The Testaments(51)

“So that part had nothing to do with you,” said Ada. I wondered if she was just trying to make me feel better.

“I hate being Baby Nicole,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be.”

“Life sucks, end of story,” said Ada. “Now we have to work out where to go from here.”

Elijah left, saying he’d be back in a couple of hours. “Don’t go out, don’t look out the window,” he said. “Don’t use a phone. I’ll arrange for a different car.”

Ada opened a tin of chicken soup; she said I needed to get something inside me, so I tried. “What if they come?” I asked. “What do they even look like?”

“They look like anybody,” Ada said.



* * *



—

In the afternoon, Elijah came back. With him was George, the old street guy I’d once thought was stalking Melanie. “It’s worse than we thought,” said Elijah. “George saw it.”

“Saw what?” said Ada.

“There was a CLOSED sign on the shop. It’s never closed in the day, so I wondered,” said George. “Then three guys came out and put Melanie and Neil into the car. They were kind of walking them as if they were drunk. They were talking, making it look social, like they’d been having a chat and were just saying goodbye. Melanie and Neil just sat in the car. Looking back—they were slumping, as if they were asleep.”

“Or dead,” said Ada.

“Yeah, could be,” said George. “The three guys went off. About one minute later the car blew up.”

“That’s way worse than what we thought,” said Ada. “Like, what did they tell before, inside the store?”

“They wouldn’t have said anything,” said Elijah.

“We don’t know that,” said Ada. “Depends on the tactics. Eyes are harsh.”

“We need to move out of here fast,” George said. “I don’t know if they saw me. I didn’t want to come here, but I didn’t know what to do so I called SanctuCare and Elijah came and got me. But what if they were tapping my phone?”

“Let’s trash it,” said Ada.

“What kind of guys?” Elijah asked.

“Suits. Businessmen. Respectable-looking,” said George. “They had briefcases.”

“I bet they did,” said Ada. “And they stuck one of them in the car.”

“I’m sorry about this,” George said to me. “Neil and Melanie were good people.”

“I need to go,” I said because I was going to start crying; so I went into my bedroom and shut the door.



* * *



—

That didn’t last long. Ten minutes later there was a knock, then Ada opened my door. “We’re moving,” she said. “Toot sweet.”

I was in bed with the duvet pulled up to my nose. “Where?” I said.

“Curiosity got the cat in trouble. Let’s go.”

We went down the big staircase, but instead of going outside we went into one of the downstairs apartments. Ada had a key.

The apartment was like the one upstairs: furnished with new things, nothing personal. It looked lived in, but just barely. There was a duvet on the bed, identical to the one upstairs. In the bedroom was a black backpack. There was a toothbrush in the bathroom, but nothing in the cabinet. I know because I looked. Melanie used to say that 90 percent of people looked in other people’s bathroom cabinets, so you should never keep your secrets in there. Now I was wondering where she actually did keep her secrets, because she must have had a lot of them.

“Who lives here?” I asked Ada.

“Garth,” she said. “He’ll be our transport. Now, quiet as mice.”

“What are we waiting for?” I asked. “When’s something going to happen?”

“Wait long enough and you won’t be disappointed,” said Ada. “Something will happen. Only you might not like what it is.”





31


When I woke up, it was dark and a man was there. He was maybe twenty-five, tall and thin. He was wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, no logo. “Garth, this is Daisy,” Ada said. I said hi.

He looked at me with interest and said, “Baby Nicole?”

I said, “Please don’t call me that.”

He said, “Right. I’m not supposed to say the name.”

“We good to go?” Ada said.

“Far as I know,” said Garth. “She should cover up. So should you.”

“With what?” said Ada. “Didn’t bring my Gilead veil. We’ll get in the back. Best we can do.”

The van we’d come in was gone, and there was a different one—a delivery van that said SPEEDY DRAIN SNAKING, with a picture of a cute snake coming out of a drain. Ada and I climbed into the back. It held some plumbing tools but also a mattress, which was where we sat. It was dark and stuffy in there, but we were moving along quite fast as far as I could tell.



* * *



—

“How did I get smuggled out of Gilead?” I asked Ada after a while. “When I was Baby Nicole?”

“No harm in telling you that,” she said. “That network was blown years ago, Gilead shut down the route; it’s wall-to-wall sniffer dogs now.”