“You’re a good person.”
“Am I?”
“You were Melissa’s best friend. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all that matters.”
Ashley drops her head back against the headrest, stares out her window. “I was always envious of her. She was always so smart, so classy, so full of energy and kindness. She made it look natural. And me … I always wanted to be everything that she was. I wanted to come from nothing, to build my career, to create a family. And now … now she’s gone.” She wipes at her face. “Sorry, you don’t want to hear all that.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s just … everything’s starting to hit me. “
“It’s okay.”
Sniffing back tears, she says, “Can I have the phone now?”
I hand her the phone. She powers it on and starts typing on it. It takes only a minute for her to find her friend’s phone number, and within seconds she has the phone to her ear and the tears are gone and she’s once again all business.
“I really hope his wife doesn’t answer,” she says. Then, seconds later, “Hi, is Don home?” A beat of silence, and judging by Ashley’s face, Don’s wife is asking a question. “This is Ashley. I went to school with Don.” She bites her lip, hoping the lie will work, and then releases a silent sigh of relief. “Sure, I’ll hold.”
A second later, a smile on her face: “Hi, Don, it’s Ashley Walker. I’m sorry to call, but I’m hoping you can do me a big favor.”
fifty-nine
Don’s boat was really his late father’s boat, a twenty-one-foot-long Pro-Line with a single outboard motor. He explained that he had been meaning to sell it but had just been putting it off, not wanting to let it go just yet. He told Ashley and John this because it seemed he didn’t like the sound of silence, even while they were on the water, headed away from the island.
John didn’t say anything, just sat near the back of the boat and stared out at the water.
Ashley sat beside Don, who steered them over the small waves. She forced a smile but wasn’t sure what to say.
“So really”-Don’s voice went low-“just what kind of trouble are you in?”
“It’s really best you don’t know the details.”
“Am I”-he swallowed, trying to find the nerve-“am I in danger, too?”
“I sincerely hope not.”
Don said nothing, turning his attention back to the water. It was complete night now and he was driving without the use of any lights-which, he had explained more than once, was extremely dangerous, let alone against the law. But as Ashley had told him, it was for the best that they try to stay as inconspicuous as possible.
A silence began to grow, an uneasy silence, and to break it Ashley asked Don about his kids.
“What about them?”
“What are their names?”
“James and Kelly.”
“Those are nice names.”
“They’re four and six. Kelly looks just like her mother. Who, I should add, is not very happy that I’m doing this.”
“Again, Don, you have no idea how much we appreciate this. The boat, the shoes and clothes, everything. You’re a lifesaver.”
Don had brought Ashley a pair of his wife’s running shoes as well as a sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. Now he glanced back over his shoulder at John, who continued to stare out at the water. When he spoke next, his voice was barely a whisper.
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Coworker?”
“Don, please, I know it’s a terrible thing to ask, especially as you’re helping us like this, but please don’t ask any questions. Truly, it’s best if you just don’t know.”
He nodded but said nothing. Despite it being nearly ten years since she had last seen him, Don hadn’t changed much at all. He still had the cute, boyish face, though he had put on a few pounds, his love handles more pronounced, and there was some gray starting to creep into his hair, even at his young age, but still he was just like the guy she remembered.
“I’m not going to get arrested, am I?”
This caught her off guard. She wanted to laugh at the simplicity of the question-if anything, getting arrested would be a walk in the park-but wasn’t sure what to say to relieve him of his worry. Still, there was the chance his worry might blossom into guilt, and with guilt he might want to contact the authorities himself, and this was something Ashley couldn’t allow.
“My friend and I didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t break any laws. We didn’t hurt anybody.”
“So you had nothing to do with the destruction of your parents’ place?” He saw her expression and shrugged. “It’s a small island. Word travels fast. Especially when explosions are heard.”
It hadn’t even been two hours since that took place, though to Ashley it felt like a whole day had passed.
“There are some things that just can’t be explained,” Ashley said finally. “Let’s just leave it at that.”
• • •
Twenty minutes later they neared a marina. Don flipped on the lights, as now it would seem suspicious to try to dock without them. He eased up next to one of the docks, and John secured the boat with a rope and then hopped out.
“Want me to show you which one?” Don asked, placing a set of keys in Ashley’s hand.
She shook her head. “You already described it. We’ll be fine.”
She embraced him and held him tight, smelling his aftershave and a faint whiff of Italian food, maybe what he had had for dinner. She could even imagine it-he and his wife and their two children sitting around the dining room table, pasta on their plates, garlic bread in a basket, Parmesan cheese sprinkled on the sauce-and it caused something to swell deep inside of her, the knowledge that she would never have a family like Don, or like Melissa, or like Jeff, who was dead now because of her, and did his wife even know about what had happened yet?
Ashley blinked, pushing the question away. She couldn’t think about that right now. She refused to think about that right now. So she let go and stepped back and thanked Don again, and then she turned and took John’s hand and stepped up onto the dock.
John untied the rope securing the boat to the dock and tossed it back into the boat.
“Thank you,” he said.
Don merely nodded. “You keep her safe, you hear?”
“I’ll do my best.”
• • •
The pickup, just like the boat, had once belonged to Don’s late father. A late-model Ford, the thing nearly twenty years old. It smelled like an ashtray.
“Can’t imagine why he hasn’t found someone to buy this yet,” John said as he slid in behind the wheel.
Ashley didn’t care for the sarcasm. “After everything he’s done for us, you could be a little more grateful.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful.” He inserted the key and turned the ignition. Nothing happened. He tried it again with the same result. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Figures.”
“Try it again.”
“The battery’s dead. It must have been sitting here for God knows how long. We might as well-”
“Try it again.”
She could tell just by the tightening of his lips that trying it again was the last thing he wanted to do. Still, he sighed and turned the key again, obviously expecting the same result-only this time, the engine coughed to life. It wasn’t a healthy cough by any means, and there was the fear that it might go silent at any second, but John revved the engine once, twice, three times, until he was certain the thing wasn’t going to stall.
“Talk about good luck,” he said.
“So now what?”
He opened his bag and pulled out the device. The screen lit up as they waited for it to find a signal.
“They’re still on the move. Judging by the speed, they’re in a plane.”
The tracking device that had been in the lighter was now in Eli. He had swallowed it whole.
“Where do you think they’re going to take him?”
John shrugged. “No idea. But let’s hope it’s somewhere in the country. And let’s hope it’s somewhere within driving distance.”
“Where are they headed now?”