(I came to know these facts the way we all came to know things in the twenty-first century: My internet told me so. The map on my pen came chock-full of textual tidbits, like this Fun Fact: In winter, smugglers used to cross the frozen St. Lawrence in trucks, but for the past five winters the river has failed to freeze solid. Huh!)
We did not stay on the highway. Well before the Seaway Bridge the pen directed us to turn east. Hootan cruised at unsuspicious speeds through the island’s tiny downtown, then into a woodsy residential area. We kept going until we’d almost reached the eastern end of the island, where we were surrounded by a lot more woods than residences. It was still winter here: Snow lined the road and lay thick under the trees.
I pointed to a gap between two large firs. “Pull off the road,” I said. “And turn out your lights.”
Hootan gave me a look. He didn’t like to be ordered around—especially by a woman—but he did as he was told. “Now what?” he asked.
I didn’t bother answering. He knew what they’d told me.
There wasn’t much traffic on this road, but we tensed up as each pair of headlights passed us. After fifteen minutes Hootan said, “We’re going to get stopped by the cops.”
“Can you be stopped if you’re not moving?” Dr. Gloria asked from the backseat.
“Relax,” I said to everyone, including myself.
It was another half hour before the pen chimed. Aaqila had taken it back from me. She held out the device, and all four of us leaned in to hear. “WALK toward the WA-ter,” the same electronic voice said. “Bring the MON-ey. Come ALONE.”
The call ended. Hootan said, “Screw that.”
“Don’t be crude,” Dr. G said.
“We’re going with you,” Aaqila said.
“Didn’t think I could stop you,” I said. To Aaqila I said, “The money?”
She handed me the Mr. Squiggly lunchbox. I thought about opening it to count the cash, but decided I didn’t need to antagonize her. Yet.
Dr. Gloria took to the air, and the rest of us entered the trees. I tried to step around the deeper patches, but the snow kept tipping into the tops of my boots. According to the map, the car shouldn’t have been more than a hundred meters from the water, but I couldn’t see anything through the trees, and I couldn’t make out any sound over my huffing and puffing.
Suddenly I stepped out onto a dirt road—really no more than a pair of deeply rutted tire tracks. Dr. Gloria landed in a flurry of wings.
“This wasn’t on the map,” Hootan said. He sounded hurt.
“I think that’s on purpose,” I said.
To my right the trail curled into the trees, heading roughly back the way we’d come. To my left it ended in an open area shaped like the head of a sperm. At the edge of the clearing, the land dropped off. Beyond was the moon-flecked river.
A flashlight raked us from the trees at the western edge of the clearing, then focused on my face.
“I told you to come alone!” a female voice yelled.
“At least she’s not using distortion,” Dr. G said.
I shaded my eyes against the glare. “I have the money,” I called back. “You have the printer?”
“Come forward—just you!”
I started forward, and Aaqila put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she said.
“I think it’s too late for that,” Dr. G said.
The flashlight moved to cover Aaqila and Hootan, and I walked out into the dark. But not alone; Dr. G of course followed me out. When I was in the middle of the clearing, the voice called, “Stop!” A few feet away stood a mound about two feet high, covered by a tarp; in the dark I’d thought it was a boulder.
I pulled off the plastic. Two cardboard boxes, one big enough to hold a printer. I yelled back to Aaqila and Hootan, “It’s here!”
“Throw me the money,” the figure behind the flashlight said. She was twenty feet from me.
“No!” Hootan yelled. He marched forward, arm straight in front of him, one-handing the pistol like a Hollywood bad guy. Aaqila followed closely behind him. “Show yourself!” he said.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yelled to them. “Get the fuck back!”
That’s when I noticed the man in the cowboy hat. He stepped out of the northern trees halfway between Hootan and me. He was short, maybe only 5’4”. I couldn’t make out his face under the big brim, but something about the hat and the white shirt and that formal suit jacket looked familiar.
“The bar,” Dr. Gloria said. Yes: He was the man at the bar who’d tipped his hat at me.
Before I could answer her, a police siren wailed. Blue-and-red flashing lights lit up the trees. Headlight beams bounced; a police car was coming down that rutted road. In a second it would enter the clearing.
Hootan stopped and whirled toward the lights. Aaqila began to turn too, and then noticed the man in the cowboy hat. For what seemed like a long moment (but was not, the brain grabbing every detail in high def), no one moved.
Then, everyone moved at once. Everyone except me.
The person in the trees behind me with the flashlight said, “Lyda! This way!” Hootan spun toward the printer box. The cowboy raised his arm. Aaqila ran toward the cowboy, arms spread.
And I … watched.
The cowboy fired. Aaqila was almost directly in front of the man, but it was Hootan who fell, dropping to the ground as if his knees had been cut out from under him. Then Aaqila smashed into the cowboy and they went down tumbling, a confusion of arms and legs flashing in the glare of the headlights. The strobing blue-and-red lights seemed to sway the trees like a high wind.
Someone seized my arm. “Let’s go!” It was Ollie, in twelve-year-old-boy drag: the baseball cap and heavy jacket I’d seen her wearing on the street outside Aaqila’s house, plus a backpack I’d never seen before. She yanked me into the trees and we ran, crunching through icy snow, the beam of her flashlight hopscotching ahead of us. I hugged the lunchbox close to my body and followed as best I could.
“Who the fuck is that guy?!” I said.
Another gunshot, the sound splintering in the dark. I grabbed Ollie’s jacket and jerked her to a halt. We were surrounded by trees. The river should have been nearby, but I couldn’t see it.
I grabbed Ollie by the elbow. “Stop, damn it!” I said. “The guy in the hat! Is he a cop?”
“Cops aren’t real,” Ollie said, and sucked in a breath. “That car—it’s Bobby.”
“What do you mean it’s—?”
“His car,” Ollie said. “We put a light on it, wired the sound. Distraction. Everybody scatters, you get away.”
Dr. G appeared behind me. “You left him back there with those killers?”
Fuck.
The doctor unfurled her wings into Maximum Righteousness Mode. The flaming sword was in her hand. She pointed with it like the archangel casting us out of the garden. “Get your ass back there!”
“No,” I said aloud. “No no no.”
“Come on,” Ollie said. “We’ve got to go—the boat’s coming.”
I looked back toward the way we came. Ollie said, “Lyda, he’s fine, just—”
“Be right back,” I said. I shoved the money into her arms and ran. Drifts tugged at my ankles. Hidden roots kicked at my toes, sent me stumbling in the path of trees that seemed to rush at me out of the dark. I burst through curtains of pine branches, scattering snow.
Suddenly I was yanked sideways, and realized it was Ollie; she’d caught up with me and had seized my arm.
“This way,” she said. Her flashlight was turned off. “Quiet now.”
She led me to my right, around a jumble of boulders. Ahead, the headlights of the stopped car cut through the branches. I could hear nothing but my own breath and the crunch of the snow, which suddenly seemed obscenely loud. Ollie stopped me with a hand on my chest.