“Farrington.” I grip her shoulders so she has to look at me. “I’m not going to let them hurt you.”
She wants to believe me, but she’s been through too much. She notices the blood I’m getting on the shoulder of what was probably a very pretty yellow summer dress that’s now ripped and ruined.
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” I let go of her fast. “I’m bleeding all over you.”
“It’s alright.” She lifts her hand and sets it delicately on the curve of my jaw. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be alive. You saved me.”
Her eyes are a soft cinnamon brown with an inner ring the color of warm, golden honey. They pull me in and hold me. I’m sure they contain an entire universe, a universe I want to explore.
“We need to get you to a hospital. You’re going to need stitches.”
I take her hand from my face and hold it between both of mine. “We need to get you away from this place.”
“The hospital would be safe.”
“Would it?” I say quickly, remembering the waitress’s fated words. Mason owns this city. “We need a car. Now.”
I don’t let go of her hand as I walk us quickly and cautiously away from the docks. I have to get her the hell out of here.
“The dogs smell through an olfactory gland and can track your scent using dead skin cells. They won’t stop until they find you. But there are a few things we can do to fuck them up and throw them—at least temporarily—off your trail.”
“You think that they can still smell me, even after all of the distance we just put in?”
“The handlers only need to deduce which ways you could’ve gone and then bring the dogs; they’ll pick your scent back up in no time,” I explain as I pull her along the wharf.
Enormous cargo ships line Sabine Lake, waiting for their turn under the loading cranes for their freight. A tremor shoots through me at the thought that Farrington could have easily been in one of those shipments with access to anywhere in the world. Port Arthur is nineteen miles to the open ocean, and a hub for interstate and rail travel. How many others has he done this to?
“If Miguel is still breathing after the gang raid on his estate, you can bet he’s getting his soldiers spread out to hunt you. He’ll alert his contacts within a hundred mile radius to be on the lookout. We need to change your appearance.”
We’re a real fucking mess, and the dock workers are noticing.
I lead us into a remote parking lot for the shipyard workers. It takes about three seconds to find a parked vehicle with a window opened an inch for air.
“Right here.” I stop, slide my fingers into the slit and jack the window back and forth until it falls off its tracking.
I reach my hand in to unlock it and open the door. “Hurry, get in.”
For a moment, she hesitates, but then she slips around me and climbs over to the passenger seat.
Using the filed key in my toolkit, I start the silver Honda Accord and drive us off the lot.
“You had a key?”
“It’s filed—a trick of car thieves—you just have to wiggle it right to engage the tumblers. Flat head screwdriver can work too.”
She nods. “Nice trick.”
I drive just a few miles over the speed limit so I don’t bring attention to the vehicle.
“So, you don’t trust going to the hospital?”
“Not here I don’t. In fact, I wouldn’t trust anywhere in a two hundred mile vicinity of this place.”
“What about the police?”
“Fuck no!”
“Fuck no,” she echoes.
“Farrington, Miguel owns this entire area. You have to understand that.”
“Then where are we going? Houston?”
I laugh.
“Nice answer.”
“No we are not going to Houston.”
“Houston is a freaking huge city—he can’t own that too.”
I shake my head and click on the radio. I switch channels until I get to a news station.
“Just wait for it. Everyone is looking for you. Good guys, bad guys. Every woman in the country has seen your fresh young face on the evening news and wants you to come home safe and sound. We have to stay off main highways, where there’ll be search stops.”
“Doesn’t it make more sense to go to the police—they can’t all be bad,” she emphasizes.
“They’re not. But it only takes one dirty cop to make a two second call and you’re dead, even in police custody.”
Farrington watches longingly as we pass the sign showing Houston to the west.
“Honestly, Farrington, it’s better for everyone if we stay under the radar. A small rural town isn’t going to have the resources to search every car. And that’s good, because I’ve done enough killing today.”
“You’re confusing, you know that?”
I’m about to answer with, I’ve heard that, when the local newscaster begins a spiel about federal law enforcement still on the hunt for the fugitive Eduardo Miguel and the search for missing Tulane University student, twenty-two-year-old Rachel Farrington.
“If you visit our website at WKTX, you’ll be able to see photos of the missing woman and numbers you can call anonymously if you have any information leading to her recovery.”