“Why would ICE be looking for me?” Ryan asked. “Wouldn’t that be the DA’s office or the Portland police?”
“Professor Black is dead?” Teresa asked.
Ryan sighed. “Provost McShane shot and killed him after Professor Black shot at him Tuesday night.”
“And why would ICE be looking for you then?” Teresa asked.
“Vic, you’re my attorney, right? And what I tell you is privileged?”
“Do you know how much I hate it when a client starts a conversation like that?” Vic grumbled. “It never goes well from there. But yes, it’s privileged. That might not mean what you think it does, but yes.”
Which made Ryan curious about privilege, but he set it aside for another time. “So Black was threatening me with a gun outside the EWN building,” he said. “He fired at me and missed. And McShane shot him. He’s got a concealed-carry permit. He sent me off with Cage and wrote me out of the scenario.”
“And McShane just happened to be in the right spot at the right time?” Vic asked sarcastically.
“Well, when you put it like that? I don’t know. Maybe he was stalking Black who was stalking me. Black had already tried to run me off on Pill Hill. EWN doesn’t seem like a likely place for the Provost to take a nightly stroll. I didn’t ask. I just got the hell out of there before the cops showed up.” He thought back to what Black had said that night. “Black said he could make a call to ICE and it would go badly for me, Teresa, and Rafael. I don’t know. Maybe he’d already made that call.”
“And then he shows up dead, and ICE, who had probably just put his call in a file, takes another look at it,” Vic said slowly. “OK, that makes sense. And explains why it is ICE, not Portland police or DA.”
“Now they’re looking for me? My car?” Ryan asked. “So, get me a new car.” He was getting to like this having money bit.
“Just like that, huh?” Vic said. “Have you ever bought a car? Scratch that, I’ve seen that ancient Prius you’re driving.” He thought for a minute, and Ryan could hear him tapping his fingers.
“OK, let me make a call,” he said. “I know an attorney down there.”
“We’re going to find a Starbucks and make a stop,” Ryan said. “I’ll wait to hear back from you. We’re on Hwy 126 if that helps.”
“You didn’t tell me about Black,” Teresa said. “Ryan? What else haven’t you told me?”
“Lots,” he admitted. “I’m not trying to keep secrets, just trying to figure out what you need to know first.”
She nodded. “Fair enough. As long as you’re not trying to protect me or something stupid like that.”
“Protect you? You’re so strong, I’m amazed,” he said frankly. “I read your journal. What you’ve been through? And yet, you’ve raised Rafael to be completely unafraid. I trust you to stand at my side, Teresa, no matter what comes. I only hope I’m as strong as you are.”
They were silent then, each with their own thoughts. Rafael had fallen asleep again. Ryan wondered if that was normal? He didn’t ask. Teresa didn’t seem worried by it.
At the first Starbucks they pulled into the parking lot. There was a Walgreens and an Albertsons. Ryan fished a couple of masks out of his glove box. “Bathrooms and Starbucks,” he said. “Then, what can we find that we need in these stores?”
Teresa grabbed her satchel, added Rafael’s essentials to it. At Ryan’s questioning look, she said grimly, “Never go anywhere without your papers, and what you must have. What do you have? Add it to my bag.”
He added Rafael’s birth certificate, and the legal papers he was carrying. And he pulled out a locked box from under his seat and opened it. He removed cash, a lot of it. Most of it he added to her bag, and he restocked his wallet. “In case we get separated,” he explained. “I want you to have cash.”
She nodded. “We stay together,” she said firmly.
Teresa carried her satchel bag, and he carried Rafael into Starbucks. Bathrooms first. Then they bought food and coffee, but there was no inside seating.
“Park across the street,” the barista said.
Ryan nodded his thanks and started out the door back to the car. Teresa put her hand on his arm, and he stopped. A police car was parked next to the Prius, and an officer was looking it over.
“The park is this way,” Teresa said in a normal voice, and they turned away from the car, and crossed the highway to a park. Teresa opened up a sandwich for Rafael, and Ryan took off his mask so he could drink his coffee. He missed being able to take that first sip right at the counter. He missed being able to sit inside a Starbucks or other coffee shop and read the newspaper and people watch while he drank his coffee.
Right now, he also missed being safe and not having to keep an eye out for police.
His phone rang; a number he didn’t recognize. He hesitated. A text message popped up from Vic. His friend would call. Ryan answered the phone.
“My name is Jonathan Tremont,” the caller said. “I’m an attorney in Eugene. I went to school with a friend of yours. Victor Ruiz?”
“Yes,” Ryan said. “We have a problem.” He described where they were and that there were cops. “I thought we’d be safe in Eugene.”
“Well, you’re not in Eugene,” Jonathan Tremont said. “You’re in Springfield. And that’s a whole ‘nother country. I have rented a car in my name on your behalf. I’ll bring it to you.”
“Better hurry,” Ryan advised. “Or you’ll be bailing me out of jail first.”
“On it,” he said.
Ryan and Teresa ate their sandwiches and drank their coffee. They couldn’t see the parking lot from where they were, which bothered Ryan. Teresa just shrugged. “If we can’t see
