Color of Blood(88)

“They can ping your phone even if it’s turned off,” he said. “I left it turned on, and they’ll eventually surround that church back there, looking for us.”

Judy decided not to argue. It was the first spontaneously brazen thing she’d seen him do, and it troubled her as they drove through the northern coastal suburbs. If what he said was correct, then the phone tossing was probably the right thing to do; yet it was rash.

They continued to drive in silence while Judy tried to reconcile her decision to force herself on Dennis and his trip north. She could feel his anger but was confident he’d soften eventually. Meanwhile she concentrated on the highway snaking north.

Every now and then the throb of her toe reminded her of how much had happened in such a short time, but through it all she was certain now that she only cared about Dennis. The hell with Garder, the CIA, uranium mines, drug gangs, and former husbands; except for her family, Dennis was now the most important person in her life.

Letting him drive away by himself in Subiaco would mean she’d never see him again. This way, if even for another day or two, she would have Dennis to herself.

After nearly thirty minutes of driving, Dennis said, “I don’t think we’re being followed.”

Judy had been watching the rearview mirror and agreed that there was no obvious tail.

“What do you think they’ll do when they see that you left the hotel?” she said.

“I’m not sure. They’ll either figure out I’m heading north, or they won’t. If they send a team north, then we’ll just have to stay one step ahead. But if they do find us, Judy, promise me you won’t resist.”

“Not a chance I’ll take them on,” she said.

“Good,” he said. “They can be very rough if they get pissed off.”

“So I understand.”

***

At first he could not distinguish a difference between the suburbs northwest of Perth and those outside of many American cities. There were fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC. Granted, most of the single-family homes were very close together, and the majority had red-tile roofs, but there was nothing especially alien or strange about the suburbs, and that comforted him, headed as he was to the outback.

As they crossed the Swan River at Bassendean, the landscape became decidedly rural. It reminded him of the Midwest, only more desiccated. The farmed countryside was contoured with fences and rows of brown crops or plowed furrows. Storage silos and water towers broke the dull blue sky. Huge flocks of sheep, like clots of dirty gray puffballs, appeared out of nowhere in enormous paddocks by the road.

“Dennis,” she asked at one point, driving through the expansive wheat belt northwest of Perth, “are you calm now?”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not talking.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Why don’t you let me in on your thinking?”

“I would if it made any sense. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to keep you out of this thing. I could tell them I kidnapped you.”

“No bloody way. I came of my own volition.”

“You’re not making this easy.”

“Who said I was going to make it easy?”

“God,” he said, shaking his head. “Do you have any idea what the AFP will do with you if you get caught with me?”

“I’ll figure that out later,” she said. “I admit I made an emotional decision to force myself on you, but your decision to go into the bush isn’t exactly a logical one, either.”

“Agreed, but at least it was just one person who might get in trouble. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I think you may be trivializing what these people are like. If they’re JSOC, they’re very cold, mission-driven people. It’s always the mission they’re focused on, not the people. So they don’t care who they’re dealing with.”

“You can’t scare me.”

He sighed. “You remind me of me sometimes.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Right now, it’s bad.”

They drove on in silence, the landscape a reddish smudge through the side windows.

After ten minutes, Dennis said, “Do you ever think about what he was like?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Do you ever think about what he was really like—your father?”

“My father?”

“Yes, your father. Do you ever think about him?”

“I told you, Dennis, I was born after he died. I never met him.”

“But do you think about him sometimes? Do you wonder what life would have been like if he had lived? You know, things like that?”

Judy swiveled her head and looked at Dennis.

“Where did that question come from?” she said.

“I just wondered,” he said quietly. “Not a big deal.”

She was quiet for a few seconds.

“Actually, I do think about him when I look at Mum’s photos. He looks so dashing in his uniform. I have dreams about him.”

“You do? What kind of dreams?”

“Why are you so curious?”

“I don’t know. I wonder what that must be like, to not know what your father was really like.”