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The agent froith confusion "I don’t know anything about it"
Wolgast considered this "Good," he said finally "You’ll want to keep it that way"
The agent had then taken hi open tohe hadn’t asked for but still expected
"Keep it," he said
"You sure? I’aze toward the Tahoe, parked at the edge of the lot between two dozing seirl, as lying down on the backseat He really wanted to getstill was not an option As for the bag, maybe he needed it and maybe he didn’t But the decision to leave it behind felt right
"Tell the office anything you want," he said "What I could really use is soast would have laughed if he were in the mood He put his palm on the lid of the trunk and pushed it closed "Never mind," he said
The bag held guns, of course, and ammunition, and maybe a couple of arirl, too; there was a co theast had caught a seg a Zylon snapsuit for infants What a world, he thought
Now, Little Rock six hours behind the Whatever happened, happened; part of him wanted to be stopped Outside Little Rock, he’d actually let the speedohty, only di so behind a billboard to call the whole thing off But then Doyle had told him to slon-Yo, chief, shouldn’t you ease off the pedal a bit?-and his mind had snapped back into focus He’d actually been playing out the scene in his le, tart bleep of the siren; pulling the truck over to the side and placing his open hands on the wheel, lifting his eyes to the rearvieatch the officer calling in the plate nurown s: it wouldn’t take long to put the whole thing together, to connect theined the scene, he couldn’t see beyond thaton the butt of his weapon What would Sykes do? Would he say he’d ever even heard of theo into the shredder, just like Anthony Carter
As for the girl: he didn’t know
They’d skirted the Oklaho the Interstate 40 checkpoint and bisecting I-35 on an anonymous rural blacktop, far froast had one on his handheld Guiding the steering wheel with one hand, ni away on the handheld’s tiny keys with the other, he let their route evolve as they went, a patchwork of county and state roads, soradually north and west Now, all that lay between them and the Colorado border were a few sil and Ricochet and Buckrack-half-abandoned oases in a sea of tallgrass prairie with little to show for therain elevator and, between them, the miles of open plain Flyover country: the word it uessed it lookedjust about forever A man could disappear into a place like this without hardly trying, live his life without one soul to notice
Maybe, Wolgast thought, when this was all over, he’d coht need a place like that
Aht have been possible to forget she was there at all, if not for the fact that everything about her being there rong A six-year-old girl Goddaodda across the wide backseat with her hair spilled over her cheek, Aast didn’t think she was; she was pretending, watching him like a cat Whatever had happened in her life so far, it had taught her hoait Whenever Wolgast had asked her if she needed to stop to use the bathroo to eat-she hadn’t touched the crackers and milk, warm and spoiled by now-the lids of her eyes had lifted with a feline quickness at the sound of her nale second that went through hiain He hadn’t heard her voice since the zoo, o
Lacey That was the nun’s naast thought about that awful hu and screaut with an actual physical pain Hey, Lila, guess what? I stole a kid today So noe’ll each have one, how about that?
Doyle was rousing in the passenger seat He sat up and rubbed his eyes, his expression blank and focusless Hishis awareness of where he was He looked back at Aain
"Looks like some weather ahead," he said
The thunderheads had risen to a boil, blocking the sunset and sinking them into a premature darkness At the horizon, beneath a shelf of clouds, a haze of rain was falling through a band of golden sunlight onto the fields
Doyle leaned forward to exah the windshield His voice was quiet "How far away you think that is?"
"I guess about five et off the road" Doyle checked his watch "Or turn south for a while"
Two es lined with barbed-wire fencing Wolgast stopped the car and backed up The road crested a gentle rise and vanished into a line of cottonwoods; probably there was a river on the other side of the hill, or at least a gully Wolgast checked the GPS; the road wasn’t on it
"I don’t know," Doyle said, when Wolgast showed hiast turned the wheel of the Tahoe and headed south He didn’t think the road was a dead end; there would have been postal boxes at the intersection if it were Three hundred yards later, the road narrowed to a single lane of rutted dirt Beyond the tree line they crossed an old wooden bridge that spanned the creek Wolgast had foreseen The evening light had gone a sallow green He could see the stor above the horizon in his rearview rass on either side, that it was following them
They had traveled another ten miles when the rain started to fall They’d passed no houses or farms; they were in the middle of nowhere, with no cover First just a few drops, but then, within seconds, a downpour of such force that Wolgast couldn’t see a thing The wipers were useless He pulled to the edge of the ditch as a huge gust of wind buffeted the car
"What now, chief?" Doyle asked over the racket
Wolgast looked at A to sleep in the backseat Thunder roiled overhead; she didn’t flinch "Wait, I guess I’ast closed his eyes, listening to the rain on the roof of the Tahoe He let the sound wash through hi thosehio to her crib if she awakened Scattered ather in his mind, pictures and sensations from other times in his life: Lila in the kitchen of the house in Cherry Creek, on aof water as he dove from the pier in Coos Bay, the sounds of his friends’ voices above hi very shts of the world around hi him knoas safe He had entered sleep’s antecha their strange stories; yet part of hio"
His eyes snapped open; the rain had stopped How long had he slept? The car was dark; the sun had set Doyle isted at the waist, turned to face the backseat
"What did you say?" Doyle asked
"I have to go," the little girl stated Her voice, after hours of silence, was startling: clear and forceful "To the bathrooast nervously "Want ast knew he didn’t want to
"Not you," A her rabbit It was a floppy thing, filthy ear She eyed Wolgast in the ast undid his seat belt and stepped from the Tahoe The air was cool and still; he could see, to the southeast, the last of the stor in its wake a dry sky the color of ink, a deep blue-black He hit the key fob to unlock the passenger door and Amy climbed out She had zipped the front of her sweatshirt and pulled the hood up over her head