Page 79 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
She studied his profile, cut from the light seeping in the windshield. It was the first time she’d really noted his features. He was good-looking, in a wholesome, corn-fed kind of way. Early thirties, wavy blond hair swept back from his forehead. A strong jaw, shaded with a day’s worth of stubble. Blue eyes, never still. Always moving, as if afraid to alight on anything for too long. One hand loosely grasped the steering wheel, low, almost in his lap. The other was resting on his knee.
Lightning tore across the western sky, its forks like the branches of a huge phosphorescent tree. Fat raindrops started falling onto the roof of the car, slow enough that she could count the seconds between each one. When the thunder arrived, the sound was so intense she could feel it in the floorboards.
She nervously twirled the ruby ring she wore on a chain around her neck, watching the trail of cars blur past the window. This hurricane was forecast weeks ago, yet people had predictably delayed evacuation until the last minute. Hoping, probably, that it would magically dissipate over the Gulf or alter its course to rain its destruction on some other poor souls. But it hadn’t, so here they all were.
Hope could be a real bitch like that.
* * *
The air felt heavy with the coming storm. Ryan could feel it pressing against the windows of the car, an electric charge settling deep in his bones. The temperature had dropped like a stone. Voltage crackled in the air, lifting the hairs on his arms.
He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. His jaw was clenched, and he had to make a conscious effort to relax it.
Something didn’t feel right. Not just the storm. Not just the road ahead. It was a familiar feeling, the kind that had once saved his life—and someone else’s. But not always. Not every time.
He had learned the hard way that second chances weren’t always given.
His eyes flicked to Meeks in the rearview mirror. She was staring out the window, her hair falling over her shoulders in soft waves of pastel pink. Her t-shirt clung to her in the dim light, denim cutoffs leaving her legs bare and bronzed.
He dragged his gaze away.
It was an often-overlooked fact that there were almost no innocent witnesses in the WITSEC program. Anyone who thought differently had been watching too many movies. Most of its members were ex-bangers and dealers who turned snitch for a better deal in court, or aging crime bosses with gammy knees and arthritic trigger fingers who wanted out of the life for good. WITSEC was their endgame, their retirement plan. A new identity and a clean slate, all on the government’s dime. It felt like a cosmic joke that the USMS was responsible for both hunting down the most dangerous felons in the country and, once they had them in custody, for shifting heaven and earth to keep them safe.
Meeks didn’t fit the description of a dangerous felon, but she was clearly no angel. As if to underline that fact, his mind produced an image of her on stage at that strip club back in Florida. Wearing not much more than fresh air and a fake smile. The picture was impressively detailed.
He forced the image away. Gave himself a mental cold shower. Then returned his attention to the road. Her past had nothing to do with him. Nothing about her had anything to do with him. His job was to get her to Baton Rouge, that was it. Then she became someone else’s problem.
Rain began to hammer the roof of the car, as suddenly as if a fire hose was being aimed at them from the heavens. The sky had gotten so dark it was like it had gone back to night. He turned the windshield wipers on full and set the headlights to bright.
Up ahead in the road was the unmistakable flash of red and blue police lights. Cursing under his breath, he slowed as he approached. A Ford Police Interceptor was parked across the lanes, bearing the badge of the Mississippi Highway Patrol. A State Trooper in a heavy-duty parka was waving a light stick to stop their progress. An LED sign on the side of the interstate read ROAD CLOSED AHEAD.
Shit. He slowed the car to a halt. But he kept his eyes trained on his rain-splatted wing mirror. Something was still bothering him. And it wasn’t the storm that lay up ahead.
It was what lay behind.
* * *
Roach eased his foot onto the brake. Rain was lashing his windshield, the urgent beat of his wiper blades barely keeping up. His view came in second-long bursts between swipes, mirroring the pulses of red and blue from the lightbar on top of the state trooper’s SUV.
The marshal’s Charger had stopped in the road ahead. Roach brought his own car to a halt and watched as the marshal buzzed down his window. He saw the trooper bend down to the window and say something with a shake of his head. Then he saw the marshal hold something out the window. Probably his ID. The trooper pointed down the road, as if giving directions. Then he stepped back, and the marshal accelerated away, angling around the trooper’s vehicle.
Lightning turned the world into a photo negative. He blinked the bright flare out of his eyes and saw the trooper was signaling to him with his light stick.
He pulled up next to the trooper and lowered his own window. The trooper leaned in, rain running in rivulets down the hood and over his face. “You need to head back the way you came,” he shouted over the roar of the rain. “This whole area’s under mandatory evac. Road’s closed up ahead.”
He nodded in the direction of the marshal’s receding headlights. He yelled back, “You let him through.”
The trooper shook his head, flinging water left and right. His expression was firm. “You gotta turn back,” he said, straightening up. “Go back the way you came.”
Go back. Ha. Go back where? To Miami? To where he’d been living in a cockroach infested trap house with a bunch of dead-eyed junkies? Where he had no money, no family, and no prospects?
Or was he meant to go back further, to Chicago, to the life he’d once had? To the plans he’d been making, the dreams he’d been pursuing?
Yeah, he’d like to go back there, and he would, one day. But not before he’d taken out the little bitch who’d burned it all to the ground.
Roach took his gun from the passenger seat. “Yeah, I ain’t going back.”
As soon as the trooper saw the weapon, his face went slack with fear. He reached down for his own weapon, his hand getting obstructed by the heavy plastic of his wet parka.
