‘Thirsty,’ he said aloud.
He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and thought, yeah, thirsty. He remembered the almost full carton of orange juice in the fridge and padded through the living room out into the kitchen. Fetched a glass from the cupboard and poured himself a generous serving. One swallow half emptied the glass, and he turned away from the fridge.
His laptop sat closed on the table.
Without thinking, he sat down, set the glass beside it, and opened the computer. The screen flickered on and he entered his password. The web browser open on the Google home page.
He typed: Fly SFO > PHX
‘Huh,’ he said as a list of travel sites and ticket prices filled the screen. ‘So that’s what I’m doing.’
17
THE NIGHT HAD dragged on long and slow for Sean. At least, he thought it was night. The temperature had gone from cool to cooler, the quiet entering a deeper silence. Louise had slept on and off for much of the day and night, and her forehead had become hot to the touch, even though she shivered and complained of being cold.
Sean knew his sister was becoming sick, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He supposed he would ask Deputy Collins for some medicine when she came back.
If she came back.
She hadn’t been by since the morning, when she left some more sandwiches, potato chips, and fruit. Sean had devoured two bananas and a fistful of chips. Louise had taken a bite from an apple and had eaten nothing since.
‘When can we go?’ Sean had asked.
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Collins had said. ‘Day after at the latest.’
‘The police will be out looking for us,’ Sean said. ‘There’ll be search parties. You won’t move us until it’s safe. Until you won’t get caught.’
Collins smiled. ‘You’re a smart kid. You know, I have a boy maybe a year younger than you.’
‘What’s his name?’
Collins hesitated, then said, ‘Michael. Mikey.’
‘What’s he like?’
Her eyes went distant. ‘Smart, like I said. And funny.’
‘Does he have a dad?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s not around anymore. Truth be told, he was a bit of an asshole.’
‘Mine’s not around, either,’ Sean said. ‘I guess he’s an asshole too.’
‘You shouldn’t say words like that.’
Sean ignored her admonishment. ‘What does Mikey like to do? Does he play sports?’
‘No,’ Collins said. ‘Mikey gets sick a lot. He has a problem with his heart. Means he can’t do stuff like that. He has to stay in bed a lot of the time and take medicine. So he reads mostly. Comic books and stuff.’
‘Me too,’ Sean said. ‘Not the staying in bed part, I mean the comic books. I like comic books. Maybe I could meet Mikey sometime. Maybe we could be friends.’
Suddenly Collins came back to herself, her eyes hardening, her lips thinning. She reached down and grabbed Sean’s shirt in her fist, pulled him close, so he could feel her breath on his skin.
‘I know what you’re doing, you little shit. You’re smart, but you’re not that smart. Now keep out of my head.’
Sean watched her eyes while she spoke and saw no anger there. Collins couldn’t hold his gaze, looked away as her cheeks grew red. She turned and climbed the steps, let the trapdoor drop closed behind her, bolted it, locked it. Sean heard the buzz of the motorcycle, its engine note rising in pitch as she sped away across the forest.
How long had passed since then? Could it be twenty-four hours yet? Sean simply didn’t know.
He reached across the mattress and placed his palm on Louise’s forehead. Still hot, still damp with sweat. Louise moaned and swatted his hand away.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get us out of here. We’ll find Mom and we’ll go to California, to San Diego, and we can go to the beach. Just like she promised. You hear me?’
Louise blinked and said, ‘I hear you.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now let’s get some sleep.’
He watched her close her eyes, then he closed his own, his arm around his sister, her warm body pressed against his. Sleep came like a shadow, slipped over him, and he knew nothing more until the trapdoor opening overhead pulled him awake.
Sean blinked up at the rectangle of light and the silhouette of Collins descending the steps, a bag of food in one hand.
‘I think Louise is sick,’ he said.
Collins set the bag on the floor and came to the side of the mattress. She hunkered down and reached across to feel Louise’s forehead, then down inside her top. Louise barely stirred at her touch.
‘Goddamn it,’ Collins said.
Sean sat up on the mattress. ‘You need to get medicine for her,’ he said.
‘I don’t know if I can get any.’
‘What if she gets worse?’
‘All right,’ Collins said, standing up. ‘Make sure she takes plenty of water. Take the blanket off her, maybe take her top off, try to cool her down. I’ll be back later.’
She turned and walked back toward the steps. Sean called after her.
‘Deputy Collins?’
She stopped, looked back over her shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ Sean said.
Her eyelids flickered. She turned and climbed the steps, locked the trapdoor without replying.
18
AUDRA’S MIND ACHED. The world had stretched so thin she imagined she could tear a hole in it with a fingertip. Everything moved in jerks, either too slow or too fast, and everyone spoke in jumbles of sound. Part of her knew it was exhaustion, but the other part felt she moved through a dream, that none of this was real. That it was happening to some other woman in some other town, as she watched it all play out like a strange television show.
She had lain awake through the night watching the red light on the camera, waiting for it to blink out, fearing that when it did, they would come again, put a gun to her head. At moments she wondered if that had really happened at all. Had she simply dreamed it, one of those nightmares that follows you into waking? But she did fall asleep at some point, only to wake again, like dragging herself up through tar, her heart hammering, lungs unable to grab the air they needed.
When she opened her eyes, Whiteside stood over her.
He hunkered down next to the bunk.
‘You’ve got to let them go,’ he said. ‘They’re gone, and that’s all there is to it.’
Paralyzed, she couldn’t raise a fist to strike him.
Part of her mind asked, am I dreaming? Is he really there?
His hand came into her view, the fingers open as if reaching for a glass of water. They slipped around her throat. Pressure. Just a little. Enough to hurt.
‘Don’t think I won’t,’ he said. ‘If I have to.’
Then he let go and stood upright, turned, left the cell.
Alone again, she gasped, her heart suddenly beating hard and fast. Chest rising and falling, grabbing at air.
She couldn’t tell how long it took for the waves of fear to ebb away, only that the sun had risen over the world outside, coloring everything around her in deep blues and grays.
After a while, Audra became less certain that Whiteside had been there at all. He might have been a phantom of her sleep-deprived brain. Another piece of her sanity breaking and falling away.
Perhaps that was the point. To get inside her head, break her from within. Make her crazy, keep her scared. Because scared is easy to control. Just as Patrick had done all the years they were together.
Her husband had made her doubt every single facet of her being, kept her constantly off balance until she barely knew up from down. Every morning, he’d berate her for her hangover. Every evening he’d come home with another bottle. One day telling her how pathetic she was for needing the pills, the next day getting another prescription filled for her.
It had started the evening after her defeat, when she gave Sean a bottle of formula for the first time. Patrick had come home from work with a bottle of white wine. He held it out to her as she fed their son.
‘What’s that for?’ Audra asked.
‘If you’re not breast-feeding,’ Patrick said, ‘there’s no reason why you can’t have a drink.’