Chapter Thirty

Glenna hung on to the handle above her head and braced her feet on the floor. The weight of the car’s motion pushed her against her seat as the SUV spun out of control.

Sam’s shoulders bulged as he turned the wheel with his whole body. The road, the canyon wall, the edge of the ravine. They all went spinning past as the car turned a hundred and eighty degrees, the other SUV driving past in their old lane, its shiny black windows hiding its operator.

They stopped. Sam lifted his head and looked in the rearview mirror and the horror in his expression had her turning around to look up the road. Behind them, in their new lane, the bright lights and high cab of a semi were coming right at them.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Time slowed and she could only hear the sound of her heartbeats counting down the seconds until the crash.

Sam’s foot slammed onto the pedal and the truck roared into action. The grill of the semi grew larger and larger. He twisted the wheel.

Glenna’s fingers turned white on the panic bar. She smelled rubber burning, tasted acid high in her throat. Gravel spitting behind them, the speedometer needle jumped and they skated out of the way.

The semi roared past.

Sam pulled the car over onto the first wide spot in the road, and they sat and panted together.

The knock at the window made her jump. “Are you okay?” A grandfatherly looking man was outside, tapping on the glass.

She rolled it down. “Hi, yes, I think we’re fine.” Sam was still sitting, hands clenched on the wheel.

“I saw the whole thing. Must have been some drunk kids playing chicken, hitting you like that. Stupid punks.”

Other cars were starting to pull over, but Sam just waved at the man and they drove away with no sign of the other SUV.

Glenna huddled in the corner. “Who was that?” She was still shaking but she thought her voice sounded calm.

“The feds. We picked them up at your sister’s apartment. I thought I’d lost them, but the assholes either changed cars or radioed someone else. Either way we need to get off the highway.”

She didn’t know what to think. In the last hour her life had turned upside down. Again. Her head was spinning so hard she curled her feet under her and practiced the deep breathing that let her deal with her grandmother, junior accountants, and now crazy car chases.

About a half hour later Sam pulled into a roadside diner, parking around the back and out of sight of the main road. “Come on, I can hear your stomach from here. We need some food and I need to call in.”

“What about the car?”

Sam picked up some mud and smeared the license plates, obliterating the numbers.

“I’ll be right back. Will you be here, or do I need to lock you in the back?”

“I’ll be here.” She didn’t know who to trust. But she knew that someone had just tried to kill her. And Sam. And the only reason she was alive was because of Sam’s fancy driving.

He came back with two bags and handed one to her. The smell of food was too much. She tore into her bag and dove into the hot roast beef sandwich, the rich juices bursting on her tongue in an explosion of taste.

“Hungry?” He shot her an amused look and took a big bite from his own sandwich as he started the engine. “This is the first time I’ve seen you just eat, without thinking about it.”

“No wedding.”

“What?”

“I’m not getting married. There’s no tiny sized dress to squeeze myself into.” She shot him another look and dug into the fries.

“Good. You’re too skinny anyway.”

“You know, you’re the only person who’s ever said that to me.” She slowed down and began to enjoy the food. “Roger had this idea I should fit into a size two. The perfect woman would be a size two.”

Sam snorted.

“It’s not funny.”

“No, I can see you don’t find it funny. But think about it. Women who are five foot nothing have trouble being skinny enough for a size two. You’re almost six foot, right?”

“Right. So?”

“So, even if you had no fat on you, which you don’t right now, you’d never be wearing a size two. Roger’s an idiot.”

The flare of anger shot up and died. “You’re right. He’ll be happier with Sarah. She’s only five foot six and naturally thin.” Poor Sarah. Roger had swept in, like the vulture she now realized he was, and taken advantage of her sister’s grief. She shoved another fry into her mouth. Take that, Roger. If she could, she’d poke his eye out. In the meantime, Roger and Sarah would have to wait.

His head tilted away from the road, and he ran his eyes up and down her body. “Unless she’s not stacked like you, I don’t think boobs like yours would fit into a size two.”

Warmth heated her skin. Her mouth dropped open and she shut it fast remembering the food. “How dare you!”

“Well, let’s face it, sugar, you’re down to skin and bones and you still have a nice rack. I can’t wait to see what you look like after we fatten you up.” He gave her chest another quick evaluating glance. “You’re a good C cup now. I’d say you’d be heading for a full D, maybe a double if you put on enough weight.”

“What the hell?” She stuffed more fries in. Chewed. Swallowed. “How would you know what size clothes women wear anyhow? I thought you were a chef?”

“Cook. I’m a mean short-order cook. A chef goes to school.” He sipped his soda. “My mother makes clothes. She’s a seamstress. And I have a sister. Growing up there were girls in and out of our house on a constant basis.”

“I thought all the girls were sent away to school.”

“Yeah, but they come home again. Once they’ve settled down, around seventeen or so. They’re only gone for a few years.” He grinned. “With a dressmaker mom and twin brothers, my sister was popular.”

“Twins? You have a twin?”

He lost his grin and focused on the road. “Yeah. Gabe.”

“The one you owned the restaurant with?”

“Yeah, one and the same.” All the zip of the boob conversation had gone out of his voice, leaving it flat.

“What happened?”

“Same sad story. Boy meets girl, boy likes girl. Girl meets boy’s twin brother and dumps boy.”

She knew there was more, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to get it tonight. Glenna looked out the window at the dark steep slopes lit up by the occasional house. The road they were on was tight and narrow, and the walls of trees and rock climbed steeply up on one side and dropped off into pitch black on the other. Unlike I-70 there were few other vehicles. “This isn’t the highway. Will it take us a long time to get there?”

“We’re not going back to the cabin.”

She sat up. “Why not?”

“It’s not safe. I don’t think we’re being followed, but there’s no way I’m taking the chance of leading anyone back to Lana’s. We’re going somewhere else.” His face was tight.

“Well, are you going to fill me in?”

He glanced over at her, not answering.

Tension rose inside her and she dug her nails into her palms to keep from raising her voice. “Sam, I’m finished with not knowing what’s going on. Tell me now, where the hell are we going?”

“Here.” He pulled off into a narrow cut through the brush. The SUV bounced over the cracked heaving pavement all the way into the parking lot of a roadside motel. The sign, lit by a single bulb, said Trout Haven in faded letters over a peeling picture of a winking fish, an enormous hook caught in its lip.

“No way. This place looks like it has roaches. Or worse.”

Sam parked and turned the engine off. “Those feds followed us from your sister’s.” He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it off his face the way she was coming to know meant he was stressed. “That means they know you’re alive and if they find you, they’ll take you straight to the CDC.”

“But if the CDC is still looking for me can’t we just show them I’m fine and not contagious? They’ll leave me alone, leave you alone. Don’t they just want to make sure no one is spreading disease?”

Sam shook his head. “Where have you been all your life?” His face in the shadowy light of the hotel’s sign was incredulous. “The feds aren’t our friends, they’re the enemy. They won’t stop until they’ve captured one of us and studied us. They won’t let you go. They’ll put you in a lab and take small samples of you until you die. And then they’ll cut you apart for good measure.”

He jerked back away from her, opened his door and stalked to her side of the SUV. He wrenched open her door, waited for her to climb out. He leaned in close to her ear. “Now be good, come with me, and be quiet.”

She wanted to argue. Wanted to scream at him and rail and hit.  But someone had tried to run them off the road, and despite his insistence that it was all about her, she didn’t believe him. She knew how to be good, how to stuff her anger down deep and bide her time, but she was sick of doing it. Sick of waiting.

All her anger rose up inside her, waiting to explode as she followed him into the tiny dusty foyer of the motel decorated circa 1966 with brown wood paneling and mounted fish everywhere. She waited while he signed in as Mr. and Mrs. Jones and paid in cash. The wrinkled night clerk gave them the once over, but didn’t ask any questions other than did they know how long they were staying.

“Just the one night,” Sam said.

He nodded and handed him a plastic round key ring. “You can take number eight, down on the end.”

She stayed quiet, frustration and fear building into white hot anger, while Sam moved the SUV down the row and unlocked the flimsy door, checked the room over, looked under both beds and into the closet before turning back to her. “The room is secure. We need to talk.”

Her anger flared into rage. “Bossy son of a bitch. You’d better believe we need to talk.”