Hellbent

He tried to gather her in, but she shoved him away. She slammed the closet door off its tracks, kicked the chair across the room, threw the lamp against the wall, knocking a divot through the paint.

He moved to get out of her way, sat on the floor, and put his back to the door.

She ripped the hanger pole off its mounts in the closet, kicked the bed hard enough that the metal feet gouged marks in the carpet, drove her hand through the drywall.

Finally she finished.

She was facing away from him, her body coiled, her hands in loose fists at her sides. Blood dripped from a split knuckle.

She walked over. She sat across from him, facing away from his bed. Her huge eyes were wet, her shoulders still heaving.

“Where were you?” she said.

“I went to look for you.”

“You weren’t here.”

He swallowed. “Tiene dos trabajos. Enojarse y contentarse.”

She pressed both hands over her mouth. Tears ran over her knuckles, but she did not make a sound.

They sat on the floor together for a very long time.

53 My Breath on Your Neck

The next morning Evan and Joey sat on their respective beds spooning gas-station-bought oatmeal into their mouths from Styrofoam cups. He’d told Joey to put the room back together, and she’d done her best, but still the closet door was knocked off its tracks, the lamp shattered, the walls battered. The wreckage of the chair was neatly stacked in the corner, a pyre of kindling. It was a foregone conclusion that Suzi Orton, cheery Airbnb patron, was going to have to retire her profile after they cleared out.

“Look,” Joey said. “Sorry I kinda freaked out last night. It’s just… I was—”

Her phone gave a three-note alert, a bugle announcing the king.

She thumped her Styrofoam cup down on the nightstand, oatmeal sludge slopping over the brim, and swung off the bed into a kneeling position before her laptop at the desk.

“A police cruiser hit on the plate,” she said, her voice tight with excitement.

He leaned over her shoulder, saw a screen grab of the black Suburban captured by the light bar of a passing cop car. The SUV was parked in a crowded Food Lion grocery-store lot, the GPS specifics spelled out below.

“Damn it.” Joey nibbled the edge of her thumbnail. “By the time we get there, they’ll be gone.”

“No,” he said. “This is good. No one drives across town to get groceries.”

She caught his meaning, nodded, and snapped her laptop shut. They threw their stuff together in less than a minute.

Before heading out, Evan left ten crisp hundred-dollar bills on the floor beneath a fist-size hole punched through the drywall.

* * *

He started at Food Lion and drove in an expanding spiral, creeping through increasingly rough neighborhoods. A few miles along their winding path, he pulled abruptly to the curb.

Joey said, “What?”

He pointed at a ramshackle single-story house a half block up that looked like most every other house they’d passed. A chunk of missing stucco on the front corner, planters filled with dirt, overstuffed trash cans at the curb. A tall rolling side gate had been turned impenetrable by green plastic strapping interwoven with the chain-link. One of the gutters had come loose and dangled from the fringe of the house like a coal chute.

“I don’t get it,” Joey said.

“The trash cans,” he said. “See those green plastic strips poking up?”

She leaned toward the dash, squinting through the windshield. “They match the fence filler.”

“Right. Someone cut and installed that privacy screen on the gate this week.” He unholstered his ARES and opened the door. “Wait here.”

He crossed the street, darted through front yards, hurdling hedges. He slowed as he came up on the house, keeping his arms firm but not too firm, the pistol pointed at a spot on the ground a few feet ahead of the tips of his boots.

The gate was lifted two inches off the concrete to accommodate the wheels. Easing onto the edge of the driveway, Evan dropped to his stomach and peered through the gap.

The driveway continued past the gate to where the yard ended at a rotting wooden fence. Parked halfway there at an angle was a black Suburban. Weeds pushed up from cracks in the concrete, brushing the vehicle’s flanks. But they weren’t dense enough to cover the license plate.

VBK-5976.

Next to it on the baked dirt of the yard were the second rented Suburban and a Chevy Tahoe.

Evan withdrew.

Jogging back up the street, he flicked a finger for Joey to get out. She climbed from her perch in the driver’s seat, locking the vehicle behind her.

“It’s there?” she asked.

“It’s there.”

As they circled the block, he could hear Joey’s breathing quicken.