“Take a deep breath,” Peggy says. “Let’s think this through.” She heads into the kitchen area, takes a couple grocery satchels from a hook, and starts loading one with bagels.
But I can’t wait. I pat my pocket for my keys. I can’t stop for anything.
“I have to leave now,” I say. And then I have a terrible realization. “Oh, Peggy. I’m so sorry! He knows where I am. He’ll come directly here, or he’ll send somebody. You aren’t safe!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Peggy says. “I can look after myself.”
“But Rusty and the kids,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Not a problem. I’ll tell them to stay with his mother until we sort things out here.” She nods her chin toward the pot bar in the next boxcar. “I’ve got three vets working next door. They’re as good as an army. They’ll handle anything Berg can throw at us, and they’ll welcome the chance.”
She’s packing more food and gear into the satchels for me: cans of soup, dried fruit, water, a camp stove, matches.
“What about him?” I ask, pointing toward the closet. I feel a pinch of guilt. “He’s been awfully quiet. What if he really has a heart condition?”
“I got him,” she says. “Don’t worry.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Shouldn’t I at least look in on him?”
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” she says. She adds a box of Band-Aids to the bag. Then she sticks her hand in the cookie jar and pulls out a wad of twenties in a rubber band. She stuffs that in the bag, too. “Either he’s okay or he isn’t.”
I step near and press my ear to the door. It’s dead quiet in there. I set my hand on the doorknob, and then reconsider. She’s right. I can imagine Ian in there, snot-faced and twisted. Either he’ll bluster and complain, or he’ll be silent and passed out, or worse. It’s bizarre to feel responsible for him after all he’s done to me. I let go of the knob and back up.
Deliberately, I scoop up Ian’s phone again. I check the settings to turn off the GPS, and then I power it down. If I could take out the battery, I would. I put it in my pocket.
Peggy passes me a set of keys.
“Take the Toyota,” she says. “It has a lot of miles, but it will get you where you need to go. Just call me when you’re somewhere safe,” she says. “Hopefully I’ll hear from your parents soon so I can warn them.”
“But what if Berg taps your phone by then?” I ask. “It won’t be safe for me to call you. It won’t be safe for them, either.”
She frowns a moment. Then she reaches on top of the fridge to where she keeps things she’s confiscated from her kids when they misbehave. “Here. Take Freddy’s tablet. I’ll put a post on Facebook if I hear from your parents. We’ll figure it out from there. Where’s the charger?” She puts her son’s tablet and a plug in the lighter bag, instantly giving me access to the world.
Her generosity floors me. “I don’t know what to say. This is too much.”
She waves off my thanks. “You might as well take some of these, too,” she says, reaching for Ian’s pills. “When I find out what they are, I’ll let you know.” She takes a few of the pills, puts the rest back in the box, and snaps the lid closed. Then she tucks the box into my bag.
I throw my arms around her in a hungry hug. She feels so solid, so real. I wish I didn’t have to leave her. “I’m so sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to bring you so much trouble.”
“It’s nothing I can’t handle. Who do you think I am?” She smiles, letting me go. She plucks her red dress back in place. “Go on, now,” she says. “And drive carefully. When did you get your driver’s license, by the way?”
“I never did.”
Peggy lets out a booming laugh and shakes her head.
I pick up the heavy bags and clatter down her front steps to her old green Toyota. The night has come. I drive back in the desert hills and stop at my old car, the one Burnham lent me, long enough to grab my supplies. I still have two syringes of narcotics I took from Ian, all that’s left after I injected two into Berg. I have a bag of clothes, including a few new essentials I bought the night before, when I also picked up a sleeping bag. I have way too many phones: the crappy disposable one I used for a few calls with Linus and Burnham, Ian’s phone, and Berg’s phone, which has gone dead. I have no charger for it, either. I also have two more recyclable phones that Burnham gave me. What is that, five? I dump them all in my backpack. I’ve left my binoculars back at home, but there’s no getting them now. For a moment, I peer back toward the boxcars in mournful regret. This isn’t the way I expected things to go when I came home.
A minute later, I’m driving west, toward Las Vegas.
I make twenty miles before I realize I’m heading exactly where Berg wants me to go.
4
WAFFLES67
FOR A SECOND, I can feel Berg crowding in on my mind, playing me again. Then I step grimly on the accelerator and get back up to speed. I am not going to be paranoid. I’m five hours from Vegas. He doesn’t know what car I’m in, and it would be nearly impossible for him to send someone to intercept me. Still, I have to be smart.
He definitely has the upper hand. All he has to do is send some lowlifes to pick up my family and stash them someplace. It infuriates me to think of Ma, Dubbs, and Larry in his control. Berg could drug them and mine them, just like he did me. Or he might keep them hostage until he can persuade me to do whatever he wants. My skin screams off my bones.
Think, Rosie. What’s my next move?
A truck roars past on my left and sends a mini tornado around my car.
I wish my dad were with me. Hearing Peggy’s perspective on him was unsettling. I should have taken the photo of me and him from the wall of my bedroom. Better yet, I should have taken the nail.
But I didn’t, and my dad’s dead. The truth is, I need help. It stings to admit it, but I do. I can’t outwit Berg on my own. I have to run over my options again.
I have a distant cousin in Calgary. It’s almost comical how unhelpful that is.
Linus.
Whenever I allow myself to think of him, even his name, an anxious, melty sensation curls in my gut. I can’t call him, even though his number is in my back pocket. Berg would trace the call for sure.
Burnham.
I chew on the inside of my cheek and allow myself to fully consider my friend in Atlanta. The last time Burnham and I spoke, it was by phone, and I was in the dean’s tower at Forge. Burnham’s computer was getting fried by a virus from Berg’s computer. That was Friday night, or technically early Saturday, and Burnham has probably replaced his computer by now, Sunday night. I can’t imagine him existing long without one. He’s far away in Atlanta, but he could help safely from a distance. On the downside, his parents own Fister Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes the sleep meds for Forge and half the country. He’s loyal to his family and hypervigilant about anything that could tarnish the Fister reputation.