Just cowered like an animal in his den, the doors locked and heat blasting.
After a long time—how long he had no idea—he felt himself coming back. Surfacing like he was waking from a nap. Words and questions swirling leaves from an October tree, tossed and spinning and never touching the ground.
Gasoline. That was one. Gasoline. What did . . .
Oh. He straightened, rubbed at his eyes. His muscles weak and languid. The fuel gauge read almost empty. He shut off the engine.
So. Where was he?
The car was gorgeous. A BMW according to the logo in the steering wheel, with gauges like an airplane cockpit. The seats were leather, the trim brushed aluminum, and the dash had a computer display. But the thing was a mess. Socks and a pair of Nikes rested on the floorboards on his side; the passenger seat was buried in maps and take-out bags and soda cups and empty blister packs of ephedrine and gas station receipts and a worn U.S. road atlas and a fifth of Jack Daniel’s with an inch left in it.
Hello.
He opened the whiskey, swallowed half the remainder in a gulp. It burned in the best possible way.
Now that it wasn’t killing him, the world outside had a kind of desolate beauty. Lonely, though. Other than the narrow two-track the car was parked on, there was no sign of people in either direction. And while he hadn’t been fully conscious the whole time, he hadn’t seen anyone since he’d climbed into the car.
So then . . .
How had he gotten here?
Where the fuck was here and what was he doing in it?
Calm. Don’t panic. You’re safe. Just think about what happened. How you ended up here. You . . . you . . .
Nothing.
He closed his eyes, jammed them tight. Opened them again.
Nothing had changed. Had he been drinking? Drugged? Retrace your steps. You were . . .
You were . . .
It was like that terrible moment he sometimes had waking up in a strange environment, in the dark of a friend’s living room, or in a hotel, that period where his brain hadn’t yet come online and everything was automatic, just panic and readiness and fear, the tension of waiting for certainty to click, for normalcy to fall like a warm blanket. That moment always passed. It passed, and he remembered where he was and what he was doing there.
Right?
He set the whiskey down, gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Focus.
Focus!
Outside, the wind whistled. The trees looked like they’d been on fire, dark black trunks spreading to broad limbs marked by a handful of stubborn orange and yellow leaves, the last embers.
Okay. Something must have happened. An after-effect of hypothermia, some kind of shock. Don’t force it. Tease it. Coax it out. Like the floaters in your eyes, you can’t drag this front and center. Come at it sideways.
Your brain seems to work. Use it. Where are you?
A rocky beach. Cold. He could taste the salt on his lips, knew this was an ocean. Which one?
The question was crazy, but he worked it anyway. Let one thing lead to the next. The dashboard clock read 7:42. The sun was just a brighter shade of gray above the waves, but it was higher than before. Which made it morning, which made that east, which made this the Atlantic. Assuming he was still in the United States. Yes. The road atlas.
Okay. The Atlantic. And cold and rocky and sparsely inhabited. Maine, maybe?
Why not. Roll with that. “This is Maine.” His voice cracked. He coughed, then continued. “I’m in a BMW. It’s morning.”
Nothing.
A bank envelope was curled in the cup holder. Inside was a stack of twenties, several hundred dollars. Under the envelope there was something silver that turned out to be a stainless steel Rolex Daytona. Nice watch. Very nice watch.
What else? He leaned over to open the glove box. There was an owner’s manual, a key ring with a BMW clicker, three pens, a pack of Altoids, a sealed box of ephedrine, and a large black gun.
He stared. An owner’s manual, a key ring with a BMW clicker, three pens, a pack of Altoids, a sealed box of ephedrine, and a large black gun. A semiautomatic, he noticed, then wondered how he could know that and not remember where he had been before he woke up on the beach. Or worse, even his own—
Stop. Don’t go there. If you don’t face it, maybe it’s not true.
The trunk.
He stepped out. The wind whipped his naked body, and his skin tightened into goose bumps. His balls tried to retract into his belly. He stepped gingerly to the back of the car on bloody toes.
Would there be a body in there? Handcuffed and shot in the head, maybe, or rolled in a carpet, hair and boots spilling out.
No: it held only jumper cables and a plastic shopping bag with a red bull’s-eye on it. He opened the bag. A pair of designer jeans, a white undershirt with pits stained yellow, crumpled boxer briefs, wadded-up socks. Someone’s laundry.
He looked around again. In for a penny.
He shook out the underwear, stepped into it. The jeans were soft and worn, expensive looking. Too fancy for Target, and dirty to boot. Maybe the Target purchases had been a change of clothes. He wriggled into the shirt then slammed the trunk. Climbed back in the car, the air inside wonderful, stiflingly warm. The sour smell of feet rose as he wriggled into the sneakers.
Then he sat and stared out the window.
How had he known that red bull’s-eye was the Target logo? How had he known the watch was a Rolex? Or that Jack Daniel’s was whiskey, and that he liked whiskey?
How was it that he knew the BMW key fob had an RFID chip that activated the push button start, knew Maine was in the northeast, could identify the symptoms of hypothermia, could glance at a stack of twenties and know it was several hundred dollars— he could do all of that, but he couldn’t remember his own goddamn—
He reached for the owner’s manual in the glove box, careful not to touch the gun. The book was bound in black leather. Inside the front cover was a registration card and proof of insurance. Both in the name of Daniel Hayes, resident of 6723 Wandermere Road, Malibu, California.
Huh.
He climbed out of the car, walked to the back. California plates.
Who wandered away from a ninety-thousand-dollar car and left the key in the glove box? Where would they go in the middle of nowhere?