"I'm a contractor. My wife's a photographer."
She looks at me. "What kind of photography?"
I force myself to breathe and relax my throat. "Landscapes and travel photography. I sell prints online."
She studies me for a moment, in an examining way. Is she suspicious of me?
"You two look familiar," she says finally and my blood goes cold.
"We have one of those faces," Dom says easily. "People always say that."
She looks back at the IDs and looks at us again. I can feel her mind trying to pinpoint where she has seen us before, and you can see she's about to ask another question. I can see it forming in her mind.
Then her radio crackles with a firm voice coming through, urgent and distracted. From what I can make out, it’s about a multiple car crash. She glances away, annoyed at the interruption.
When she looks back at us, the moment of suspicion has passed.
"Okay," she says, handing back the IDs. "Make sure you get it fixed, otherwise you’ll get a ticket next time. This emergency has saved you."
"Thank you, and we will," Dom says.
We wait until the cop leaves, blue lights and sirens speeding ahead of us. I swear my ass is clenched so tight I may be stuck to the seat.
"We're good," Dom says quietly.
"Thank god. I thought that was it. We nearly got caught because of a fucking taillight."
"I never checked it, but we’ll get it fixed. You can relax."
"I’m trying."
I look in the side mirror and watch the view disappear and there is a finality in it. The old names and old life. The old Roxy and Dom. All of it washing away into the rearview mirror, firmly a part of our past.
We are now left driving to our future. I reach over and put my hand on Dom's thigh and he covers it with his own, as we drive in silence toward San Diego, toward the life we've fabricated and the freedom that comes from being dead.
The sun is setting over the desert, and I close my eyes, enjoying the feeling of not having to look over my shoulder.
"We did it," I say.
"We did."
"We're free."
He squeezes my hand and keeps driving, and I watch the landscape blur past, the highway, the endless road stretching out ahead of us.
Roxy and Dom are dead.
James and Roxy Brennan are alive.
And we're never looking back.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DOM
San Diego feels like a cage wrapped in sunshine.
We've been here two weeks, and the apartment in Ten Park is everything we need it to be on paper. Two bedrooms, hardwood floors, big windows that let in the California light. The neighborhood is perfect, especially for Roxy. It’s artsy, bohemian, filled with galleries and coffee shops and young creatives who mind their own business.
