Chapter Twenty-NIne
“Oh, there you are,”
Caitlin said. “Why were you running?”
Carlene ducked her head and swiveled on her heels.
“Where do you think you're going?” Michelle demanded. “What are you doing here?”
Carlene ignored her, pushing aside several junior correctional officers, or whatever they were, and hurried down the aisle.
Michelle caught up to her and grabbed her arm, yanked it hard. “I asked you a question.”
“I don't have to answer you,” Carlene spat out. “You better let go of me. Gary won't like it if you mess with me.”
Michelle didn't let go. Not right away. “You tell Gary
. . .
”
What? What should she tell him?
Michelle released Carlene's arm, giving her a little push as she did. “Stay out of my way, Carlene. Leave Caitlin alone.”
“Don't you think you can just order me around,” Carlene muttered, her eyes glittering behind the lenses of her sturdy pewter glasses. “I'll kill you, you bitch. And you won't even see me coming.”
With that, she turned and plunged into the crowd.
Christ, Michelle thought. She should have been more careful. Carlene might look harmless, but she was Gary's helper, after all. Who knew what she could really do?
She made her way back to Caitlin.
“What in the world was that all about?” Caitlin asked.
“I was filming you, and I saw her go for your purse,” Michelle said. “I think she's some kind of pickpocket.”
“At a correctional association convention?” Caitlin laughed. “That seems a little foolhardy. Should we call security?”
“I don't know. She's gone now. But if we see her again
. . .
yeah, we should call.”
“Sounds good, hon.” Caitlin took a step back and seemed to study Michelle. “You came running over like you were gonna tackle her,” she said.
Michelle managed a smile. “I hate seeing people get ripped off.”
“You know what, let's get out of here,” Caitlin said abruptly. “I don't think there's any point in sticking around. All I'm going to do is piss people off.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don't know.” She suddenly looked exhausted, the recent liveliness that had animated her features drained away. “I need some time to think about how I'm going to handle all of this.”
“Late lunch?” Michelle asked.
This part of Anaheim
didn't feel anything like a real town or city. She didn't know what the rest of Anaheim was like. What there was here were broad streets, huge blocks of hotels, giant parking lots, a landscape that seemed both monumental and impermanent. There was nothing here with weight or history, nothing that seemed unique, no buildings constructed to human scale, just endless expanses of concrete, asphalt and stucco.
Their choices around the Anaheim Convention Center included something called the Anaheim GardenWalk, where they would find a Bubba Gump Shrimp, P. F. Chang's, and a Cheesecake Factory, among other things. There was also the Downtown Disney District, which had a La Brea Bakery and a House of Blues, along with a few more upscale options.
They chose a restaurant that offered “Disney Med”â“Modern spins on authentic Mediterranean cuisine.” It also had an extensive wine list.
In the downstairs wood-floored and brick-walled bar, Caitlin picked at her tapas.
“I don't know, hon,” she said. “I'm just wondering if I've bitten off more than I can chew here.”
What should she say? Urge Caitlin to go back to supporting Safer America's status quo? Would that be enough to derail whatever it was Gary had planned?
“Maybe you shouldn't rush into anything,” Michelle said.
“I think I have to, now. At least I have to move pretty quick. With this election coming up, I'm either on one side or the other. If I really can't support working against these propositions, then I have to say so, and I have to act on that.”
Michelle leaned over and opened her purse. Felt around for the two iPhones and the signal-blocking bags.
“Well
. . .
you could always just take a couple of days,” she said, as she tucked the phones into the bags. When she straightened up, she had a lipstick in her hand. “Maybe
. . .
get away someplace where you can really have time to think about things.”
Someplace out of the country, preferably.
“Yeah.” Caitlin sat up straighter. “You know what, maybe I'll go to the condo in San Diego for the rest of the weekend, fly home on Monday. Come up with some kind of a public statement. I'm not going to change my mind. I just need to figure out what I'm going to say and how I'm going to approach this.” She took a healthy slug of her rioja. “And steel myself for this confrontation with the board. It's going to be ugly.”
San Diego wasn't nearly far enough.
“You sure you wouldn't rather go to
. . .
I don't know, Maui?” She smiled and lifted her eyebrows, like it was a joke. One she hoped Caitlin might take seriously.
Caitlin snorted. “Wouldn't I, though? Maybe after I drop this little bomb.” She pushed her plate aside. “Anyway, I can drive myself down. No need for you to come along if you need to get back to Houston.”
“Oh, no, I don't have anything going on,” Michelle said quickly. “I can drive us. And I can be close by in case
. . .
you need anything.”
Caitlin smiled. One of her real ones.
“Thanks, Michelle. I really appreciate that. To tell you the truth, it'll be nice to have someone in my corner while I work through all of this.”
“I'll email the office and tell them you won't be back till Tuesday. That way you won't get drawn into a conversation you're not ready to have. In the meantime
. . .
” Michelle smiled. “Maybe you should just turn off your phone.”
“Maybe I will,” Caitlin said, smiling back.
They drove back to
their hotel. It was close enough to rush hour that Caitlin wanted to wait a while to make the driveâ“Since we have the rooms anyway. I'm beat, hon. I want to go get a massage and fall asleep on the table.”
“Sounds good,” Michelle said, though she didn't think it did. Even if she kept her phones off for the trip, even if Caitlin actually had powered hers down, there were so many other ways Gary could be tracking them, and the longer they stayed in one place, the more time Gary had to set up and change whatever plans he'd made to adapt to the new situation.
She went back up to her room. Her shoulders ached. Maybe she'd lie down. Maybe she'd go get a massage.
Christ, why am I doing this? she thought. It was stupid. She didn't know how she could protect Caitlin. She didn't have a plan. Except to try to sit Caitlin down and tell her an impossible story, show her Danny's logbook, and if Caitlin
did
believe her?
Then
what?
She took her phones out of the signal-blocking bags, plugged them both in and flopped down on the bed. She was so fucking tired, and there was just no end to it.
I should take the passport, the money and go, she thought. She wasn't sure to where. Maybe someplace in Asia or Africa. Somewhere off the grid.
Was there any such thing as off the grid any more? Timbuktu? Outer Mongolia?
She was dozing when her Emily phone rang. The default Marimba that she used for unknown callers.
She bolted out of
bed and grabbed the phone.
“Em? It's me.”
“Danny?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you
. . .
are you out?”
“Yeah.” His voice caught. “I am.”
“Oh thank god,” she said in a rush. “Where are you?”
A shaky laugh. “Beautiful San Angelo, Texas.”
“Are you
. . .
is this a good number?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me call you back.”
She disconnected and started to cry. “Not now,” she muttered. She jotted down the number from her received calls, wiped her eyes, blew her nose and grabbed her last burner phone.
In the bathroom, she turned on the shower, full blast.
“Hey.”
“We shouldn't talk too long,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“California. Orange County.”
“Do you know
. . .
why did I get outâ?”
“I went home and got the book. I sent a copy to Sam. I didn't know what else to do.”
A moment of silence on the other end.
“Em, why didn't you just go? I wanted you to take the money and the passport, and just
. . .
”
“Am I supposed to be a fucking mind reader?” she snapped. “And run
. . .
run where? What kind of life was I supposed to make for myself? If I have to live this way, I don't want to do it alone. Unless you're sick of me, and if that's the case, let's table it for now, and figure out what we're going to do to get out of this first.”
A deep chuckle. “I told you I thought you could kick my ass.”
The bathroom was steaming up from the running shower. She hated wasting water during a drought, and she was crying again.
“Aren't I allowed to care about you?” she asked.
“You're allowed. I'm just not the best investment you could've made.”
“Better than my last one,” she said.
“We need to pop
smoke, get some distance between us and this shit storm. There's an expiration date on what my logbook's going to buy us.”
“Why?” she asked. “I don't understand. Can't we hold it over them? Say we'll send it out if they don't leave us alone?”
He made a noise that was something between a laugh and a sigh. “There's stuff in that book that's pretty embarrassing. They're not going to want people talking about it. But it's all hard to prove, and if it does get out? They'll swamp it in a tide of shit. They'll smear meâand let's face it, that ain't too hard to do.”
She sat down hard on the toilet. She realized that she'd thought of the logbook as a nearly magical object, something dangerous and powerful that could solve their problems if it didn't get them killed.
If it wasn't all that
. . .
“Why did Sam get you out, then?”
“He looked at the options and figured getting me out was less risk and hassle than dealing with the flak from that logbook.”
So she'd been right in her evaluation of Sam's character, at least.
“What do we do?” she asked.
“We just go far enough away that we're not worth the trouble for them to fuck with us. We don't make any more noise, they'll most likely leave us alone. But if someone like Gary decides he wants to take a shot while we're in range? We're on our own.”
“Okay.” She thought about it. “Can you get to San Diego?”
“I have a buddy in Dallas with an SR20. Cute little bird, comes with its own parachute, which given this guy's flying chops is a good thing
. . .
Once he picks me up, we could get to San Diego in about nine hours from here. We'd have to stop once to refuel.”
“When can he pick you up?”
“Don't know. Haven't asked him yet.”
“Can you trust him?”
He chuckled. “I can pay him. If he fucks us over later, so what? All we need is a little time. We go to Tijuana International and fly out with our new passports.”
“I don't know if I can get to San Diego without being followed,” she said. “I'm going to be with Caitlin.”
“Caitlin?”
“The woman I've been working for.”
“I'll call you when I have an ETA. You ditch her when you can.”
“I'll try,” she said. “It's complicated.”
“Do the best you can do. If you need me to, I'll come to you. Just don't use the new passport unless you absolutely have to. Those are the ones we use to get some distance between us and them.”
“And after that?”
“We become somebody else.”
She laughed. “That part sounds good.”
A hesitation on the other end of the line. She could hear his exhalation of breath.
“Em
. . .
whatever Gary's doing, if you think it's about to get hot, you need to bail, okay? Don't wait around and try to fix things.”
“I won't,” she said.