The Snow Swept Trilogy

by Derrick Hibbard

  They sat in silence for a few moments, Ryan staring into his cup and Mae looking at the few people who were still waiting for their suitcases. Janitors and security guards mingled about, but mostly the airport was empty. Mae held off the surge of panic at again being in such lonely surroundings, but she doubted that anyone had noticed her.

  Except for Ryan. She peered at him from the corner of her eye and wondered why he was taking such an interest in her. Mae knew that she was pretty, but also knew that she wasn’t drop dead gorgeous.

  Ryan, on the other hand, was drop dead gorgeous—at least in her book, and she didn’t think her book would be too far from the common female consensus. He was strong and confident, thin and muscular, but not so much so that it was distracting from his cool and even features. Again, she was drawn to his eyes, which were like looking into the dark grey waters at the base of a glacier, deep and cold, yet somehow curious and inviting.

  She didn’t think that he was among those hunting her. If he was, she likely would have been taken from the airplane before any passengers were able to get up out of their seats, and before there was any chance that she could escape again. Her knowledge of the hunters was limited—but she knew that they did not like loose ends, and loose ends were tied up quickly. She never would have made it out the airplane doors if they had known she was on that flight. And they almost found out, too, she thought, certain that it was Il Contionum, and maybe Morales himself who ordered the flight attendants to check passports. If Morales was still alive, that is.

  “So, you’re Ms. Pettingale,” Ryan said slowly, turning the coffee cup with his thumbs and forefingers. “I’ll be honest, I kind of like the other you name you gave me. Pettingale sounds a bit stuffy to me. Kind of like the hoity-toity people my parents run around with.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” she said and placed her own cup, now only half full, on the table before them.

  A few seconds of silence passed—the awkward kind that seem to go on and on forever.

  “Are you going to tell me why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you gave me a fake name.” He shrugged and looked genuinely hurt. “I mean, what’s it to you? I’m a nobody, just some schmoe on the airplane trying to start up conversation with my seatmate—”

  “Seatmate?” she said, with a burst of chuckles. Ryan exhaled and looked into his lap, seeming to be a little embarrassed. Mae stopped chuckling and studied Ryan. She saw that he wasn’t embarrassed, but instead getting angry.

  Not angry, no, Mae thought, frustrated and upset. He’s a logical guy, and he’s been thinking about the lie she told since the flight attendant had studied her borrowed passport and read her borrowed name allowed. Ryan was upset, and he kept spinning the coffee cup in his hands as he thought hard. For some reason, his cuff links caught Mae’s attention again, and she thought that he probably wasn’t used to not getting what he wanted.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, and made an effort to shrug. The movement was probably intended to ease the growing tension, but the stiffness of the motion only emphasized his frustration. “All I’m asking is why you had to lie to me? What difference would it make? Now I know that you probably don’t care about me in the least, and I get that. I understand that you don’t know me, and that you don’t owe me anything, least of all the truth. But your name, I mean, I could look it up in the phone book, or Facebook, or whatever and at least know your name. Now, you might not want to know me, I mean, you’re a beautiful girl and you’ve probably got a boyfriend, and I get that. You don’t want me to know who you are, so I don’t go trying to look you up on Facebook.”

  “I …” Mae bit her lower lip and crossed her arms across her chest. She felt the bandage on her shoulder beneath the sweater and grimaced slightly with the pain of her touch.

  “I had to lie.” Her voice was soft, but firm. “And I can’t explain it, but even my name is … well, let’s just say that you wouldn’t be able to look me up in the phone book, and what’s Facebook?”

  She grinned with that last question, and it cut through the tension. All this time she’d been thinking about his smile, rare and charming that it was, and she’d forgotten about her own smile, which seemed to have a similar melting effect on Ryan.

  “Well, do you?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Have a boyfriend?”

  Mae laughed and brushed some hair from her face. She took another drink and avoided his gaze. Finally, she shook her head.

  “No,” she said, “no boyfriends to speak of.”

  “Then why?”

  “I could just as easily turn this around, you know. I’m just some girl on an airplane who you’ll never see again, a girl who is not even half as pretty as any of the women you could have, and you know it—”

  “You’re wrong about that,” he said, and Mae saw that he wasn’t joking.

  “So why do you care so much?" she asked. "Why didn’t you just walk off the plane, and into the crowd like everyone else?”

  “Because you’re a mystery.”

  “And you’re an enigma,” she said. He placed the cup of coffee on the table and clasped his hands between his knees. He looked at the ground, and then massaged the back of his neck.

  “Alright,” he said. “I get it.”

  He stood up and stuck out his hand for her to shake.

  “Ms. Pettingale, it’s been a pleasure.” The smile was sincere, but Mae ignored it. She couldn’t do this again, couldn’t get close to anyone else. She couldn’t …

  He waited a moment longer, watching her avoid his eyes, and then turned away.

  “My real name is Mae,” she said. “I never lied to you.”

  He stopped walking and turned to look at her. His smile was back, but it was tentative. Even this smile caused a flurry of butterflies to take flight in her stomach.

  “Really?”

  “Really.” She pointed to the chair across from her and motioned him to come back. From the corner of her eye, Mae noticed the cashier kid watching this exchange with an even dumber expression of confusion than he’d had before.

  “So, Mae …” he said, and hesitated.

  “I don’t want any more questions right now, I just want to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “How about H. G. Wells?” she asked. He was about to say something in return when she suddenly cocked her head to the side, listening.

  "How about where you're going tonight?" Ryan said.

  "Tonight?" she asked, and then looked away. She was embarrassed not because he'd guessed that she had nowhere to go, but that she'd not yet planned that far in advance.

  "Let me put you up in a hotel," he said. "I know a good one down in West Hartford."

  She laughed nervously, and then shook her head.

  "It's okay, really."

  "I'm not going to ask you why you don't have a place to go, and I'm not going to even think about it that much, but it's weird, and you need a place to sleep."

  "I don't know," she said. "I mean, we kind of just met."

  "Whoa." He spread his hands defensively. "Listen, I'm not suggesting we hop under the covers together, geeze. You think I'm some kind of a man-slut? No. I'll drop you off. Or, rather, my driver will drop you off. Totally legit."

  Mae wondered if this was how most girls went missing. An attractive guy invites you into his car, and then chop suey.

  Good grief I'm paranoid, she thought, but then quickly reminded herself of how quickly Morales had closed in at the cabin and then found her again after she'd escaped.

  What could it hurt?

  Ryan smiled at her and shook his head. "No touchie, I promise. I'm not a creep like that."

  "Okay," she said.

  He smiled at her and gathered up the trash on the table before him.

  "Let's go then, I'm starting to get tired, and I live in the opposite direction from Hartford."

  Mae started to respond, but heard a familiar name before she registered who sa
id it, and couldn’t recall why it sounded familiar to her.

  Nick Ambrose.

  “Busy night in Chicago tonight," the Anchor said, "with the airport shooting of Detective Robert Morales. Now, we’re getting reports of another shooting near the airport, which may be related."

  “Thank you, Charlie.” The scene cut to a shot of a pretty blond woman, bundled up in a thick winter parka and standing in front of a section of freeway that had been blocked off with flares and yellow crime scene tape.

  "I'm here near a new crime scene that may be related to the O'Hare shooting earlier this afternoon. A city bus was found parked along the interstate near the airport. The driver, Nick Ambrose, was found on the bus, shot to death."

  Mae watched, and blood drained from her face.

  Chapter Thirty

  Paul's head pounded, and he felt like a weight had been attached to the backs of his eyes, trembling and throbbing with each thud in his head. Morales was hanging onto him, and they were making their way down the stairs to the hospital parking garage. Paul carried the assassin's briefcase in his free hand. Back in the room, Morales had insisted that they take the brief case and the assassin's cell phone with them. Morales had taken the phone and clutched it close to his body, while Paul had slammed the briefcase shut and carried it in his free hand. Morales had kept the gun, tucking it into the bandage beneath his shoulder. The gun fit snugly, like in a shoulder holster, hidden from view.

  It wasn't until they'd made it down a few flights of stairs that Paul started to wonder what could be in the briefcase or on the assassin's phone that would be of value to Morales. He considered that there may have been information about Morales, but mostly, the briefcase would have incriminated the assassin, not Morales. Unless there was something in there that Morales needed to keep hidden, something that would incriminate Morales as well.

  But how would Morales have known what was in the briefcase? If he had known, then maybe he'd known who the assassin was, and maybe, just maybe, Morales' motive for shooting the assassin was more than just self-preservation.

  They heard shouts from the floors above as the corpses of the policeman and nurse were being discovered. In the distance, police sirens wailed.

  "We've got to move faster," Morales whispered, breathing heavily. The increase in activity seemed to have made him woozier than before, more dependent on Paul to carry him.

  "I'm going as fast as I can," Paul said, struggling under Morales' nearly dead weight. "I don't think the stairs go all the way to the garage. We'll need to transfer over to the elevator, maybe the service elevator?"

  The thudding behind his eyeballs grew worse, and his vision was tinted in dark red. With each step, the reddening worsened, and the pounding in his head intensified. They reached a landing for the eighth floor, and Paul stopped.

  "We have to keep going," Morales said. "Any minute now, they're going to close off the stairways and any exits to the hospital. There will be no way out of here, and you'll be stuck with me."

  "I'm going to pass out," Paul said through heavy breathing. "I've got to stop."

  He set Morales down on the bottom few steps, then had an idea. He opened the door to the eighth floor, which was quiet and mostly empty. A nurse was walking down the hallway in the opposite direction, engrossed in her charts. She paused for a few seconds, then disappeared into a room. Paul slipped through the door and started down the hallway, looking into the rooms as he passed them. Finally, he spotted what he was looking for. Paul grabbed the wheelchair that was folded up and propped near the door. He carried it back to the stairway and opened it up. Morales looked at him skeptically, but climbed to the chair.

  "Give me the briefcase," Morales said. Paul gave it to him, and he set it on his lap, placing the cell phone on top. Paul backed through the doorway, pulling Morales through the door, then swiveling him around toward the elevator.

  At that moment, the nurse stepped out of the room, and Paul froze. She was marking something off on her chart. She lowered the file folder, rubbed her eyes and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear before starting down the hallway, again in the opposite direction. She paused at the next room, flipping through the pages on her chart and then stepping into the room.

  She's doing her rounds, Paul realized, and gave a sigh of relief. Had she looked in their direction, she would have spotted the blood and immediately known that something was not right.

  Paul quickly pushed the chair down the hallway toward the elevator, praying that the nurse would not come out of the room and that no one else would spot them.

  The chair was a blessing, not just because it saved Paul from having to help the policeman walk, but it supported him as well. His body was stiffening by the second, and the pulsing throb in his head was not getting any better.

  They finally reached the elevator, and Paul pressed the button marked P2, the level on which he was parked. The door dinged open, and they joined several other people in the elevator. Paul nodded to a doctor who barely noticed them, and the rest of the people either stared straight ahead or looked away, ignoring Paul and Morales.

  Oh this new age of terrorism, Paul thought. If you see something, say something. At the moment, he was grateful that no one cared to actually see.

  But am I seeing? Paul wondered. He tried to cut through the pounding in his head, to think about what had actually happened. His thoughts were hazy, and he found it difficult to think, his mind returning in horror to the thought of what would have happened if the assassin had been successful in pressing his thumbs into his eyes until they'd popped. He cringed, and shook his head to clear the idea.

  What am I supposed to see? He knew that Morales was connected to the attack in Miami. Morales' reaction when Paul had mentioned Miami was enough of a confirmation. The police officer at least knew something about it, Paul was sure.

  But the assassin had come to the hospital to kill Morales and any witnesses who might have gotten in the way. Paul thought about the risks of murdering someone—a police detective at that—in a hospital filled with people, witnesses, and armed guards. There was also the problem with exits—not many in the hospital.

  The risk must have been outweighed by the need for Morales to be dead.

  Gradually, the people on the elevator got off, most on the main floor where there was a coffee shop still open, and Paul was left alone with Morales. The door finally dinged open on P2, and Paul slowly pushed Morales into the parking garage. The garage was empty of people, as he'd expected at this time of night, and his car was parked close to the elevator. Paul pushed Morales to the car and opened the front door. Then he stopped, considering his next words carefully.

  Before Paul could open his mouth, the cell phone on top of the briefcase began to vibrate. Both Paul and Morales glanced down and saw that the number was RESTRICTED. Morales answered the phone and held it to his ear without saying anything.

  "Is it done?" a man said, his voice low and deep, but loud enough for Paul to hear what was being said. Morales clenched the phone, the knuckles on his fingers turning white.

  "Oskar?" the man asked.

  "It's done," Morales said, and then smiled a wicked grin. "Oskar is dead, Harrison, and you've got yourself a merry little mess to clean up at the hospital."

  "Morales?" There was fear in the other man's voice. "We follow protocol, you know that. We did what we had to do in the situation. The girl escaped, and you—"

  "If you ever send someone to kill me again," Morales interrupted, "It will be last thing you do."

  The voice on the other end said nothing that Paul could hear.

  "Oskar had the latest information on the girl's whereabouts?"

  Again, Paul could hear no response, but Morales absently touched the briefcase. Paul wondered if the girl they were speaking of was the contact he'd been planning to meet the evening before on the bus. But his contact hadn't sounded like a girl. He felt a sinking sensation as he remembered his contact's paranoia, her certainty that the people hunt
ing her were far more powerful than he could possibly have understood, and that they would find her and kill her. Paul was suddenly very aware of the danger in this situation, and the image of Morales pointing the gun at him suddenly made sense. Morales would have killed him, but needed him to get out of the hospital. Paul had willingly done so, and had brought Morales to his car. His usefulness was about to expire.

  "Good. Morales said, interrupting Paul's thoughts, “the girl is mine,".

  Morales ended the call just as another car pulled onto the second level of the garage and parked next to Paul's car. Both Paul and Morales watched as a woman climbed from the driver's seat. She was wearing surgical scrubs beneath a heavy leather coat and carrying a luxurious, but well-used, purse at her side. Paul guessed she was a doctor, and would have tried to get her attention if he didn't believe that Morales would kill her just as quickly. Paul had to get the gun. If he could somehow get the gun, he thought he could get the upper hand in the situation. He didn't know how much Morales had recovered from the drugs used in his surgery, but a quick jab to his shoulder was sure to debilitate him if needed.

  The doctor walked to the elevator, her footsteps echoing softly in the silent garage. She didn't pay much attention to Paul and Morales. The seconds dragged, ticking like the detonator on a bomb, as they waited until she was inside the elevator and the door was completely closed.

  "Who's the girl?" Paul asked at the same time that Morales reached for the gun under his arm with lightning speed. Paul saw this and flipped the wheelchair, spilling Morales, the briefcase and phone on the ground. Morales screamed as he fell on his shoulder, but rolled to his back with incredible speed, firing two shots at Paul as he rolled. The first bullet went wild, but the second punched a hole in the fender above the front tire on Paul's car. Paul ducked to the ground, moving on his hands and knees around to the other side of the car.

  Morales shot again, this time aiming at Paul underneath the car, and this bullet caught Paul in the knee, shattering the bone and spraying blood. Paul screamed as the agony exploded through his body, but adrenaline kicked in, and he moved as fast as he could, dragging the bloodied leg behind him.