Reese had done that. The asshole.
The painkillers, she guessed, was his way of making up for what he had put her through. He hadn’t needed to do that, and as he pushed her lips apart and slipped the pills inside her mouth one at a time, then tilted the bottle so she wouldn’t have to move her head too much to drink down the meds, she thought she saw something that was almost like…concern?…on his face.
Bullshit. He’s a killer. A criminal.
Worse than that, he’s an enabler to the people who stole girls like Faith and Sara and sentenced them to a life worse than death.
No, don’t buy his lies. Reese is human garbage. Kill him when you get the chance.
After some driving and putting miles between them and the motel, Dwight finally turned off the road and parked. She heard cars passing in the background, but there weren’t enough extra clues to tell her where they were exactly. If she had to guess (and that was really all she could do while lying in the back of the Chevy), they were probably still using one of the country roads.
She had the satisfaction of knowing that Dwight and Reese weren’t just hiding from cops this time.
Men with guns at the motel. They came there for us.
No, not us. For them. Reese and Dwight.
Looks like someone’s in trouble…
Maybe it was the pills, but her mind was a lot clearer now, and it wasn’t very hard to piece together all the evidence in front of her. You didn’t lose precious cargo like Sara and the others and not have to face consequences. That was the problem with dealing with criminals. They weren’t necessarily the most loyal group of people.
Allie lay silently in the backseat and listened to them talking up front. If they knew she was listening in, they didn’t appear to be altering their conversation to keep her in the dark.
“Our reputation’s going to take a hit,” Dwight was saying.
“That’s putting the cart well before the horse, partner,” Reese responded.
“So what’s the cart?”
“Getting out of this alive.”
“Makes sense. I’m very biased toward staying alive. Call me selfish if you want, but that’s just me.”
“First things first, we need to find out how far they’re willing to pursue this.”
There.
She had been waiting for the opening, and there it was. She knew what she had to do next, but she bided her time and listened to the rest of their back and forth. They sounded muted and calm, even Dwight. Finally, the car rocked slightly as Dwight climbed out and slammed the door shut.
“There’s a way out of this,” she said.
Reese turned around in his seat. He looked surprised to see her staring back at him. “How long have you been awake?”
“Long enough.”
“How much did you hear?”
“Enough.”
He might have smiled, but in the semidarkness of the car (where the hell had Dwight parked them, anyway?), she couldn’t be entirely sure.
“How’s the pain?” he asked.
“Like my skin is on fire.”
“Welcome to the club. You remember that you shot me, right?”
“I remember.”
“Not very nice.”
“You didn’t give me any choice.”
“Didn’t I?”
She shook her head. Or managed to move it just slightly left, then right, anyway.
“Fair enough,” Reese said.
“I know a way for both of you to get out of this alive.”
“This? You mean this situation you put us in?”
“I didn’t tell Vanguard to shoot those state troopers.”
He thought about it briefly before shrugging. “No, but you’re definitely here on false pretenses. Is Juliet dead?”
“No.”
“Incarcerated?”
“Yes.”
He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Why are you telling the truth now? Or is it even the truth? It’s getting hard to tell with you, Alice.”
“Because now I have a proposition for you and Dwight.”
“I’m listening…”
“You can stay and fight — which is essentially suicide, but I think you already know that even if you pretend not to — or you can go on the run. Far, far away from here, to someplace where your former employers can’t reach you. Overseas, I’d imagine.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Alice.”
“If you choose to live — and run — then you’re going to need money. A lot of it.”
“Oh?”
“I can give it to you. The money.”
“Are you saying you have money, Alice?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to make a big difference.”
“I don’t think you fully understand how much it’s going to take…”
“One million,” she said.
He stared at her in silence.
It stretched to five seconds.
Then ten…
“One million,” he repeated.
“Each,” she said.
“Each?”
“One million for you, and one for Dwight.”
Another long pause as he gazed at her, and she could practically see his mind working, processing what she was saying, maybe even crunching the numbers.
How much would it take to run? How much did he have on hand? How much could he afford?
All those things took a while, until he finally said, “Bullshit.”
“Not bullshit.”
“Where would you get two million?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“That means you don’t have it.”
“I can prove it.”
“How?”
“The same way you access the money you don’t want anyone — any government — to find out about. Call your money man and I’ll give you a bank name and an account number, along with a password, and whoever manages your money can verify the two million’s existence. He won’t be able to touch it, of course, but you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
There was just a ghost of a smile on his lips when he said, “Who are you?”
“Make the call, Reese,” Allie said.
Reese made the call, using a burner cell phone that Dwight had grabbed from the convenience store. Dwight sat behind the steering wheel, drinking from a large can of Red Bull and scooping freshly-microwaved frozen TV dinner into his mouth while watching on with genuine curiosity.
When Reese finally made contact with his “money man,” he glanced into the backseat at her. She had sat up, both because the pain wasn’t quite as unbearable as before, and she knew that from a purely psychological standpoint, sitting was a better position to negotiate from than lying helplessly on her back.
“Two million?” Dwight said doubtfully.
“That’s what she said,” Reese nodded, holding the phone to his ear. He had been waiting for a response from the other end for the last couple of minutes.
Dwight turned in his seat and looked back at her, cheap plastic spoon filled with dripping creamy white something poking out one corner of his mouth. “So you’re not a cop.”
“No,” she said.
“Then who are you?”
“Verify the money; then we’ll talk.”
Dwight reached down and drew his Smith & Wesson.45 and tapped it against his seat’s headrest. “You better hope everything comes up roses, Alice in Wonderland, otherwise this is gonna be the last ride you’re ever going to take. I don’t care that Reese here’s smitten with you, either.”
“The money’s there,” she said.
“So you keep saying.” He turned to Reese. “Well—”
Reese held up his hand to silence Dwight, then said into the phone, “Confirm it again.” He paused to listen, then, “All right. I’ll be in touch.”