Hellbent

“This is a Thanksgiving card. Thanksgiving was last Thursday. You were in the apartment Jack had set up for you. And Jack was in Alabama. No one should have known how to reach you.”

“No one did know how to reach me.”

“Joey, what if this is how they found your apartment?”

“Look, I promise you, it’s okay.”

“Who is M?”

Scowling, Joey grabbed her hair in a fist and pulled it high, showing the shaved side of her head.

“Joey, we have to have total trust. Or none of this works.”

She took in a lungful of air, let it out slowly. “She’s my maunt.”

“Your maunt?”

“My aunt, but more like a mom. Get it?”

“Yes.”

“She raised me until she couldn’t, okay? Then I went into the system for a lotta years. Until Van Sciver’s guy pulled me out.”

“How did she know where to send you this Thanksgiving card?”

Joey’s eyes filled with tears. It was so sudden, so unexpected that Evan’s breath tangled in his throat.

She said, slowly, “It’s not a risk, okay? I promise you. If we have total trust, trust me on this.”

“They can track anything, Joey.”

She tilted her head back, blinked away the tears. Then she turned to him, fully composed. It was a different face, stone cold and rock steady, the face of an Orphan. “I am end-stopped there. Completely end-stopped.”

He stared at her a moment longer, deciding whether or not he believed her. Then he fired up the engine and pulled away from the pump.

* * *

Evan’s focus intensified as they neared the border. He kept it on rotation between the mirrors, the on-ramps, the cars ahead. He changed speeds and lanes.

Meanwhile Joey changed channels on the radio, responding with enthusiasm or disgust to various songs that Evan found indistinguishable from one another.

Despite everything, she was still sixteen.

A hunter-green 4Runner had been behind them for a while now. White male driver, wispy beard. Evan pulled to the right lane and slowed down, timing it so another car shielded them from view as the 4Runner drove past. The driver did not ease off the gas or adjust his mirror. Which meant he was either not interested or well trained.

Ensuring that passing drivers didn’t get a clean look at them was no easy task on a seventeen-hour road trip. Van Sciver’s people would be looking for a man traveling with a teenage girl — not an uncommon combination but not common either. The Honda’s windows had been treated with an aftermarket tint, which helped decrease visibility. The sun was near its peak, turning the windshields into blinding sheets of gold, another momentary benefit.

A truck pulling a horse trailer sidled up alongside them. Evan tapped the brake, tucking into the blind spot.

“Hold on,” Joey said, cranking up the volume. “Listen — this is my jam.”

He listened.

It was not his jam.

The horse trailer exited. He watched it bank left and amble up into the hills.

At last the billboard flashed past: WELCOME TO IDAHO! THE “GEM STATE.”

While Joey bounced in the passenger seat, the Gem State flew by in a streak of brown. Scrubby flats, a few twists carved through hills, more scrubby flats.

The gas needle had wound down to a quarter tank by the time he pulled off. The service plaza was at the top of a rise, a mini-golf bump in the terrain with good visibility in all directions.

A single strip of parking lined the front of the plaza, which made for easy scouting. Of the vehicles only a blue Volvo pinged Evan’s mental registry, but when it had passed twenty miles back, he’d noted three children quarreling in the back.

After he’d filled the tank, he and Joey went into the plaza, splitting up as was their protocol. Joey drifted up the junk-food aisle while Evan dumped four bottled waters and a raft of energy bars before the register. As the woman rang him up, he caught sight of his reflection in the mirrored lenses of a pair of cheap sunglasses on the counter display.

The bruises beneath his eyes made him conspicuous. Memorable.

He snapped off the price tag, laid it on the counter, and put on the glasses. They’d be helpful for the moment, but he’d require something less obvious. He remembered Lorilee in the elevator, how she’d concealed the finger marks where her boyfriend had grabbed her.

“Just a second, please,” he told the lady at the register.

One aisle over he found a cheap beige concealer.

Joey appeared, pressing a bag of Doritos to his chest. She took in his sunglasses with amusement. “Nice look,” she said. “Did you misplace your fighter jet?”

“Don’t worry. I’m getting this.” He held up the concealer wand. “I’d ask to borrow yours, but I didn’t figure you for the makeup type.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call our last few outings makeupworthy,” she said. “But you couldn’t use mine anyways. I’m browner than you. Thank God.”

He headed back to the counter and laid the concealer and chips on top of the energy bars.

The woman gave a smile. “Picking up some makeup for the missus?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She handed him the plastic bag.

Joey was waiting outside, her arms crossed, staring through a patch of skinny trees down the long ramp to the freeway.

“What?” Evan asked.