Identity

“No. He is rattled, Tee, so he needs time to settle down, to plan it out. Somewhere in that sick brain of his he knows he’s made mistakes. She’s the big one.”

He picked up the bottle of ginger ale he’d set on the floor by the table, since he didn’t have room on it with his laptop and paperwork. Sipped, winced a little, as it had gone warm.

He sat again, turning the chair to face her. Her room smelled of the travel candle she always burned. They habitually worked in her room, as she claimed his smelled like a gym locker.

She wasn’t wrong.

So he sat, stretched out his legs, let the scent—peonies, he realized, like in his mother’s garden in May back home—quiet his brain.

Because she knew how he worked, Beck sat quiet, said nothing.

“We should contact Chief Dooley and the resort security just so they sharpen their eye.”

“Agreed.”

“But he’s not a subtle guy. It’s black-and-white with him. If he’s leading us north, and the more I think about it, the more I think you’ve got something—”

“He’s going south,” Beck finished.

“Yeah, hell. He’d planned on Mexico. We got that from his room in New Orleans. Maybe he’s finessed a passport. But that’s a long way to travel.”

“You’re thinking closer. So am I. Listen to that rain, Quentin. I swear I’d kill for some real sunshine, some heat. I’ll bet your left eye he would, too.”

“Left eye’s my weak one. South then. We’ve got enough coverage up here to follow your nose south. First light?”

She looked toward the curtained window, listened to the rain. “If there is any.”

“We’ll find some.”

“And we’ll find him. He’s not going to slip through, Quentin. And he’s not going to get to Morgan. But I’m worried he’ll get another before we get him.”

She shook her head, her shoulders. “Fuck it. You know what I’m going to do once we have that bastard?”

“What’s that?”

“After I kiss you on the mouth—deal with it—I’m going home to my long-suffering saint of a husband and making a baby.”

“Is that right?”

“Bet your left eye. One thing this case has taught me? Life is for living. Let’s catch this motherfucker and start living.”

“I can get behind that.” He closed his laptop, gathered his things. “I’ll finish this in my room. Let’s get some sleep.”



* * *



Gavin Rozwell, now aka Leo Nesser, soaked up the desert sun. He felt renewed, refreshed, rejuvenated. Even the lousy motel room didn’t harsh his buzz.

He’d trimmed his hair—still shaggy, but more careless than unkempt. He’d combed lightener through it, drawn it back in a stubby tail. He’d worked on the beard until it was mostly stubble with a little soul patch. A self-tanner had turned the pallor into a mild glow. He liked the look with green contacts and John Lennon glasses.

Sort of a vagabond artist type with the Birkenstock sandals and frayed jeans.

He’d gone up a full size in the jeans, but he’d soon take care of that.

His head told him a paunch—even a fake belly—would add to the disguise. But he wanted his body back.

He took long walks in the baking heat, carting a sketch pad and a camera.

Vegas called to him like a siren with its swank hotels and crazed nightlife. Even Reno whispered. But he stayed away, hiked sun-blazed canyons—he’d melt those pounds away—and amused himself picturing the feds slogging through the rain and gloom in the north.

He’d left a trail a blind man could follow before he’d pushed the stolen Fiat into a lake, watched it sink.

They’d find it eventually. But eventually would be too late.

At night, he researched. He needed a place, and the canyons and desert would provide.

Plenty of off-the-grids in this wide world, and plenty of asshole prepper types bullshitting online in chat groups. He only needed one.

He took his time. If he intended to spend a few weeks, maybe even months in some weirdo’s cabin, he had to make sure he found the right one.

Someone without friends or relatives who might check on him. Someone who took prepping seriously enough to have a good supply of food, water laid in. A decent roof overhead.

He joined conversations under the handle “nowhereman,” asked for advice, stayed out of arguments. Advice led him to other groups, and other groups to more local pickings.

He researched the pickings, took the hikes and drives to get closer looks when possible. He ate burritos, greasy fries and hacked. He ate chips—the road had given him a serious addiction to chips he couldn’t shake—and drove to another flop motel.

He invested in a drone, flew it in the canyons, and got some decent aerial videos of a couple of the off-the-grids.

When he had it down to two most likely, he dug up the occupants’ names and researched.

And decided no contest between the forty-seven-year-old retired marine gunny—who looked as if he could eat boulders for breakfast—and the fifty-three-year-old widow with ropey arms who went by the handle “Prep4Jesus.”

Jane Boot and her husband James had settled in the nowhere between Gabbs and Two Springs, Nevada, twelve years before. Apparently, four years ago, he’d died of cancer they couldn’t pray away. Jane lived on. She kept a goat for milk, some chickens, butchered her own pigs, and had a smokehouse for the meat.

She believed, fanatically, in the Rapture, in Commies who ran all branches of the government, and in inevitable war that humanity would wage against aliens—either terrestrial or extra.

She devoured posts on QAnon sites faster than he ate chips.

Jane, and the not-so-recently-departed James, stood as anti-vaxxers, anti-government, anti-gay, anti-everything that didn’t include God and guns.

A certified nutcase in Rozwell’s opinion, with no children, one sister who had long since disavowed her, and internet access.

She’d had a dog, but she’d buried him alongside her husband the year before.

Rozwell expected she’d be well armed and more than willing to shoot an intruder dead as Moses. But he’d figure it out.

He lost three pounds—fifteen more to go—and his confidence built as he hacked into her accounts as smooth as a knife through soft butter.

She had a truck, of course, and from the ledger she kept on her computer, took a bimonthly trip, either to Gabbs or Two Springs, to sell eggs and goat’s milk and trinkets she made from cheap beads and tanned pigskin.

Gross.

She didn’t use Amazon, UPS, or FedEx, and had an iron gate and lines of barbed wire with plenty of KEEP THE HELL OUT signage guarding her dirt road and five dusty acres.

But she had a cabin, a shed, a well and indoor plumbing, and solar for power—something her handy husband had seen to before he took his dirt nap. Otherwise, Rozwell would’ve risked the marine.

He flew his drone. He watched. He waited.

One day he watched her go to the shed, and this time she drove out in the truck.

At last!

He watched her, like a vulture overhead, haul jugs of milk, cartons of eggs out of the cabin and into the coolers in the bed of the truck. Then she hauled out a crate—probably the trinkets—and loaded that in.