“Christ,” he said.
Silence drew out. It was Dena who broke it. “You both know what I think, but I won’t try to change your minds. I’ve got a second car that my daughter uses when she’s home from school. It’s old, but it’s reliable. There’ll be roadblocks set up all around Fresno, I imagine, but … I could get you past those. You can hide in the trunk, and I’ll drive you north to Modesto and take a train home. If you’re caught, you’ll have to say you broke in and stole the car while I was gone.”
Dryden traded a glance with Rachel, then looked at Dena again.
“I don’t know how we could ever thank you,” he said.
“Don’t die,” Dena said. “That would do it.”
Dryden kept the unpleasant reply to himself: For almost any outcome he could imagine, Dena would never find out what became of him and Rachel. The girl said nothing in response to that thought, but she shivered as if a chill had crossed her skin.
CHAPTER TWENTY
They left five minutes later.
The car was a Honda Accord, ten or twelve years old. Its backseats could be folded down to open up the trunk space to the passenger compartment, but for the moment there was no reason to do that. Dryden lay curled on one side of the trunk, Rachel on the other. Three minutes and five turns after leaving the house, Dena called back to them, her voice muffled by the foam of the seatbacks. “They’re stopping drivers at the on-ramp. Stay quiet until I say it’s clear.”
The car braked thirty seconds later, then crept forward, start-and-stop. Dryden pictured a long line of clotted traffic, all of it washed in the LED flare of police lights. A moment later he heard the crackle of two-way radios. In the darkness, Rachel found his hand and held it tightly. Footsteps clicked on asphalt. Dena’s window buzzed down, and the sounds of the city came through.
A man said, “Evening.” Sharp voice, a practiced balance between hard and polite.
“Hi,” Dena said. “Is this about that thing on TV?”
“Yes, ma’am. Can you show me your ID?”
Seconds of silence. Then white light shone at the seam where the seatback met the trunk. It darted and roamed. The officer was shining a flashlight beam around the car’s interior.
“Can I ask where you’re headed tonight?” the man said.
“Just getting out of here for a couple days. If that guy’s here in town with that thing—you know—I’d rather not be here.”
It sounded like something Dena had been rehearsing in her head for the past several minutes. No doubt it was. Her delivery of the line was dramatic—too much so. Dryden tensed.
Another five seconds passed, and then the officer said, “Do me a favor and pop your trunk for me.”
Rachel’s hand convulsed around Dryden’s.
“Is that really necessary?” Dena asked.
“It won’t take long. Go ahead and open it.”
Dena said nothing.
Dryden had the SIG SAUER in his rear waistband, but he made no move to draw it. There was simply nothing he could do with it that would make any difference. There would be a dozen or more officers within twenty yards of the car, all of them prepared to encounter trouble tonight. There would be multiple choppers, local and federal, stationed above the city. There was no possibility of escape.
“Ma’am?” the officer said.
No response. In his mind, Dryden saw Dena at the wheel, her mouth working to speak, but nothing coming out. Everything falling apart right in front of her.
“Ma’am.”
“I have personal things in the trunk,” Dena said. “I’d prefer not to have someone going through it. Can I please just go?” Her voice was high and stretched. Everything about it would be a big red flag to a cop.
“Ma’am, I need you to open your trunk. Now.”
“Don’t you need a warrant for that?”
“I can have one on my phone screen in about thirty seconds. Would you like me to do so?”
“I just want to get out of Fresno,” Dena said. “I’m just scared out of my fucking mind being here, and none of this is helping me.”
“Ma’am, I’m not going to say it again—”
All at once the cop cut himself off. For an awful second Dryden imagined Dena had done something to make him do that—like reach for the gear selector to dump the car back into drive.
But there was no sudden lurch of the vehicle. No sound or movement at all. Just silence playing out. Dryden could feel Rachel shaking, the sensation traveling through her hand into his own.
The silence held. Like fingers gripping a cliff edge.
Then the officer spoke again. “Alright, it’s fine. You can go on through. Have a good night.”