That was her most important job.
The sun was almost gone now, the New Mexico sky dark and sullen. It would be dark in fifteen minutes. She looked at the map spread out next to her on the seat and noted that the next town was only ten miles away. She looked up at the road ahead of her, passing a FOOD, GAS, LODGING sign on her right. A motel. They could stay there for the night.
When she finally pulled into the parking lot of the motel—a small, weathered building consisting of a dozen cabins placed in a horseshoe around the main office—she was already beginning to feel that, despite the wrath she was sure to face from the group, she was certain she and Andy would escape. They had to. For his sake, for her sake, they had to escape undetected.
Because if they didn’t they would kill her. They’d never kill Andy, but they’d surely kill her. Without hesitation.
She sat in the car for a moment after killing the engine, listening to the ticking of the engine as it cooled down. The sound of traffic from Interstate 10 rose to her ears. If it weren’t for her getting sober, she wouldn’t have gathered her senses. Wouldn’t have suddenly found herself in the real world. Seen the insane theories and beliefs for what they were. She looked into the back seat at Andy, who was slowly beginning to stir. A normal boy by all accounts, no matter what they believed. Andrew Swanson was normal, not what they said he was, what they claimed he was. And it was because of the insanity of their assertions as to what Andy was, their hideous plans for him that caused Maggie to finally bolt from them in the first place. God help him if she hadn’t.
Andy sat up in the back seat and groggily rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”
“We’re stopping for the night,” Maggie said. “We’re in New Mexico.”
“Oh.”
And as they walked to the motel lobby with their meager belongings to get a room for the night, Maggie began to look at the future for the first time with a sense of hope.
Chapter One
June 22, 1999,
Mission Viejo, California
VINCE WALTERS PANTED as he rounded the last stretch of his jog. The front of his tank top was soaked with perspiration. His armpits felt like hot patches as he slowed his pace. He was approaching Shadow Lane, and the trek to his home was up a slight incline through the upper middle-class neighborhood. Vince timed his pace, and then picked it up a bit as he ascended the slight grade that led up the street. He lived halfway down, left side. Almost home.
The early evening was still bright and sunny on this Tuesday afternoon. A light breeze blew in from the ocean. The breeze felt good against his sweaty skin. In another month it would be too hot to jog in this weather. He was building his system up quite well. Four months ago he wouldn’t have been able to jog two miles a night. Not that he’d been out of shape—he and Laura had had a work-out room in the house and he still owned the equipment. They’d used it regularly. But he hadn’t been much on cardiovascular activity at the time. The most he ever did was a few minutes on the treadmill every other night. Other than that it was light weight training, abdominal and pectoral exercises, and yoga. He’d been intending to take a martial arts class of some sort, but Laura’s death had interrupted those plans. He hadn’t thought about martial arts since then.
He tried to banish those thoughts. That’s what the jogging was supposed to be for, to keep him from thinking so much about Laura. But he had, and that tiny infraction, that little mention of her in relation to his past physical exercise habits, brought his thoughts back to her again. Started the whole thing over again:
Their meeting at Corporate Financial where they’d both worked. Their courtship. Their marriage five years ago.
Their love. God, how he’d loved her…
He still didn’t know how it happened. He tried to take solace in the fact that it was an honest accident, but he still didn’t understand how it could have happened. Laura had been a good driver; a safe driver.
Laura Walters had just left her office and was entering the south-bound on-ramp of the 5 freeway at Ortega Highway. The on-ramp was long, and the evening rush hour had been over, so traffic was flowing moderately. Laura had left work late that night after having been in a meeting most of the day and catching up on things in her office. She’d entered the on-ramp and by all accounts was driving at a normal speed when her car, a black Nissan Maxima, suddenly left the on-ramp, plunging fifty feet down the incline.
She hadn’t been going that fast. But then she hadn’t tried to stop, either. It was almost as if she’d made a slight error in judgment and driven off the on-ramp by sheer accident.
Hard to believe when that particular on-ramp was one of the most well-lit in Irvine.
Which only left one other possibility—that Laura had intentionally steered her car off the on-ramp.
Vince could not believe that. Neither could her friends or family. Laura Walters had loved life, loved her job, and most important, loved her husband. She wouldn’t have deliberately killed herself.
Something must have stolen her attention from her driving for one brief moment, a fraction of a second.
She’d been killed immediately upon impact.
Vince’s breathing grew heavier with the exertion of his running, but thinking about Laura also helped bring it on. Vince quenched the thoughts away as he sprinted faster up the street, heading for home. He concentrated on the movement of his limbs, the steady pace of his breathing—in and out, in and out—as he ran, and then he was jogging up the driveway of his house. He fished in the pockets of his shorts for his keys as he went up the walk to the front door.
He let himself in, panting heavily. The descending sunlight spilled through the sun-roof in the living room, creating a dazzling effect of light that splashed across the coffee colored carpet. He closed the front door and trudged through the living room, removing his tank top with one quick motion. He threw the garment on the sofa and headed for the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen, the dining area lay in shadows but he paid it no mind as he opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Evian. He drank, gulping down the cold water. He wiped his forearm over his sweaty brow. His throat was very dry so he drank some more, taking his time at it and letting the water quench his thirst.
When he caught his breath he put the Evian bottle on the counter and exited the kitchen, moving through the living room, past the family room with the enormous entertainment center they’d built up over the years, and up the stairs to their bedroom. His bedroom. He still couldn’t get used to calling it his.
He stopped at the threshold, looking at the bedroom. By his standards it was in shambles. They both used to keep the house immaculate. Now there was no point. The sheets were pulled down over the king-sized bed and bunched down at the foot. Underwear and socks from the past week were scattered along the floor near the foot of the bed. His shirts, likewise, were strung here and there on the floor without regard to landing. Only his slacks were hung up with some form of neatness in the closet. He could feel the sweat almost vibrate on his body as he stood at the bedroom doorway. I must smell like a pig, he thought. That helped veer him away from what he was on the track of thinking about. Instead, he headed into the bathroom for a shower.
When he emerged fifteen minutes later he felt better, much more refreshed. He walked nude to the bureau and fished around inside for a pair of shorts. He found a pair of white boxer shorts with Bart Simpson imprinted on them. He put them on and paused at the mirror over the bureau for a moment. He ran his fingers through his damp hair, surveying himself. He’d lost weight since Laura’s death, but at least he didn’t look sickly anymore. For awhile he’d been really out of it; rarely eating, never exercising, doing nothing but driving around his and Laura’s favorite haunts, roaming around the empty house crying over her loss and feeling sorry for himself. When he’d returned to work he’d thrown himself into his job, staying at the office at times till eleven o’clock at night. His employees raised questioning eyebrows but never said anything. They were giving him his space. Even his best friend Brian Saunders, who’d hired him almost ten years ago, said nothing, but let it be known that if he ever needed for anything—and I mean anything—that he was there. Vince realized this and appreciated it. And he somehow found the strength to work through the loss.