“Won’t it take a couple of days to get there? I’m sketchy on the geography.” Kip knew islands sat off the Florida coast, but that was about it.
“We’ll be in port Tuesday morning, pretty early. I’d rather it was Monday morning, but the only way that happens is by air.”
“Okay—have you done a cruise before?”
“Years ago. A friend and I did it for fun, in college.”
Kip couldn’t help her curiosity. Besides, with nothing but the 178
dark night out the car window, what else was there to do but talk?
“Was it?”
“Fun? Sure.” Tam was plainly smiling at the recollection.
“Nadia loved it.”
“Nadia? The same Nadia...?” Kip wondered why Tam didn’t just say “girlfriend” or “ex”—everybody knew about them.
“Yeah. We met in college and an island getaway was one of the fun things we did. Then she met Ted and I was the maid of honor in a dress I’d otherwise not be caught dead in.”
Sounded like Nadia Langhorn had done the Lesbian Until Graduation thing. Yet, there wasn’t any rancor or forced nonchalance in Tam’s tone.
Kip wanted to ask about why both Tam and Nadia had such odd childhood records, but she knew Tam would just shut down.
Instead, she said, “On Monday, when I was visiting banks—that seems like ages ago now. Anyway, I ran into my ex. We’re kind of moving out of the resentment stage. She had reason to be peeved.
She thought moving in would give us more time together, but I was just as busy and unavailable as before, and meeting up in bed every night fizzled after the first few weeks. I let my hours get even longer and it unraveled. I don’t blame her for being upset.
I’m glad she’s getting over it—she’s even getting married.”
“Do you think that’s in the future for you?”
“It’s only recently become an option for us,” Kip said slowly.
She wasn’t going to admit that until this week the thought of marriage hadn’t seriously crossed her mind. “I knew early on I wanted a career, and a demanding one. My grandfather was a rarity—happily married in his line of work. I didn’t see how romance and that life could mix for a woman. I got through high school without giving boys so much as a glance, and it wasn’t until college that I realized there was another reason they didn’t interest me. And with a girl there still didn’t seem to be a likely white picket fence thing. No marriage available, for one thing.
And the Justice Department may not have an official Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell going on, but being out and proud wasn’t exactly favored behavior. It was easier to do without.”
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“Nobody worth pushing at the limitations?” Tam now sounded too casual.
Kip tried to keep her smile out of her voice. “Nobody at all. A few dates, the occasional, um, sleepover, so to speak. I got on well with Meena, but never saw the U-Haul she had half-packed on our first date. She was looking to settle down. I was a mistake.”
Kip added, “I’m glad to see her happy.”
Tam lapsed into silence after that, and Kip considered that she’d explained her entire sex life to Tam pretty succinctly, yet she wouldn’t have said until she did that it was so simple.
Nobody worth changing her other plans for. She stared at her dim reflection in the window. Had she followed the rules all her life because she’d not had a reason to do otherwise?
And now she did? Calmly and coolly planning to acquire fake identification, travel by plane without a manifest, walk through a security screening, even lie to a customs agent? It was all serious stuff, and yet the combined risks were worth it. She wasn’t fooling herself that she had some future with Tam.
Kip seemed contentedly quiet, leaving Tam to watch the road and the gas gauge. Her own thoughts were far from restful. Part of her was preoccupied with the next few days and where she wanted to end up: with the original application of that damned bank account in her control and with answers from her contact in Nassau about opening the account to begin with. She badly wanted to put faces on her adversaries.
She wished, though, she could let the rest of her relax and enjoy the company of a lovely, interesting woman. Ask more questions, learn more about her past. But that was a two-way street. She’d had the feeling that Kip really wanted to know more about Nadia, and the past that Nadia and she clearly shared.
“Is this where you were thinking we could get suitcases?”
She slowed and turned into a department store lot. The giant K
wasn’t lit. The store looked about sixty years old, a relic she was 180
willing to bet had an unbeatable selection of camping and fishing gear. “Yes—we’ll find something.”
Tam went along with it when Kip pointed out some utilitarian cargo shorts, swimsuits and basic tank tops. There wasn’t any warm-weather appropriate footwear, but airport stores carried a lot of useful items, she supposed.
Back on the road, they were mostly silent, though comparing thoughts on movies provided some distraction for a while. She was flattered that at one point Kip dozed off. In spite of her protests, Tam was pretty sure Kip no longer thought of her as a suspect. She didn’t want to get Kip into trouble, but everything was a shade of gray. They weren’t doing what they were planning to further a crime, and that counted. If they got the proof they needed, and she was able to snatch the money back from wherever it had been forwarded, their technical violations would probably go unprosecuted. Tam didn’t fear that part of it. If, however, they were stopped trying to get to Nassau it was a completely different matter. Then it looked like—just as Kip said—they were fleeing the country as part of other crimes. The day aboard ship, waiting to see what greeted her when they docked in Nassau, would be agonizing.
Kip murmured something in her sleep and Tam couldn’t help but glance over at her, admiring the shadows cast by her lashes. It would also be torturous to share a tiny cabin with Kip.
Just south of Portland she shook Kip gently. “I need directions.
The turnoff to Lake Oswego is coming up.”
Kip scrubbed at her eyes. “Take that one, and then we bear east. It seemed pretty easy to find. I had the weirdest dream.
I kept trying to call in sick on Monday and every time Emilio answered his phone he spoke a language I didn’t understand.
I would say I have the flu and he’d say fram-a-stat or warble-missha or something like that.”
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“Sounds like a typical anxiety dream. Or a warning from the beyond to speak in tongues.”
Kip laughed. “I suppose. Turn right at the next signal. I do need to call in, though. I’ll keep it very short, from a land line.
The flu seems like a good, transparent excuse.”
“Seems to be working for Ted.”
“And left here—she said it was an urban tasting room. Very Gen X, I gather.”
The headlights swept over a building that looked more like a garden nursery than a wine shop. The sign in the door read Closed, but the light was on over the parking lot. They pulled in next to a stolid Volvo, not far from a side door into the premises.
All in all, Tam thought it was the most unlikely looking spot to pick up a fake ID.
Kip glanced at Tam. “This will be like every other ID photo I’ve ever had taken. I always look like I’ve just gotten off a five-day bender.”
Several inappropriate things came to mind, but Tam said none of them. “Official photos are cursed.”
The door opened and a woman, half in shadow, leaned out.
“Barrett?”
Kip got out of the car. “Yes. And my friend.”