Chapter Thirty-Five

Behind the wheel of the Crown Vic, Officer Stevens steers inside the ruts on the two-lane thruway.

Janice Rimes smokes a cigarette out the open window, box stores and strip malls whumping by.

Stevens lifts a finger off the wheel. “Right there,” he says.

The FBI agent checks the glass-front strip of a rental car unit, the vehicles outside cleared from snow, from the caked-on salt of anything that’s been on the road.

“Nearest rental place,” Officer Stevens says.

Rimes takes a final draw on the cigarette, sails the butt end out of the window.

The Crown Vic slows, signals. Makes the turns at an intersection.

Stevens parks in the rental car lot, he shuts off the motor, hustles out.

Rimes zips up her coat. Stevens puts on his cap. They cross the lot to the big glass door of the office—push it open, wipe their feet on the mat.

A black woman is seated behind a counter. She’s wearing a roll neck sweater, her hair in braids.

Janice Rimes takes out her badge-holder, shows it. “FBI, ma'am.”

The woman looks from one to the other of them.

“I need to ask you about rentals, any vehicles rented here yesterday. Or today.”

“Did you get a look out there?” the woman says. “At the weather out there?”

“Excuse me?”

“Nobody's looking to rent right now.”

“You didn't rent any cars?”

“The way things have been, with the storm, no. Yesterday, not a thing,” the woman says. “Nothing so far today, but I guess it's early.”

The patrol officer spreads his hands.

“I can check with the other office,” the woman says.

“Where would that be?”

“It’s just up the road—the corner of Mount Rushmore and Columbus.”

Stevens shoots an eyebrow. “It's not that far.”

“I guess,” Rimes says. She nods at the woman.

The clerk picks up the phone.

The FBI agent watches traffic rolling into Rapid City, workers headed in, a string of big rigs headed out.

The woman behind the counter talks into the receiver.

Rimes turns to Officer Stevens. “How about crime scene? You think they’re going to dig up anything?”

“If something’s in there...”

The room goes quiet.

“Downtown rented a vehicle last night,” the clerk says. “Nothing today.”

The FBI agent leans in closer to the counter.

“A GMC Yukon,” the woman says. “Yesterday evening around six—the guy wanted it for a week.”

Rimes looks at Stevens.

“An Illinois state drivers license,” the clerk says.

“Tell them,” says Rimes, “tell them we're on our way...”

Streaks of sunlight hang in the dark interior of the cabin—Anthony’s mind drifts, his eyes half closing.

He listens to the sound of his own breathing, feels the dryness of his throat, his swollen tongue.

Yards distant, just beyond the log-walls, beyond the ache inside his head, the world is moving. He tries to sit up—all his muscles are cramped, limbs like weights, his tail bone numb.

The wood stove at his back is drilled onto a concrete plinth, he can feel the bolt-heads with his fingers, feel the rough dry surface of the cement.

Waves come and go, waves of emotion. All night, feelings—fear mixed with anger, a bottomless well of despair. Sometimes, a strange kind of calm. Now it must be morning. But cold and dark still haunt him.

He tries to move sideways against the stove, to find a moment's respite.

His back is screaming, rippling with pain. Hunger comes and goes, sometimes intense, sometimes nothing. But the muscle spasms leave him fighting for breath.

All night he's had to think—to think of getting out, trying to free his arms, to rip his hands from the cuffs. Over and over, trying to dig his heels into a plank floor. Scrabbling, pushing with all his strength. Useless against the bolted-down stove.

The thirst is constant, now, racking every living atom.

He thinks of her again, tries to conjure her; the mother he can't remember, that he never really knew. A beautiful stranger. Gone, gone before she was even there. No memory, nothing save for photographs, a single video, her wedding day.

So many times he's tried to reach inside, to feel, to touch something—something he must have known, or felt, as a child. Two-years old, looking up into her eyes. If only he could summon it. Commune somehow.

He lets the thought sit. Somewhere out there—just in front of his eyes.

Maybe we'll be together. In just a short while. Together again.

He thinks of his mother’s eyes—sapphire blue in the faded photographs. A shade that only existed in one other person; Lauren. He thinks of his father—was he with her now, with their mother? Free from everything, the misery that’d seemed to stalk him—the drink-pity-rage.

He'd never gotten over it—that’s what everybody told him. Everybody in the family; if only he could have seen his father—known him, before.

He screws his eyes tight, tries to push away the thought. Thinks instead of Lauren—helpless, trapped in the front seat of the crashed Nissan.

His head slumps an inch between his shoulders. Why did the little they’d had get ripped away? He thinks of the day, a few short months back—police arriving at the yard, and men in suits. All of them, rushing up to the house. He’d stood in disbelief as they arrested her.

Lauren.

They’d put her in cuffs, they’d taken her away.

Nothing made any sense in the weeks that followed. Nothing anybody told him, nothing anybody said.

They were putting her on trial. All the evidence they had, they'd convict her, that’s all they’d say. Organized crime. She'd be in prison the rest of her life.

He stopped going to school.

Stopped getting out of bed.

Stopped everything, those weeks. Till finally, one day, a black car rolled up to the house.

A man and a woman. From the FBI, they said. Lauren was going to cut a deal, they told him. She’d be cutting a plea.

But everything they'd ever known would be different.

New names, new lives, in new locations.

His eye follows a speck of dust floating in a shaft of cold sunlight. He wills it to stay, to float just as it is, suspended. Only cling on in the narrow band of light.