Cross could not remember a time in his life when he had been wetter or colder than he was in that moment. Soaked to the fucking bone with cold March rain. His fingertips and feet were numb, and when they did give sensation, it was only pain.
He didn’t know how many miles he had walked, ran, and jogged by now. Thirty? Forty? Far more, likely. He had a good idea of where he was, and he knew where he had gotten out of his truck. That gave him a basic idea of how many miles it would have been on the road.
But in the woods?
On foot?
Trying not to get fucking lost?
Circling the same tree three times twice?
He had no clue.
Still, he kept moving.
That track of water he thought was a goddamn creek?
Neck deep and fast moving.
He supposed it probably helped him to lose the dogs, though.
Unfortunately, jumping into it without looking had fucked him in another way. The phone he had taken from the truck?
Worthless, now.
Entirely ruined.
Cross tried to turn it on and make a call only for the screen to splutter with life, and then blacken with death.
Coldly appropriate, considering.
He pushed on through that shitty circumstance, too. He didn’t have the first clue how he was going to get himself out of this mess. He only knew that for now he had to keep moving.
One step in front of the other.
Cross couldn’t stop.
Still, he didn’t dare come out of the woods after the first night. He didn’t trust himself to shack up in the first cabin he came across on the second day he was in the woods because he thought for sure it would be his downfall.
He’d fall asleep, maybe.
Succumb to the cold, and get a fire going.
Alert somebody.
No, he didn’t stop.
He just kept moving.
Cross had come out to the main road several times after following quad trails. He was somewhere between New Denmark and Bluebell—small New Brunswick counties with a hell of a lot of trees and fields.
Miles and miles of both, actually.
The county was quite rural. So much so that the houses in the area were spread quite far apart. Tucked away behind trees, and long, narrow driveways.
A few old barns that were starting to show their age with concaved roofs. He almost slipped inside one of those a few hours ago, but thought better of it considering he was still within a few counties from the border.
Was it possible the cops looking for him were still searching a twenty mile radius around the border?
Very likely.
Cross wanted to put another twenty miles in between them just to be fucking sure, though. He was not going to bet they hadn’t moved further out of their inner circle of searching. Not when it meant putting his freedom on the line.
“Jesus Christ,” he grunted into his cold palms.
More than anything, Cross wanted to get warm.
Then, he wanted to get the hell out of Canada and home to his wife and daughter. Somehow …
He just didn’t know how.
Cross picked up his pace as he came down the woods trail. A jog that was brisk enough for him to ignore how fucking cold his hands were, but made the blisters on the bottom of his feet painfully aware that he was moving again.
Fuck it.
A main road was probably coming up again.
Nighttime was falling.
His second night …
Cross refused to spend a third night in these goddamn woods. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive it if he had to, anyway.
“Fuck,” Cross muttered, righting himself again.
He looked down to see tracks in the darkness. He’d tripped over railway tracks. The trees had started to thin, which made him think he was coming to another main road.
No.
Railway tracks.
Frustration leaked through his bloodstream. Despite knowing that it was a bad idea to do so, he sat down on the edge of the cold metal track, and buried his face in his palms. He needed to think for five minutes. Plus, his breath against his hands helped to warm them up. Not a lot, but a bit.
Think.
Plan.
Figure this shit out.
It had been dark for a half hour now. Given his watch and phone were both ruined, he didn’t have a clue about the time. He figured maybe nine at night, or something like that. At this point, he wasn’t even sure where he was, as it had been a while since he came out to a main road where he could read a damn sign.
A rumbling beneath Cross made him place his hands to the metal tracks. The vibrating only got more intense until he heard a horn blare further down the tracks. Quickly, he jumped up and ducked down into the ditch beside the rails. Thirty seconds later, a CN train came into view. It was long enough that it had three different engines pulling to give it power.
None of that really mattered to Cross.
Down the tracks, something had caught his eye.
Blinking green.
He knew that meant either a switch in tracks, or a crossing was coming up for the train.
Main roads.
Cross climbed up out of the ditch as the back end of the train came around. He wasn’t sure how his cold hands worked, but they managed to grab hold of the railing on the stairs of the last railway car. Not a caboose, like people might assume. A flatbed that probably carried cargo containers or something of the sort.
He didn’t intend to stay on the train very long, so he didn’t go higher onto the flatbed than the stairs. Leaning to the side, he looked as far as he could to see what was coming up. The train wasn’t moving particularly fast, but it was enough.
Cross saw what he was waiting for …
One, two, three.
He jumped from the back of the flatbed car, and assumed he would land in another ditch full of wet, dead grass and overgrowth.
Nope.
His knees hit gravel. His palms dragged across sharp rocks in an attempt to keep his face from going right into the ground.
Pain coursed through his nervous system, but Cross didn’t have the fucking time or give a damn to sit there and cry about it. Pushing up to his feet, he stared at the large, circular lights overtop his head marked by a huge black X. Pulsing red back and forth, the crossing lights stopped once the train was a half of a mile down the tracks further.
Cross looked down the main road one way.
A sharp turn, a fuck lot of trees, an older house with rows of chopped wood outside. By the looks of the beat up truck in the driveway and the light in the windows, someone was home there. Down in that same direction, there were no other houses.
A small lake, with houses on the other side of it sat just east of the house.
Shit.
Nothing.
Basically.
Cross looked the other way, and froze.
All the houses.
Or a few scattered ones, anyway.
And just above the crest of the small hill leading up from the train tracks?
A fucking store.
It didn’t look like very damn much, as far as that went. It was pretty clear he was still in a very rural area. Trees for miles.
The store in question was half a business, and half a home. The home was the upper level, and by the looks of it, the bottom was all for the store.
Every single thing that was bad and stupid would be Cross walking into that business, and making his presence known. After all, he’d just spent a night in the woods, and was working on his second. He looked like hell. He felt like it, too.
No doubt, warnings had been sent out about somebody on the run, too.
Sure, the cops were looking for some sandy blond, blue-eyed guy. Well, he had tossed the wig and his contacts came out after he jumped into that very deep creek. Still, it was human nature to be suspicious.
Before he could decide to duck back down and wait, rumbles started. He knew those engine sounds. Up the road, a good twenty dirt bikes and quads pulled into the store toward the far right end where a gas pump was set up.
Not two seconds later, someone walked out the side of the store and started working at the pump.
There was a door on the front.
And apparently one on the side for gas.
Cross wondered how likely it was that some small, rural New Brunswick country ass store was going to have more than one employee at a time?
Not likely at all.
He darted up the hill and onto the road, and didn’t look back. The closer he came to the store, the better he could see the yellow and red sign hanging above the door.
Bluebell Quikway, it read.
Cross nodded to himself.
He knew exactly where he was now.
Taking one last look at the gathered bikes and quads, Cross saw the blonde woman was still busy filling up the teenagers’ gas tanks. A note on the door said it was full service for gas. Just beyond the front door was a cash register, and behind it?
No one.
Cross wasn’t interested in stealing anything.
What he needed was that goddamn phone on the cash drawer. Slipping inside, he glanced down the long back end of the store where the side door happened to be. He could see directly outside to the gas tank.
He kept one eye on the people as he picked up the phone, listened for a tone, and then dialed a familiar number.
It rang once.
Then twice.
Come on … come on.
Three times.
Then four.
On the fifth ring, Cross knew Zeke’s message recording would pick up. He knew this was a risk, if only because they weren’t the kind of people who answered unknown numbers.
For some reason, Zeke picked up.
“Hello?”
“Holy fucking shit,” Cross mumbled, leaning his weight against the cash.
“Cross?”
“Holy fucking shit.”
“Cross!”
In the background, he could hear what sounded like a … jet engine?
Cross peered down the store again, and noticed a couple of bikes were moving to the side to let others fill up. They came closer to the side door than he was comfortable with. They were going to have to come in to pay soon.
“I don’t have time,” Cross said into the phone.
“Just … tell me where you are,” Zeke replied.
“You wouldn’t be able to find it even if I did. It’s a passing county on the way to a larger town in Buttfuck Nowhere, New Brunswick.”
“Well, I just landed in Fredericton, New Brunswick on a charter jet. I’ve got a pilot here who is willing to overlook an extra passenger on the way back to New York.”
“What made you fly into there?”
“I didn’t want to go in closer to the border. It’s hot as hell right now. Besides, from all the maps Catherine got of yours and the Google shit we dragged up, I figured you were going to move as far as you could away from the border. Was I right?”
“Sure, but not that far.”
“Can’t land an American plane anywhere else but an international airport.”
“Isn’t Fredericton’s airport small?”
“Very. It’s going to work for us, though. The only deal is I need to be back here before four in the morning to make it work. Otherwise, we’re going to have to go through a bunch of fucking checks and that’s a problem.”
Cross squeezed his eyes shut, thinking about maps, miles, and where he knew places were. His brain was fucking fried.
So tired.
“It’s two hours,” Cross said.
“What?”
“A two hour drive from where you are to me, or thereabouts.”
“Seriously?”
“There’s a town like thirty minutes from here called Plaster Rock. Remember a couple years back when they did that big report on World Pond Hockey?”
“Sure,” Zeke muttered, “and how stupid it looked.”
“That’s where they have the games.”
“You want me to go there?”
“It’s not a very big town. One road goes right through the whole thing.”
“Jesus,” Zeke grumbled under his breath.
One of the guys got off his bike outside, and Cross cussed.
“I gotta go—edge of town. I’ll be waiting. Bring me fucking clothes and a blanket!”
“Cross—”
He hung up the phone, and darted back outside just as a young man and a group of his friends came in through the side door.
Cross was beginning to fucking hate ditches, trees, and fields. He hoped once this was all said and done that he never had to look at one more ditch, tree, or field again. It wasn’t like he was asking for very goddamn much, considering.
Cold seeped into his bones.
For the most part, the snow seemed gone.
The rain had stopped.
He was still freezing.
Resting on his back in a ditch, he stared up at the inky sky. Dotted with speckles of stars, it would be a nice sight if not for the cloud of gray that blurred his vision every single time he breathed.
He needed to get warm. He needed a damn shower. He needed home, his wife, and his daughter.
Despite the fact he knew he should start moving again to keep warm, Cross didn’t dare leave his spot. As it was, it took him a hell of a long time to get from Bluebell to Plaster Rock on foot. And now here he was, resting under the Welcome to Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, Home of World Pond Hockey sign.
Fucking ugly thing.
Clearly, his mood was also worsening.
Cross was perpetually wet, now. From his shoes to his clothes, soaked through, freezing wet. That probably wasn’t helping his mood a whole lot, to be honest.
Lost in his thoughts, Cross nearly missed the flash of lights coming from his left. A few seconds later, that same flash of lights came again. Rolling over to his knees, he poked his head up out of the ditch just enough to look down the road.
A car moved slowly through the dark. Too slow for it to be normal, considering the speed sign stated eighty kilometers per hour was the limit. This car was maybe going fifteen.
Given it was close to twelve at night, the road was basically empty. People around there apparently didn’t get out much at night, but that’s usually how it was for small rural towns, anyway. The only thing to find at night around there was probably trouble.
Like him.
Again, the car flashed its lights.
Through the darkness, he could see it wasn’t a cop car, but he still didn’t trust himself to get up out of the ditch and make his presence known.
Zeke would—
“Cross!”
Laughing with exhaustion, Cross pushed out of the wet ditch and right out into the middle of the road. The car stopped ten feet away. Zeke called his name one more time, as though he wasn’t sure what he was seeing in that moment. Cross felt so fucking relieved he almost fell over.
But he didn’t.
“Get in this fucking car. We’re running short on time,” Zeke yelled.
Cross didn’t need to be told a second time.
He climbed into the back, not the front. Warm air clung to his skin the second he closed the door, but it still wasn’t even close to being enough.
“Turn the heat up,” Cross hissed.
His teeth chattered.
His skin felt like it was peeling off.
“It’s all the way up, man,” Zeke said quietly over his shoulder.
“Fuck.”
Zeke’s gaze met his in the rearview. “You look like shit.”
“I have been in the woods for a day, night, another day, and this would have been a second night.”
“You had a half of a dozen cabins scouted, Cross.”
He nodded, feeling half dazed and half crazed. “Yeah, but they were too close to the outside rim of the damn twenty mile radius they always search. Couldn’t trust it. I just kept moving, anyway.”
“Here.”
Zeke threw back a bag with a Walmart logo stamped on the front. “Best I could do for the time of night, and all. I was in that store ten minutes to closing, so don’t complain.”
Cross dug in the bag.
“These clothes are ugly as fuck.”
“I know.”
The jeans were half decent, though.
“It’ll do,” Cross mumbled.
He was already half undressed. His desire to get the wet clothes off was only matched by his need to get the fuck out of Canada at the moment.
“And a blanket.”
A heavy fleece blanket hit Cross in the face.
Suddenly, he didn’t care about clothes.
Half naked, he wrapped himself in that blanket, and rested back on the seat of the car. His best friend chuckled from the front seat. Cross eyed the emblem on the back of the leather seat.
“Zeke?”
“Hmm?”
“Is this a rental?”
“I know it’s not a fucking Mercedes or something.”
“It’s a goddamn Kia.”
“You always find something to complain about.”
“So?”
“It was the best I could do given—”
“Time of night, I know,” Cross interjected with a heavy sigh. “How mad is Catherine at me right now?”
“Like do you have a scale or something you want me to use?”
“One to ten, say.”
“Twenty,” Zeke murmured.
Cross nodded.
He figured that.
“She’s kind of scary, you know?”
Cross laughed lowly. “Is she?”
“Fuck yes. When she’s freaked out, can’t do much, and she’s worried about you … psychopath scary, Cross.”
“Love that girl.”
Zeke snorted. “I bet you do. So hey, when we get to Fredericton and come closer to the airport …”
“What about it?”
At least his chattering teeth had stopped.
“We kind of need you to get on the jet without going through the airport.”
Cross glared up at the car roof. “Couldn’t you just bring me another set of my false documents?”
“Listen, I can’t fucking think of everything.”
True enough.
“Keep going, Zeke.”
“Most of the runways are just surrounded by fields. I’m going to drop you off at the end of one. You’re going to need to keep going south until you come to the one with a six on it.”
“Six.”
“You’ll get in the jet just before we roll down the rest of the runway to take off.”
“Huh,” Cross said.
“We’ll land at the private airstrip in New York. The pilot is going to get back up in the air and land again where he’s supposed to … mostly on time, with no one any wiser.”
“Well, then.”
Zeke looked over his shoulder, but quickly went back to the road. “You okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“I’m glad I didn’t kill you for fucking up a couple months ago,” Cross admitted. “Really would have screwed me today, I think.”
Zeke cleared his throat. “Is that so?”
Friends like Zeke only came once in a lifetime. And some didn’t even get to find their once-in-a-lifetime friend.
Cross was never more grateful for his.
“Ride or die, Zeke.”
“Ride or die,” his friend echoed.
Then, Zeke threw a cell phone into the backseat. Cross picked it up.
“Call your mother and father first,” Zeke said.
“I think Catherine—”
“She’s been fielding their calls all day, man. Call your parents first. She’s okay with it.”
Cross dialed a familiar number. Not even a full two rings, and his father picked up.
“Zeke?”
“It’s me, Papa,” Cross said, his throat aching and his voice raspy.
“Oh, my God, Cross, you scared the fucking hell out of me,” Calisto breathed. “What is wrong with you, son? You are too old to be still putting me through this crap!”
“Papa—”
“Emma … Emmy, get in here!”
All his father’s pain and worry came rushing in a waterfall of words. Curses, and fear, and apologies.
“I’m okay,” Cross kept saying over and over again.
Finally, his father asked, “Why are you still such a little shit? Why?”
Cross laughed.
His throat hurt like hell.
“Why did you make me this way?”