My Soul to Keep Part 32

Dawit found himself trembling from anger, sorrow, fear. All three emotions swamped his reason in waves as he sat helpless in the window. This pain, so thoroughly well known to his weary psyche, would not do. He would not resign himself to live in suffering. Not again. Never again.

"On my father's soul," he said, and he heard in his vow the voice of the warrior he had been so very long ago, "my wife and my child will be with me. I swear it."

He uttered the final words in a rasp he himself could barely hear, even in the silence. "Forever," he said. "Forever."

47.

Jessica didn't allow herself to stop-except to pay a toll and ask the attendant for the quickest route out of the state-until they were in Palm Beach County, more than an hour's drive away. She would have happily plowed on even then, but Kira's complaints about needing to pee had been constant. And although Teacake had finally quieted in the last few minutes, curled near Kira's dangling feet, the cat was panting and obviously needed water. Not to mention food. h.e.l.l, she herself hadn't eaten anything except a m.u.f.fin at the hospital that morning. No wonder she felt so dizzy and sick to her stomach. It was nearly six.

"Where are we?" Kira asked drowsily, peering to try to see over the dashboard as Jessica coasted off the Turnpike.

"West Palm Beach. Remember where we stopped on the way to Disney World? All the drivers in the big trucks were here? And there are ... bathrooms!" She tried to sound excited, to make it more a game than a nightmare.

Kira, scowling, didn't look entertained. "I'm thirsty."

"I'll get you a juice, then, okay?"

She didn't need gas, thank goodness. The van still had half a tank. This would be a quick stop. The full-service complex was like new, painted pink and aqua like the Art Deco buildings in Miami. The smells from the competing fast-food chains inside made Jessica's mouth melt with saliva. She was starving.

It wasn't until Jessica finished chaperoning Kira in the bathroom and stood in front of the juice machine searching for a dollar bill that she realized she only had two dollars and change left in her wallet. Her heart thudded. Feeling the familiar panic, she glanced wild-eyed throughout the lobby.

There was an ATM on the wall, next to an arrangement of touristy brochures of Florida attractions. "Thank you, Jesus," she whispered. She had plenty of credit cards with her, but stocking up on cash was the only way to be safe. She might as well take out the limit, however many hundreds the machine would allow.

"Mommy, Teacake is hot in the car," Kira said as Jessica slipped her Barnett Bank card into the machine.

"I know, baby. It's not good to leave him out there. We'll be back in two minutes, I promise."

The message on the ATM's screen starded her: INVALID CARD, it read with a beep. The saliva gathered, this time, in Jessica's throat. The machine advertised the Honor network's deep-blue logo, and Barnett was an Honor card. What the h.e.l.l was wrong?

CONTACT FINANCIAL INSt.i.tUTION FOR a.s.sISTANCE, the machine said, beeping again. Jessica held out her trembling hand, waiting for the card to be spat back out at her, but no card came. The next message that flashed across the screen in green was WELCOME, asking the next customer to please insert a card.

"What-" Jessica tapped on the screen with the heel of her hand. "What in the world ... ?"

"Ate your card," came a drawling man's voice behind her, startling her. A bearded white man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt, which was stretched nearly threadbare across his big belly, stood in line, arms crossed. "Happened to me once when I forgot to make a deposit and I was bouncing checks up and down the seacoast. Just took the d.a.m.n card. They can fix it at the bank."

"The bank's closed," Jessica said feebly, as though the stranger could offer some solution, some comfort.

The man shrugged, not saying anything else. Did he think she was asking him for money? And wasn't she?

"Mommy ..." Kira prodded, yanking on Jessica's pant leg.

It came to her then. David must have done something to make the machine take her card. Maybe he had cleared out the account, closed it. Maybe the bank had some way of tracking her down, and she'd just revealed her location.

Jessica grabbed Kira's hand, pulling her without looking back at the man with the beard. She felt her knees shaking. They had to go. They weren't safe yet.

Jessica stopped frozen at the northward exit's automatic doors. She'd forgotten about the cat. He needed water. But she couldn't take care of it now. Running, pulling Kira with her, they escaped through the doors.

They should not have stopped. Jessica couldn't worry about eating now, or when they would have to stop for gas, or how nervous she would be in a short while, when the sun would be all but gone and she'd have to face the road at night.

"Mommy, why are we running?" Kira asked.

"We're in a hurry, that's all," Jessica said.

"Is Daddy coming?"

Lord G.o.d, I hope not, she thought. "Not yet, Kira," she said.

Jessica found the ramp to the Turnpike with a squeal of the van's tires. Teacake's awful cries started again.

What else was David capable of, besides making sure she would be broke? She didn't know. But Jessica felt very strongly, and with a deep sense of dread, that she was about to find out.

She'd decided on Georgia. She would take the Turnpike up to where it merged with 1-75 north of Orlando, as the toll attendant had told her, and that would lead straight into Macon. Bea had a half-brother there Jessica knew only as Uncle Bigger-last name Gillis, or Giles, she couldn't remember which-someone she was sure David didn't know about. They could stop there, with family, and she'd decide what to do. She would have time to think safely.

Already, with a plan, she felt better.

She wished she'd been able to warn her mother somehow, but she was sure Bea was protected in the hospital with Alex. David wouldn't dare try to hurt them there; Jackson, the emergency room hub for the county, was never deserted at night like the nursing home in Chicago must have been. Once Bea realized that Jessica and Kira were gone, she would probably a.s.sume she'd had a fight with David. She would worry for a while, but not for long. Jessica decided she would try to reach her the next day, from Macon.

And the police. She'd have to do that too. The composite sketch she'd tucked back into the drawer in her desk would be proof enough for Reyes. She'd leave a message for him the next time she stopped, so at least he would be notified by morning.

David would be a fool to chase her now. Was she secretly hoping he would simply give up and go away without police involvement? Even now, after everything he'd done? That seemed to be the only fitting outcome: David had to go back to his home. Whatever he was, wherever he belonged, he was a freak in their world.

d.a.m.n. She'd told herself that she wasn't allowed to think about David, because the road was slick with drizzle and it was nearly impossible for her to see through tears. Her head would have to go somewhere else for now. She would concentrate on details.

It was nine o'clock, and she'd been on the road for nearly four hours. Orlando, the green road signs announced, was sixty miles away; already, each billboard for a gas station or tourist stop advertised tickets for Disney World. Every few miles, Jessica saw a new set of Mouse ears. Jessica was thankful Kira had curled up in her seat to sleep after tiring of the Alphabet game. She'd been stuck on Q when she finally dozed off. She would be disappointed that they weren't going to Disney World after all, though she probably already suspected that.

Jessica turned the radio on softly, finding a static-filled R&B station to make up for the loss of Kira's chatter. The closer they got to the city, the stronger the Orlando station's signal.

Because of the cat, she hadn't been able to save gas by driving with the air conditioner off and the windows open, not as hot as it was; Peter had once told her how, when he was in college, his cat died while he was driving on the interstate in a car without AC. So the luminescent gas gauge was past Empty, and she would have to stop for gas soon or be stalled. There was no choice. And Jessica needed to eat; the growling in her stomach was fierce, and she had a headache even a three-course meal and plenty of aspirin wouldn't help by now.

Cash wasn't an option. Since both her Visa and Discover cards were maxed out, she'd have to pull off at the next exit and find a gas station that took American Express. And she'd have to hope David hadn't thought of that too.

Most of Florida's large stations had mini-marts, luckily, so she could find some hot food, some Pop-Tarts and fruit for Kira to eat for breakfast, cat food, maybe even cat litter. Teacake had been quiet for two hours straight, but now he was scurrying close to her feet, worrying her near the brakes. Jessica loved Teacake, but she was sorry she'd brought him. That had been dumb. Another thing to worry about.

d.a.m.nit. They really needed to stop.

Alongside the Turnpike, gas stations and fast-food franchises advertised with lighted signs perched on mammoth poles above the slash pine treetops. She saw another cl.u.s.ter of lights rising a half-mile north of her, from three gas stations and a Comfort Inn.

A motel. Did she dare stop, to rest? No. As ludicrous as it seemed, she'd never sleep a wink, worried that David could find them simply by spotting their van in the parking lot. She wanted to get as far away from him as possible.

Gas and food only. Then, back to the road.

"I want to talk to Daddy," Kira said, barely awake after Jessica roused her, sounding closer to tears than she had all day.

"Shhhhh," Jessica said, kissing her forehead, which was striped in red from the neon of the gas station's window display. "You will. I'll try to call him, okay? But we might not be able to talk to him right now."

"Where is he?" Kira whimpered.

"He's going to meet us tomorrow, honey."

Jessica said all of this, somehow, despite the stone-sized lump in her throat. She planned to make a call, all right, but it wasn't going to be to Daddy. Her fortress of lies would crumble soon. Wouldn't it be best to try to slowly tell Kira the truth, that they had left Daddy behind? She couldn't do it. Not yet. When she did that, she would have to admit it to herself.

Kira cheered up a little inside the mini-mart, after Jessica told her she could pick any candy bar and plastic toy filled with bubble gum she wanted. Meanwhile, Jessica shopped the cramped aisles for necessities: a comb, travel toothbrushes, cat food, a cat dish, bottled water, crackers to snack on. There was cat litter, but no litter box. Forget it. Teacake would just have to s.h.i.t in the van.

The greasy, shriveled hot dogs rolling on the pins of the roaster looked two days old, but the sight of meat made Jessica's stomach tumble eagerly. She fixed herself two, and had already eaten half of one by the time she made it to the counter with her armload of booty. Kira carried the Meow Mix.

The man behind the gla.s.s was middle-aged, a brother with gla.s.ses whose hairline formed a perfect, shining U. There was a paperback folded near his hands on the counter, a well-worn copy of Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale. Seeing the book made Jessica smile, at ease. It was good to see a brother reading a book by a sister.

"Durn. Looks like somebody forgot to pack," he said. "Who's this pretty little lady down here? What's your name, Sleepyhead?"

Kira didn't speak or smile, so Jessica answered for her. "Sorry she's grumpy. It's been a long drive," she said.

"This'll be all for you?" the man asked her.

"I'm going to fill up my van at pump one," Jessica said, handing him her American Express card with a silent prayer.

"All right. Lemme run it through, and when you come back in I'll give you the total."

Jessica watched, not blinking, as he zipped the card through a computer scanner. After a pause, the machine made a high blipping sound and Jessica exhaled, relieved. It had worked.

But the man made a face and zipped the card through again. "Error that time. Scanner could be acting up. If it don't go through this time, I'll punch in the number myself."

The same sound. Watching, Jessica's face was taut with anger, nervousness. She knew, as the man manually entered the card number on his machine, that it would not go through.

He looked up at Jessica, gazing above the rim of his gla.s.ses. "Says I've got to call. You had a problem with this card, miss?"

"I don't think so," Jessica said, a whisper.

The man regarded her a few seconds longer, his expression hard to read, then reached for his phone. "Sorry about this," he said.

Waiting, as he dialed and spoke to someone in numeric codes, Jessica finished eating her first hot dog. She had to struggle to swallow. What could she do without money? Had David trapped them here? If so, she would have to do better than leave a message for Reyes-she'd have to call 911. Right now.

The attendant was saying "Uh-huh" and "Is that so?" still looking at Jessica. Finally, he sighed, hung up, and spoke directly into her anxious eyes. "Well, miss, they're saying that card was reported stolen today."

Jessica closed her eyes, her chest sinking. "d.a.m.nit ..."

"I won't confiscate the card if you can show me a picture I.D., but I think this is something you need to settle with those folks there."

Her hands unsteady, Jessica searched her wallet for her driver's license. "I don't believe this," she said. "This is my f.u.c.king hu-... My ..." My f.u.c.king husband. She stopped herself, remembering Kira, and her eyes filled with tears of frustration. "This is a mistake. Here it is. My hair was longer then."

Very carefully, he examined the license, then Jessica's face. Finally, he smiled and handed both cards back to her. "It's prettier the way you have it now, I think. You favor that singer Toni Braxton. Girl sings her behind off," he said.

Jessica was flipping through her wallet to find an obscure card David might not know about. d.a.m.n him. She would just call the f.u.c.king police, then. He couldn't take her down like this. If he thought she was playing, he was wrong.

"Uhm ... Maybe there's something else in here ..."

The man pointed. "How about that Mobil card?"

"You take that?" Jessica asked him, stunned and grateful. She'd applied for it when she was a college freshman, and she hadn't even looked at the card in nearly a year.

"We better. We're a Mobil."

Jessica was so relieved, she nearly laughed. The Mobil card would go through, she was sure of it. If a gla.s.s part.i.tion hadn't separated them, she felt she would have hugged this man. He wasn't saying anything outright, and he wouldn't ask her any questions, but Jessica knew that he knew something was very wrong. And he wanted to help a sister out.

"I want to call Daddy," Kira said, reaching up to slap her Milky Way on the counter.

"I know you do. We'll call right after this nice man rings everything up. I'm going to get a key so you can use the bathroom in the back, and I'll call Daddy on the phone. See the phone right here? I promise I'll call and see if he's home."

Jessica glanced with sorrowful eyes at the man, shaking her head. Silently, he nodded. When he finished, the total on the register came to only five dollars. Jessica knew the real cost must be three times that much, even more. Her mouth fell open.

"We're having a sale tonight," he said. "I'll add another ten for the gas, and you can sign the receipt now. Then fill her up."

"Thank you," Jessica said, too moved, embarra.s.sed, and newly grief-stricken to even meet his eyes. The gas would surely cost more than that too. Suddenly, she'd become a charity case.

"Good luck with your phone call," the man said. Then he added, after a meaningful pause: "Hope it works out all right."

Jessica nodded, struck silent, blinking away her tears.

48.

An unremarkable white Ford sedan pulled into the lot of the Yee-haw Junction Mobil station off Exit 193 on the Florida Turnpike, sidling to a darkened corner near two covered Dumpsters. The headlights switched off first, then the engine. For a few seconds, the driver sat in the car.

The driver was the sort of man few people notice. No facial hair, skin brownish, ambiguously dark. He wore jeans and an aqua-blue Florida Marlins windbreaker despite a temperature of seventy-eight degrees, and he walked across the oil-spattered concrete toward the gas station's mini-mart. He did not go in. Instead, he stood just beyond the window and peeked around to glance inside.

At first, he saw no one except a bespectacled black man reading a book at the cash register. Then, carefully scouting the brightly lighted aisles, he saw the woman in the rear, standing at a pay telephone with an armload of bags. He could not see the girl, but she must be there. As he'd paced himself a kilometer behind the van, Mahmoud, from his handheld video monitor, had seen Dawit's wife awaken the girl and take her inside.

The fates were working in his favor, Mahmoud decided. He had no tracking device planted in the van, so while his video monitor allowed him to see Dawit's wife and hear her every word, he could have easily lost her when she surprised him by fleeing with the girl. His chase began too late. In fact, he'd guessed incorrectly that she would be driving on 1-95 until he heard her talk to a toll taker at a tollbooth west of him on the Florida Turnpike. That gave him not only her location, but her destination. But, in fact, once he found the Turnpike, he had somehow driven past her and was two minutes north of the West Palm Beach truck stop when he heard her tell her daughter they were stopping there.

Now, Mahmoud knew he would not have much time. He could not do his work here at the gas station because the attendant's part.i.tion was bulletproof, no doubt-Americans, unluckily for him, were always at war with one another-and the attendant was likely to shoot back. That would be catastrophic.

Instead, Mahmoud walked purposefully toward the van, where both front windows were partially open. Seeing Mahmoud and recognizing his scent, the cat stood at the window on his hind legs and cried out. Mahmoud tried the driver's door. Locked.

Mahmoud heard clicks throughout the vehicle as he slipped his thin universal key into the lock, and he opened the door with ease. When the cat tried to jump past him, Mahmoud struck out, making the animal fly against the pa.s.senger's door. Teacake hissed at him, scrambling upright, then vanished somewhere in the rear.