by Roland Smith
“Listen carefully,” Bella said, still holding my face with her hands, making certain that she could see my eyes and that I could see hers. “I’m going to undo the cuffs and get you into a more comfortable position. But you need to promise to cooperate. I don’t want to kill you, but if you cross me, I will. You know I will.”
I had no doubt.
“You have my word,” I said.
“You have got to be kidding me!” LaNae shouted.
A second later I heard a door slam closed.
They picked me up and sat me at the table. I was dizzy and a little sick to my stomach. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply to get both feelings under control. When I opened my eyes again, I saw that there were six Originals crammed into the small motor home. LaNae was not among them. The others looked down at me with cold hatred, not an ounce of sympathy between them.
“Where’s Lod?” I asked.
No one spoke. Their expressions didn’t change.
“I need to talk to my grandfather.”
“He’s not here,” Bella said.
“I can see that,” I said. “But I know he’s in touch with you. I need to tell him some things. It’s important.”
“Tell us,” Bella said.
“It’s personal.”
“There is no personal in the Pod.”
There was no People of the Deep either, now that everyone had left our underground nest. “I need to speak to Lod,” I repeated.
“First you’ll answer my questions. Then we will see about you talking to Lod.”
It appeared that Bella had not only surfaced, but she had come up in the world. In my grandfather’s absence, she looked to be in charge. At least here.
I stared at her in defiant silence.
“If you don’t want to answer my questions,” she continued, “I can turn you back over to LaNae and let her finish what she started.”
“I am not afraid of LaNae, but I will answer your questions …” I hesitated. “As soon as you give me some water.”
I wasn’t really thirsty, but I needed time to think about what she was going to ask and how I was going to answer her.
Bill opened the small refrigerator, pulled out a bottle, and set it in front of me. I opened it and drained it very slowly before putting it on the table and asking for another. Bill gave me a second bottle, which I drank halfway before setting it next to the empty one.
“How did you find us?” Bella asked.
“I saw you and Bill at the station and followed you.”
My answer had the desired effect. Bella and Bill looked stunned. The other Originals looked at them with a combination of shock and disgust. Bella and Bill had been assigned to spot and capture me. I wasn’t supposed to spot and follow them.
“How?” Bella asked.
I smiled. “I’m a Shadow.”
“That’s not what I mean. How did you get here? How did you know we were coming here?”
“I followed you to your motor home from the train station in Portland. You and Bill talked about where you were going while you were tying your wheelchair to the back bumper. Anyone within fifty feet could have overheard you, to say nothing about hopping out of the wheelchair like an Olympic pole-vaulter while you were parked in a handicapped-parking zone.”
I opened the bottle and took another sip of water.
“Okay,” Bella said. “How did you get here from Portland?” She was holding herself together pretty well considering the unhappy stares she was getting from the others.
“I took a bus to Cannon Beach. A girl I met on the bus gave me a lift to Manzanita. Her mother owns a hotel there. They have free bikes for their guests. I rode over here.”
“What about the others?”
“What others?”
“You know who I’m talking about. Your boyfriend, Cooper, and his brother, Patrick.”
“Cooper was never my boyfriend, and I have no idea where they are. They went their way and I went mine. Haven’t seen them since I got above.”
“You’re lying.”
“Think what you want, but I am not lying.”
“If he wasn’t your boyfriend, then why did you help him escape?”
“Because he and his brother didn’t deserve a life sentence in the mush room, or worse. All they did was blunder into the Deep. All they wanted was to be shown the way out. Lod overreacted.”
Someone gasped. Bella just raised an eyebrow.
“He’s not infallible, Bella. It may not have been the smartest thing I’ve ever done, but I never intended to hurt the Pod. I did it because I thought Lod was making a mistake by holding Cooper and Patrick captive, and I thought it would hurt us.”
“Then why did you run?”
“Because I thought I’d end up in the mush room,” I said. “Or worse.”
“You were wrong about those boys. They went to the FBI.”
“So that’s how we were found?” I did my best to look stunned.
“You didn’t know?”
“I’ve been reading the newspaper articles, but they didn’t say where the FBI got their information. I swear I didn’t know Cooper and Patrick were going to turn us in to the feds. Like I told you, when we got up top, I went my way and they went theirs. You don’t actually think I had anything to do with them ratting us out to the FBI?”
“The boys disappeared the same time you did,” Bill said. “As you know, we’re very good at finding people. Escaping from our net isn’t easy. We figured you had to have helped them.”
“You figured wrong!” I shouted.
“Would you have helped them up top if you had known they were going to turn us in?” Bella asked.
I paused before answering. “At the time, I was so mad at Lod I might have done something drastic, but that does not include turning in the Pod to the FBI.”
“Why were you angry with Lod?”
“That’s between him and me. That’s why I want to talk to him. That’s why I followed you.”
“What about Alex Dane?”
How did she know about the Librarian? I had to be very careful here. The best lies are sprinkled with truth. Alex should have killed the Guard, Carl, instead of using a Taser on him. Dead men tell no tales. Carl was probably murdered on Lod’s orders for letting us escape, but surely not before he provided a full description of Alex Dane.
“My grandfather’s brother,” I said. “The uncle I didn’t know I had.”
“Tell me about him,” Bella said.
“Why don’t you tell me about him!” I made eye contact with everyone standing in the tight space. “You’ve known him longer than I have. He’s one of you. He’s one of the Originals.”
They all stared back at me without a word. The door opened and in stepped Carl. So he hadn’t been killed. Another surprise. Lod was not one to tolerate failure. Carl gave me an icy smile, then spoke to Bella, as if I wasn’t there. Bella was definitely in charge.
“The park’s clear except for the people who were here. We went back to her hotel. Roused the girl running the place. Searched Kate’s room. Nothing there.”
“Nothing?” Bella asked.
“A backpack. Just clothes. Nothing else. I have it here.”
“Leave it,” Bella said. “Keep security in place. We’re going to pull out soon.”
“What about — ?”
Bella cut him off. “Just keep security in place until I let you know.”
Carl nodded, gave me one last hateful smile, and left.
Bella turned her attention back to me. “We were talking about Alex Dane.”
“And I was saying that you know more about him than I do.”
“Tell us what you know,” Bella insisted.
I wasn’t about to tell them what I knew, but I had to tell them something. “I knew him as the Librarian, a crazy old man who left me books he thought I would like, books he thought I should read. I didn’t know he was Lod’s little brother.”
“How many years did he leave you these books?”
>
“Since I was fourteen.”
“What kind of books?”
I named some of the titles.
“Banned books,” she said.
I shrugged.
“How often did you and he talk?”
“Never. He’d leave a stack of books. When I finished them, I’d return them to the same place. A few days later there would be another stack of books.”
“Why didn’t you turn him in?”
“I was going to, but first I wanted to figure out how he was getting into the Deep. I tried to follow him a dozen times, but he would simply vanish without a trace. If it weren’t for the books, I would have thought he was a figment of my imagination. A ghost.”
“When did you find out he was Alex Dane?”
“On the day he took us above.”
“Through his secret entrance to the library,” Bella said.
Of course they had discovered the exit, but I’m sure it had taken them a while. Enough time for Alex to get out of there. Maybe even enough time for him to get rid of the evidence of his watching them for years. But not all of it. They had discovered something deep in the bowels of the library that had allowed them to hack into his cell phone.
“What did he tell you?” Bella asked.
“That my grandfather had shot him and left him for dead,” I answered.
The answer didn’t seem to surprise Bella, or anyone else. It was clear that they already knew this. But did they know about my parents? If they did, should I tell them that I knew?
“What else?” Bella asked.
I decided not to bring up my parents. “He said that he had been watching us for years in the Deep.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say,” I lied.
“When was the last time you saw Alex Dane?”
“The day he led us above.”
Bella stared at me. I knew what was coming. Alex had told me about it when I saw him in Portland.
“You texted him from Chicago.”
I nodded. “He asked me to check in with him.”
“Did you check in with him anytime after Chicago?”
Bella already knew the answer, but I played along.
“No.”
“Where did you get the cell phone?”
She knew the answer to this as well.
“Alex gave it to me.”
“Cooper and Patrick as well?”
“Yes. He also gave us laptops.”
“Why?”
“He said that he wanted to stay in touch with us.”
“Did he give you anything else?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t about to tell her about the cash that was allowing us to stay off the grid.
“Search the pack.”
My stomach lurched. I’d made my first mistake. Bill pulled the contents and spread it out on the kitchen table.
“Where’s the laptop? Where’s the phone?”
I stared down at the pile of stuff. My mistake wasn’t there. The roll of cash was missing. Carl, or someone else, must have taken it when they searched the pack. Thank God for greed.
“I sold the laptop in New York. I needed money for a ticket. I sold the cell phone in Chicago.”
“Where’s the rest of the money?”
“There isn’t any left.”
“What were you going to do without money?”
“I had no idea. It was snowing in Portland. I thought I’d reached the end of the line; then I saw you and Bill at the station.”
“Why didn’t you just come up to us?”
“Because I didn’t know what your intentions were. As far as I knew you were there to kill me. What were your intentions?”
“It wasn’t to kill you,” Bella said quietly. “Lod wanted you found.”
“What about Alex and the two boys?”
“Our instructions for them were different than they were for you.”
A loud roar from outside interrupted the interrogation. Bella took a two-way radio out of her pocket and keyed the microphone. “Are you there?”
“Too foggy to land,” my grandfather answered. The sound of his voice gave me a start.
“We have her,” Bella said.
This was followed by a long silence. The sound faded, then grew louder again.
“The others?”
“They weren’t with her.”
“Is she with you now?”
“Yes.”
“Step outside.”
Bella stepped outside, closing the door behind her. A few moments later she stepped back inside. “We’re pulling out,” she said. “Right now.”
Everyone left the motor home, including Bill, leaving Bella and me alone.
“You’ll ride with Bill and me,” she said. “It might be best to stay clear of the others for the time being. They’re not happy with you.”
“I don’t blame them,” I said. “I screwed up. But it was with the best intentions.”
“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Bella said. “No one trusts you. That includes me and your grandfather. I’ll kill you myself if it turns out that you’re lying.”
“Can I use the restroom across the way to clean up?”
“Sure, but I’m going with you. And if you’re thinking of trying a BJJ move on me, remember who trained you. I can still take you down.”
That I doubted, but I had no intention of trying to escape. I was exactly where I needed to be.
had a good breakfast, just like that cop Jackson had said. I was on my second stack of buttermilk pancakes when Alex excused himself to go to the restroom.
Coop grinned at me from across the table. “Better slow down, Meatloaf. You’ll choke yourself.”
“Easy for you to say after hogging down that plateful of bacon and eggs.”
All Coop had ordered was a large orange juice.
“I have to admit it,” he said. “It was delicious.”
I swallowed. “So if I hadn’t shown up with Kate’s note, what would your decision have been?”
“After seeing the smashed bike, I was leaning toward calling the FBI. Knowing that Kate was safe tilted it in the other direction. I’m worried about her, but I think she’s okay. For now. I think Lod loves her in his own way.”
“I’m sure he loved his son too,” I said. “Maybe even his daughter-in-law. Look what happened to them. Then there’s Alex. Lod shot him and left him for dead.”
“True,” Coop admitted. “But I got a chance to listen to Kate and Lod talk to each other. He cut her a lot of slack. More than she cut him. There was definitely a special bond between them. I’m not saying he wouldn’t hurt her if she jeopardized his plans, but I think he would keep her around if he thought he could control her.”
The waitress stopped by our table … again.
“How’s the OJ?”
She was in her late fifties, early sixties. This was her fifth visit to the table and the fifth time she’d asked about Coop’s OJ, which he’d taken only two sips from. On her third visit I had asked her for another stack of pancakes, which she had brought immediately, setting the plate in front of me and staring at Coop the entire time, asking him how his OJ was again.
“It’s great,” Coop answered for the fifth time.
For the millionth time, I wondered what it would feel like to be sought after like Coop was. I wasn’t resentful, or jealous. Just curious.
“We’re going to have to keep an eye on Alex,” Coop said, snapping his fingers to get my attention.
“Huh?”
“He’s old, in case you haven’t noticed. He doesn’t have our stamina. I don’t like his color. Or how he’s moving. I think he’s exhausted.”
Alex came out of the restroom, making his way to our table, slowly, shuffling his feet as if he didn’t have the strength to lift them off the floor. Coop was right about his color. His face was as gray as his suit.
“One of you has to drive,” he said. “I’m done. I need to sleep. If you can’t drive, we’ll have to wait until I can.
Sorry.”
Our plan, which was not a very good one, was to drive south and try to catch up with the Pod caravan. We’d stop at gas stations, trailer parks, state parks, anywhere that recreational vehicles might stop for fuel and rest. They already had a five-hour head start. If Alex slept several hours more, there was little point in trying to catch up with them. In fact, even if we left right now, our chances were slim.
“I’ve never driven anything,” Coop said, looking at me.
I’d driven a car exactly four times, with my mom giving me instructions. As an ex-astronaut, she was a pretty good instructor, but it was nerve-racking. And the last lesson had been at least six months earlier.
“I don’t have a license,” I said.
“I don’t either,” Alex said. “At least a real one.”
“What if we get stopped?”
“Do you have a learner’s permit?”
“No.”
“Then they give us a ticket. Worst-case scenario, they impound the car, and we get another car.”
“The worst-case scenario is that I run the car off a cliff, crash into the Pacific Ocean, and we all die,” I said.
Alex slid the keys across the table. “One way or the other, I gotta sleep.”
Mom’s checklist.
Adjust the seat.
Seat belt.
Adjust rearview mirror.
Adjust the side-view mirrors.
Foot on brake.
Start.
Hands on steering wheel. Ten and two.
Release parking brake.
Foot on brake.
Park to Drive.
Foot off brake.
Give it a little gas.
Too much gas!
Step on brake.
Too much brake!
“You’ll get the hang of it,” Coop said.
“You better hope I do.”
“Do a few loops around the parking lot.”
Alex said nothing. He was lying down in the backseat.
“Is Alex okay?”
Coop turned his head. “Sleeping like a baby.”
“After that?”
“He said he was tired.”
I did ten loops around the parking lot, then ventured out onto Highway 101.