“I see it.”
“Inside is some duct tape.”
“Duct tape?”
“Apparently it’s the next best thing to superglue.”
“Superglue?”
“A doctor told me. Well, third-year medical student. Close enough.”
She gave him a doubtful look, then picked up the small white bag, opened it, and pulled out the roll of gray duct tape. She looked at the duct tape, then over at him. “Are you sure?”
“No, but use it anyway. Pull a strip that’s big enough to cover the wound. Then pinch it as tightly closed as you can with your fingers and cover it up.”
“I don’t know, Blaine…”
“It’s okay. I’m all hopped up on painkillers anyway. I won’t feel a thing.”
“Okay,” she said, still unconvinced.
He couldn’t see her working, but he heard her tearing a strip off the duct tape. She picked up a bloodied bandage and tossed it out the open door. Then, giving him a brief but still very doubtful look, she put the duct tape over his side. He felt the cotton mesh against his skin, but didn’t really feel much of anything else. There was just a lot of numbness.
She sat back and took in her handiwork. “Are you sure this was a good idea?”
“Am I still bleeding?”
“Well, no.”
“Then it was a good idea.”
She gave him a wry look. “Smart-ass.”
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
“Nearby. Why?”
“How did you get it to work?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the battery still worked after all this time?”
“Oh.” She shrugged. “The family whose house we stayed in had solar panels on the roof. They had the car battery charging the whole time. Why?”
“I dunno. Just curious, I guess.”
She gave him an odd look. “You’re close to dying and that’s all you can think about? How I got an eight-month-old car to run?”
He somehow managed to grin, though he couldn’t really vouch for how it came out. “I used to work on cars in my uncle’s garage back in Dallas. I guess I was just curious.”
“So now you know.”
“Yeah.”
She frowned at him. “You almost died.”
“But I didn’t.”
“But you almost did.”
“But I didn’t.” He reached up and stroked her cheek. “Face it, lady, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. I don’t care how many times you call the cops.”
She smiled and leaned against his hand, and he felt her tears falling over his fingers.
It was 6:17 p.m. when he was able to sit up, and Sandra transferred a box with bottled water, canned fruits, and a half-dozen bags of Kung Fu brand noodles from her car to his truck. Her white Ford Neon had barely any gas left, and she had been looking for supplies a mile away when she had heard the gunshots, arriving to find him lying unconscious and bleeding all over the seat of his truck.
She helped him into a new shirt from the care package Lara had packed for him. He hadn’t even known there were clothes in there until Sandra rifled through it. “Boxers, too,” she said.
“Lara’s very thorough, I guess.”
“What kind of people are they?”
“Good people. They found me on the road and picked me up and put me back together. They didn’t have to, but they did.”
She nodded. “I want to meet them so I can thank them.”
“That’s the plan.”
She settled behind the steering wheel before glancing down at the gas gauge. “I think we need more gas.”
“There’s enough to make it back to Lancing.”
“Let’s hope so.”
She slammed the door shut and turned on the engine.
“You didn’t hear me screaming your name?” he asked.
“You were screaming my name?” She flashed him an amused look.
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry I missed it.”
“I’m not. It was kind of pathetic.”
“Now I’m really sorry I missed it.”
Sandra drove them out of the truck stop, turning left and heading back along Pine Street/US 287. “Are you sure they’ll still be in Lancing? What if we get there and they’re gone?”
“The only reason they’d leave early is if something happened that put the group in jeopardy.”
“How will we find them when we get there?”
“They were staying at a courthouse. The same place where Folger was keeping you in the semitrailer.”
“Did you get them? Folger?” she asked.
“I got one of them, and Will got another one.”
“What did they look like?”
“Why?”
“I just need to know…”
She kept driving, both hands on the steering wheel, and wouldn’t look at him.
“It doesn’t matter, Sandra,” he said.
“Of course it matters,” she said quickly.
“Not to me.”
“Bullshit. It matters.” Her voice was cold and matter-of-fact.
“No, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter.”
“You say that now. But it matters. Maybe not now, but later. It’ll come up and it’ll matter.”
She drove in silence for a while, her fingers tightening around the steering wheel. They hadn’t gone more than a minute before tears spilled down her cheeks and she stepped on the brake. He had to grab the door handle to keep from getting thrown into the dashboard.
She put the truck in park and looked over at him. She was crying freely now. “You’re lying to me,” she said through the tears.
He leaned over the seat. It took a lot of effort and a sharp jolt raced through his body, but he did his best to ignore it. He cupped her face in his hands, then kissed her softly on the lips.
She blinked back at him, and she looked as vulnerable as he had ever seen her.
“The day I found you was the best day of my miserable life.” He smiled. “This changes nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Look at me, and tell me I’m lying to you.”
She looked at him. Closely. Reading. Trying to decide if he was lying to her…
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
She nodded, and the tears rolled down in waves and she lunged forward and grabbed him in a tight hug. Blaine grimaced, the pain exploding through his body, but he said nothing and didn’t make a sound, and held her back as tightly as he could.
CHAPTER 13
WILL
It was somewhere between being awake and being asleep — a netherworld of sorts. That was the only explanation for why he was walking in a park, through a large baseball field with short, recently cut grass.
No one cuts grass anymore.
Slowly, the sights became familiar, and he pieced together the evidence.
There, a gazebo surrounded by hurricane fencing, with a sign across the entrance gate reading: “Gazebo Reservations Available.” Long piers extending out into a still lake, and men and women in shorts and hats casting fishing lines with night crawlers attached to hooks. Behind him, kids playing baseball on a big, well-manicured diamond as parents cheered them on from the stands. The sound of aluminum bats striking cowhide-covered baseballs.
He was in Deussen Park, back in Houston.
A hot day, and he was wearing cargo pants and a T-shirt. He left the baseball diamond behind and walked across a large parking lot dotted with cars and trucks with empty boat trailers, though he couldn’t spot any boats on the lake at the moment. The water was unsettling in its stillness, except for the occasional ripple caused by a soft wind. Lake Houston never had much shelter from the winds, so this was another oddity his mind couldn’t quite explain.
“You’re over-thinking it,” a soft, familiar voice said.