The Passenger (5 page)

“It gets easier,” she said.

“What does?”

“Starting fresh.”

She said it like she knew more than she should. I felt like bolting, but that would have looked all wrong and I needed to blend. I was about to say something when I saw Blue scowl at the corner of the bar. The new customer had parked himself at a table and opened a newspaper. When she locked eyes with him, he waved her over.

“I suppose the professor thinks we have table service,” Blue said.

The man was wearing a dark brown cable-knit sweater with a shawl collar over a button-down shirt. I suppose there was something academic in the overall effect, even though his forehead was on the brink of Neanderthal.

Blue took his order. I heard her mention that if he needed anything else, he could always walk ten paces over to the bar. She did, however, deliver his Budweiser to his table; the Professor nodded an acknowledgment without looking up from his newspaper.

I was thinking about leaving when Blue came over to me and whispered so softly, “Where did you get it?”

“Where'd I get what?” I said.

“That lovely passport of yours,” she whispered.

“From the passport department,” I said, which I realize sounded stupid the moment I said it. Truth be told, I had never left the country, never applied for a legitimate passport, so I had no idea how it was done. Seemed like a woman my age—what was it again? Twenty-eight?—ought to know these things.

Blue smiled from only the left side of her face. I drained the rest of my drink.

“I should be on my way,” I said.

“I know it's fake,” Blue said.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“How long have you been Amelia Keen?”

I felt ice-cold and overheated at once. I had been Amelia Keen less than two weeks and could feel myself on the brink of losing her. I guess Blue saw the look of dead fear in my eyes. She softened a bit.

“I don't want to give you any trouble,” she said. “I simply want to know where you acquired such a fine piece of forgery.”

This wasn't the kind of discussion one wants to have in a public place. I took inventory of each customer; no one was watching us, but still.

“Not here,” I said.

“I close in an hour,” said Blue. “Why don't you have another drink while you wait?”

T
HE OLD
guys departed before last call. The solo dart player gulped one more beer as he clobbered himself in another game. The Professor sipped his Budweiser like a lady. It took him almost ninety minutes to finish one beer. He left a twenty on his table and departed without a word. Blue locked the door after all of the customers left, finished cleaning up behind the bar, and then said, like we were old friends, “Hungry? Let's grab a burger while you tell me all of your dark secrets.”

I wasn't planning on telling Blue anything, but I had to tell her something because she knew my new name and I needed to keep it safe. We left through the back door, which she secured with a dead bolt and a padlock. The alley smelled like urine and motor oil. One floodlight was the only illumination besides the crescent moon.

“My car is around the corner,” Blue said, crunching the gravel as she strolled toward the street.

A black Lincoln Town Car was parked ten yards in front of us. As we passed the car, the door opened and the Professor slid out of the driver's seat, barely making a sound.

“Amelia?” he said.

My throat felt like fingers were tightening around it.

“Sorry. You got the wrong girl,” I said, surprised I could get the words out.

The back door of the sedan swung open and another man crawled out of the car. Looked like he'd been sitting for a while; his limbs worked out the kinks slowly, like a spider. The floodlight gave me a quick look at his face before he slipped into the shadows again. I'd seen him before. I remembered that crisp white shirt and the steel frames of his glasses. It was the cruel accountant from the bar the other night. The Accountant swept his gaze across Blue, sizing her up.

“Miss,” he said to Blue, holding the back door for her, “why don't you take a seat?”

“This looks like a personal matter that's got nothing to do with me. How about I just head on home, like every other day,” Blue said. “Nothing happened here. At least nothing that I could remember.”

I had a feeling Blue was telling the truth. She could walk away without calling the cops or giving the matter a second thought.

“We'll give you a ride home. It's not safe for a lady to be out alone this time of night,” said the Accountant.

The Professor pulled a gun from the small of his back and gently guided Blue into the backseat.

“Where were we, Amelia?” said the Accountant.

“Like I said, you got the wrong girl.”

“Maybe you're right. Is it Tanya, then?”

“Who are you?”

“Never mind that. Tell me something, Tanya. Did you kill Frank, or was it an accident?”

T
HE
Professor and the Accountant seemed bent on taking me and Blue for a drive. Even with a gun trained on me and under direct orders, I found myself looking for a way out. The Professor opened the front passenger door and told me to get inside. When I didn't move, he pressed the muzzle of the gun into my rib cage. This left me conflicted between two impossible options.

“I really don't want to get in the car,” I said, trying to sound calm and reasonable. “Maybe we can just discuss this here.”

“Sweetheart, get in the car,” said the Professor.

“Why don't I take the backseat and Blue can have shotgun. Wouldn't you prefer that, Blue?”

“Actually, I'd prefer driving myself home,” Blue said. “My car is just around the corner and this looks like a private matter.”

“Get in the car,” the Professor repeated.

“The trunk,” I said. “You should put me in the trunk.”

The Professor turned to the Accountant and said, “There's something wrong with this one.”

“It's safer for you if I'm in the trunk,” I said. It really was. I was speaking to him logically, but he just figured I had an angle he hadn't calculated yet.

The Accountant nodded some unspoken motivation to the Professor, who moved the gun up to that soft spot under my jaw. It seemed more real then; the balance of fear shifted, like a seesaw.

“Have you changed your mind yet?”

“I think I have.” I got into the car, put on the seat belt, and tried to do those deep-breathing exercises Carol once taught me.

The Professor slipped the gun into the small of his back, circled the car, and got into the driver's seat. The Accountant, sitting in the backseat, rested his weapon on his thigh, but the barrel was aimed at my side. If he pulled the trigger, the bullet would likely go right through my arm and pierce my heart.

We pulled out of the alley onto a dark side street. My head burned hot, like I had a fever.

“Where are we going?” Blue said.

“Nowhere in particular,” said the Accountant. “We just need to have a quick chat with Tanya here.”

“That's not my name,” I said.

“Whatever your name is,” said the Accountant.

“I'm Amelia Keen. I was born November third, nineteen eighty-six, in Tacoma, Washington. My parents were George Arthur Keen and Marianne Louise Keen.”

The Professor, despite the Accountant's claim, looked like he had a destination in mind. He turned onto Bee Cave Road and then Barton Creek Boulevard, while the Accountant continued what might have sounded like a friendly interrogation to an outside observer who didn't see the gun trained on me.

“And how are you liking Austin?” the Accountant asked.

“I like it fine.”

“You plan on staying?”

“I don't know.”

“Are you going to become a problem?”

“Who's asking?” I said.

It was hard to concentrate on what the Accountant was saying with the car jerking sideways as the Professor wove through traffic. He had a lead foot, either gunning the engine or hitting the brakes. I began to feel nauseated and dizzy. A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead.

“I am,” said the Accountant.

“Who is really asking?”

I could barely get the words out. It felt like I was breathing in a vacuum.

“Are you going to become a problem, Tanya, Amelia?”

“No,” I said, but I knew my answer didn't matter.

The Professor drove at the same warp speed and the Accountant's gun remained at its casual but deadly angle.

“Can you pull over?” I said. My heart was beating holes in my chest. I felt like I might die of something unknown if I couldn't get out of the car. I almost wished the Accountant would put a bullet in me.

We started driving through a park or greenbelt or something. The Professor was speeding, going maybe eighty miles an hour in a forty-mile zone. When I looked at the driver, he'd changed. It wasn't the Professor anymore. It was
him.
And all I could think was that this drive had to end. Before I completed that thought, I swung my legs counterclockwise and bashed the Professor's head against the window. Then I pulled on the emergency brake and kicked him again. The car careened off the road, down an embankment, and into woods. The Accountant, trying to brace himself, fired his weapon through the roof. The car tumbled once and landed back on its wheels, angled sideways along the rise of the hill.

The Professor was out cold, his head resting against the window. He looked peaceful, like he was taking a short nap.

“Get his gun,” Blue shouted.

I reached out in the darkness and found the Professor's gun behind his back. Blue wrestled in the backseat with the Accountant.

“Shoot him,” she said.

I didn't. I just froze, watching Blue try to wrest the gun from the Accountant. It fired through the front windshield, turning the window into a glass spiderweb.

“Shoot him,” she said again.

At first I couldn't get the trigger to work, but then I remembered Frank's Uncle Tom showing me how to use his revolver. I pulled the safety and shot the Accountant in the leg.

While he wailed in pain, Blue seized the Accountant's gun and fired one shot through his head and one through his heart. Then she fired two shots through the back of the driver's seat. The Professor made a hiccup sound after the second hit.

That's not how I would have played it. I just wanted out of the car. Maybe they planned to kill us; maybe they didn't. But killing them truly was not on my agenda. This might have been a temporary fix, but I had a feeling it was going to dig me so deep into a hole I might never find my way out.

“You there?” Blue asked.

“Yes,” I said.

Blue turned on the dome light and looked over at the Accountant. Her face was cold and hard. She felt for a pulse, even though I'd never seen anyone that dead. She then reached around to the front seat and checked the Professor's pulse.

“Dead,” she said.

Then she looked at me for a moment, the gun still cradled in her palm. She had the expression of someone making a hard decision. I could have sworn that it was determining whether I should live or die. I thought about the gun in my hand and wondered if I could use it. I felt a cold sweat trickle down my back. As I was trying to figure out how far I would go to stay alive, Blue clicked the safety, wiped the gun with her sleeve, and dropped it on the Accountant's lap. I finally caught my breath again.

Blue slipped off the plaid shirt she was wearing over her tank top and started wiping down the door handle. She used the shirt to unlatch the back door. She had to throw her shoulder into getting it open, since we were on a slope. She opened the passenger door for me and tossed me her shirt.

“Wipe down anything you might have touched,” she said. “And put the gun back where you found it.”

Blue seemed a little too clearheaded for my liking, but at least she had a plan.

I followed Blue's lead, wiped the gun for prints, and stuffed it in the Professor's coat pocket. I had no idea where I had laid my hands, so I buffed down everyplace my arms could reach. I heard a car in the distance.

“Kill the lights,” Blue said.

I fumbled to find the switch. The car passed on the road above the embankment just as the lights went dead.

“We have to get out of here,” I said.

“What we have to do is keep our heads straight. One fingerprint and the police can put you at the crime scene. Assuming you're in the system.” Blue said the last bit as a deliberate jab. I wasn't in the system, but it was safe to assume my fingerprints were on file somewhere.

I finished wiping down the front seat as thoroughly as I could manage. Then we crawled up the embankment to the road. It was as good as any place for our detour. At this hour the street was so dark you couldn't even see the toppled town car unless you were looking hard for it.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Walk,” she said. “I don't live far from here.”

I wasn't sure it was wise tagging along with someone of Blue's nature, but I didn't see another choice at that moment. We walked for more than an hour, until Blue stopped in front of a long driveway on an unlit street. Up a twisty walkway flanked by neglected topiaries was a mansion-size Tudor-style house. From the road it looked a bit haunted.

“You live here?” I said. The accommodations seemed tony for a bartender.

“An old lady lives in the house. I have the place in back.”

One single light glowed from the upstairs bedroom in the big house. We walked along a stone footpath on the side of the property to a guesthouse behind the kidney-shaped pool. The guesthouse didn't match the house. It looked like an afterthought. Blue used her key and opened the door.

Inside was the sparest home I'd ever seen. It was nice, but like an extended stay hotel room with a cheap kitchenette. The bedroom had a queen bed and a dresser. The small living room had a couch, a coffee table, and a television. There was nothing else, nothing personal to give life to the space. The coldness of her accommodations unsettled me. I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe a painting or a family photo or some kind of personal knickknack to let me know that the woman I'd just killed two men with was part of this world.