34
Lee sat at the side of the covered pool, legs crossed at the edge, next to a 7’ warning painted on the concrete. She wished this was an indoor pool, or that it wasn’t October. Marcus might be able to manage water exercise, and it would certainly benefit him. She’d just have to make sure he didn’t become chilled, that was all.
Futile thoughts for now.
Voices drifted around the brick corner of the hotel, raised to carry. Lee stood. She’d come out here for space to breathe outside their room and the narrow hall, away from the scents of carpet cleaner and cranberry room freshener. Ever since breakfast, when Marcus devoured another meal of scrambled eggs and oatmeal, something had chafed inside Lee, like sandpaper between her organs and her bones. Conversation wasn’t something she could endure at the moment.
She rounded the pool. Who else would be out here? The nearest entrance to the building was at least thirty yards away. She’d be seen, and Southern people didn’t ignore strangers. They smiled and greeted at the very least.
Ducking behind the shrubbery qualified as absurd behavior.
No one would ever know.
But herself. She wasn’t a social invalid.
The voices floated nearer. “Right, but you know Tatum Murphy. She’s got one eye on the parking lot at all times. Bet she already spotted the cars.”
“Bet she’s barricading the door as we speak. ‘Keep out the filthy Stab.’”
“You bring your battering ram, Jones?”
Laughter.
Lee slipped between a gap in the shrubs and crouched. Their words were even plainer as they strode into sight. She held her breath, though they couldn’t hear it from across the pool. Four Constabulary agents, three male and one female. Gray uniforms. Guns and badges.
“I’m thinking we enter back here,” the woman said. “Throw Ms. Murphy off her game. If she wants to make her remarks, she can come find us this time.”
“Good call.” The tallest of the men, well over six feet and shaved bald, propped a hand on his sidearm.
The back of Lee’s neck tingled. Did he sense her?
He scanned the pool area and shrugged. The hand on his gun must be habitual. “Jones”—the woman nodded—“you take our rookie through the upper level.”
Jones nodded again and motioned to the stockiest of the men. He appeared Mexican, and his haircut wasn’t the standard cop buzz of his two male colleagues but rather curled past his collar, almost long enough for a stub of ponytail. He and Jones entered the hotel first, and Baldy and his partner followed after another quick glance back. The weighted door shut behind them.
Lee jumped to her feet and dashed across the cement aisle between the shrubs and the pool. She had to draw up the sedative and inject Marcus before they got to him. Would it have time to work?
He would never forgive her.
He would be safe.
When Lee burst in the front door, the hostess station was empty. Maybe someone else had warned her. Lee ran to the stairwell and took the stairs two at a time. She emerged into the hall and padded forward at a normal pace. At the other end, doors stood open.
They had a master key.
Room two-seventy-three drew her eyes. Open. They were already inside. Bile rose in her throat. Marcus, please.
She folded her arms. She swallowed, and her throat burned, and she stepped into the room. Marcus slept in the bed.
“Can I help you?” Lee said.
Agent Jones had unzipped their duffels and was pawing through Marcus’s clothes. “Just a routine check, ma’am. My name is Agent Nina Jones and this is Agent Daniel Gutierrez.”
Her partner stood beside Marcus’s bed. “Are you Christians?”
Lee’s heart skipped. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite.” She stepped farther into the room and perched on the other bed, crossing her ankles.
“Does any of the property in the hotel safe downstairs belong to you?”
She kept her eyes away from the rug that covered the subtle seam in the carpet. “No.”
“We’ll be searching it as well. We’ll get a list of items and owners from the hotel manager.”
“Of course.”
Jones stood up and carried Lee’s bag to Marcus’s bed. She poured the contents out over his feet and rifled through the pile. The bag bumped his legs. Lee’s lungs shut down. Any moment now, he’d jerk onto his side, shielding his head.
Jones opened Lee’s wallet and eyed her ID, glanced at the credit card and the three hundred dollars in twenties, and set the wallet aside. She shook out a denim button-down shirt and looked down at Marcus, still holding the shirt up by its shoulders.
“He’s a deep sleeper.”
Except … he hadn’t been for the last week. Lee had roused him with a word close to his ear.
Jones shook his leg—the injured one. Marcus didn’t stir. “Is something wrong with him?”
Lee had to be still. She had to respond. But something must be wrong. The clearing sound of his lungs through the stethoscope, the smoothness of his forehead that spoke of less pain, the strength returning to his voice—had all these signs this morning been false somehow?
“Ma’am, if we can’t wake him, there could be a medical danger here.”
“No.” The word snapped from her. “He’s fine. He takes sleeping pills.”
“At eleven in the morning?”
I have to do this. I can do this. “He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He sleeps better during the day.”
Betrayal poked her. Marcus might very well have some form of PTSD. But she’d mix truth and lies if she had to.
“Are you friends or lovers?” the man said.
“Excuse me?”
“Well, you’re pretty defensive for a friend, but there’s two beds here, so …”
“We don’t sleep together.”
Neither of the agents was buying that. They exchanged a glance and shrugged—let her lie to us as long as she knows we know it—and Jones finished her ransacking and tossed the bag onto the floor. As she prowled the perimeter of the room, her partner placed himself between Marcus and Lee. Closer to Lee. She tried not to shudder.
“I mean that we don’t sleep together. He needs his own bed. Night terrors.”
“Ah.” The man grinned.
“Let it go, Gutierrez,” Jones said.
He shrugged again. Maybe the motion was supposed to convince Lee that his questions were nonchalant. “So why are you hanging out in a hotel in the middle of the day? Your accent’s northern—”
“Michigan,” Jones said.
“Right, okay, so I assume you’re traveling, and most travelers try not to drive at night.”
Lee uncrossed her ankles. “I believe I just explained that. He sleeps in daylight whenever possible. So yes, we do drive at night.”
Jones joined Gutierrez in facing Lee down, both of them standing too close to her, a wall blocking Marcus.
“Once more,” Jones said. “Are you a Christian?”
“No.”
“Is your companion a Christian?”
“No.”
Jones nodded. “Thank you for your cooperation, Ms. Vaughn. This is only a routine check, but if you have any questions or concerns, you are free to call the national Constabulary contact number.”
Gutierrez’s mouth twitched at the futility of the suggestion.
“Good afternoon.”
They marched from the room and left the door open. As Lee shut it, one door down, the master key card clicked. Hopefully, Debra had made it to the safe room.
Lee barreled to the bed. The pulse at Marcus’s wrist was steady. Strong. She knelt to pull the rug aside and pried at the carpet until it peeled up the requisite three inches. The knob of the safe was sunk down into the floor, difficu
lt to grasp. When she raised the door, the cut seams allowed the carpet to come up as well. Lee retrieved her stethoscope, leaving the medical bag in the safe.
Even the cold disc against his chest didn’t wake him. His breathing still held a faint crackle, exactly as it had three hours ago.
“Marcus?” she said.
Something thumped on the other side of the wall. Lee crossed the room to press her ear against it.
“Maybe it’s not occupied,” Gutierrez said.
“Then why’s the Do Not Disturb tag on the door?”
“An oversight, Jones. Come on.”
“Maybe. We’ll find out when we take a look at the registry.”
A few muffled slamming sounds—shutting of drawers?—were followed by silence. Lee went to the door but didn’t open it. Gawking into the hallway would only get her noticed. She padded back to the chair and pulled it close to Marcus’s bed. She checked his pulse as if it might have stopped in the last few minutes.
“Marcus, I need you to wake up.”
A few minutes later, the phone rang twice, Tatum’s all-clear. Lee released his wrist and curled into the chair. A tremor gripped her body. Those agents had been in the room with him for … two minutes? More? Had they done something to him? Yet why act baffled by his sleeping?
“Marc—” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat, but her voice wouldn’t squeeze out any louder. “Marcus.”
He opened his eyes. No gasp, no defensive posture. He turned his head toward her and frowned.
“Are you all right?” she said.
He turned onto his side, trying to sit up. “Yeah.”
She stood and helped him upright. “You’re certain?”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
Her legs liquefied. The edge of the chair cushion caught her, and she gripped its arms.
“Lee.”
“They were here.”
“Who?”
“There was a Constabulary search of the hotel. They stood in this room and—” She jerked a gesture at her clothes, strewn over the bed.
“Why didn’t I wake up?”
“I don’t know. I told them you took a sleeping pill.”
His eyes widened, then narrowed as he shook his head. He clutched handfuls of the bedspread. “I told you not to do it.”
“I didn’t sedate you, Marcus.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know.”
The frown didn’t ease, but he sat up straighter and looked around the room, taking in the disarray. “Is everybody safe?”
“The agents left only minutes ago. Debra wasn’t in her room next door, so I assume she was in the safe room.”
“Go make sure they’re okay. All of them.”
He wouldn’t relax until he knew. Lee nodded and went in search of Tatum.
In front of the check-in desk, someone had piled generic black luggage and two child-sized backpacks, one pink and one green. Two girls stood near the potted tree in the corner, engrossed in their cell phones. Lee glanced out the glass door to the parking lot. Two women gestured to each other, either furiously or rapturously, beside a beige minivan.
Tatum stood behind the check-in desk with a small computer to her right and a legal notepad to her left. Between them, she typed numbers into an old adding machine that spit out a ribbon of receipt paper, squeaking a prophecy of imminent demise for the rollers inside. She didn’t look up as Lee approached.
One finger held up, she kept typing with the other hand. “If I mess up this total …”
She hit a final key, and the ribbon fed forward with a final squeak. As she met Lee’s eyes, her mouth curved and pursed at the same time, cordiality and concern.
“How are you folks?” Her eyes blanked to cancel the smile. “The Stab don’t usually show up in the middle of the day like that. I hope there wasn’t too much inconvenience.”
Those women could enter any moment, and the girls appeared to be of middle school age. Perhaps Lee should sing Constabulary praises, but even if she were capable at the moment—Agent Jones shaking Marcus’s leg, standing over him—Tatum had invited her not to.
Lee folded her arms. “They showed no respect whatsoever for my property.”
“Don’t blame you for being upset, ma’am, but they do have authority to toss things around.”
“Surely you’re not suggesting I’m the only one with a complaint against them.”
“I’ve got a few others that feel about the same as you.”
Yes. But that didn’t answer the question of their safety. Lee arched an eyebrow. Tatum, this code talking won’t work if you over-complicate.
The door opened, and the women neared Lee to claim their belongings. Both of them cast her a quick glance, not followed with a smile.
“Why don’t you go on back to your room for now, ma’am?” Tatum beamed at her.
“All right.” Lee unfolded her arms. “You can accompany me and see the damage they caused.”
Tatum huffed and tugged at her shirt hem. She leaned over the desk to hand key cards to the shorter of the women. “You all need anything else now?”
“No, thank you,” the woman said.
“Okay, you’re room one-sixty-eight.”
No safe room for them. Tatum emerged from behind the desk and tugged her shirt again and motioned for Lee to go first.
When they entered the stairwell, Tatum grinned and threw her arms around Lee. And didn’t let go. “Dear Lord.”
Lee set a hand on the woman’s back. One. Two. Three. Long enough. She stepped back.
Tatum released her, still grinning. “I knew He wouldn’t bring you so far without taking you all the way. But when I saw them, and I called your room phone to warn you—I knew you couldn’t make it to the safe room, not the way they snuck in the back this time. Not with that man as weak as he is. What did you do, pick him up and run?”
“No.”
“I felt sick, I was so worried for y’all, until they marched out of here empty-handed. What happened?”
“They searched the room.”
“Well, I figured, but …” She looked up the stairs, wrung her hands, then refocused on Lee. “With you in it?”
Lee nodded. “You said empty-handed. There were no arrests whatsoever?”
Tatum shook her head. “But didn’t they … ask you the question?”
No arrests. Lee’s body felt lighter. She started up the stairs.
“Didn’t they ask you?”
She’d left Tatum on the landing, staring up at her. Lee planted her feet on the stair. “They did. I lied.” Partially.
Like a butterfly losing its color, Tatum’s entire body wilted. “Oh. And Marcus?”
“He was asleep.”
“Oh, right, he would be.”
Lee didn’t owe this woman an explanation she didn’t have herself. Or a defense for some alleged sin. She turned back toward Marcus.
“Lee.”
Please stop talking. But Lee couldn’t ignore her. Couldn’t sigh down at her, not while sincerity poured from Tatum’s shimmering eyes. “Yes?”
“Do you think … we’ll go to hell?”
We.
“It’s that verse that says if we deny Jesus, He’ll deny us before the Father. It keeps me awake nights. I know—I know Jesus forgave Peter and all, but he was Peter, and I’m—not.”
Lee laced her fingers behind her back. Well, Jesus Christ? I hope You didn’t set this up for me to reassure her.
“But if I—if I told the truth.” Tatum’s tears overflowed, but her face turned up to Lee, open, broken … alight. “It wouldn’t only be me. That first time, they’d have shut down the hotel. They’d have searched high and low until they found the room, until they found the family hiding in there. And since then I’ve helped protect so many. Lik
e Corrie ten Boom, or Rahab. They lied, too, to protect God’s people.”
Lee couldn’t muster curiosity for people she’d never heard of. She stood, waiting, because nothing she could say right now would benefit.
Tatum apparently didn’t need an answer as much as she needed to confess to someone besides her God. “I know it isn’t the same. I’ve confessed it every single night for the last year.”
Lee nodded.
“You’ve only denied Him once?” She continued without waiting for Lee’s nod or head shake. “Still, it’ll eat at you, believe me. You’ll hardly be able to face Him.”
I prefer not to.
“Sometimes the sin is all I can feel in my heart, but sometimes … I can feel peace, too. And that’s when I think maybe I’m forgiven.”
It was a paltry crime, a crime of words. Tatum had harmed no one. Killed no one.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” Tatum said, wiping her cheeks.
“Thank you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I—I wanted to tell you, too. About our border guard. He got an extra shift, so we can move you both tomorrow, instead of the day after. If you’re ready by seven tomorrow morning, my driver can be here then.”
“Yes.” Lee inched backward, up one step. “We will be ready.”
35
“You lost, boy?”
The voice came from the yard to Austin’s right, not the porch but several feet away from it, where a man sat in a sagging canvas patio chair on the walkway leading to his front door.
Austin tried not to bristle. Boy? The guy could be his dad but not his grandpa. “Just walking.”
The man crossed his ankle over his knee, and the chair seemed to strain. He nodded as if giving Austin permission to walk past his house.
Austin ambled down the sidewalk and stuffed the wrapper from the second of Rosita’s breakfast burritos into a side pocket of his sports bag. He probably looked like a vagrant, carrying it over one shoulder, wearing day-old clothes. Felt like one for sure. Around three o’clock this morning, jolting awake next to his rock pile with a stiff neck and a bruised tailbone, he’d cursed himself for running away from a bed and a shower. By six, he admitted he could’ve at least found some grass to sleep on. Maybe this was unconscious penance, though he couldn’t think of what he’d done wrong. Maybe he wanted to know how Brenner—fine, Marcus—had felt lying on a floor for months.
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