Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 178(@200wpm)___ 142(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
"Seatbelt."
"You have a one track mind."
"Seatbelt, Oakley."
She clicks it. I throw her duffel in the floorboard, climb in, and the engine turns over on the first try like it knows this is the only trick I need from it today. I reverse hard, swing onto the rutted track, and put the cabin in the mirror.
A shape steps out of the trees near the porch. Dark jacket. Helix patch catching what little light the fog allows. I don't give him a second look. The truck bottoms out in a hole and then we're climbing away from the gunfire, pine slapping the sides, Oakley's camera bouncing against her ribs.
"You're going to blow a tire," she says.
"I'm going to blow this mountain off our back bumper. Hold on."
She holds the dash with one hand and her camera with the other. "Where exactly are we fleeing in style?"
"Off this road. Then into town. Woodbridge Falls has people, and people make it harder to open fire without witnesses."
"People also talk."
"Then we don't give them a story. We give them a truck rolling through and a woman who keeps her camera in her lap."
"My camera stays with me. That's nonnegotiable."
"Your mouth is also nonnegotiable. I'm noticing a pattern."
She tips her head against the seat, eyes bright and combative. "Keep noticing. Maybe you'll learn my first name without a hired gun spelling it for you."
"Oakley. I learned it the first time you said it. I used Vega because they used it. That's called paying attention."
"Careful. That almost sounded like a compliment."
"It wasn't."
"Sure."
The track spits us onto a wider county road. Fog thins enough that I can see the painted line. I ease off the gas without dropping our speed below useful. My hands stay tight on the wheel. In the mirror the mountain eats the cabin and keeps the rest.
Oakley twists to look back, then faces forward again. "They're not following."
"Yet."
"Comforting."
"I'm not here to comfort you. I'm here to keep you from collecting a matching set of bullet holes."
"You could do both. Multitask. Shock the class."
I glance at her. Dirt on her cheek. Hoodie snagged. Yellow jacket still bunched in her lap because she grabbed it on the way out the window like fashion was a survival skill.
"Give me the jacket."
"It's cold."
"It's yellow and it reads like a flare. Give it."
She holds it out like she's doing me a favor. I work the hem with one hand on the wheel, then the collar, then the facing along the zipper. Midway down the right side I feel it. A hard little bead stitched into the seam, no bigger than a vitamin.
I hold it up between us.
Oakley goes still. The fight in her face doesn't vanish. It sharpens.
"That's been in there since Chicago," she says. "Every motel. Every trail I thought was far enough."
"Then they didn't find you on the ridge. They rode along from the minute you left."
"And you were going to lecture me about walking into your search. Cute. I've been the search."
"You've been wearing a leash and calling it a jacket."
"Call me leashed again and I'm throwing this camera at your head."
I crack the window and flick the bead out into the ditch. Then I drop the jacket in her lap. "Wear it if you want. It's dumb. It's also yours."
"You're a real comfort, Hawthorne."
"Already covered that."
She yanks the jacket on anyway, chin up, like putting it back on is a vote against me.
I pull the middle burner and call Banks. He answers like he's been staring at the phone.
"Talk."
"Cabin took fire. Two or three. Helix. They knew her name. We're out in the truck. Tracker in her jacket hem, Chicago vintage. I dumped it. Heading into Woodbridge Falls."
Keys click on his end. "Oakley Vega. Yeah. I see her. Don't sit still in that town. It's small enough to watch."
"I'm not sitting. I'm passing through long enough to change the picture."
"Crewe's north if you need a hole."
“I’m gonna see Alden first.”
“Copy. Later."
I hang up.
Oakley watches the road like it might confess something. "Another brother?"
"Banks. He lives in screens. Crewe lives closer. You're not meeting either of them until I know this town isn't already hosting a welcoming committee."
"You make family sound like a tactical accessory."
"Family's the only accessory that shoots back."
"Romantic."
"Practical."
She huffs. "You keep using those words like they don't overlap when you shove me behind a stove."
"They don't. One keeps you breathing. The other one sells books."
"Wow. Do you practice that line in the mirror?"
"I practice staying alive. The lines come free with the job."
The first buildings of Woodbridge Falls slide out of the fog. A diner with a flickering OPEN sign. A hardware store with a handwritten hours card taped to the glass. A sheriff's office that looks like it closes when the coffee runs out. Main Street is two lanes and a handful of parked trucks, nobody moving fast, everybody looking twice because that's what small towns do when a dented blue pickup comes in hot from the mountain road.