You Can't Catch Me(76)

“Yeah,” shouts one of the tent dwellers. “Leave her alone!”

I get into Jessie’s rental and start up the engine. I rev it once, loudly, then drive off down the road.

I roll down the windows and jack up the radio. George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90” is playing.

It seems fitting somehow.





Chapter 35

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The next morning, I rectify something I forgot to do last night as soon as possible. I call Liam.

It’s seven mountain time when I call, which makes it nine in New York. I’ve had about an hour of broken sleep. Though the airport isn’t far, I almost drove off the road on the way there last night because I thought there was a bison in front of me. I was imagining it; it was only a shadow. But, after that, I drove slowly until I got to the airport, parking Jessie’s car in the lot and leaving her suitcase in the back. I left the keys inside, wiping them and the steering wheel off as best I could with a piece of cloth and some rubbing alcohol I got out of the first-aid kit. It didn’t matter if I left some traces of me in the car; I’d been in it for legitimate reasons. We wanted to give the impression that she was covering her tracks in a hurry, not actually erase any sign of her.

Although there was a place to drop off keys when you returned a car off-hours, I didn’t want to get too close to the terminal, or to the cameras I knew were hanging from the ceiling above every entrance. So, I left the keys on the seat in plain sight; maybe some kid would get a joyride. More likely, in this honest western town, someone would report it before we went to the cops. I left her suitcase in the trunk.

Then I turned and started to walk out of the deserted parking lot. There were no flights coming in or out at that hour, nearly midnight, and with the moonlit mountains behind it, the airport looked like a film set.

The airport road was similarly deserted, and way creepier. On either side was a split rail fence and pastures. I could see the outline of some large animals and hear them as they expelled their breath and called to one another gently. I was hoping for cows, but these probably were the bison I thought I was going to hit on the road. The fence looked more like a suggestion than a real barrier, and every step I took sounded like thunder. I was thoroughly freaked out and almost running by the time I got to the main road where JJ was waiting for me in the Jeep. We drove in silence back to the camp, and though I was exhausted beyond anything I’d ever felt before, I couldn’t settle into sleep once we crawled into the tent.

Liam picks up on the third ring. Uncharacteristic for him to wait so long, but maybe he’s pissed at me. I have two missed calls from him and a text that says simply ?. I’d like to think it’s love-fueled worry, but it’s probably just worry.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey, yourself.”

I’m lying in my sleeping bag in the tent. JJ left a couple of minutes ago to take a walk. I suspect she’s gone down to the beach to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. Or that there’s not a blue-shrouded body floating in plain sight on the lake. I shiver and close my eyes.

“Where’d you get to last night?” Liam asks.

“Sorry, there was some major drama.”

“Oh?”

“So it turns out you were right to be suspicious of Jessie. Or whoever she is.”

Liam’s voice tightens. “What happened?”

“I, um, tried to get some information out of her while we went on this epic paddle, but she stuck to her story. So, when she went to take a shower, I went through her stuff in her tent.”

“That’s my girl,” Liam says in a way that should be accompanied by a chuckle but isn’t.

“Aren’t you the one who taught me to do such things?”

“I wasn’t scolding.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”

There’s a mosquito buzzing around inside the tent. Its buzz gets closer, closer, and then stops. I slap it dead against my neck right as I feel it pierce my skin.

“What did you find?” Liam asks.

“She had another set of IDs. Someone named Molly Carter. That was the name she used to buy the ticket to get into the terminal yesterday.”

“Give me the details. I’ll check.”

I wipe the blood from my neck with the edge of my shirt as I rattle off the information I memorized last night when I was buying her plane ticket.

“What happened after you found the IDs?” Liam asks.

“We confronted her.”

“Jess . . .”

“What? What was I supposed to do?”

“You could’ve called me. You could’ve left. You could’ve gone to the police.”

“She would’ve just taken off before you or the police got here. Plus, JJ was here, so it was two against one. I mean, I wasn’t worried she was dangerous or anything.”

“What if she had a weapon?”

“I’d searched her tent and didn’t find anything. We wanted to confront her and get it over with. After all this time . . .”

“What did she say?”

“She denied it at first, but then I remembered that she’d been sending me these threatening texts.”

“What?”

“Oh, right, I haven’t told you about that.”