The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(85)

The man was slight in stature, but he dressed and acted to compensate. Beneath his wide gray cowboy hat were a pair of sunglasses large enough to qualify as novelty shades. His red denim shirt was garnished with rhine-stones. The man practically drowned his new acquaintances in his proud Southern drawl.

“We’re fine,” Zack assured him. “Bought a clunker. Clipped a deer. You know how it goes.”

“I hear that. Sure as hell do. Sometimes life just grabs you by the jangles and gives it a good ol’ squeeze!” He tipped his hat at Hannah. “If you’ll pardon the expression, ma’am.”

Even with his absurd shades, Hannah could tell he was aggressively unconcerned about her delicate ears and quite interested in the goods beneath her tank top. She crossed her arms uncomfortably.

“Sure I can’t help?” asked the cowboy. “I’m mighty handy with a wrench.”

Zack shook his head. “No thanks. We’re fine. We appreciate it though.”

The man kept smiling, his high cheer peppered with a hint of wry amusement.

“All righty. I’ll just mosey on along then. But if you’re ever feeling blue, just remember: it’s a brand-new day and the sun is shining bright. Yes, sir!”

He lowered his shades and offered Hannah a quick wink that was creepy enough to distract her from all her recent woes. Zack was intrigued by the “55” tattoo on the back of his right hand. He wondered if the significance of the number was cultural or personal.

For Evan Rander, it was very personal.

He revved his engine, then offered his two fellow Silvers a final preening smile.

“Y’all take care now. Keep walking.”

“Keep walking,” Zack repeated.

He and Hannah continued to watch the car as it disappeared to the east. Zack could have sworn he heard laughter over the loud, noxious music.

Hannah kept her gaze on the car’s dust trail. “Why’d you say ‘Keep walking’?”

“American expression. Means ‘Be well.’ ‘Stay strong.’ That sort of thing.”

“Oh.” She vaguely recalled the pony-haired girl at the supermarket saying the same thing. At the time, Hannah had taken it as a rude brush-off. Guess the kid was being nice.

Once Amanda finished Theo’s bandage and the last of the van’s useful items were collected into bags, there was little else to do but move on. The Silvers gathered at the side of the road.

Amanda watched Hannah caress her aching hand, then grabbed it for inspection.

“What are you doing, Amanda? I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You keep rubbing it and wincing.”

“Well, you’re not making it better by squeezing it.”

“Just let me check, okay?”

“Ow! Goddamn it!”

Amanda dropped Hannah’s arm. “We’ll have to wait and see, but I don’t think it’s fractured.”

“It is now!”

“Yes, thank you for yelling at me. That’s just what I need right now.”

Mia watched their exchange with dark fascination, then looked away when Amanda noticed her.

Zack pointed to the elevated highway in the distance, stretching deep into the sunrise. “I don’t know the name of that road, but it runs east. I say we travel underneath it until we hit the next town. Along the way, we can figure out what to do about money and food and all that. Is everyone okay with that idea?”

In slow succession, they all nodded. Zack studied their grim and weary faces.

“All right then.”

The group took a final mournful look at Czerny, then slowly proceeded down the road. Two by two, they traveled east—rarely talking, frequently yawning.

Soon a commuter aerotrain crossed high above them on invisible tracks. The bottom of each car sported glowing white struts that varied in formation from trailer to trailer. From below, the whole thing looked like a giant string of dominoes.

The group stopped in place, craning their necks until the final car passed from view.

“They have flying trains,” Hannah uttered. “Did anyone else know they had flying trains?”

From the blank expressions of the others, it was clear that they didn’t.

“Jesus.”

Amanda rubbed her back. “Come on.”

With a deep breath, the actress picked a pebble from her sneaker and then joined the others. The Silvers followed the road to the elevated highway, and then kept walking.





SIXTEEN




September 6 was a bad day to be a morning commuter on Highway V. A tempic police cordon blocked all northbound lanes at Terra Vista while bright lumic arrows diverted vehicles to the nearest clogged exit. The ghosted image of a U.S. flag slowly rippled above the barrier. A glimmering overlay asked drivers to be patient and kind to their fellow Americans.

Beyond the cordon, twenty state and local policemen gathered to investigate the odd standoff that had occurred here ninety minutes ago. The Terra Vista police chief scratched his jowls in confusion as he processed the testimony. He was a fat and hairy man of churlish disposition. No one had cause to find humor in the fact that his name was James Bond.

The chief was in a particularly foul mood this morning. Two of his men had been banged up in a high-speed road chase that went bizarrely awry. Another two were laid up with cracked ribs and punctured lungs. They rested on stretchers, waiting for the court recorder to arrive. Before their wounds and memories could be undone by revivers, they had to give their sworn statement about the woman who hurt them—a tall and skinny redhead who’d discovered a bold new way to resist arrest.