Ashley Bell (Ashley Bell #1)(78)
As Bibi backed out of the parking space, the blonde spoke from the backseat. “Instead of letting us out on Newport Center, can you take us down to Coast Highway, drop us off there?”
“Sure. Which side of the highway?”
“West. If you’re going south, that is.”
“I’m going wherever you need me to go.”
When she had reversed fully into the aisle, no vehicle rammed them, no bullets shattered the windows.
“If you drop us off at the corner of PCH and Poppy,” the blonde said, “we can walk from there to my house.”
“Done deal.”
They came to the end of the aisle, and no immense black SUV swerved in front of them to block their way.
They drove past a restaurant where one of the bulls with a shaved head and one of the silent-movie-gigolo types were standing together, talking. As the smooth lean one took the hands-free phone from his ear, the bull looked at the Honda but showed no alarm.
In the passenger seat, the brunette said, “What will they do if they catch you?”
“Kill me.”
Only a few minutes earlier, the girls would have been excited by the revelation of such high stakes, but not now.
“What did you do?” the brunette asked.
“Nothing.”
“Can that be true?”
“So far, yes. Listen, it’s better you don’t know anything more. I’m grateful for your help. I won’t ever forget you.”
The blonde had one more question. “Is there a way out for you?”
“There’s always a way out,” Bibi said. “Don’t worry about me.”
Having retreated earlier, fog was on the march again in this last hour of daylight, and no doubt it would surge a couple of miles inland, there to establish its tents for the night. Just before they reached Coast Highway, which at that point was a quarter to a half mile from the sea, a white wall rose before them, a towering slow-moving tsunami of mist through which headlights swam like golden koi.
Bibi turned south, and they rode in silence the rest of the way, until she parked on the right, just short of Poppy Avenue. The brunette opened her door and scrambled out. Then she turned, leaned back in, said, “Good luck, Jo,” and dropped the five hundred dollars on the passenger seat.
“Hey, no, honey, you earned that,” Bibi protested.
“You need it more,” the girl said. “I’m not on the run.”
The blonde took her friend’s place and said, “Hang tough, Jo. Don’t let the freakin’ butthole spiders win.” She tossed the other five hundred onto the money that the brunette had given back, and she closed the door.
Awkward in a coltish way, not yet having grown into their grace, the girls walked south, leaning into each other, sharing thoughts. The color of their clothes and the details of their forms faded as they proceeded toward the source of the fog. Even after they turned onto Poppy Avenue, Bibi could see them, because the corner property was a parking lot that served the Five Crowns restaurant, with no structures intervening. Hermione and Hermione looked back and waved. They probably couldn’t see her clearly, but Bibi returned their wave.
Considering how short a time she had known the Hermiones, she had developed a remarkable affection for them that now became even more poignant as they dwindled and eroded into the mist. Perhaps what so appealed to her was their combination of gameness and vulnerability, knowingness and innocence.
As the friends paled out of sight, Bibi thought, There go two dead girls.
That grim sentiment so surprised her that she sat up straighter behind the wheel, disquieted by the possibility that those five words were prophetic, that the girls weren’t walking home, but instead were headed toward their imminent deaths. She started to open the driver’s door into traffic, and a horn blared. The sound startled her out of superstition’s grip, and she sat for a moment, letting her nerves unwind a little. She was no prophesier, no crystal-gazing Gypsy. She had no power to see with certainty five minutes into her own future, let alone into that of others.
She realized that the disturbing thought—There go two dead girls—was an expression of her sense of isolation, for now they were dead to her, never to be seen again, and once more she was alone in her flight and quest. In fact, an awful loneliness overcame her, more intense than any she had known before, an almost disabling weight of loneliness, pinning her, paralyzing her. In spite of being illegally parked, she thought that she might sit there until night fell, until dawn followed. She could not turn to anyone she loved, for fear they would become Terezin’s targets. Paxton was different. Pax could deal with threats. Pax, please come home, please. To the authorities, her story would sound like the fevered rambling of a deranged mind, and she would be suspect number one in the murders of Solange St. Croix and Calida Butterfly. As the fog thickened around the Honda and the headlights of passing cars repeatedly washed over her, she was swamped by confusion, seeking solace in something perilously like self-pity.
Until she couldn’t stand herself anymore. Which was after about ten minutes. Damn it, there were things she could do, answers she could seek. Many of them were locked inside herself. She knew their basic shape and, like a blind woman in a house half known, should be able to feel her way to a fuller understanding.
She waited for a break in traffic, pulled onto Coast Highway, and drove south as if her life depended on it.