Just Run

by Culver, Chris

  Anatoly reached into his jacket and withdrew his cigarettes. He put one to his lips and lit up.

  “Look at Detective Schaefer’s personnel file. Find out where he would go next and be there before him.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  “I’m old,” said Anatoly, exhaling a lungful of cigarette smoke. “I’m going home to take a nap.”

  Saturday, September 14. 10:07a.m

  Franklin, IN.

  The trailer came to a stop at a gas station near I–65 in Franklin, Indiana. It was mid–morning, so traffic at the station was fairly low. That was good; it minimized the possibility that they’d be caught exiting the trailer. Trent cleaned one of the windows near the ceiling as he had seen Renee do earlier and peered out, watching their driver fill up his truck. He was a small man with a black mustache, salt–and–pepper hair and a red flannel shirt. If needed, Trent thought he could take the guy out without too much issue; hopefully it wouldn’t come to that, though.

  The truck they were in must have had a big tank because it took their driver a few minutes to fill up. When he finally went into the station to pay, Trent glanced at Renee.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” he asked, taking his out of his pocket. He flipped it open and made sure it was turned on.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “We need to get rid of them,” he said, slipping his phone into one of the cowboy boots on the floor. “Most modern cell phones have a GPS transmitter built into them as a security feature. The police will be able to track us.”

  Renee hesitated, but eventually she handed Trent a sleek, blood–red smartphone that was half as thin as a deck of playing cards. He put it in another boot at random.

  “That ought to give the police something to watch for a while,” he said, standing. He peered through the window again. The gas station had security cameras on both corners of the roof, but they were pointed toward the exit and entrance. The clerk probably didn’t even look at the monitors until somebody tried to drive off without paying. Even still, Trent felt unease in his stomach. He didn’t like being on film.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  Renee nodded, her face pale enough that he could make out freckles on the bridge of her nose.

  “Just act natural and follow me,” he said.

  She didn’t respond beyond swallowing, but that was good enough for Trent. He twisted the aluminum door’s handle and slipped outside. The sun was bright, almost blinding after the gloom of the trailer, so Trent shielded his eyes with his hand. Renee followed quickly, and he shut the door behind them as silently as he could. One of the horses kicked and whinnied, presumably startled. Their driver stood outside the convenience store, a forty–two ounce soda in his hand and a surprised look on his face.

  Crap.

  The old man walked toward them slowly, chewing something, as his shirt flapped in a slight morning breeze.

  “What were you two doing in my trailer?”

  Trent started to say something, but Renee pressed herself against his side and grabbed his hand, stopping him.

  “Relax and go with it,” she whispered into his ear. He wasn’t sure what to do at first, but he eventually relaxed the muscles in his shoulders before reaching around her waist. She pressed herself harder into his side. She was in good shape.

  “We got stuck in there at a rest stop a couple of hours ago,” she said.

  The driver spit a brown stream onto the ground.

  “What were you doing in my goddamn trailer?” he asked. He accented each word as if it were its own sentence. Renee looked at Trent and back to the driver, biting her lower lip.

  “Sex, okay?” she said, squeezing his hand. Trent nodded his agreement. “I love horses, so I was looking at yours back at the rest stop, and then my boyfriend saw that little cabin. We didn’t mean anything. It just sort of happened. We thought it’d be exciting.”

  Their driver stared at them for a few minutes before spitting again.

  “Good luck getting back to Ohio, ‘cause I ain’t driving you,” he said. “You’re lucky I’m not calling the police.”

  “Thank you,” said Renee, taking a step toward their driver, her arm outstretched so she could shake his hand. “We appreciate it.”

  The old man looked at Renee’s hand and scoffed.

  “I ain’t shaking your hand until you wash it,” he said, glancing at Trent. “I know where they’ve been.”

  Renee took a step back.

  “We are sorry,” said Trent. “We’ll be more careful next time.”

  “You better be,” he said. “Now get out of here before I change my mind about calling the police.”

  Renee and Trent nodded simultaneously before taking a few steps away from the truck. Their driver drove off a few minutes later, leaving nothing but diesel exhaust in his wake.

  “That was quick thinking,” said Trent, once he was sure they were alone again.

  Renee nodded.

  “I didn’t think he was going to buy it,” she said. “What now?”

  Trent looked around quickly.

  “We go somewhere more private so we can figure out what to do next.”

  Renee nodded in response and followed him to the convenience store. Instead of going inside, they followed an exterior wall until they reached the employee break area behind the building. There were no cameras behind the station, and a dilapidated fence shielded them from roving eyes, making the area as private as they were going to get. Trent watched as Renee brushed bird droppings and spent cigarette butts off the picnic table before sitting down. He didn’t bother brushing anything off his own seat; he had sat in worse and survived.

  “You have any money on you?” he asked, already reaching behind him for his wallet. “I’ve got about sixty bucks.”

  He put the cash on the table but put his wallet on top, so the money wouldn’t blow away. Renee reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out car keys, her license and a couple of bills.

  “This is all I have on me,” she said. “I left my purse at my house. It’s probably evidence somewhere.”

  It didn’t take Trent long to count their stockpile. Sixty–seven dollars. It wasn’t even enough to buy a single bus ticket to Chicago. Trent sat across from Renee and rested his head in his hands.

  “You think that’s enough?” she asked.

  “It’ll have to be,” said Trent. He tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, but only managed to blur his vision. “I saw a Wal–Mart as we drove in. We should pick up a few things.”

  “Okay,” said Renee. “We should go by a library, too, so we can get on the Internet and see if my laptop has been accessed.”

  “It’s a plan, then,” said Trent. “I’ll go in and get directions. You can do whatever you need to do.”

  “Sure,” said Renee, nodding.

  She stood up first and led the way to the convenience store. While Renee went to the restroom, Trent talked to the clerk. The kid was unlikely to light the world afire with his intellect, but at least he knew Franklin fairly well. Truth be told, he had probably never left it. By the time Renee emerged from the restroom a few minutes later, Trent had most of Franklin’s streets and bus lines memorized. He didn’t anticipate having much problem getting around town, but if life had taught Trent anything, it was that it’s always helpful to know where the exits are.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “I think so,” said Renee, glancing at the clerk, who was trying and failing to check her out inconspicuously. He quickly looked away at Renee’s glance. She looked back to Trent, most of the remnants of her makeup having been scrubbed off in the bathroom. “Yeah. I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.”

  Trent gestured toward the front door and followed a step or two behind Renee.

  “Wal–Mart’s only about a block away, so I figured we’d just walk,” said Trent. “We’ll take a bus to the library after that.”

  “That sounds goo
d.”

  They walked quickly. The morning air made Trent feel somehow recharged. The summer heat and humidity were dissipating, but winter had yet to grasp the area in its icy grip. Trent even heard birds singing cheerfully. It was peaceful. They stopped before going inside the store.

  “While we’re here, I want to get a disposable cell phone, and maybe some food,” he said. “Do you need anything?”

  “Just food,” she said.

  They hurried to the electronics section as soon as they were inside. The store had the usual selection of cell phones from the major players, and, predictably, the help was nowhere to be found. Trent had counted on that.

  He scanned the display racks quickly. The cheapest disposable phone was thirty–four dollars, a significant portion of their cash supply. On top of that, they’d have to spend at least twenty–five dollars for airtime.

  “Can we afford these?” asked Renee.

  “Barely, but we don’t need to,” he said. He walked to the nearby DVD section and grabbed two Blu–ray videos from the rack. Both were for children, and both cost over thirty bucks each. “I’m going to use the restroom. Can you wait here for a few minutes?”

  She nodded, looking unsure.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, already walking away. He craned his neck, looking over the displays of electronic gear, until he saw a sign for the customer service desk at the rear of the store. Hopefully, Franklin’s Wal–Mart was like every other one he had been in. He hurried toward the rear of the store, but stopped when he came to the back service desk. A rope had been stretched across the area, and a sign directed customers to the customer service desk at the front of the store. That was even better than Trent anticipated.

  He ducked under the rope and hurried to the family restroom. The overhead lights popped on automatically. Must have been on a sensor. Trent took his keys from his pocket and slit the plastic packaging covering the DVDs. Both were in pristine condition. He broke one in half and used the sharpest key on his ring to scratch deep tracks into the other. The video might play, but the disc was ruined as far as retail sales go. While he had the cases open, he also peeled away the security stickers on the inside so they wouldn’t set off the alarms.

  Instead of going directly back to the electronics section, he walked to the Customer Service desk at the front of the store. He gave the DVDs to the Assistant Manager and told her one was broken and the other was scratched so badly it wouldn’t play. Since he didn’t have a receipt, she gave him store credit on a gift card. Sixty–three dollars, enough to pay for their phone as well as lunch.

  When he got back to the electronics section, Renee was watching CNN on the display of TVs.

  “Are we famous?” asked Trent.

  “No. Not yet at least,” she said. “What’d you do?”

  “Got us a gift card,” he said. “Are you ready to go?”

  “More than ready,” she said. Trent picked up the cheapest phone on the display rack and a prepaid phone card. While they were in the store, they also bought two sandwiches for lunch. After checking out, a process that took entirely too long for Trent’s taste, they sat and waited at a bus stop beside the parking lot. It was an open–air enclosure with plastic benches and tinted glass to cut the glare from the sun.

  They ate lunch in silence.

  “You steal from stores a lot?” asked Renee. She turned on the phone, presumably to make sure it worked. Thankfully, it came out of the package precharged.

  “I use what’s available.”

  Renee shifted on her seat.

  “Are you really a cop?” she asked. “Because you don’t act like one. Most cops I know wouldn’t rip off Wal–Mart to save money.”

  Trent rubbed his brow, trying to think his answer through.

  “I spent the last couple of years undercover. I didn’t have backup, so I did whatever I had to in order to avoid being caught. Sometimes that meant shoplifting,” he said. “I transferred to Ohio so I could finally live a normal life. Kind of ironic, huh?”

  Renee didn’t smile in response. She simply nodded.

  “Yeah. I guess it is.”

  Trent’s smile faded, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. When the bus arrived half an hour later, Trent could only see two other passengers on board. Evidently, public transportation wasn’t a big part of daily life in Franklin. They paid their fares and sat on opposite sides of the bus. Renee’s eyes darted to him a few times, and she fidgeted. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she never did. He leaned over at one point and asked if something was wrong, but she brushed him off.

  Franklin’s library was a small branch of a larger library system. It was too small for a town that size, but it had maybe twenty computers for public Internet access. Renee signed onto a waiting list, while Trent wandered around the fiction section. He liked books. They had kept him connected when he was away from his family and friends. He picked up a copy of The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett and flipped through dog–eared pages, remembering the first time he had read it. He had been homesick in a cold, dank apartment in Warsaw, Poland; the book had been the only bright spot of a miserable six–month tour in the Army.

  “Should I leave you two alone?” asked Renee.

  Trent glanced over the top of the book.

  “Just visiting an old friend,” he said, shelving the book.

  “We’re up in ten minutes on the computer.”

  “Good.”

  Renee stared at him for another moment before slowly turning around and walking toward the lobby. She may not have admitted it, but something was definitely bothering her. He followed her back to the lobby and sat beside her on a lounge chair, waiting as a computer monitor on a bracket in the corner of the room displayed who was up on the computers.

  When Renee’s name came to the top, a library aide logged her onto a computer and told her that she had twenty minutes. Renee checked out the tracking software’s website. Her laptop hadn’t been powered up within reach of a wireless network yet, but hopefully it would be soon. Since they were going to be away from a computer for the foreseeable future, she also set up an alert so she’d receive a text message with the laptop’s location the moment it connected to a wireless network.

  Before logging off, she glanced up at Trent.

  “I’m going to email a friend and let her know that I’m safe,” she said. “Can you give me a minute?”

  “Sure,” said Trent. He walked back to the lobby and waited. When Renee came back, she wouldn’t meet his gaze, and she wouldn’t come within five feet of him. Trent could almost feel tension come off her in waves. Something was wrong, obviously.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  “Exhausted.”

  Trent looked around the lobby for a moment.

  “We can check into one of those cheap motels by the interstate,” he said. “We can at least get a nap in.”

  “That sounds good.”

  The bus wouldn’t take them directly to the interstate, so they rode as long as they could and walked the remaining half mile. It was warming up, and Trent wished he had worn something lighter the day before. They checked into the first hotel they came to, a local place with maybe fifty rooms facing a courtyard. He got the standard room with two beds and paid with most of their cash. It was a big expense, but it’d be worth it in the end. The clerk made a copy of Trent’s driver’s license before handing him the keys.

  The room was about what Trent would expect for fifty dollars a night. The carpet was green and dingy with cigarette burns near the door. It looked as if one of the previous tenants had simply dropped his cigarette on the ground before exiting the room. Renee sat on one of the beds, looking lost. After what she had been through, she probably wanted to be alone. He scratched his forehead.

  “I need to head out and do a few things,” said Trent. “I’ll take the cell phone, so if you need anything, just give me a call and I’ll come back.”
r />   She nodded without looking at him.

  “Can I have the keys?” she asked. “In case I want to get a drink.”

  “Sure,” said Trent, tossing the room key to her. He pointed at the door with his thumb. “I’ll be back in an hour or two. If I leave, will you be okay?”

  Renee swallowed.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, looking down. “I just need some time to myself.”

  “That’s understandable,” said Trent. “This will blow over soon enough.”

  “I know. I just need to be alone for now.”

  Trent nodded before leaving the room. He heard the door lock behind him.

  Saturday, September 14. 1:26 p.m

  Franklin, IN.

  As soon as Trent left the room, Renee bolted the door and secured the sliding chain lock. If he wanted to, Trent could kick through the chain lock easily, but it made her feel better to have it locked, anyway. He had just lied to her. His lower–left eyelid had twitched when he said everything would blow over soon. It was probably an autonomic response due to his increasing stress levels. Her father had taught her to look for those sorts of ticks and twitches at a poker table; it was one of the things that made her a good player.

  It wasn’t the first time Trent had lied to her, either. He may have worked undercover, but he had lied about being in Ohio to have a normal life. More than that, when she looked him up on the Internet, she hadn’t found a thing. Not a Facebook page, not a Goodreads account, not a single mention in a newspaper… it was like he didn’t exist. Something was wrong with Trent Schaefer; it made her wonder what else he had lied about.

  I hate this.

  Rather than give in to her frustration and fear, she scrubbed her face and hands at the sink in the bathroom. She felt better after that, even if it hadn’t improved her situation. The worst part of it was that, as far as she could tell, Trent was still her best shot for staying alive. He had already saved her life at least twice; she wished she knew who he was.