Chapter 43
Sam’s smile broadens. “Surprised?”
I gawk at him for several moments, then look back at the photo.
The woman in the photo is me. “I—I don’t understand. You were there? At the Boston conference?”
“Yes. You weren’t on the Crazy Gro project yet, and I was following Rosenberg at the time. I didn’t need to take this photo at all, but . . .” He smiles, looking into the distance. “It was a spontaneous decision.” He looks at me. “A once-in-a-lifetime kind.”
Oh, Sam . . .
He looks back to the road, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gearshift. I keep looking at him, and he seems—calm. Finally, the secret he was keeping from me is out in the open, and the tension, so obvious in his demeanor before, is gone.
I understand him now. I understand what he did and why he did it.
Somewhere inside me, a bundled-up sadness rises to the surface. Guilt, and sorrow, for the things he did.
But who am I to forgive him for what he has done?
Would there have been more bombs, more terrorist attacks? Would I have lost someone dear to me if Sentinel wasn’t around? If Sam wasn’t around?
I don’t know . . .
I don’t know.
I turn to him.
But I know this: He is the one I’ve been looking for.
He is the man I want.
And I will take him as he is.
I gently put my hand on top of his, resting on the gearshift. He glances at me quickly, then he smiles. He turns his hand over and laces his fingers with mine, bringing it up to his face. He presses the back of my hand to his lips and leaves it there for a long moment. It’s such a warm, deep, and almost passionate kiss that I’m mesmerized; I keep looking at him.
After a while, he puts our hands—still laced together—back on the gearshift.
“Are you hungry?” he asks quietly.
“I . . . don’t know. Not quite what I was thinking of right now.”
“Well, we should get something to eat. We have a couple more hours to the closest safe place, and”—he glances at the dashboard—“we should fill up with gas.”
“Another safe place? How many of those do you have in Europe?”
He smiles. “A few.”
Of course.
I smile in response, then lean back and watch as the two bright cone-shaped streaks, cast by the headlights, illuminate the road.
For several minutes, we don’t talk. But I feel comfortable like this. I feel that saying anything else would disturb the balance we just found.
After a while, he removes his hand from the gear and puts it back on the wheel.
I look back at him. He’s frowning.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “They knew where to find us. Again. And I can’t figure out why.”
I look at him from the side. “Could they follow your cell phone, perhaps?”
He shakes his head. “No. It’s untraceable. And they don’t even know who I am.”
A few minutes pass. Then Sam looks at me and asks, “Is there anything, anything at all, that you’ve been carrying with you since we left?”
I look down at myself. “No. I mean . . . well, I have the same jeans, but . . .”
“Do you have anything in your pockets?”
“I’m almost a hundred percent sure I don’t,” I say while I lift my shirt to reach into the front pocket of my pants. My ID card is still hanging on the belt and I push it to the side, then dig into the pocket. “See! It’s em—”
“What was that?”
“What?”
“That thing you just moved away. What is that?”
I look down. “Oh—it’s my ID card.”
Sam’s frowning, his furrowed eyebrows making wrinkles at the base of his nose. “And you had it since you started at the institute?”
“Yes. No! Actually, this one . . .”
Opens the Crazy Gro lab.
I look back at Sam. “This one’s new. David gave them to us when he put us on the Crazy Gro project. Could they have a tracking device in here? It’s so small.”
Sam sighs. “That’s the culprit. Damn it! I should have thought of that. We have to throw it away,” he says.
I immediately lower my side window.
“No, wait!”
I turn my head back to him, the ID card on the rim of the window.
“If we throw it away now, they will know we figured out how they were tracking us. But if we put it in some other car, they can continue tracking it while we head in the opposite direction.”
I look back at the card. “But then they know where we are right now, don’t they? Isn’t it dangerous to keep it any longer?”
“We are just one mile from a gas station. We’ll swap it there.”
I hold the card a bit away from me, as if it’s stinky and I don’t want it to touch me. It doesn’t matter, of course; they still know where I am, even if I don’t have the tracking device directly on me. Still, I keep it a few inches away.
Within a minute, Sam pulls the car into a brightly lit gas station. He stops next to the pump and then looks around before he gets out. Next to us is an old station wagon with a woman snoozing on the passenger seat and two children sleeping in back.
I look at Sam and shake my head.
He nods.
Then I turn my head to look again. Across from us in the parking area to the left is an old-looking rusty car. It’s empty, and I wonder if it was left here because it wouldn’t drive anymore.
We can’t use that one. We need to find a car that will lead our pursuers away from this gas station—ideally in the opposite direction from us.
Several feet away from that rusty car, parked facing the opposite direction, is a dark blue minivan.
Sam gets out of the car and bends down again to look at me. “I’ll fill up with gas. Do you need to go to the bathroom?”
“Hmm—no, thanks, I’m fine.”
He shuts the door, and I lean back in the seat and look to the front. In the gas station, a couple of people are wandering around the small aisles, clearly focused on their shopping needs.
My eyes feel tired and I slide down in my seat a bit more to get some sleep. I can hear the rumbling as the gas fills the tank in the back of the car .
Just as I’m slowly falling asleep, the door opens and I startle.
“Sorry,” Sam says, realizing he’d given me a fright. “I’ll go and pay for the gas now. I’ll also get some food from the shop. Any particular needs or wishes?”
A vivid picture of him naked beneath me instantly forms in my mind, and I have to smile at my automatic mental response to his question.
“What?” he asks, smiling back.
I shake my head. “No particular food needs. Just get something. Surprise me.”
“Okay. And”—he reaches with his open hand—“I need that ID card now, please.”
“Ah! There you go.”
“Thanks! And don’t leave the car, okay?”
I nod vigorously. “Okay!”
He smiles and closes the door.
I watch him as he’s walking to the shop. His jacket reaches to his waist and I look at his buttocks, his glute muscles tightening in turn as he shifts the pressure from one leg to another.
He’s got the sexiest butt I’ve ever seen.
Though I’m probably biased.
He enters the shop and turns right, walking slowly between the aisles, his head down, looking for some food he wants to surprise me with.
I close my eyes and slide down in the seat for another snooze, but after a moment, I realize that Sam’s suggestion to go to the bathroom makes a lot of sense.
But I can’t go now; he told me to stay in the car.
I rearrange my position, pressing my groin into the seat. But it doesn’t help.
Oh, crap!
I look around and spot the sign for the bathrooms, so I open the door and rush toward the left corner of the shop, passing the blue minivan.
The side of the building is in the dark; the lamp above the bathroom is smashed, pieces of broken glass scattered on the floor just outside the open door. I slow down, checking where to step, and then—I hear a sound behind me.
I start to turn.
In the next moment, my nose and mouth are covered by a foul-smelling cloth, a strong hand pressing it to my face. I grab at the arm and try to pull it away, but within a second, all my strength is gone. My arms flop down, my knees let go, and I start to fall, but the person behind me grabs me and picks me up, my head dangling downward.
Then, all is black and I lose consciousness.