“Oh, I told her what you said about the truck. She said we’ll ditch it in the morning.”
Violet’s voice pushed away the rest of the memory as they got back into the truck. Austin put it in gear and headed back toward the expressway.
“Is she planning on raiding a junkyard or something?” he said.
“No, she’ll buy something.”
“We don’t have that kind of …” But Violet didn’t seem surprised by this plan. “How much cash does she have with her?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s rich, so …” Violet shrugged.
“Pretty sure? Based on what?”
“Uh, living with her.”
Right. He’d put that together days ago. All the time Lee Vaughn had, to him, been a name and picture paper-clipped to a case file, a kidnapping suspect, a close associate of Brenner’s … to Violet, she’d been a roommate and a friend.
When the silence weighed too much, he turned on the radio and found a station that claimed to play “everything but the Top Forty.” Perfect. He was humming along to James Taylor when Violet’s soft voice broke in.
“I don’t know why I said that, earlier. About the cop.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t even believe it. I mean, obviously, God set this up, you coming with us. I don’t think He’s going to do that so you can change your mind halfway there and turn us in.”
Oh, so she didn’t trust Austin, but she trusted God not to let Austin screw them over? Thanks a lot, Violet. He focused on the white line, on the highway exit signs. Effingham. That about summed it up.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Sure, why not.”
“Are you still mad at me?”
“I’m …” Why did she have to keep digging at the scar, even when she didn’t know it? “It wasn’t you in the first place. Though I clearly have more to prove than I thought.”
“Oh.” The silence stretched out. “That, um, that wasn’t the question. I have a … a thousand-dollar one.”
A sad smile tinged the words, because she had to know they’d both outgrown what they’d had before. Muggy June nights in her room or in the park, posing hundred-dollar and thousand-dollar questions, getting to know each other’s thoughts and … A ghost of the soft skin at her collarbone brushed against his thumb, and he grasped the steering wheel with both hands.
“It’s okay, go ahead,” he said.
“Well, you spent a lot of time at Elysium. Our small group, and I know you were a leader for the middle school boys every Saturday. And I know the church didn’t pay you to do any of that, because you told me.”
At least she wasn’t questioning everything he’d ever said to her. He nodded when the pause stretched on, though her destination in this discussion wasn’t hard to guess.
“So, did you report to your head agent, or whoever? About Elysium?”
“No.”
She sighed. “Okay. Um, good, I guess. But … do you believe the stuff you were teaching?”
Stuff like God wanting the human race to realize its own God potential. That belief would appall her, now that she’d embraced archaic Christianity. He fought a grimace and lost.
“For me, Elysium is—was—a sociological field trip.”
She shifted to face him. “You’re over my head, scholar.”
The nickname was a knife, coated in four months of rust. Only Violet had ever called him that. “I told you this before. I enjoy listening to people talk about their belief systems. It’s fascinating to me, what they lean on to cope, what philosophical constructs they choose to regulate their behavior.”
“But what do you believe, then? Seriously, Austin, this one’s worth more than any dollars.”
Of course it was, to her. “I don’t think about it much. Not beyond the theoretical, anyway. I’m not sure there’s a single truth out there, and … if there is, it’s never bothered me that I don’t know.”
“Oh.” The music filled the cab again. Ten miles later, Violet said, “For the record … I’m not a terrorist.”
21
Lee took two steps out of the rest-stop women’s room and almost collided with Violet, who motioned her to the corner beside the drinking fountain.
“This isn’t a bathroom break.” Violet glanced over her shoulder at the men’s room. “I mean, it is. I didn’t lie to him. I did have to go. But this is actually an intervention.”
“Excuse me?”
“You need to beat Austin to the driver’s seat. Quick.”
“Violet, I already planned on relieving him. He’s been driving nearly ten hours.”
“I know, but he won’t let you. After that cop pulled us over, he got it in his head that he has to drive us all the way to Texas. Even once we get rid of the truck.”
Lee rubbed her arms against the brisk night. She’d half expected a year-long, night-and-day sauna this far south, but apparently, October nights could be as cold in Missouri as in Michigan.
Well, maybe not quite.
“All right, I’ll talk to him.”
“Talking isn’t going to work. He—I said something, and now he’s all stubborn.”
Lovely. Lee let out a sigh and headed back to the truck. Leaving Marcus alone, only for five minutes, only a few hundred feet away, left a small knot in her stomach. He’d been silent for hours, clutching fistfuls of blanket, sweating from the pain.
Lee opened the driver’s door, and Austin’s voice came from behind her. “I’ll drive.”
She turned to face him. The light of the parking lot threw a stark shadow over one side of his face, but his knit brows gave away the headache. “You need a rest.”
“We could get pulled over again.”
“For crossing the median when you fall asleep at the wheel? Yes.”
“I’m not that tired.”
His eyes were bloodshot, fighting to focus on her. Lee opened the driver’s door and climbed inside. Violet had already taken her place on the passenger side.
Austin sighed and rubbed his eyes. “You’ll have to get gas soon.”
“I believe we can handle that.”
He nodded and disappeared around the back of the truck. In a minute, two taps came from the front of the truck bed. All clear.
An hour later, after they’d passed the sign welcoming them to Oklahoma, the gas needle dipped to an eighth. Violet scouted for a sign indicating where they could fill up, and less than ten minutes later they were pulling in, squinting in the lights over the pumps.
Per routine, Violet got out and pumped the gas, enough cash already shoved into her pocket to cover the cost. She headed inside, and Lee kept an eye on her as she stepped up to the counter. Behind her slouched a young man in a yellow hoodie, and behind him stood an artificially redheaded woman. As Violet passed them after paying, the man said something to her, and she smiled.
Violet was halfway to the truck when the man finished paying and exited. She was mere steps away when he lengthened his stride toward the rusted, maroon sedan one pump over. She reached for the door handle as he called, “Hey, hold up a minute.”
Violet’s hand dropped to her side, and she turned to face him. He crossed the space between the gas pumps, and Lee’s instincts screamed.
“Don’t,” she said, as if Violet could hear her.
He hooked his arm around Violet’s neck. Lee threw her door open. He reached his other hand behind him and—
He had a gun he had a gun he had a gun.
He pressed the barrel under Violet’s chin, looked up into the truck cab, and his eyes met Lee’s. Gray like her own, pupils like pinholes.
He raised his voice, the first Oklahoma accent she’d heard. “I know y’all got money. She paid with a hundred-dollar bill. Come on down and give me what you got before I do something bad.”
<
br /> Austin was armed.
Austin was asleep.
If Lee screamed, he would wake up and shoot this animal in the head.
If Lee screamed, this animal would shoot Violet.
She gripped the handle of her duffel and slid to the ground.
Inside, the redhead was chatting and gesturing with the girl behind the counter. Lee walked around the back bumper of the truck. She could punch the tailgate once, and Austin would be awake.
The man pressed the gun barrel into Violet’s throat. She choked, and he gave her a shake. “Faster,” he said to Lee.
If she did anything to startle him, threaten him, he could pull the trigger. She stood in front of him, her back to the lit store windows and the potential witnesses. She unzipped the bag, withdrew a bulging bank envelope marked with thick black Sharpie scrawl, $20,000. Her deductions in black pen crossed out the original amount and subtracted gas money, meals, groceries, hotel fare.
“Hoo-ee, who’d rob the gas station when the customers got twenty grand in cash? Now don’t throw it at me or nothing. Go put it on the roof of my car there.”
“Please don’t—” Violet choked as he turned the gun barrel and pressed harder.
Lee set the envelope on his car and stood beside it. Now what?
“I bet you didn’t put it all in one envelope. I know I wouldn’t.”
“That’s all there is.” Her voice and her hands didn’t tremble, despite the cold shudder in her spine.
“Ain’t this girl worth more than whatever you’ve got left?”
“We have nothing left.”
“Turn that bag upside down, then.”
Violet’s eyes locked with hers, whites showing, unblinking, her face pale and frozen as if she were already halfway to death. Lee reached into the bag and drew out the second envelope, unmarked except for the amount. Twenty thousand dollars, unspent. She held it up.
He nodded toward his car. “Go ahead.”
Lee set it beside the other envelope, crossed back to the truck.
The man shoved Violet to the ground, sprinted the five steps to his car, swiped the envelopes off the roof, jumped inside, and nearly hit a car pulling out. Brakes screeched.
Violet huddled on the concrete, staring at the abrasions on her hands. Behind Lee, voices poured into the night.
“We saw everything, we called the police, they should be here any—”
“Are y’all okay?”
Called the police.
Lee hauled Violet to her feet and pushed her into the truck. The women’s voices didn’t pause, but the words didn’t register. She grabbed her bag, though nothing remained in it but clothes and books. She dashed to get behind the wheel and pulled into traffic. Horns beeped behind her.
She drove. She trembled. She bit her lip until she tasted blood.
Violet drew her knees to her chest, shoes planted on the truck seat. She held her bleeding palms away from her, open to the air.
Lee’s lungs tightened, and a gray frame boxed in her vision. Her hands tingled. She saw everything that could have happened. The bullet piercing Violet’s throat, tearing through her carotid. The pulsing blood.
The truck swerved. Lee gripped the wheel. Breathe. Stop the spiral now. In another thirty seconds, she—she—
Violet. Grabbed from behind. Held against the man’s body. Treasured Violet, forced and powerless.
“Lee?” Violet turned and lowered her feet to the floor. “Lee, say something.”
Lee’s gasps rent the air. Her hands quaked on the wheel. The truck weaved again.
“Lee! You have to pull over.”
Violet, smothering in a black hood while he pulled her jeans down her hips. That wasn’t Violet, that was—
“Jesus, help her. Please don’t let us crash. Lee.”
Through the gray tunnel, Lee found the shoulder of the road. There, a driveway. She should brake.
“Oh, God, thank You, Jesus.”
The truck jarred her. Someone had put it in park. Lee’s numb hands fell from the wheel.
“Lee, look at me. Come on.”
Yes. Look at her. The tunnel allowed Lee to see only one piece of Violet’s face at a time. Focus on the eyes. Green.
“Good. Awesome. Okay, so you can hear me. Should I talk about something? Would that help you?”
Nod.
“Okay. Um, I, um. At my mom and dad’s house, I had fish. An aquarium. When I got stressed out, I liked to watch them. Well, actually, I liked to watch them whenever, but especially then, because fish are so peaceful and oblivious, you know? Like, they just … float. And explore the rocks and the coral like they’ve never seen it before, even though they’ve been living there for a year.”
Breathing. Fingertips prickling. The tunnel widened until Violet’s whole face showed through.
“And they eat whatever you toss on the water and have no idea where it came from. And I had an air stone, so my room always had this nice bubbling sound. Calming.”
Lee nodded. Glanced at the clock. Habit had caused her to register it, subconsciously, when the attack hit. She’d come out of this one in four minutes.
“Are you better?” Violet said.
“Nearly. Thank you.” A slow heat blossomed on her face. The incident had become all about her, when Violet was the one—she quelled the images that squeezed her lungs again. She had to be all right.
From behind them, Austin pounded once, twice, three times. A pause, then again and again.
“He’s been doing that,” Violet said.
“We’re too close to the scene. We’ll have to explain to him later.” Lee put the truck in gear.
“You’re sure you can drive?”
“Yes. Are you all right?”
“I’m—” Violet shuddered. “I didn’t die. I didn’t even get hurt. So yeah, I’m good.”
They’d never before been in a situation that caused Lee to ask the question. She had to trust that Violet, unlike Marcus, wouldn’t claim to be all right unless she was.
For ten minutes, Lee drove. She took them off the highway, down roads that seemed more or less to run parallel with it. Temptation nudged to reassemble her phone and find a non-highway route, but that would be stupid. When Austin began pounding again, she parked under the brightest light she could find, in the parking lot of a church. Avalon Fellowship of Believers, read the lit sign. The moment she turned off the truck, the tailgate crashed open.
22
They’d been car-jacked. Had to be. They must have stopped to get gas. Someone must have jumped into the truck and forced Lee at gunpoint. Probably left Violet behind. The second time they swerved, hard enough to send him almost on top of Brenner, Austin thought they were about to crash. But they didn’t. And now they were stopped again. He wasn’t waiting any longer.
“Stay here,” he said to Brenner, because the idiot was trying to get up.
Surprise wasn’t an element Austin could hope for after pounding on the side of the truck, so he opened the tailgate, let it crash down, and leaped outside, gun trained forward, safety off.
Nobody shot him or grabbed him. Nobody stood there at all. They were parked at a … church? He pressed his back to the side of the truck and side-stepped forward. He half spun to level his gun on the window, in case Lee wasn’t driving.
She was. Beyond her, Violet sat staring at him.
His lungs released. He reengaged the safety, pointed his gun skyward but didn’t holster it yet. Adrenaline bled from his system, and his knees trembled. He locked them.
Lee opened the door. “We’re all right.”
“Great,” he said. “What the—?”
“There was an incident.”
No kidding. Lee opened her door and nodded to Violet, who crawled over the gear shift to exit on Lee’s side. Under the floodlight, they were bo
th pale as wax.
“Tell me what happened.” He shouldn’t have to ask.
“We have to leave the truck,” Lee said.
“We established that.”
“No, we have to leave it here. The police will be … The license plate was facing the witnesses, and …”
Austin raked a hand through his hair. His pulse still hadn’t fully lowered. “Okay, did you stop for gas?”
Both of them nodded.
“So Violet was pumping it, and she finished? And then …?”
“I paid. And c-came back out. And then—there was this guy—and he wanted our m-money—”
His body felt freezer-burned, fingers and toes and limbs ready to snap off. “Did he threaten you?”
Violet’s mouth opened. Her eyes widened.
“Violet.” The cold disappeared. “Did he?”
“He had a—” Her hands wrapped around her neck. Demonstrating? The guy had strangled her? No. Shielding. And she didn’t know she was doing it.
“He held Violet at gunpoint while I gave him the money,” Lee said.
“Right here.” Violet pressed her fingers to one side of her throat. Her palms were scraped red. “He was going to shoot me right here.”
Coherent thought boiled away. Austin was going to find him and shoot him. In the throat. But in the kneecaps first. And a few other places.
“But Jesus protected us. I’m not dead or anything. Or shot, even.”
Austin pulled her against his chest. He’d stepped closer without thinking. She melted against him. His hand cradled the back of her head, and she buried her face in his shirt.
“Shh,” he said. “It’s over, Violet, you’re safe.”
Violet curled her fingers into his back. “I was so scared. I thought, maybe I’m going to die tonight.”
“You didn’t. You’re right here with me.”
“I know, but don’t let go.”
He rocked her and set his chin on the top of her head. A few tears soaked through his shirt to his chest, and her arms tightened around him. Over her head, he met Lee’s gaze and held it.
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