“Task?” He chuckled. A waitress arrived bearing our plates of sausage, bacon, fried eggs, and hash browns, then went away and returned with two coffees before he continued. “Tell me more.”
Before anyone can change, they need to recognize the problem and want to change. I remembered that from some self-help shit I’d read once upon a time. Isak appeared to be at that stage. Until the pills wore off.
“You want to change? Be more…” I did air quotes. “Human?”
He nodded, eyes narrowing as he watched me and blindly stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth.
I cut up some of mine, poked it into a pile. “Can I have your phone?”
The fork was waved at me, and I spun the phone. No password. Was this a burner? Did they have those here? Who cared? I googled what does it take to be a good person.
Bingo and ala khazam. It looked pretty straight-forward. The hard part? Getting him to do it. This was like Peter Pan taking Wendy off to Neverland.
Where a Captain Hook had waited.
Isak was probably Hook not Peter, I reminded myself as I prepared to speak. He was the villain in spades, with icing on the top and a bloody knife stabbed through the middle of the imaginary cake. Assuming Captain Hook was a cake.
I purloined a business card from the little display on the table and convinced the waitress to bring me a pen. Then I wrote stuff down. Then I ate some food.
Let Mr. Asshole wait, for once. By the time I looked up – I’d been super hungry – Isak was lying back in his chair with his arms folded. The man had patience. I dabbed at my mouth with a serviette then pushed the card across. The writing was tiny – it had to be to fit.
“Your list. A To-do List.”
He dragged the card closer with a finger then picked it up and read. “Shocking writing, Miss Red. We need to send you back to school.”
Somehow, god knows why, I almost smiled at that. The smile broke and failed. Simply recognizing that I had almost smiled at what might have been a teasing joke made tears spring to my eyes. I wiped them away, quickly.
Fuck that. He would not have meant it to be funny.
He eyed me, waved the card. “Say it.”
“What makes a person good?” I ticked it off on my fingers, reciting from memory what I’d written.
“One. Be kind to others, especially your loved ones.” I doubted he had any loved ones.
“Two. Do good deeds.
“Three. Smile and be cheerful even when things aren’t going your way.
“Four. Be honest.
“Five. Be generous with your belongings.” And don’t steal Porsches? Hell. Stealing was the Way of Isak. We had tens of thousands in one bag. Most were fifty-dollar bills. Whenever we passed a woman and he felt the need, he’d stop them and get some cash.
Of course credit cards in Australia would be a liability since neither of us was here legally, though he would surely fix that minor problem.
“Six. Be selfless.”
I felt some of those doubled up, but all of them were good, moral points.
He blew out his mouth like a puffer fish. “Interesting.”
Then a man walked by the cafeteria on the outside. I stiffened. “It’s him.” My eyes felt as if they’d bugged out.
“That is Ted’s man?”
“Yes.” How had he followed us? Maybe someone staying here had spotted the Porsche and stuck a pic on social media?
“We’re leaving.”
Isak headed toward a back door and I scurried after him. A car engine noise grew louder. There was a bang, and I swung to see what had happened. A large black SUV rammed Ted’s man off the sidewalk next to the café, scraping him forward, and jamming him against the wall. As the vehicle jolted to a stop, a few windows shattered. Seconds later, people began screaming.
“Come.”
At the command, I jogged after Isak.
Within a few minutes, we were in a different SUV and driving away. I think I heard sirens approaching, but they were distant.
“You made someone run him over?”
“Of course.” Isak nodded, swung the wheel to change lanes. “You can drive when we get to the next car. This one here will pull over with us.”
A young woman was beside our car in a black BMW, and she slipped behind us, following in the lane. I had no doubt he was controlling her. I slid down in the seat, shut my eyes. “I don’t think you quite got the picture.”
“Oh?”
“We need to tack an extra bit on that list I gave you at the café: Seven: Do not murder people.”
“Gotcha. Next time, Red. Next time.”
I sighed and said dryly, “From now on, if you want me to help…” This was scary, standing up to him. “I get to dole out that drug.”
“I have to get more of it at the next town.”
Not a yes, but not a no.
CHAPTER 7
ISAK
Collecting more Keppra was easy, since female pharmacists were common here. We stopped at a town, found the pills, and swapped to a bronze-colored, four-doored pick-up – what they called utes in Australia, or utility vehicles. I told Red to drive. Everything we currently carried had fitted in the back under a solid lock-down cover. The woman I’d taken this from now had a silver-gray sedan to drive back to her remote property.
She was heading inland, same as we were, and nobody in the Outback was likely to care which car she drove. Being recently widowed, her time and money were hers to play with. The car registration authority was a different and more difficult problem I would eventually have to deal with.
I’d questioned her thoroughly. Outback was such a crazily casual
