"You-you killed him," Liz stammered, the callous execution nearly triggering another post-traumatic flashback to her own shooting. She clutched her stomach protectively, but, with considerable effort, forced her tumultuous thoughts to stay firmly rooted in the present. I have to keep my wits about me, she realized, if I want to get out of this alive.
The odds of that were looking slimmer and slimmer, though. Liz knew that Morton would not have shot Okada right in front of her if he had any intention of letting her go. The only reason she wasn't dead yet, she figured, was that Morton still wanted to know how she and her friends were connected to all this, not to mention how they man- aged to generate force fields, change the color of moving cars, etc. Couldn't hurt to remind him of all those unanswered questions, she judged, just in case he was thinking of disposing of her at the same time as Okada.
"You know, my friends are going to keep looking for me," she warned him, crouching in the backseat of the Chevy. "They're very talented. They can do all sorts of things." It felt weird to hint, even obliquely, at the hybrids' special abilities to such an untrustworthy character, but at this point, Liz reasoned, the paranormal cat was pretty thoroughly out of the bag. "You don't want to make them too angry."Was that a flicker of fear in Morton's bloodshot eyes? "Yeah? Well, you don't want to get me mad, little lady." He placed a fresh clip into his handgun and lumbered toward the front seat of the convertible. Before he could sit down, however, another siren wailed nearby. The same patrol car, Liz wondered, or reinforcements? For her friends' sake, she hoped Max and the others were keeping a low profile.
"Damn!" Morton cursed. He eyed the Chevy dubiously, suddenly seeing it as a liability. He checked the dashboard and grunted. "Almost out of gas anyway," she heard him mutter, moments before he grabbed the attache case from the passenger seat and picked up a canvas backpack from beneath the glove compartment. He tossed the backpack, which she recognized as the one Alex had donated to Michael and Isabel's con routine, at Liz, hitting her in the chest. "Take that," he ordered brusquely, taking a long, hard look at the arid wasteland and the ocher foothills beyond. "We're going for a hike."
22.
The cave was dark and gloomy, the only light coming from a narrow entrance about twenty feet away. Liz squatted on the dank stone floor, her hands tied behind her back with duct tape, while Joe Morton checked to make sure the tape was secure. "Okay, that should hold you," he grunted, lurching to his feet behind her. He circled around so she could see the pistol tucked into his bulging waistband. "Don't try anything. I'm watching you."They must have hiked a couple miles into the hills, before stumbling onto this primitive hideaway. Must be one 0/ those unexplored caverns 1 read about in the guidebook, Liz guessed; it was even possible that they were back on the park grounds somewhere. Unfortunately, it didn't look like any tour guides would be coming along soon.
In search of better light, Morton trudged up to just within the cave's secluded entrance. Muttering irritably to himself, he dialed a number on the cell phone he had claimed from the glove compartment of the abandoned Chevy. "Damnit," he grumbled, lifting the phone to his ear. "He'd better be there!"Liz wondered whom he was calling, but not for long. "Ramirez!" the surly gunman barked into the phone. "This is Morton. What the hell were you thinking, sending those two air force clowns to surprise me?… Don't play dumb with me! They told me they worked with you, and they had the goods to prove it. Yeah, more leftovers from '47. Crazy stuff, too. An alien crash helmet and some kind of glow-in-the-dark antenna or something…What do you mean you've never heard of anything like that? I saw this merchandise with my own eyes!"Liz realized he was talking about Isabel and Michael, and the phony alien gizmos they had whipped up at the Days Inn. She looked over at the canvas backpack, currently resting against the notorious attache case on the floor of the cave, only a few feet away. She assumed the bogus artifacts were still in the pack. Why else would Morton have forced her to carry it all this way? Not that this was likely to do her much good; even if she managed to get her hands free, what could she do with a shower cap and a twisted wire hanger? It took several minutes, but Ramirez somehow managed to convince Morton that he'd had nothing to do with the uniformed strangers at the Denny's. "Okay, okay, maybe you're on the level," Morton admitted reluctantly. "Something fishy's going on, though, and I don't like it." He scratched his ill-shaven jowls as he tried to figure out his next move. "Okay," he said finally, spitting a mouthful of tobacco juice onto the floor of the cavern. "Here's what we're going to do: You're going to meet me here, and I'll give you the rest of your cash in exchange for a ride to the Mexican border. Listen up "He gave the lieutenant detailed directions on how to find the cave, along with the number of his cell phone, just in case Ramirez got lost. He did not mention anything about transporting a teenage girl as well, which made Liz feel scarily expendable. I have to give him a reason to keep me alive, she realized, even as Morton wrapped up his call. "Make it fast," he warned Ramirez. "No one's going to find me here, but the sooner 1 get the merchandise out of the country, the better it will be-for you and me both."He hung up on Ramirez and stuck the phone in his back pocket. "Okay, Red," he announced, leering at Liz from the top of the caverns sloping floor. "Now it's your turn." He marched toward her, rubbing his meaty palms together in anticipation, until he was right in front of her, looking down at his hostage with cruel, bestial eyes. "We've got a couple of hours to kill, and I've got plenty of questions that need answers. Sounds doable to me, as long as you cooperate. Otherwise, things could get kind of ugly."Yeah, right, Liz thought skeptically. like you're really going to let me live if I tell you everything I know. She knew that her only chance was to make like Scheherazade and give Morton just enough info to keep him good and anxious to hear more. Think of it as a challenge, she thought, something to keep my brain too busy to freak out.
The fear-the blind, unreasoning panic-was still there, ready to reduce her to a trembling wreck once more, but Liz fought against the creeping terror, and was surprised to find herself coping. Maybe it's because, she speculated, the only thing that can drown out those awful memories from my fast is facing the very same threat in the present] It was almost funny, in a blackly comic way. Alex said I needed to confront my fears, but I don't think he meant quite this literally! "W-what do you want to know?" she asked, her voice quavering a little. Even if she hadn't been squatting on the floor, Morton would have been much taller than she; as is, he towered over her like a fairy-tale ogre or giant.
"First off, who are you?" Morton scrutinized her face, rubbing his chin. "The hair is different, but I've seen you before." He bent over to brush some newly- red tresses away from her face. Liz shuddered as his callused knuckles momentarily brushed her cheek. "Yeah, I got it now. You're the girl from the gift shop yesterday, the one I shot at Roswell a couple years back! At that dopey sci-fi diner."Liz decided to play dumb, if only to buy time. "Diner? Roswell? I don't know what you're talking about." Isabel would know how to wrap this guy around her little finger, she thought mournfully, but all Liz could think to do was fake a vacant expression. "Trust me, I've never been shot!"No," Morton said, shaking his head. His rancid breath made her stomach turn. "I remember you now. I shot you by accident, while I was wrestling with that butt- headed idiot. The papers said you hadn't been hit, but I know I shot you."Without warning, he knelt down and tore open Liz's blouse, looking for the bullet wound. Instead his eyes widened in astonishment as he discovered the silver handprint, still shining brightly upon her belly. In the murky gloom of the cave, the marks eerie glow was even more apparent. "What in the world-?"The luminous handprint, on top of everything else he'd witnessed today, actually seemed to frighten the brutal gunman. He sprang to his feet, jumping back from the glowing sigil as though it might be dangerously radioactive. "What the hell is that?" he hollered at Liz, pulling out his pistol and waving it wildly. "What does it mean?"Her eyes nervously tracking every swoop of the lethal handgun, Liz tried to calm Morton. "It's just a tattoo!" she insisted lamely, wiggling her torso so that her sundered shirt fell more or less back into place, concealing the telltale handprint. "Everybody has one!"Don't give me that b.s.!" Morton shouted, his frenzied words echoing inside the cavern. An insane gleam came into his eyes, and Liz sensed that the volatile, trigger-happy gunman was on the verge of losing his cool altogether. Not an encouraging development. "What's going on here?" he ranted, his cowboy boots stamping against the floor of the cave. "What was that freaky light show your boyfriend put on back at the motel? And how did your friends pull that stunt with their cars?"He paced back and forth across the cave, yelling like a lunatic. "Those are your friends, right? The guy in my room. That pair at Denny's. The girl in my dreams…!" He fell silent for a second, realizing what he was saying. Throwing his cap on the ground, he ran a shaking hand over his balding cranium. "Are you trying to drive me insane, is that it?"No, no!" Liz assured him. She looked up at him plaintively, trying to convince him of her sincerity. "It's nothing like that! We're just a bunch of kids, that's all."Like hell you are!" Morton accused. He tore open the backpack and pulled out the two counterfeit gadgets.