She led him up, unlocked the triple locks. “It’s a safe room,” she said, as she opened the door.
And a frigging arsenal, he noted. Handguns, long guns, knives. Shelves of packaged food, bottled water, a computer setup as elaborate as her station downstairs, a chem toilet, clothes, wigs, hair dye, batteries, he saw, as he wandered. Flashlights, dog food, books, a freaking grappling hook, tools.
“Did you set this up yourself?”
“Yes. I needed to learn, as I said. I learned. I have several alternate IDs and passports in here, in a lockbox. Cash, credit cards, and the laminate and paper I need to make still more IDs, if necessary. It’s against the law.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll arrest you later. Okay, you know how to protect yourself, and you think ahead. You’ve been at this how long now?”
“Twelve years.”
“Long enough. Time to stop running.”
“I want to. Today, I thought…”
“What?”
“It’s not rational.”
“Jesus, Abigail.” Despite it all, he had to laugh. “Be irrational.”
“It seemed like a circle. Seeing Ilya in Justin Blake, seeing what I thought of Sergei Volkov in Lincoln Blake. Seeing so much of what I admired in John in you. And finding I could stand up to the Blakes, I could do the right thing and not panic or run. It seemed like I could make the running stop, but I don’t know if I can.”
“You can. I want another beer. I want to think. We’ll figure this out, and we’ll fix it.”
“Brooks—”
“Beer, thinking, figuring and fixing. You’ve stopped being alone, Abigail. You’ll have to get used to that, too. What’s your real name, anyway?”
She took a breath. “Elizabeth.” Her voice sounded rusty on the word. “Elizabeth Fitch.”
He angled his head. “You don’t strike me as an Elizabeth.”
“For a little while, I was Liz.”
“Yeah, I can see that. I’m partial to Abigail, but I can see Liz. So.” He stepped forward, took her hand. “Nice to meet you, Liz.”
22
It wore her out, Brooksrealized, as he sat drinking his beer and thinking. The telling of it and, he imagined, the reliving of it. She’d wedged herself into the corner of the couch, drooping. So he kept his silence, let her drift away awhile while the fire went to simmer and the breeze kicked up against the windows.
Storm coming on, he thought.
Twelve years on the run. She’d turned seventeen and had, or believed she’d had, nothing and no one to depend on but herself.
He pictured himself at seventeen, considered his biggest worry or problem at the time. Wishing he’d had a mightier bat, a faster glove, he remembered, to drive him toward his fantasy of living up to his name as a hot major-league third baseman.
And longing—lusting—for Sylbie.
And that, he concluded, had been pretty much that.
Some schoolwork stress, fights with the longed-for Sylbie, annoyance with parental demands and rules. But he’d had parents, family, home, friends, structure.
He couldn’t imagine what it had been like for her, being seventeen and in constant fear for her life. Witnessing cold-blooded murder, watching the man who’d given her a senseof security, even family, bleeding to death and trying so damn hard to obey his dying request.
John Barrow told her to run, no question saving her life with the order. And she’d never stopped.
He shifted, studying her while she slept. Time to stop running, he thought. Time to trust someone to help, to make it right.
