American Subversive (24 page)

I'll go relieve her.

Okay, good. But, Paige, just watching this guy isn't going to be enough. We need to find out who he is, and why he's here.

How do you suggest I do that?

Keith stared at me intently. It was the same look he'd given me the night we first met—half-charm, half-challenge. Before, I'd have taken the bait, answered my own question with determined resolve. Now, I did my best to ignore him. I walked into the kitchen and picked up the car keys.

Park in the restaurant lot next door to the motel, Keith said, trailing after me. She'll meet you there.

What if he leaves?

The motel?

The valley.

You can't let him. Not without getting some answers.

Fine, I said, walking outside. Keith began to speak again, but I was already shutting the door behind me.

It's not that he wasn't right. It's that he was. And he always knew it.

For the second time that night, I headed down the hill. This time I was alone. This time I could keep driving. Over the mountains and far away. No, I couldn't. More faces came and went, before I settled on Keith's. The look in his eyes: it was different now, more desperate. My headlights cut through the lingering darkness, the roads as empty as the ski slopes they serviced. A mile down 100 I saw the motel sign. I drove past it and took the next left, into an empty gravel lot in front of a boarded-up restaurant called the Castle Rock Tavern. Closed for the season or forever, it was hard to tell. Lindsay's car was parked beside a dumpster around back. I pulled up beside it, cut the lights, and waited.

When she knocked on the passenger window two minutes later, I was so startled I hit the gas with the car still in park, but quickly recovered and unlocked her door.

What the hell are you doing?
Lindsay hissed, getting in.

I didn't see you.

I came down the path over there, she said, pointing through the windshield. It snakes up the hill behind the cabins. When it's light you'll be able to watch him without being seen. He's in the one closest to us—number six. He hasn't come out all night.

Okay, I said.

How's Keith?

A little nervous. He's been in the garage tinkering.

He doesn't like surprises, Lindsay said.

I know. He thinks we should stay in the house for now, but it depends on who this guy is. I need to find out.

How?

Not sure yet, I said.

Well, be careful. She squeezed my arm and hopped out. A moment
later her car came quietly to life and she was gone. I got out, locked the doors, and set off in the direction Lindsay had indicated. It took a little time to find the path, but soon enough I was creeping through the scattered trees and up a small hill. When I saw the cabin below me, I settled in behind some bushes and waited.

It all came back to me as I crouched there: the way the woods could play with time. Make it seem more vital. We used to camp out all night, Bobby recounting old stories as the wind rustled through treetops—local legends of convicts and bootleggers, outlaws who knew the backcountry better then any pursuer. There was always someone famous hiding out in the Smoky Mountains. When I was growing up, it was Eric Rudolph, the antiabortionist who set that bomb off at the Atlanta Olympics. Bobby was enthralled by him, or at least the idea of him—his determination, his savvy. He eluded hundreds of FBI agents and teams of dogs. At one point, they even brought in trackers. They finally caught him, the year after I graduated from college, dumpster-diving behind a supermarket in Murphy. An ignominious end, but the legend had been solidified, along with an idea. That a person could still outwit an army.

Now, but for opposing beliefs, I was Eric Rudolph. Alone in the forest, tracking the trackers, a world still to change.

Dawn came—bees and birds, squirrels, a family of deer, then man and his machines, cars and early-morning trucks out on the road. Evolution in order, small to large, meek to menacing.

I knew what was happening. This was my mess and I had to clean it up. Whoever this guy was hadn't used Keith's name or Lindsay's; he'd used mine. I was at least partially exposed, and therefore a danger to the group. But if a chasm was developing between the three of us, its depth was limited. Because things had happened now, and we were all culpable. Was there any choice but to stay together?

At 8:05 a.m. a man appeared in the back doorway of the cabin. I crouched down low, but he wasn't looking in my direction. No, he was yawning, stretching, waking up. He wore a short-sleeved Cuban shirt, off-white and untucked, with jeans and gray sneakers. His messy brown hair had recently been towel-dried. He was tall and
moderately thin and not too tan; all in all, he looked like the type of guy I'd made an effort to stay away from—the attractive ex-frat boy who'd lived in New York long enough to adopt a little style at the expense of substance. I watched him mat his hair down and walk back inside. The cabin had screens for windows, and if I could get close enough, I might be able to peek in. I started down the hill and had crept about ten yards when the front door slammed shut. There he was, walking along the path toward the office. If he was checking out, I had just enough time to race back to the car and tail him. But he didn't have a bag with him, which meant—I hoped—that he wasn't leaving for good. I took a chance and let him go. When I heard his car start, followed by a crunch of gravel as it edged toward the road, I hurried down the hill and across the small clearing to the back door. It had been left ajar, and the hinges creaked as I slipped inside. The room was hot and surprisingly messy—or maybe I'd just lived too long in meticulous exactitude. A backpack sat on the bed; boxers and socks were scattered across the floor. So he
would
be back. If he was going into town for coffee, I had ten or fifteen minutes. I gave myself five.

I slipped on my gloves and emptied the backpack onto the bed. A dirty T-shirt, bathing suit, flip-flops, more boxers, khakis, a pair of cargo shorts. I went through the pockets. A few dollar bills and a matchbook from a Greenwich Village restaurant called Malatesta. I opened it and found scribbled directions to an address in Essex County, New Jersey. No BlackBerry, no business cards, no address book. I stuffed everything back inside and turned my attention to the room. The bureau and closet were empty, and the only thing on the coffee table was a copy of the local newspaper. Then I saw it, a slip of paper on the floor near the base of the bed. I bent down and picked it up: an Amtrak receipt—New London to Yonkers—dated two days before. In the upper corner was a name:
Aidan Cole
. I said it out loud, as if that might trigger my memory, but it didn't. I'd never heard it before. How long had I been in the cabin? Two minutes? Three? I peered outside. All was quiet. I put the receipt back exactly as I'd found it, then searched the desk, the nightstand, the folds in the cheap, stained couch. Then I walked into the bathroom. A puddle had formed on the floor beside the shower (the bath mat hung undisturbed on the towel bar), and the mirror was still fogged up. A travel
kit sat unzipped on the sink, and I picked through Q-tips and Chap-Stick and small packs of Advil. I felt something in the side pouch, a prescription bottle. Xanax, and most of them were gone. But the label! This time, Aidan's name came with an address:
5 Weehawken St., New York, NY, 10014.
Weehawken Street? Where was that? I tucked the bottle back away. I'd been there five minutes, maybe more. I took one last careful look around the worn-out room, as if the rotting walls might yield some secret explanation for Aidan's presence. But they remained silent. I slipped outside, closed the back door, and retreated to my perch on the hill.

He appeared a half hour later and, as he had earlier, came out back and looked around. But this time he was frowning. There was no way he could see me, but I froze anyway. I didn't move or breathe until I heard the screen door slam shut.

When he walked outside again, it was through the front, and he had the backpack slung over his shoulder. Had he discovered something, or was he giving up and going home? He ambled down the path toward the office; I hurried back to the car and pulled around to the front of the restaurant lot. I didn't have to wait long. Fifty yards to my right, he nosed his Subaru out into the road and started toward town. I let a car pass, then followed. The road seemed busy for a Monday morning, and the traffic began to back up as we approached the intersection of Routes 100 and 17. Then I saw the cop at the corner. Was he just directing traffic or . . . I locked the doors. We came to a dead stop as the officer let a stream of cars pass in front of us. Then it was our turn. We inched forward. Five cars away, then four, and three. The officer stopped our line again. Aidan's car was at the head of it, his window down. The cop leaned in close. They were
talking
. Frantic, I looked for an escape. The shoulder was wide enough if I needed it, but suddenly Aidan was moving again, taking a right—heading
north
. The woman in front of me put her left blinker on, then turned that way. And now I was at the intersection, the cop directly outside my window. Should I make eye contact? Yes? No? No. I smiled slightly as I passed him, trying to look distracted. I could feel his eyes on me, could feel my face turning red, but I kept moving forward, one rotation at a time, and finally turned right without incident. I was directly behind Aidan, practically on his bumper, the two of us moving at a crawl.
Where were all these people going? I thought about shielding my face, but pulling the visor down might catch his eye. A glint in the mirror. That's what this had come to.

I should have realized the livestock fair was to blame (Lindsay had mentioned it), but I didn't until I saw the signs for parking. Cars were turning off the road. And now
Aidan's
blinker was on. He was going to join them. We both were.

AIDAN
 

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

I knew who it was before I even turned around. Her voice was calm but forceful, just as I'd have imagined it.

“I said, ‘What do you want?' ” She tightened her grip on my arm, and I didn't try to shake her off. I was frozen in place beside her. We were packed in a tight semicircle in front of the basketball booth, kids squealing, shouting, pleading with parents. I opened my mouth.

“I . . .”

I tried to collect myself, but my face was turning crimson. Most of hers, meanwhile, was hidden behind large aviators, as it had been in the photograph. She'd cut her hair and was wearing very different clothes, but it had to be her. The fantasy come to life.

It hit me then: what this
meant
. The danger
I
might be in. How long had she been following me? And were there others? I wanted to look around, but couldn't take my eyes off her for fear that . . . what? She'd disappear? Suddenly, I couldn't remember why I'd come looking for her in the first place. Or what I'd do if I found her.

“I . . .”

What had she asked me? I was losing my grip on the progression of events. I wondered again if this might be a gag, the joke to end all jokes, a new reality show meant to test the boundaries of my sanity—

“Fucking say something,” she said, still gripping my arm.

“Are you Paige Roderick?”

“Who are you?”

“Aidan Cole.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk to you.”

Paige looked around quickly. People were everywhere.

“Are you alone?” she asked.

“Yes. Are you?” It was all I could manage. Rote dialogue. Words she expected.

“We can't stay here. Follow me, but at a distance.”

With that, she let go of my arm, kind of discarded it, and started walking quickly through the crowd. I almost lost her right away and had to jog a few steps to catch sight of her again. She was taller than I'd imagined and was wearing a plain V-neck T-shirt and cords. Brown cords. In August. Why was I thinking about fashion? Because I couldn't think about anything else. Bumper cars. Pirate ships. A creaking Tilt-A-Whirl. We ducked off the midway and entered the livestock area, rows of clapboard barns housing goats and pigs and giant horses. A cow-milking exhibition. A sheep-shearing contest. The State Bucksawing Championship was getting under way at the Woodman's Center, and a crowd of large men dressed in Carhartt milled around outside. We kept walking—past the Alpaca Farm, the Dairy Tent, and finally the jam-packed Ox-Pulling Pavilion—until we found ourselves alone beside a split-rail fence that marked the edge of the property. Beyond us lay a patchy meadow overrun with tents and trucks and trailers. The fair's ugly underbelly.

“So talk,” she said.

“I'm not sure where to begin.”

“Let me help you. Who do you work for? How did you find me? And what the fuck do you want?” She was leaning against the fence, her right foot propped up on the lowest rail, as if she might hop it at any moment and disappear among the generators and clothing lines spanning the temporary trailer park.