Time to get out of West Virginia. Get out. Get out. Get out. He’d thought of nothing else since Swonger tried to gun him down with his busted .45. Get out, stay out. First things first, though. Gibson needed to lose the van. He didn’t want to take it back into Virginia. A bus stop in Morgantown behind the West Virginia University Hospital would be a good dump site. He could wipe it down, catch a Greyhound for DC, and put miles between himself and Niobe, West Virginia.
He drove as fast as he dared—seven or eight miles above the speed limit. With each set of headlights that came around the bend, Gibson saw Martin Yardas’s ghoulish face pleading up at him for forgiveness or mercy. Whatever salve the dying believed would ease their final moments. The smell of that grim room clung to the roof of his mouth no matter how much water he guzzled. The sound of the .45’s hammer falling, and the split second when he’d forgotten the firing pin in his pocket and believed his destiny lay beside Martin Yardas.
Go home. While there’s still time.
Was there still time?
A bug the size of a small bird splattered off the windshield. Gibson jerked the steering wheel so hard the van wobbled into oncoming traffic. He straightened out the van and tried to shake it off, forcing out a dead-battery laugh. Then he pumped wiper fluid onto the windshield until the bug was nothing but a streak at the edge of his vision.
Driving north and east, he felt the confusion of a pilot who’d fallen asleep at the stick and, emerging from a thick cloudbank to unfamiliar terrain, realized he was horribly off course. Far from home. He had no idea how he’d let this happen . . . except that wasn’t the truth, was it? He knew exactly how it had happened. After all, he was the one who’d been on autopilot, and it was hardly the first time. That was the worst part—how familiar this all felt. Once again, he’d muted the responsible part of his brain, the part that understood consequence and in theory knew better. He’d done it as a teenager so he could go after Benjamin Lombard, again in Atlanta, and now, older and supposedly wiser, he’d done it yet again. Muted it so that he could do what he wanted. Well, it wasn’t muted now, and it had a lot of catching up to do. So he drove along in silence while, in his head, he caught a damn good tongue-lashing.
Where to start? He’d fled his responsibilities at home to right a wrong for a man who had told him explicitly to stay away. He could dress it up as noble, but maybe he’d done it for selfish reasons. This was exactly the kind of father that he swore he wouldn’t be. He saw that now. And for what? Nicole had probably run his visitation rights through a shredder by this point. No doubt exactly what she’d left the message to tell him—to stay away—and how could he blame her? He never had listened to it, but feeling masochistic, he hit play and held the phone to his ear. His ex-wife’s voice was weary but calm:
“Figured you wouldn’t answer. Listen. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I’m not going to apologize, but I shouldn’t have said it. And I didn’t mean it. Not all of it. I was angry; I was frustrated. I couldn’t take any more. Even if I know where it comes from. I know you. I know how you beat yourself up. I know how badly you wanted that job, and I know you think you’ve let us down. But we’re okay. Ellie is okay. She doesn’t care what kind of job you have. So come back from whatever you’ve run off to do. It makes me nervous that even Toby doesn’t know. Now quit being an asshole and come back before it really is too late.”
The message ended, and Gibson threw the phone into the passenger seat. Don’t start, he warned the voice in his head but then berated himself anyway, using language that would have made his drill instructors in boot camp proud. Thoughts of home pushed the van up to seventy-five, but he quickly took his foot off the gas. It would be the height of stupidity to get pulled over now. Getting home was the important thing, not how fast.
In the passenger seat, his phone vibrated, then vibrated again and again, signaling incoming text messages. Gibson drove a mile or two before snatching it up: “Lea Regan (3 Messages).”
“Nope, nope, nope, not my problem anymore,” he said and dropped the phone back in the passenger seat. His show of callous bravado lasted less than two miles before he pulled to the side of the road. He stared accusingly at his phone, then, with a resigned sigh, picked it up.
I don’t know if you can see the stars where you are, but they’re beautiful. So many. Been here two years but never noticed them before. Funny right?
I’m at Dule Tree Airfield with my father. Just watched his plane leave without him. It was beautiful. Don’t know how you did it, but it worked. They’ll be coming for us soon. Thank you. Goodbye and good luck.—L.
If you’re still in Niobe, get out.
There was a lot to digest in those three messages, and he read them through a few more times, trying to parse her tone—tone being the hardest thing to convey in a text message. Her words didn’t read as scared, and she didn’t seem under duress. That should have been a good sign, but he didn’t like her good-bye one bit. It didn’t sound like the Lea he knew. She sounded resigned. Fatalistic.
Gibson could see the chain of events that led to her messages. If she knew there was no money, then Merrick must have tried to access it. If his plane had left without him, then he had needed the money to get himself out of the country. But it wasn’t there because Gibson had taken what little remained. That had left Merrick at the mercy of his many enemies, and frankly Gibson felt fine with that. Merrick deserved whatever he got. But how would Emerson and the fifth floor react? He remembered clearly what Emerson had said he believed. That he would kill them all. Well, Gibson had a bad feeling that Emerson might be making good on his threat.
Gibson looked up Dule Tree Airfield and let his GPS plot the fastest route. Then he spun the wheel and turned the van toward the airfield and muted his inner voice before it realized his destination. Around the first bend, he saw a familiar gray Scion idling on the shoulder. Of course, Swonger was still following him; he didn’t know anything else. Gibson slowed to a stop in the middle of the road and rolled down his window.
“What are you doing?” Gibson yelled over.
Swonger stared straight ahead, both hands on the wheel. Maybe he thought that was how invisibility worked? Gibson didn’t know what went on in his head.
“Swonger.” Nothing. “You know I can see you, right?”