Never Go Home (29 page)

“Central Parking Garage,” he said.
“Level three. Backed into a spot in the middle of the last row. Now close your
hand.”

The man unthreaded his fingers from
hers. She made a fist around the object, pulled her hand tight to her side, and
slipped it into her jean’s pocket beside her cell phone. She left her hand on
top of the object. Her index finger traced it. Six buttons, and a hole at the
top. Something metal, pointed, inside the hole.

“I’ll go back and get it for you,
honey,” the guy said, stopping and stepping out of the flow of traffic. He
leaned in and kissed her cheek. The stubble around his mouth scratched at her. “I’ll
catch up at baggage claim.”

Clarissa looked around, smiled,
continued on. In the end, no one there would care. Unless they did. And if
there were someone there who took anything from the interaction other than a
husband or boyfriend going back to claim his significant other’s laptop or
carry-on, then the rest of the act wouldn’t have fooled them either.

She pulled the object out. It was a
car key. Everything was built into the device, the key, alarm, remote start,
and lock and unlock button.

She continued on, navigating
through the airport. At one point she reached into her purse and pulled out a
pair of knock-off designer sunglasses. She wasn’t sure if they were supposed to
be Gucci or Armani or Prada or some other brand. Clarissa didn’t care about such
things anymore.

Baggage claim was packed with
hundreds of people. The result of dozens of flights arriving at one time.
Midday madness. She stopped and stood on the tips of her toes and looked for
the man who handed her the key. Had he meant it when he said he’d catch up at
baggage claim, or had he said that to make the act more believable? She
wandered the snaking area, full of travelers, conveyor belts and yet to be
claimed bags. A tall man in an airport uniform pulled a red suitcase off a belt
that had stopped moving. The bag looked overstuffed. He tugged the extendable
handle all the way out and wheeled it to an office.

The land of abandoned luggage,
she thought.

Ten minutes later the man from the
terminal still had not arrived. She took one final glance around. Two-thirds of
the faces had changed over. That was fine with her. The fewer people around to
remember her standing there, the better.

It was the middle of June, not even
officially summer yet. But when she stepped outside, it felt like North Carolina
in August. The temperature was over ninety, as was the humidity. By the time
she found the parking garage, the bottom half of her shirt was in danger of
sticking to her back. It grew worse in the garage. Airflow was non-existent.
The structure reeked of exhaust and gas fumes.

Some idiot honked his horn in tune
with a song. Or perhaps he was just a jerk. The sound echoed off the floors and
walls and ceiling. The car drove past her. The young man behind the wheel
looked over at her and winked. Although her first instinct had been to extend a
gesture toward him, Clarissa ignored the guy. There was no point in getting
involved in something that could result in her being arrested, especially while
using an identity that could have been compromised without her knowledge.

She found the stairs and walked
down one flight. The air felt thicker on the third level. It smelled worse. The
front of her head ached, and she felt nauseous.

“Keep it together,” she told
herself. “A little further is all.”

The last row was visible from where
she stood. Rather than following the road to the left or right then back, she
cut through the middle, sidestepping between cars whose owners who were
incapable of parking in the middle of a spot.

She reached the last row, pulled
the key from her pocket and pressed the alarm. A silver Infiniti G Coupe
chirped and screamed and honked and flashed in response. She mashed the lock
and unlock buttons with her thumb until the car went silent.

“Not bad, Sinclair,” she muttered,
approaching the vehicle from the driver’s side.

She pressed the ignition button on
the key. The engine roared to life. She hoped the air conditioning had been
left on full blast. She turned to the side in front of the car and shuffled to
the door. Voices and laughter and footsteps echoed throughout the concrete
structure. She glanced around while pulling the door open and sliding into the
driver’s seat. The leather seat and steering wheel felt cool. The vents piped
ice-cold air out. She felt the ends of her hair lift and blow in the artificial
breeze. The radio had been left on a local classic rock station. She didn’t
bother to change it. The navigation unit had a destination pre-programmed. She
pressed buttons in an attempt to pan out or display a list of the directions.

She was interrupted before she
could figure it out.

Clarissa jumped at the sound of
knuckles rapping against the passenger side window. Her head jerked to the
right. She saw the handsome stubbled face from the terminal. The man smiled and
pointed toward the door lock. She felt along the armrest with her left hand and
located the window and lock controls. She glanced down, pressed the unlock
button.

The man stepped back. The door
swung open. He stuck his left leg in, lowered himself into the seat, then
dragged his right leg in and shut the door. His cologne blew past her. She
hadn’t noticed it in the terminal.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“You can call me Beck,” he said.

“That your first name or last
name?”

“Who says it’s my name at all?” The
right side of his mouth lifted upward. A small dimple formed under his cheek.

“Then you can call me Sally,” she
said.

His smile broadened. “You should
know it doesn’t work that way, Clarissa. If you were sent to meet me, you know
you would have been provided with all the necessary information. Think about it
for a moment. What would he have told you about me?”

“At a minimum, your name,” she
said.

“Yes,” he said. “Go on.”

“Possibly any combination of birth
date, social, current and former addresses, recent operations to assess threat
and experience level. Perhaps he’d include any living family members in case
the target was uncooperative.”

“And maybe even the names of those
who are closer than family?”

She nodded. “Good thing I don’t
have any of those.”

Beck grabbed his seatbelt and
pulled it across his chest. It locked with a solid click.

“I only know your name, Ms. Abbot.
The rest of your secrets are safe with you, and Sinclair.”

She reached for the shifter. Her
hand brushed his. She pulled back like a crocodile had lunged out of the water
at her.

This drew a laugh from Beck. “If I
were here to kill you, you wouldn’t be driving this car, Ms. Abbot.” He made a
show out of lifting his hand and dropping it on his lap. “That better?”

Clarissa said nothing. With her
left hand, she lowered her sunglasses, fixing them on the bridge of her nose.
She made a fist around the shifter with her other hand, slammed it into first
and peeled out of the parking spot, while spinning the wheel to the left. She
expected the maneuver to be met with calls for her to be careful with Beck’s
vehicle.

He had no reaction.

She slammed the brakes at the end
of the aisle. People fifteen feet away jumped and sprinted away from her.

Still, Beck said and did nothing.

Clarissa rolled her eyes. Otherwise,
she showed no outward reaction to his failure to display any reaction. She
turned right and remained under the speed limit until she reached the exit.
Beck extended his hand in front of her. A twenty dangled from his fingertips.
She passed the money onto a woman reading a book inside a bulletproof
enclosure. The woman never made eye contact. Clarissa collected the change, set
it in between her and Beck, and followed the curved ramp. The guided navigation
spat out directions. She followed them to I-90 and the Ted Williams Tunnel.

The tunnel was close to a half-mile
long. A sign hung at the entrance and said, “No passing,” in all caps and bold,
black letters. She ignored the warning. She took advantage of every break in
the double wide line of cars, weaving left to right to left again. She glanced
at Beck. His eyes were closed.

They emerged from the tunnel.
Though there were no clouds, the sky looked anything but blue. Hazy smog filled
the space between the horizon and the sun, which glared from overhead. The air
blowing through the vents, while cold, smelled like an ashtray that hadn’t been
emptied in a week. The car appeared to be new. Didn’t it come with some kind of
filter to protect against poor air quality?

“Beck?” she said.

He lifted his chin from his chest
and turned his head toward her. “Yeah?”

“Where are we going?”

“Wherever that GPS tells us to go.”

She glanced at the LCD screen. A
number was fixed to the upper right corner. Four hundred thirty-five miles to
go. In her head, Clarissa pictured the eastern seaboard. That distance would
put them close to Philadelphia or D.C., if she continued south. The tension in
her muscles slipped away like a dying man’s last breath. Sinclair wouldn’t
bring her home if he were going to kill her. He might have her arrested, but
not terminated.

Why not have her fly directly to
Reagan or Dulles?

She glanced to her right. Beck had
his head down and eyes closed again. His chest rose and fell in a steady
rhythm. Either he’d fallen asleep, or he was deeply relaxed. Either way, he
didn’t pose an immediate threat to her. She wondered whether he knew the reason
for them to travel together. Perhaps the man lived in the Boston area. Or maybe
it was a mutual dependence thing. She knew she could drive herself crazy trying
to figure it out. She worked through possible reasons and explanations, but
none of them reached a conclusion she deemed plausible. And none of it
mattered. The only one who truly knew was Sinclair.

And there was little chance he’d
tell her until he had to.

If
he had to.

They continued southwest. The sun
continued its westward trajectory. It would be hours before its light no longer
benefited them. The longest day of the year was close. Only a week away.

Three hours into a seven hour
drive, Beck woke. He lifted his arms over his head and twisted at the waist.
Something popped in his back or his shoulders.

“Pull over at the next exit,” he
said.

“There’s nothing at the next one,”
she said.

“How do you know?”

“The sign on the side of the
interstate had nothing under gas, food and lodging. It’ll be a waste to pull
over if you need any of those three things.”

“Okay, take the following exit,
then.”

They passed the off-ramp to
nothing. She crossed into the right hand lane in advance of the next one. The
sign indicated there were multiple gas stations there. He could get a drink or
food or use the restroom. Whatever it was he needed.

She studied the cars behind them.
So far, there hadn’t been a single one that paced her. That didn’t mean
anything, though. An experienced team would use five or six different vehicles,
changing places often. Possibly even having the drivers switch out cars along
the way. There was no guarantee of a pattern, other than the people behind the
wheel. She’d been on the lookout for a certain type of person. The problem was,
between Boston and New York, half the drivers on the road matched that type.
Even halfway to Philadelphia, at least four out of every ten cars had someone
who fit the profile in her head.

So she let it go and watched for a
constant tail.

She pulled off the interstate, made
a right at a blinking red light. They had a choice between three different gas
stations. She turned left into the first one they encountered. This way, she
wouldn’t have to cross traffic to drive back to the interstate. The gas gauge
read half-full. She pulled up to a pump, got out, reached for the hose. A man
wearing greasy blue coveralls trotted over. He waved his arms and whistled and
yelled at her to stop.

Beck had stepped out of the car. He
looked at her from across the roof.

“We’re in New Jersey, Clarissa. You
can’t pump your gas here. If you touch that hose, you’ll be in violation of a
state Supreme Court ruling that dates back to 1951.”

She’d driven through the state
enough to know this, yet it escaped her mind. When was the last time she’d
stopped for gas in Jersey?

The man smiled as he placed himself
between her and the gas pump, like he guarded an endangered species. She lifted
her hands and backed up. Looking to her left, she noticed Beck stepping into
the convenience store. She decided to join him inside and grab a cup of coffee.

A bell dinged when she pulled the
door open. Three people stood in line, staring straight ahead. None of them
appeared to be with one another. Clarissa walked behind them, taking note of
the largest of the three, a man wearing a Mets t-shirt with the sleeves cut
off. He was big, but out of shape. His gut protruded over his waist. She deemed
him not much of a threat, and moved on.

She found the coffee maker in the
back corner. The brew in the pot looked old and smelled stale. The odor
lingered in her nose even after she took a step back. She imagined the bottom
quarter of the pot was thick sludge.

Beck emerged from a hallway and
walked up to her.

“High octane,” he said, wincing at
the sight of the coffee.

“I think I’ll pass,” she said,
looking toward the cooler. “Grab a soda instead.”

He followed her to the fridge, then
the register. They stood next to each other. The appearance of a couple again.
It worked, she figured. He used the change from the parking garage and another
twenty to pay for two drinks, a bag of sunflower seeds and the gas.