes a really big haystack. And anyway, the program has a decent database on human psychology to use as a filter and help assign values to each prediction. Most people, when threatened or cornered, go back to what they know. Fall back on something familiar. That’s what makes disappearing so damn hard. Everyone’s first instinct is to go where they feel the safest.”
“So if we did the opposite?”
“What do you mean?”
Shame tried to stick her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “My childhood was . . . tumultuous, to say the least. I spent some time in foster care.” She glanced up, trying to gauge Parker’s reaction. It wasn’t a period of life she’d had any control over, not something she’d chosen for herself. Yet it seemed like every time she admitted that, every time she trusted someone with it, he or she looked at her differently. As if the person expected something . . . less . . . of her. Parker stared back, his expression still but engaged. As if the information had slid right past him and he was still entirely focused on where she was going with the conversation. “Unfortunately, most of the foster-care system is reliant on people who need the government stipend. Which means most kids grow up in low-income, high-crime areas. Areas where rentals are easier to come by.”
“Okay, but we shouldn’t revisit anywhere you’ve been. Anywhere that’s familiar or comfortable.”
“Which is why I think this is our best solution.” If she understood Parker’s program correctly, and she thought she did, they needed to be unpredictable. And what better way to do that than to return to a life she’d sworn to never revisit? “At this point, your program is probably digging through my past, piecing together my backstory. There won’t be much. My parents died when I was seven. My grandmother when I was ten. Aside from my birth certificate, school and medical records, there will be little to discover. Not up until my twelfth birthday.” She pushed down the well of anger, pain, and resentment that threatened to drown her. “That was the year Will and I went into foster care. From that point
on, there will be sealed juvenile records.”
“Yeah, the program will find those.” He didn’t ask what the program would find, though she could tell by the way he fidgeted that he really wanted to.
The nubby scrape of ancient shag carpet. The acrid stench of urine. Fear. Desperation. All as real as if she’d lived them yesterday.
“I rolled through seven foster homes before I left the system permanently.” A blessing she’d been afforded at fifteen only because Will, her beautiful, selfless brother, her personal white knight, had put his entire life on hold to take custody of her. “But by far, the worst placements were the ones in trailer parks.” The ghostly tap dance of a roach crawling across her bare leg sent a shiver down her spine. “I’d never go back to one, not willingly. If your program is as thorough as you say it is, it’ll come to the same conclusion.”
Parker looked unconvinced. “But if you’ve been there before . . . it’s like I said, people always fall back on what’s familiar, even if it’s been years, decades. They call old friends, return to old neighborhoods.”
“Not me.” No, she’d spent her entire life running. Never had she returned to her childhood home in Charlotte. Not once had she even had the urge to visit her grandmother’s old place in South Florida. She’d never visited her parents’ graves or even so much as driven past Arlington Cemetery. She didn’t lay a wreath at Christmas or send flowers for anniversaries. She moved forward. Away from the hurt, away from the pain. Away from all the memories, good and bad, that only served to remind her of what she no longer had.
No. If Parker’s program was as thorough as he claimed, it’d dig through her juvenile file, through every social-service report, and come to the conclusion that she’d rather die than go back to a trailer park. Which, of course, meant that was the one place she had to go.
“It’s our best bet. We can find a trailer park with rentals on the Internet. Most will take cash up front and rent from month to month.”
“And you’re absolutely certain the program won’t track us to one?”
He wanted to ask for details, for proof of her theory; it was all over his face. Though he wasn’t a man who took anything at face value or made any decision, no matter how small, without all the facts at his disposal, Parker wasn’t pressing her. If she weren’t so desperately tired, she’d thank him for it.
“I’m sure.” And even if the program did consider it a possibility, what then? There were hundreds upon hundreds of trailer parks in major cities along the East Coast. With no digital footprint and neighbors who were likely to be wary of law enforcement anyway . . .
It was the best she could come up with. There wasn’t a perfect option, no safe place for her and Parker. Not anymore. Their best bet was to find a decent car, take the long way to Pittsburgh, avoiding tolls and cameras, then find a place they could disappear into. Just two more people life had kicked to the bottom.
Parker nodded once, then turned back to his phone.
A few minutes passed in silence before he said, “Here’s a 1996 Toyota Corolla. One owner. Good condition. A hundred and forty-two thousand miles.”
“Asking price?”
“Sixteen hundred.”
“Make the call when we’re on street level,” Georgia said, standing as the train squealed into the station. She leaned close to Parker as they exited. “Keep your head down, and let’s stay with the crowd as much as possible.”
Wordlessly, they exited the station, emerging onto the street into the bitter DC cold. Georgia took a moment to orient herself, then headed north, toward a pawnshop she knew. Next to her, Parker dialed the owner of the car, surprising her when he slipped into accented but passable Spanish. As they walked, Georgia tried to tune out the heavy weight of her watch and the burden of the responsibility she now found squarely on her shoulders.
Turning her chin up, facing the wind head-on, Georgia forced herself forward.
One step at a time, she reminded herself.
If only she didn’t know where those steps were leading her.
A place that had nearly destroyed her.
A place she’d sworn never to return to.
And maybe the only place that could save them.
Who said you couldn’t go home?
Nearly twenty-four hours later, Georgia pulled into the crushed-gravel driveway of Shady Pines RV Park as the sun dipped beyond the horizon, casting the bare branches of the trees and just about everything else in a depressing wash of gray. Leaning over the steering wheel, she glanced up through the windshield and confirmed the lot number. Four brass plates screwed into the siding of the 1970s Skyline told her they were in the right place . . . Well, almost—102A, while old and in need of some minor updates around the exterior, was in remarkably good shape; 102B, however . . .
Well, the second trailer wasn’t nearly so welcoming, but as it was about to be home for the foreseeable future, Georgia did her best not to dwell on it.
Carefully, so as not to wake Parker, Georgia climbed out of their ancient Corolla. She left the engine running and the heat on low, hoping Parker wouldn’t wake yet. Their luck had finally begun to turn over the last twenty-four hours. It had taken three calls and one missed connection until Georgia and Parker found a model that fit their needs and budget. When they’d met the owner—a sweet nurse in her late twenties named Amelia—at a Target parking lot three blocks from a Best Buy, Georgia had been shocked to find the car in exceptionally good condition. Newer tires. Consistent and documented engine maintenance. An immaculate interior. It was more than she’d dared hope for on the limited budget her watch had afforded them. When Amelia had exchanged the keys for cash and broken into sobs, Georgia had promised she’d take good care of her car.
One nerve-racking hour later, she’d pulled onto the highway, Parker in the passenger seat, his program off-line for the foreseeable future.
Exhausted and stressed, there was just one last hill for her to climb. Trudging up the wood steps that were in need of a fresh coat of paint, Georgia knocked against the weathered storm door of 102A. While she waited, her shoulders hunched against the cold, she glanced back at Parker. Still sleeping, thank goodness. She needed a few minutes alone, a bit of time to adjust, before she dragged him with her into reality.
“What do you want?” a voice burdened with a two-pack-a-day habit asked from behind the door.
“I’m looking for Betty. I’m picking up the keys for 102B,” Georgia said. “We talked on the phone this morning.”
The interior door cracked open, a weathered face appearing beyond the glass of the storm door. An older woman, cigarette dangling from lips smudged with lipstick the same shade of coral as the trim around her home, stepped forward, eyeing Georgia suspiciously. “I’m Betty. You said you’d pay cash up front; that’s five seventy-five and includes utilities.”
“Right.” Georgia shivered on the porch, wishing the woman would just get on with it.
“Then let’s see the cash.”
Sighing, Georgia pulled an envelope from her pocket—she’d separated out the correct amount earlier that afternoon—and pried it open so the woman could see.
Nodding, Betty said, “Wait there.” She disappeared back inside, cursing and mumbling as Entertainment Tonight loudly broadcast the details of the latest Hollywood divorce. “Here,” she said, reappearing with a set of keys in her hand. She shoved open the storm door, forcing Georgia back a step, and motioned for the cash with her free hand. Georgia handed over the envelope. Betty took it, pulled the bills out, and shoved the envelope under her armpit. Licking her thumb, she flicked through the bills, then nodded. She hesitated before handing the keys over, eyeing Georgia up and down then glancing over her shoulder to the car idling in her driveway. “I don’t want no trouble—no drugs or loud music. No people comin’ and goin’ at all hours, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.” When Betty still hesitated to hand over the keys, Georgia elaborated. “My mama’s over at Presbyterian Hospital, cancer. We just
need someplace to stay until she’s on her feet. The damn retirement home I help pay for won’t let us stay there—”
Betty shoved the keys at her, then slammed the door closed on an “I’ll pray for her.”
Good to know not much had changed in the years since she’d been in a park. Fastest way to get rid of someone was to tell your sob story; God knew those were as common as fleas, roaches, and feral cats around here. No one cared, and no one wanted to hear it. Turning, Georgia strode down the steps, bypassing the car and heading toward 102B. For a long moment, she stood at the bottom of the three porch steps, the paint faded and peeling. She took a deep breath, let the cold sear her lungs and the fresh air remind her of where she was—and where she wasn’t. If finding a place to stay hadn’t been so damn difficult, she’d have passed on the 1971 Skyline single-wide in front of her. Too many bad memories, too many things she didn’t want to relive. But it wasn’t identical, she reminded herself as she climbed the steps, brushing snow from a banister that swayed precariously beneath her palm. Paint the color of oatmeal and dark-brown shutters graced the siding, not the white and green she remembered from that foster-home placement long ago.
Gripping the handle of the screen door, Georgia pressed the button, then had to shimmy it back and forth to get the catch to release. She pulled it open, bracing it with her shoulder as she slid the key into the dead bolt on the door. Grabbing the doorknob, she took a deep breath. No more stalling; she needed to get over her irrational fear and go inside. Twisting the doorknob, Georgia startled as the storm door disappeared from her shoulder.
“Jesus, Parker. You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry.” He smiled sleepily down at her.
“Did you turn off the car?” The last thing they needed was for someone to drive off in it. Wasn’t like they could risk reporting it stolen.
He held up the keys and gave her a look that clearly said, What do you take me for, a moron?
“And I grabbed our stuff out of the trunk, too. Surprised you didn’t hear me slam the lid.” He nodded toward the trailer. “We should get inside.”
Defenseless (Somerton Security #1) Page 15