122 Rules (25 page)

“The man on the motorcycle, and maybe even the explosion. What did you say his name was?”

“Peter. Peter Morrell. How is any of this
your
fault?”

“I think… Oh, Mon.”

Monica lifted Angel’s chin so they stared eye-to-eye. “Spill it, girl.”

“I think he called me.”

“What? When?”

“About a week ago. I don’t remember exactly.” Then in a rush, she said, “He told me his name was Tom and he went to school with you and that you lived with him and that he’d fallen in love with you. But you disappeared, and he never got a chance to tell you. He knew so much about your history, it seemed like the real thing. He seemed so legit that I thought...oh...I thought... Shit, I led him right to you.”

“Tom? Yeah, he let me use his apartment. He called you? How did he get your number?”

“Yes, and I don’t know. He said you told him about your childhood and that you two talked all the time. He knew about your past, with the baseball bat and your mom and all that. Did you tell him any of it?”

Monica shook her head. “Tom said that? I never breathed a word. You know me. But you didn’t know where I was. You didn’t even have my phone number. If Peter was posing as Tom and called you, how could you have led him to me?”

Angel looked back down at her hands. “I gave him your email.”

“You mean the one I told you to never, never, never give out?”

Angel nodded.

Monica remained quiet for a minute.

“I’m so sorry, Mon. It’s all my fault. You almost got killed because of me.” Unshed tears shimmered in Ang’s eyes.

“No, Ang, I almost got killed because that’s what these mob bastards do. It was inevitable they’d eventually figure out a way to find me. I don’t know how he did it with an email, but it seems logical.”

“You don’t hate me then? I’m so sorry.” A tear burst through the dam and spilled down her cheek.

“I know. Hon, I could never hate you. You’re my angel, and you came all this way to save me...again. These guys are really smart and will do anything to get rid of me. Just ask Lisa.”

Angel nodded. “Have you made a plan?”

“Yes. My ‘plan’ was to call you.”

Angel laughed. “Good plan. Anything beyond that?”

Monica shook her head. “That’s all I’ve got. I’m so out of my element, I don’t even know where to begin.”

Angel scratched her head. “These guys are really resourceful. We need someone like that on our team.”

“Okay, but who?”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need to find this Jon person.”

Monica stood. “No. No way. I’m done with the FBI.”

Angel held up her hand. “Look. Peter was hired to get rid of you, either for revenge or whatever. We both agree on this, right?”

Monica nodded.

“So he found you by tracking your email somehow. The only question remaining is who, if anyone, is in bed with him? The only one that fits is Crew Cut, but even that doesn’t seem very likely to me. If he’d wanted to kill you, he’s had a lot of chances. All he had to do was let you escape from the safe house and then put a bullet in you as you ran down the road. But he didn’t; he took you back inside and put a tracking device on you. It’s a sucky thing to do, but that behavior seems like the opposite of someone who means to do you harm.”

“I don’t trust that bastard.”

“I know, but the FBI seems like the best option. The only option really. Can you get in touch with any of the agents?”

She shook her head. “Communication was strictly a one-way street.”

“Okay. Well, I don’t think it’s safe to go back to Walberg. Peter may be waiting for you. It’s unlikely, but it isn’t worth the risk.”

Monica asked, “Okay, how do we find them?”

“Simple. Twenty-six Federal Plaza.”

Monica sat back. “Huh?”

Angel shrugged and smiled. “FBI headquarters. Anyone who’s watched TV knows that.”

“Really?”

“Really. Come on, get your stuff together. We’ll drive.”

Monica hesitated. It felt like jumping back into the viper’s nest, but she couldn’t argue with Angel’s reasoning. Finally she nodded. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

“Then let’s go.”

They gathered Monica’s newly purchased wardrobe and headed out to the parking lot. Angel pulled out her keys and said, “It’s gonna take a while in old Betsy, but she should make it.”

“No, we’ll take my car.” Monica opened the trunk of the beat-to-shit Audi.

“Ummm, what the hell?
This
was Lisa’s car? She owned her own practice, and this is what she drove? Things in that town were worse than I imagined.”

“Well, yes and no. The car might have had a little…accident.” Monica told her about stopping at the park and working the Audi over.

“Wow. Don’t mess with you.”

“Sometimes a girl needs to blow off a little steam.”

31

The scent of pine cleaner and soap assaulted Sam as he walked through the apartment he hadn’t seen in months. The maid service supplied by The Agency came by once every week or so to dust and clear out the cobwebs made by industrious little arachnids hoping to catch a meal in the vacant flat.

The refrigerator brimmed with fresh fruits and vegetables, cold cuts, bread, even a pint of milk. Sam knew without having to check the expiration dates that everything would be safe to eat. The clean, spotless icebox looked as though it had been filled that morning. A neat stack of mail and the early edition of the
L.A. Times
sat on the counter.

The Agency wanted him to feel like a regular person—just another Joe kicking back after a difficult week on the job. But to Sam, this life felt staged, and he was a two-bit actor in a way-off-Broadway one-man production nobody cared to see. In his absence,
they
handled his mail, paid his bills, and even falsified his phone records so it appeared like someone spent time in this empty dwelling. On paper, he looked like a regular, functioning member of society. But in reality, nothing actually existed, only the façade perpetuated by an agency that technically didn’t exist.

He had the appearance of a life without getting to live one.

The apartment matched the address on his driver’s license, but the 1200-square-foot “townhouse with a view,” as it had been marketed so long ago, didn’t feel like his home. No place did. Sam had long ago forgotten who supplied his utilities or who to give the rent to at the end of the month. The grocery store he used to shop at had been torn down and a strip mall erected in its place. He had been gone so long he’d missed the transition. He didn’t know any of the neighbors or the neighborhood. Sam had become an intruder, another stranger in a foreign land.

Maybe he had become a little too reliant on The Agency.

Sighing, he wandered down the hall to his room where he tossed his few belongings onto the bed. His body ached from getting caught in the explosion. His back throbbed, his head still hurt, and every time he moved, he found something new on him that had been injured. The mattress beckoned, but first he wanted to wash off the grime of the road. In the master bath, he started the shower, and soon the little room filled with thick steam. Sam got in and stood in the heavy spray, the scalding water pouring over his head in cascading sheets as he tried not to think. If he let his mind wander on anything other than a case, it went places he’d rather it not. Except now he had no case to ponder.

He stepped out of the shower thirty minutes later, dried himself off, and climbed under the sheets. Exhausted, he thought he’d sleep for a week. Three hours later, his eyes popped open, and he found himself staring at the dark ceiling.

It seemed his mind had been hard at work while his body rested. For the next couple of hours, he tried to temper the mental stream while throwing a random curse at the digital clock on the nightstand—its red eyes mocked him as it doled out minutes he
should
be sleeping.

The sun had just touched the sky through the bedroom window when Sam gave up. He got out of bed and slipped into an old pair of jeans and a worn UCLA sweatshirt, pleased that they still fit, and padded to the kitchen. He didn’t bother to check the coffee maker, just clicked the “brew” button, knowing The Agency had set that up for him too.

A few minutes later, he carried a steaming mug into the living room. Sam retrieved his laptop from the leather travel bag he’d dropped next to the door and plopped onto the couch. Pulling a small remote from the drawer, he started the sound system, filling the room with lyrics from Eric Clapton’s melodious and soulful guitar.

He took a sip of the dark coffee, which helped to break down the early morning cobwebs, while he waited for the Mac to boot. When it finished, he double-clicked the icon for the client half of the tracker app installed on Monica’s computer. If anyone logged on, the program would notify him. He minimized the window, opened a web browser, and started searching.

* * *

Monica and Angel left the Stardust Motel and drove all day across the Arizona desert.

Angel seemed to be enjoying the power of Lisa’s little indulgence and didn’t spare the ponies. Cacti and tumbleweeds blurred past in a haze, reminding Monica of the night she’d gone for a ride on the back of Peter’s motorcycle.

They flew over the state border midafternoon, and as the land grew dark, Angel guided the car off the main strip and up an old gravel road. She parked on a high bluff overlooking the Colorado flatlands.

When she got out, Monica wandered over to the precipice, where just enough light remained to see the merciless molars that lay in the maw of the chasm below. She stared for what felt like an eternity then raised her eyes to the vast landscape spread out before her.

In full daylight, the plants of the inhospitable barrens seemed flat and muted, but at night, many of them blushed with a faint, phosphorescent luminance, reflecting the glowing moon. The view was similar to the nights in Alabaster Cove when she walked the beaches alone. The occasional school of florescent jellyfish would lounge on the surface of the sea, dotting the murky blackness like underwater paper lanterns. The vastness of the desert looked similar, but instead of an isolated patch of light, the dots of illumination went on for hundreds of miles, disappearing with the curvature of the Earth.

The harsh land, scorched during the day, cooled as soon as the sun fell behind the mountains to the west. A refreshing breeze tousled her hair and tickled her neck as she inhaled its arid crispness.

Monica stretched her back and legs, marveling at how much better she felt freed from the shackles of the depressing little town. The oppressive hand of the FBI, however brief the hiatus, no longer encircled her throat, asphyxiating the life out of her.

She was free.

A thought struck her, and she turned to Angel. “Maybe we should just keep driving? Screw the FBI, screw the mob, screw everyone. We’ll just travel from place to place. There’s so much to see, and neither of us have any obligations. I’m dead and you…well you were already planning to give up the grocery job. Come on; it’ll be fun.”

Semi-serious, she longed to remain unconfined. She hadn’t fought so hard to survive her childhood only to become a pawn of the FBI and an enemy of the mob.

Angel cocked her head. “So we’ll just become professional nomads, the crappy little car our proverbial camel?”

“Something like that.”

“What about the dream of fighting for the rights of abused and neglected children?” Angel assumed her best Monica impression. “‘I’ve decided to be a lawyer, Angel. I want to represent those who have no voice.’”

“Guess they need to find someone who’s up to the task. The person who had that dream died in an explosion a couple of days ago.” Monica reflected for a moment, her gaze not focused on anything. When she came back, her eyes found Angel’s in the deepening twilight. “I can’t believe how badly I’ve messed up my life. Everyone tells me how smart I am, but I had to call you because I couldn’t figure out what to do on my own. I can’t even take care of myself. How am I supposed to help the kids of the world who need it? I’d probably make things worse.”

Angel came up and stood next to her on the edge of the bluff. She took Monica’s hand and said in a quiet voice, “Why don’t we just Thelma and Louise it then?”

“Huh?” Monica stared at her friend.

“You’re a complete and utter loser. A failure. A pimple on the donkey’s ass of society. What’s the point in going on?” Angel took a step closer to the ledge. “Right now. Couple of steps and we’re flying, at least for a few seconds, then it’s all over. No more Peter, Jon, Crew Cut, your mom, the mob, the dream, any of it. A quick, neat end and all your little problems are solved. Come on, let’s do it!” She pulled Monica’s hand. “Right here. Right now. I’m not screwing around. Ready? On the count of three. One…”

Monica gaped at her, looked over the edge of the cliff, and then back at Angel.

“Two…” Angel took a step back, tensing to run.

“Ang, I don’t know.”