She said, slowly, “It’s not a risk, okay? I promise you. If we have total trust, trust me on this.”
“They can track anything, Joey.”
She tilted her head back, blinked away the tears. Then she turned to him, fully composed. It was a different face, stone cold and rock steady, the face of an Orphan. “I am end-stopped there. Completely end-stopped.”
He stared at her a moment longer, deciding whether or not he believed her. Then he fired up the engine and pulled away from the pump.
Evan’s focus intensified as they neared the border. He kept it on rotation between the mirrors, the on-ramps, the cars ahead. He changed speeds and lanes.
Meanwhile Joey changed channels on the radio, responding with enthusiasm or disgust to various songs that Evan found indistinguishable from one another.
Despite everything, she was still sixteen.
A hunter-green 4Runner had been behind them for a while now. White male driver, wispy beard. Evan pulled to the right lane and slowed down, timing it so another car shielded them from view as the 4Runner drove past. The driver did not ease off the gas or adjust his mirror. Which meant he was either not interested or well trained.
Ensuring that passing drivers didn’t get a clean look at them was no easy task on a seventeen-hour road trip. Van Sciver’s people would be looking for a man traveling with a teenage girl — not an uncommon combination but not common either. The Honda’s windows had been treated with an aftermarket tint, which helped decrease visibility. The sun was near its peak, turning the windshields into blinding sheets of gold, another momentary benefit.
A truck pulling a horse trailer sidled up alongside them. Evan tapped the brake, tucking into the blind spot.
“Hold on,” Joey said, cranking up the volume. “Listen — this is my jam.”
He listened.
It was not his jam.
The horse trailer exited. He watched it bank left and amble up into the hills.
At last the billboard flashed past: WELCOME TO IDAHO! THE “GEM STATE.”
While Joey bounced in the passenger seat, the Gem State flew by in a streak of brown. Scrubby flats, a few twists carved through hills, more scrubby flats.
The gas needle had wound down to a quarter tank by the time he pulled off. The service plaza was at the top of a rise, a mini-golf bump in the terrain with good visibility in all directions.
A single strip of parking lined the front of the plaza, which made for easy scouting. Of the vehicles only a blue Volvo pinged Evan’s mental registry, but when it had passed twenty miles back, he’d noted three children quarreling in the back.
After he’d filled the tank, he and Joey went into the plaza, splitting up as was their protocol. Joey drifted up the junk-food aisle while Evan dumped four bottled waters and a raft of energy bars before the register. As the woman rang him up, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirrored lenses of a pair of cheap sunglasses on the counter display.
The bruises beneath his eyes made him conspicuous. Memorable.
He snapped off the price tag, laid it on the counter, and put on the glasses. They’d be helpful for the moment, but he’d require something less obvious. He remembered Lorilee in the elevator, how she’d concealed the finger marks where her boyfriend had grabbed her.
“Just a second, please,” he told the lady at the register.
One aisle over he found a cheap beige concealer.
Joey appeared, pressing a bag of Doritos to his chest. She took in his sunglasses with amusement. “Nice look,” she said. “Did you misplace your fighter jet?”
“Don’t worry. I’m getting this.” He held up the concealer wand. “I’d ask to borrow yours, but I didn’t figure you for the makeup type.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call our last few outings makeupworthy,” she said. “But you couldn’t use mine anyways. I’m browner than you. Thank God.”
He headed back to the counter and laid the concealer and chips on top of the energy bars.
The woman gave a smile. “Picking up some makeup for the missus?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She handed him the plastic bag.
Joey was waiting outside, her arms crossed, staring through a patch of skinny trees down the long ramp to the freeway.
“What?” Evan asked.
She flicked her chin.
A hunter-green 4Runner exited the freeway and started up the slope toward the service plaza.
30
Do Your Business
Evan pulled Joey around the side of the building. They stood on the browning grass beneath the window of the men’s room, peering around the corner at the travel plaza’s entrance. A good vantage.
“That truck,” she said. “Kept time with us for at least forty miles.”
He thought of her bobbing in her seat, singing along to the radio. “I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
“That’s my superpower.”
“What?”
“Being underestimated.”
The men’s-room window above them was cracked open, emitting the pungent scent of urinal cakes. Through the gap they heard someone whistle, spit, and unzip. Evan set the shopping bag on the ground.
They waited.
The 4Runner finally came into view, cresting the rise.
It crept along the line of parked vehicles, slowing as it passed the Civic. The driver eased forward, closer to the pumps, and stopped with the grille pointed at the on-ramp below.
“Hmm,” Joey said.
Evan leaned closer to the building’s edge, Joey’s hair brushing his neck. They were thirty or so yards away from the 4Runner.
Leaving the truck running, the driver climbed out, scratching at the scraggly blond tufts of his beard. Cowboy boots clicking on the asphalt, he walked back to the Civic, approaching it from behind. As he neared, he untucked his shirt. His hand reached back toward his kidney, sliding under the fabric. He hooked the grip of a handgun, slid it partway out of the waistband.
It looked like a big-bore semiauto, maybe a Desert Eagle.
Not a law-enforcement gun.
The man approached cautiously, peering through the windows, checking that the car was empty. Then he let his shirt fall back over the gun and entered the travel plaza.
“He didn’t see us,” Evan said. “Not directly, not from behind us on the freeway. At best he could tell that we were a man and a young woman. He’s trying to confirm ID.”
“So what do we do?”
“You don’t do anything.”
“I could handle that guy.”
“He’s bigger than you,” Evan said. “Stronger, too.”
In the bathroom a toilet flushed, the rush of water amplified in the cinder-block walls. A moment later they heard the creak of hinges and then the hiss of the hydraulic door opener. A sunburned man waddled into sight around the corner and headed off toward his car.
Joey snapped her gum. “I could handle him,” she said again.
“We’re not gonna find out,” Evan said. “Stay here.”
“You’re going into the plaza?”
“Too many civilians. We’ll let him come to us. He’ll check the bathrooms next.”
Sure enough, the driver emerged from the plaza and started their way. They pulled back from the corner.
Evan moved his hand toward his holster. “Don’t want to use the gun,” he whispered. “No suppressor. But if I have to—”
She completed the thought. “I’ll have the car ready.”
A crunch of footsteps sounded behind them. Was there a second man? Evan put his shoulders to the cinder block, flattening Joey next to him, and switched his focus to the rear of the building.
A Pomeranian bobbed into view, straining a metal-link dog leash. It sniffed the grass, its rhinestone-studded collar winking.