Mike swallowed hard. ‘All right. I’m coming to you. We make copies of all this. Put them in different locations. Figure out a game plan, slow and smart.’
Hank agreed, and they signed off.
Mike tilted back his head and blew out a shaky breath. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay.’ Another breath, this one less wobbly. ‘Let’s hit the motel room, pick up the cash, the flash drive, and the genealogy report.’
‘Motel’s the opposite direction,’ Shep said. ‘I’ll go, meet you there.’
‘We only have one car,’ Mike said.
Shep scowled at him, disappointed, clearly, by Mike’s lack of imagination. Shep got out, swinging the door shut behind him. In ten seconds he was into the vintage Mercedes; in forty the engine roared to life.
He offered Mike a two-finger salute as he pulled out.
Mike slid across into the driver’s seat and drove off.
The freeway, at this hour, was quiet. A few miles down the road, a lightning bolt of hope shot through the vise of Mike’s chest, nearly splitting him in half. He steered off onto the shoulder, stumbled a brief ways into the brush, and bent over, hands on his knees, catching his breath. For so long he hadn’t dared to let himself hope, and the sensation of it ripped through his bloodstream, a drug he’d lost tolerance for. He fought off thoughts of Annabel’s touch, her hands intertwined in his against the bedsheets. The heft of Kat when he picked her up, that smooth cheek against his.
The air was sharp and tinged with sagebrush, the wet dirt sticking to the bottoms of his shoes. He heaved twice, bringing nothing up, then returned to the car. He’d left the door open, the soft dome light spilling over the headrests. He buckled back in, put his hands on the wheel, and set off toward Hank.
As he exited the freeway, the Batphone vibrated in his pocket. He fumbled it out and open. ‘Yeah?’
‘I have to put through a call.’ Shep’s voice sounded weird.
‘What? Who?’
There was some background noise and then an electronic click.
Annabel said, ‘Hello?’
Chapter 54
The first thought to break through Mike’s delirious relief was that Dodge and William had found her and forced her to call. He didn’t know what he was saying, but in between the rush of his words and the thrum of his thoughts he registered his wife’s replies: ‘Yes, I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m right here, babe.’
And: ‘-need you. Need you here. I’m so scared.’
And: ‘No, no one’s got me. I’m safe. Laid out, sore as hell, and I smell like a nursing home, but I’m safe.’
His brain finally caught up to what was happening, sounding a single clarion note over the din of their voices:
She was sobbing, her voice cracked and aching. ‘-was terrified when I woke up yesterday. Thought you were-’
And: ‘-almost twenty-four hours to get my voice working. I had Shep’s number, the one you gave to me back-’
And: ‘No, I haven’t called anyone. They told me my father’s been on a scorched-earth campaign to find me, but I knew to wait, to only talk to you. Shep told me some crazy stuff – an Indian tribe? – and that no one can know where I am. That you guys are on the run.’
Her next question brought him crashing back into his body, stilling the background buzz of his own words. It sent him into a kind of reverse shock, his senses heightened to a painful clarity.
She asked, again, ‘How’s my baby?’
There was nothing but pure, raw sensation. The plastic bumps of the steering wheel digging into the meat of his fingers. Windshield condensation blurring the edges of the yellow sign of Hank’s motel up ahead. The wrinkles of his shirt forming ridges against his lower back.
Mike cleared his throat, hard. ‘Shep… Shep didn’t tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’ All the warmth had gone from her voice.
He forced out the words. ‘I had to leave her.’
‘Leave her?
Five days, fourteen hours, and seventeen minutes.
He said brusquely, ‘Couple of days.’
‘
‘Annabel, I promise you-’
‘Have you checked on her?’
‘I… I couldn’t. I can’t. There were-’
‘She’s been alone? Without you?’ Her words deteriorated into something unintelligible. Her breath came in loud puffs across the receiver. ‘You
He heard himself hesitate a beat too long. ‘… Yes.’
‘No.’ Her voice had turned fragile, tiny, pleading. ‘Uh-uh. No. Where is she?’
Shep said, ‘Um…’
Mike had forgotten they were on a three-way call. The sound of his wife’s voice had overwhelmed all other considerations, but Shep’s interjection knocked him back to harsh reality.
He said, ‘I can’t… I can’t tell you.’
Annabel was breathing hard, maybe hyperventilating. In the background he heard the beep of a cardiac monitor. ‘What does that
‘You’re on a hospital phone,’ he said.
‘I can’t
‘They’re still looking for us. And you. They came after you once to get to me and Kat. We don’t know if they’re monitoring your line right now. I can’t tell you over this phone.’
‘
‘They could be listening. Right now.’
‘Does Shep know where she is?’
‘No one knows.’
‘Except you.’
‘I’m getting her tomorrow, Annabel. We’re almost out of this. We are one step from nailing them and starting to put our lives back together. Hours away, honey.
She was crying again, hopelessly. He imagined her, injured and bed-bound in a strange room, pumped full of drugs and terror.
Without registering it he had pulled in to a parking space by Hank’s door and set the car in park. ‘I will pick her up tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and bring her to you.’
‘Please just tell me where she… that she’s…’
He summoned all of his strength to harden his heart to her.
‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Everything will be okay.’
‘I need to know.’ Her words, drawn out through sobs. ‘I just need to hear my baby’s voice.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
He snapped the phone shut. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told it. ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry.’ Heat rolled up from his neck into his face, and he punched the steering wheel. Once, twice, three times. His knuckles screamed.
He sat panting.
Annabel was alive. Impossibly, he had even more at stake now.
