Hellbent

He lay down on the carpet near the door and closed his eyes.

* * *

He awoke to movement in the room. Stayed perfectly still. Kept his eyes veiled, mostly closed.

Joey continued to ease out of bed, moving so slowly she didn’t even creak the hair-trigger coils.

Two silent steps, and then she hunched over her rucksack, reaching for something. She rose, turned. He watched her approach. Her hand passed through a fall of light from the window.

She was holding her fixed-blade combat knife.

She moved well, floating on bare feet. He read her posture. Her shoulders were hunched, her head lowered on her neck.

Nothing in it registered aggression.

Just fear.

She leaned over him.

He made the call to let her.

He felt the carbon-steel blade press against his throat.

He opened his eyes all the way.

Her own eyes were so large, the light coming through them from the side turning the irises transparent. The vivid green of them jumped out of the dark, the eyes of a great cat that no longer knew itself to be great.

“Don’t hurt me ever,” she said. “Please.”

“Okay.” He felt the word grind against the knife edge.

She nodded and then nodded again, as if to herself.

The pressure eased.

She withdrew as silently as she’d approached.

He lay there and stared at the water-stained map of the ceiling, the whole world laid out in its darkness and complexity.

16

The Turn to Freedom

A four-sided Romanesque Revival clock tower adorned with lit signage staked Portland Union Station to the west shore of the Willamette River. Evan hustled Joey beneath the GO BY TRAIN flashing sign and into the glossy Italian-marble waiting room, where he bought her a ticket under an alias on a train heading for Ashland, Kentucky, because the choice struck him as sufficiently random. The route ran through Sacramento and Chicago. Between travel time and layovers, that would keep her on the move for nearly three days.

He steered her out onto the chill of the platform, handed her the Amtrak tickets and a wad of cash.

“My email address is the.nwhr.man@gmail.com,” he told her. “Say it back to me.”

She did, her first words in nearly twenty minutes.

He took her gently by the arm, hustled her down to the far end of the platform. “When you get to Ashland, log into my account.” He told her the password. “Type a message to me in the Drafts folder. Do not send it. I will log in, leave you instructions in the same unsent email. If it doesn’t ever travel over the internet—”

“I know the protocols,” she said.

She turned and waited for the train. A limp wind fluttered her hair, and she hooked it behind an ear, exposing a swath of the shaved area.

Frustratingly, his feet kept him rooted there.

“Watch your back better,” he said. “Use windows as mirrors — like there or there. The reflections off passing trains. Watch your visibility, too. You should be noting where surveillance cameras are, minding their sight lines, head down.”

Her lower jaw moved forward, and he heard a clicking of teeth. “I know the protocols.”

“Then move four inches back behind this post,” he said.

She stepped beneath the metal overhang and shot him a glare.

He said, “If you don’t know what you don’t know—”

“‘—how can I know what to learn?’” she said. “Jack told me that one, too. Like I said. The protocols? I know them.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

He left her on the platform. Staying alert, he carved his way back through the waiting room, scanning the crowd. His nose looked okay, but the break had left thumbprint bruises beneath his eyes, so he preferred to avoid looking anyone directly in the face. With each step he sensed the distance widening between him and Joey, between him and Jack’s final, ill-considered wish. His boots tapped the cold, shiny marble. It felt like walking through a tomb.

He came out the front, hustled across the hourly-pay parking lot to a Subaru with a MY CHILD IS STUDENT OF THE MONTH bumper sticker. He’d swapped out vehicles early that morning in an office garage, taking advantage of a parking attendant’s bathroom break to snatch a set of keys from a valet podium. Assuming the proud parent worked a full day, that gave Evan until five o’clock before the car would be reported missing.

He’d backed into the parking spot, giving him privacy by the rear bumper. He knelt down now and removed the license plate, switching it out for that of the Kia in the neighboring slot. One more layer of protection before he hit the road, free and clear to resume his pursuit of Van Sciver.

He got into the car and pulled out of the parking lot, eyeing the freeway signs.

He was just about to make the turn to freedom when he checked the rearview and saw the HILLSBORO HOME THEATER INSTALLATION! van turn into Union Station.

17

A Single Hungry Lunge

A Hertz rental sedan moved in concert with the van. They parked side by side at the outer edge of the parking lot, reversing into the spots to allow for a quick getaway.