She called and Darling was ready to go. “You need help carrying stuff out to the cars?” he asked.
“If you want to, that’d help,” she said. They’d divided the money and gold the night before, about two-thirds to go with Poole, the other third to be packed in her car, neatly layered in two carbon-fiber suitcases. Darling looked wide awake when he knocked on the door. Between them, they got everything but Poole’s duffel bag out to the cars and locked away.
“Still dark,” she said, looking up at the bright overhead stars. “I’m hardly ever awake at this time of day, unless I’ve stayed up overnight.”
“It’s early for me, too,” Darling agreed. “I usually get up around five-thirty. That’s the prettiest time, especially in the summer. Dew on the grass, birds waking up, air smells clean.”
“If we can get Gar moving, we can be in and out of Dallas before it gets light,” Box said.
They were walking back across the parking lot when Poole came down the stairs, carrying his duffel bag. “Let’s just go,” he said. “We can eat on the road.”
Box insisted on checking the motel room one last time, to make sure they weren’t leaving anything; Poole and Darling waited impatiently until she got back. She said, “We’re good,” and they were on I-35 by four forty-five, traveling fast.
—
TWO HOURS LATER,they were at the storage units. Box traded her Audi for the pickup, backed down the narrow alley to another storage unit, and Poole and Darling helped her load a favorite table andchairs in the back and covered it all with a blue plastic tarp, tied tightly into the truck bed. Poole left his Mustang in another bay and loaded his share of the gold and money into Darling’s truck.
Darling waited while Poole and Box said good-bye. “I’ll see you in New Mexico,” he said. “Once we’re there, we’ll be okay.”
“Goddamnit, Gar, I wish we didn’t have to split up,” Box said, leaning into him.
“It’s safest this way. We should be okay, we’ve still got a jump on them, but if one of us gets stopped...”
“I know, I know...” They spent a minute kissing good-bye, Box’s arms wrapped around Poole’s neck, until Darling called, “Sun’s coming up.” Poole pushed her away and said, “New Mexico.”
“New Mexico,” she said, and got in the truck.
—
ALTHOUGHtheir separate routes would be roughly parallel, Poole and Darling took the longer run. They planned to go south from Dallas on Highway 281 to Burnet, then west until they picked up I-10 into El Paso. Box would take I-30 through Fort Worth and then I-20 most of the way across west Texas until she also hooked into I-10 to El Paso. El Paso bordered New Mexico to the north and west, and Mexico to the south. They all had passports: if worse came to worst, they might be able to hide the money in the States and cross the border to Juàrez, Mexico, at least long enough to slip the American law.
The sun wasn’t quite up when Box left the storage units and had just peeked over the horizon when she got on I-30. From there it was smooth sailing out on I-30 and then I-20, heading southwest. She’ddecided she’d stop for breakfast at Abilene, and then push on. The manhunt would be in the Dallas area. The farther away she got, the better off she’d be.
Poole called at eight. “We’re outa town. How’re you doing?”
“Doing good. I’m on I-20. Thinking about breakfast at Abilene.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, babe.”
Then everything went to hell, and all at once.
She didn’t see the highway patrolman until she was right on top of him. She’d crossed a bridge, where low trees crowded right up to the highway, and there he stood, a radar gun in his hand. His car was parked behind him, off the side of the road.
Box tapped the brake, saw that she was no more than two or three miles an hour over the speed limit—she was in the slow lane, being passed regularly by most of the traffic—and her first thought was,Okay.
Then she looked in the rearview mirror and saw the highway patrolman running for his car. She was a quarter mile down the highway before he got to it, and another few hundred yards when the light bar came up and the patrol car hit the highway. She had no doubt in her mind, he was coming after her, and that was confirmed when he moved into the same lane.
She said, “Shit,” and with panic tight around her heart, she floored the gas pedal. There was no way she’d outrun him, not on the highway—she could see him closing—and a few seconds later, saw an exit sign coming up. She took the exit, Highway 919 North, and a sign that said “Gordon.”
There was no town at the end of the exit ramp and the cop wasgetting very close, hitting the end of the exit ramp as she made the turn onto 919. Still coming.
On 919, she pushed the truck as hard as she could, tried to get the phone up to call Poole, fumbled it, saw it drop into the passenger foot well: no way to get it.
“Oh my God,” she cried. The cop was no more than a hundred yards behind her, and still closing. To her left, a dirt road cut off into the scrubby trees, and she said, again aloud, “Fuck it,” and took the turn. By the time she got straight, the cop was right on her bumper, siren wailing into the morning. There’d been no rain for a while, and she started throwing a cloud of dust and could see the cop back a ways, and up ahead, an even narrower track. She took that one, deep into the woods, crashed across a dry creek bed, powered away, saw the cop hit the dry bed, get across it, still coming.
She had some hope, now. First chance, she left the track altogether, weaving through the trees. The truck bottomed once, twice, wheels grinding into the raw dirt, and then...
