“You sure, old man? They’re running from the law.”
The man’s eyes widened a little, and he sucked in a breath nervously. No wonder he looked so poor. Nick would have bet this guy played poker—and lost his shirt every time.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the old man said.
Nick sighed. He glanced around the campsite again, just to make sure. Not a soul around.
With violence so sudden the old man never saw it coming, Nick reached out and grabbed the old man’s hand and twisted it. The first bone in his wrist snapped almost instantly and the old man screamed.
“Now tell me the truth, you old fuck. Did they come through here?”
“Yes! Yes! They slept in Cabin 3 last night. Left early this morning, before sunup. The girl was drugged or something. They paid me an extra twenty dollars! Now let go!”
Nick looked at the old guy for a second and frowned. “What else can you tell me? Were they still driving a minivan?”
The old man nodded urgently. “Plates was covered in mud. I don’t know where they went. Headed north, I think, they turned right out of the camp.”
Nick looked around the camp one more time, still absentmindedly twisting the old man’s wrist, provoking moans from the man. He didn’t suppose he’d find anything in the cabin, but he should check.
“Did she show you her license or anything? You got any record?”
The old man shook his head. “No. I’m supposed to. State inspectors. But … Gawd, please stop! That hurts!”
Nick sighed. “You just failed your inspection,” he said.
Then he reached out with both hands, grabbing the old man by the neck, and lifted him into the air, one forearm across the man’s Adam’s apple. He squeezed hard, and the old man twitched several times, then sagged, already passed out. Nick kept holding him, blocking his windpipe.
“Sorry about this, man,” he said.
He held the man until he was sure. No pulse. Then he dropped him to the ground and walked to Cabin 3.
The door was unlocked. The old man hadn’t cleaned the cabin, of course, but he didn’t see anything of use. A woman’s elastic hair band. And that was it. He shrugged. At least he knew they’d been here. Headed north.
Canada? He guessed so. But the odds of catching up with them were slim indeed with the information he had.
He shook his head, eyes falling on the old man again. What a waste.
Adelina. May 3.
The pothole must have been large enough to swallow up a smaller car. As it was, the back end of the bus bounced in the air with a loud thump, and Adelina felt herself bounce right out of her seat for just a second. Jessica moaned and began to slide out of her seat. Adelina reached over and tugged her eighteen-year-old daughter back into her seat like she was a toddler.
The bus was crowded, and would have been reasonably well appointed, except that the air conditioning had failed sometime not long after Jessica’s birth. The upholstery in the seats was torn, and the baby two rows up from Adelina and Jessica had cried for the entire three and a half hour ride from Tacoma. The heat was a physical thing, alive with motion, like an unseen reptile under the surface of a Louisiana swamp, green and obscure, thick and dangerous.
The passengers were a mix. At least two dozen men and women Adelina judged to be migrant workers. Hispanic, poor and tired. Two rows in front of her and across the aisle, a man slept with his head thrown back in the seat, mouth open, completely ignoring the squalling baby directly across the row.
The man fascinated Adelina. He wore blue jeans, threadbare but not torn at the knees and leather work shoes which had been resoled more than once, apparently by hand. He’d likely done it himself—nowadays it was cheaper to buy a throwaway pair of shoes from Walmart, produced by near-slave labor in a third world country, than it was to have a pair of custom shoes resoled by a cobbler. The stitching along the edge of the leather sole was slightly uneven.
His sweatshirt was clean but old, the elastic near the wrists worn and loose, threads spreading apart, with deep stains in the elbows, which Adelina knew wouldn’t come out no matter what he did. But it wasn’t his clothes or his shoes that caught her attention. It was his craggy face, weathered, worn, his skin indistinguishable from the leather on his boots. Deep laugh lines radiated from his eyes and creases around his mouth. His mouth was open, asleep with the kind of abandon usually only seen in small children, despite the fact that the man was missing most of his teeth.
He looked not much different from her father, Juan Ramos, in the years before his death. Exhausted, yes. Tired from the weight of years of too much work and too much worry. But her father had also been content in the last years of his life. After he and her mother had separated, he’d been happy in a way she admired to this day. He laughed, he cried, and he loved life with an abandon she only wished she understood.
The man on the bus looked like that. He looked exhausted, and despite her poverty, her fear, her danger, she wanted to help him.
That was laughable. How could she help anyone now?
Closer to the front of the bus, four hikers rode together. They were in their early twenties—the two men with flannel shirts and brand new sandals, the women in color tank tops and too tight jeans. Two girls out with their boyfriends. Their backpacks took up too much space in the overhead racks, forcing everyone further back in the bus to jam their bags together, while the Birkenstock-clad college kids were largely unaware of the bus full of humanity behind them. Adelina thanked God that despite the problems her daughters had, despite the fact that they largely hated her, she’d sent them out into the world with a deep sense of caring and charity and love for the world around them.
The thought filled Adelina with a staggering sense of loss. She’d failed them in so many ways, and now she didn’t even know where all of her daughters were. She’d seen the headlines. Andrea was missing along with Alexandra’s husband. She’d never approved of Dylan, not until he’d made his cross-country trip to San Francisco to propose to Alexandra. But that had shown both courage and commitment, and he’d shown it even more in the way he’d supported Carrie after Ray died.
She bit back her tears and looked out the window. The bus was nearing Bellingham now, their last stop. She wasn’t sure what to do from there. She had their passports, thankfully not the official diplomatic ones. In her experience, diplomatic passports did nothing to speed up travel, and often slowed them down. Because they were unusual, immigration officials everywhere tended to stop, look closer, and ask more questions.
Questions Adelina did not want to answer. When she crossed the border out of the United States, hopefully within the next twenty-four hours, she wanted it to be quick, routine, and no-nonsense. She wanted to attract no attention at all. She wanted no questions asked, until she got to the Canadian border officials.
The question was, could she make it? Despite the fact that she’d traveled to a dozen or more countries in the last thirty years, and lived across Europe, Asia and the United States, she’d never actually crossed the US borders into Canada or Mexico. Would they check her identification as she left the country? Would a routine check turn up the fact that she was missing and cause them to detain her?
She was afraid that’s exactly what would happen. And if they did that, she didn’t know what was likely to happen to her.
Well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She craned her neck, looking off into the distance. Both sides of the highway were crowded with greenery, trees and lush bushes. Cars were passing them on both sides, the bus slowing down a little.
Her breath caught a little when the bus changed lanes to the far right, then slowed even further, the loud diesel engine decelerating with a whining sound. The bus slowed even further, then came to a stop. She craned her neck around, but couldn’t see through the back—no windows, and the angle didn’t allow for a decent view.
The heat inside the bus was oppressive, the smell of sweaty men filling the space.
Adelina forced herself not to panic when two men in dark green uniforms walked up along the side of the bus. They wore green Smokey the Bear hats and short sleeve uniforms with a bright yellow patch on one side. Customs and Border Control.
She swallowed. How could they have been found? She’d paid cash for their tickets and hadn’t used her debit cards since leaving San Francisco. She hadn’t shown identification to anyone since leaving San Francisco either.
The two men stepped aboard the bus, just as two more agents appeared, one of them female. The two who boarded the bus were a study in contrasts. The first, a tall man who obviously struggled with his own addictions. Balding, red faced, with a belly that cruised over the top of his belt much the way the bulbous prow of an oil tanker extended over the water, he looked uncomfortable and hot, with a sheen of sweat reflecting the outside sunlight.
His darker haired partner was shorter, more compact and far more muscular, with sculpted magazine quality biceps underneath a perfectly tailored uniform. Hispanic, he looked Puerto Rican or possibly Dominican, with dark skin and a thick carpet of hair. He reminded her of an older version of Eddie Vasquez, the college student and EMT who had been sniffing around Sarah ever since the accident last year.
The shiny faced one called out in a voice intended to be authoritative but in fact just sounded hoarse. “All right, everyone please have your identification ready to examine. This is a routine stop, we’re from Customs and Border Protection.”
A series of curses ran through Adelina’s mind even as Jessica stirred beside her. What would she do? What would they do? She was sure they were looking for her. Why else would the Border Patrol pull over the bus?
Why had she thrown away her phone? If she could have called someone—Carrie, or Julia, then at least they’d know her fate. Then she’d be far less likely to simply disappear. But it was gone, and there was nothing she could do about that.
The shorter Border Patrol officer repeated his partner’s words in badly accented and translated Spanish. He might look at home in San Juan, but English was clearly his first language. Interesting he was the one doing the translating. It must be like being typecast as an actor.
The two agents had already stopped, dealing with the four Patagonia and Birkenstock-clad hikers with their manicured nails and three hundred dollar backpacks. One of the women, a petite blonde twenty-year-old in a Whitman College sweatshirt, was exclaiming out loud to everyone who could hear that she was white.
The shorter Border Patrol agent looked irritated and the woman’s friends looked appalled. Adelina just shrank into her seat. She wanted this to be over as quickly as possible.
That didn’t seem likely. The short agent had lost his patience. “Lady, either give me your ID right now, or you can do it at the station.”
“I don’t have to give you anything. I’m an American citizen, and I know my rights. I don’t understand why you don’t check out him!” As she said the words, she pointed directly at the old man two rows in front of Adelina, now awake and serenely watching the Border Patrol. Adelina could see a U.S. passport neatly resting in his hands.
“Crazy bitch,” the taller agent muttered. He wiped a handkerchief across his forehead, then said, “I’m asking you a simple question. Are you an American citizen? Show me your ID. ”
“My head,” Jessica murmured. She squinted, looking up to the front of the car, and muttered, “Can’t they be quieter?”
Chaos erupted. One of the two boys jerked to his feet for all of one half second. He immediately found the front of his shirt bunched up in the fist of the smaller Border Patrol agent.
“Sit down!” snarled the agent.
The bus driver leaned his head against the steering wheel, apparently giving up on going anywhere any time soon. The blonde girl shrank into her seat, suddenly realizing how serious this was. She was shaking and began to fumble in her purse.
“It’s right here,” she said in a shaky voice.
“Yeah, lady, it’s too late for that,” one of the agents said. “Stand up, and step off the bus.”
Slowly, the woman stood, her face serious. She stepped off the bus, and the two agents on the outside escorted her out of sight.
“Jesus,” Jessica muttered. “What a stupid bitch.”
“Jessica,” Adelina said, “I don’t care how—misguided—that girl was. You don’t need to use that kind of language.”
Jessica started to tense and give her a scornful look—then looked down at her lap. “Sorry,” she said. As if she’d suddenly remembered something.
The two agents were now systematically—and uneventfully—walking down the aisle. Examining passports and driver’s licenses. Adelina watched as the agents made their way down the aisle. The legality of what they were doing was actually questionable. But that was beside the point. They were doing it, and she didn’t have any choice but to comply.
The agents had reached the seats two rows in front of her and Jessica. On the left side, the old man. He smiled pleasantly and handed over his passport to the taller, sweaty agent. It looked worn, well used. The agent looked through it, eyes examining the photo, then looked back up at the old man.
“You’re a U.S. citizen?”
“I am,” the old man said.
“Where are you traveling to?”
Adelina knew well that the man didn’t have to answer that. But he did. “My granddaughter lives in Bellingham. She’s going to give birth to my first great-grandchild soon enough.”
The sweaty agent wiped his forehead again, then said in a sour voice, “Congratulations.” He thrust the passport back at the old man, and moved to the next row.
The shorter agent had moved past the couple with their crying baby, and was now only a foot and a half from Adelina.
In the row directly in front of her were two men, African-American, and both showed their driver’s licenses.
“You’re a U.S. citizen?” asked the agent.
“Yes, sir,” both answered.
Adelina’s tongue and cheeks were stiff, her neck aching. She had a hard time focusing as the agent asked more questions of the two men in front of her. Her heart was beating too fast, and a numb, tingly feeling began to expand from the tip of her tongue.
The sweaty agent was now at her row, talking to the two women directly across the aisle from Adelina.
“Mom,” Jessica said.
Adelina was frozen, her mind turned inward to that cold February night a couple of months before her seventeenth birthday, when Richard Thompson had raped her. To the emotional torture he’d subjected her to. The psychological games. The one time he’d really beaten her, after he learned Carrie wasn’t his.
She’d tried to love her daughters. But it was hard. Four of them, his. Four of them the product of rape and lust.
She looked at her wrists, and thought of Julia, who had once attempted suicide. Adelina would die before she went back. The pain in her chest was tighter and tighter. Cutting.
“Mom,” Jessica hissed.
“Señora? Are you all right?”
Startled, she looked up. The shorter agent—the Hispanic one—stood in front of her. She didn’t know how long the fear had paralyzed her. She didn’t know how long the panic attack had gripped her.
“Sorry,” she muttered. She reached in her purse and handed over her passport. Then immediately froze in terror. She’d handed over the wrong passport.
As the wife of a senior U.S. diplomat (and now Cabinet member) she carried two passports: one, her personal one, the other, her official diplomatic passport.
Her eyes, wide now, jerked to Jessica, who also sat frozen, arm extended, holding out her personal passport for the agent.
“You’re a U.S. citizen?”
“Yes,” Adelina croaked.
He looked at her passport. “Birthplace is Calella in Spain? Where exactly is that?”
“It’s on the Mediterranean,” she said. She coughed.
“You all right, ma’am?”
“The bus is hot, I just need a drink of water.”
Jessica chimed in, “We’re on a day trip and decided to take the bus instead of drive. Boy, was that a mistake.”
The man gave Jessica an odd look, then his eyes went back to Adelina. He casually held up the passport. “Hey Perkins, you ever see one of these? Diplomatic passport.”
The taller agent, an irritated expression on his face, shook his head. “We don’t have time for that, Alvarez. If she’s a citizen, move on. Christ, this bus is hot.”
The shorter agent—Alvarez—chuckled, then handed the passport back to her. He looked at Jessica. “You two be careful. And get your Mom some water, she doesn’t look good.”
Both agents moved on to the next row, and Adelina sagged into her seat.
Carrie. May 3.
“I don’t understand,” Carrie said. “You’re saying we’re losing the safe house? The protective detail?”
Bear’s jaw worked as he looked away from her. Teeth nearly clenched, he said, “It’s out of my hands, Carrie. The entire investigation is being turned over to the special prosecutor and the IRS. I was ordered to stand down—in fact, I’ve been placed on administrative leave.”
Carrie frowned. She didn’t pretend to know the intricacies of government investigations and jurisdiction. But given that the IRS was investigating the family—and not the people who had attacked them—none of this seemed good.
“So when do we have to be out?” she asked.
“This morning,” he said, his voice low.
Carrie sighed. Then she turned away from Bear and sank into her chair.
Julia, still sitting on the couch next to Crank, said, “We’ll need to rent a suite, I think. The most secure hotel we can find, and we’ll hire bodyguards.”
Carrie shook her head. “Your accounts have been frozen, Julia.”
“Only the business ones. My personal account’s still accessible. It’s enough to last a little while.”
“Why are you placed on leave?” Sarah’s voice, from the doorway, was aggressive, pitched a little loud and monotone.