‘I see,’ she says.
‘You don’t think?’ Damien asks, the question open and curious. ‘There’s a guy – on the dark web. Near to Galveston Port. You go to see him, get an identity, then get a boat.’
‘How’d you know that?’
‘On my burner phone. Private browsing.’
‘We’ve spoken to a lawyer here, he owns this place too, to get his help to try and prove it, to find him. Let’s do that first,’ she says decisively.
‘Did you? You told him everything?’ Damien says, and Simone is surprised to see that he clearly thinks this is risky, riskier than buying falsified documents from a stranger.
Another row brews on the horizon. How come Simone and Damien never differed this much before, even though they are so different?
‘No! I didn’t tell Moody for a full day. I wanted to check him out, make sure no cops came for us here.’
‘Fine, whatever. But even if he finds him, you’ll still have to roll the dice in court.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Forget confessing, and hope the lawyer stays quiet. The guy in Galveston does false passports,’ Damien says, talking in the fast way somebody does when they have held information inside, alone, for too long. ‘With an actual passport, we could get to somewhere like the Bahamas.’
The Bahamas. Simone winces painfully; they spent their honeymoon there. He doesn’t acknowledge this, and maybe it’s too much for him to do so, concentrating instead on the aftermath of getting their daughter back from circumstance and fate’s clutches.
‘Somewhere like the Bahamas, or there?’ she asks, wondering how fully formed this plan is.
‘Just a suggestion. Nothing set in stone.’ Simone meets his eyes. ‘Get a rental. Get jobs,’ he throws out.
‘But.’
‘I know.’
‘That would be … you’re saying forever?’
Damien says nothing. A small shrug. A huge hand on her knee. A sip of his lemonade. And, despite everything, Simone thinks of Dishes, of the back corridor, of the Michelin star plaque she might never see.
‘How do you know Moody’s who he says he is?’ he asks.
‘I don’t, I guess.’
Their voices are hushed in the Texan sunset, and Damien keeps checking the horizon for people, for police, she guesses.
‘You seem, I don’t know,’ he says, ‘pessimistic?’
‘Of course I am,’ she answers. ‘It’s a solution. But it’s not perfect. And we have something to unlock with Moody first.’
The breeze fades as they sit together. Her heart wrenches painfully as she thinks of Luan and the restaurant and her friends. But not as painfully as if she had to stay away from him. She tries to change her mindset. A trade has been done. She got Lucy back. She got Damien. This is the price. It isn’t so bad.
But it feels it. Because two weeks ago, none of these were choices at all. These are grim decisions, made of the same rocks and hard places as the Lone Star desert, and Simone doesn’t want to be making them.
Music begins playing somewhere. Simone startles, shocked, then cocks an ear, listening. She tells herself that when they are caught, it will be stealthy. A surprise. Not like this. This music is a distant neighbour somewhere, a guitar strumming out in the lazy evening.
If.Ifthey are caught, she corrects herself, and Simone finds that curious relief again at the thought of it.
‘It’s Oasis,’ Damien says quietly.
And it is. It’s fucking ‘Wonderwall’. Could there be anything more quintessentially British?
‘Huh,’ she says softly. ‘Listen to that.’ A foreign breeze that makes the breath hitch in Simone’s throat. She couldn’t miss England more. Back home now, first week of September, itwill already be coat weather, unpredictable rain/sun/hail mix. Cold and flu season already. Quality Street in the shops. New-school-year photographs on Facebook.
