The Passenger (19 page)

I zipped up the suitcase, put it in the trunk of my car, and returned to the place I'd called home for almost two months to give it one final inspection. That was when I decided to wipe it for prints. I took the pillowcase off the bed and began polishing every shiny surface I laid my eyes on.

In retrospect, I should have just hit the road. It was possible to shine away all of my prints, but what was the point with my DNA all over the place?

There was a knock at the door. I put the money in my bag and searched the room for anything I might have to take with me. I sat quietly on the floor, next to the bed, and tried to wait out my uninvited guest, but the knocks continued.

“I know you're in there, Debra. Open up.”

It was Domenic. I grabbed my purse and jacket and left my apartment through the school entrance, walking down the hallway to the kitchen where there was a servants' entrance off the pantry. I unlocked the door, slipped outside, and crouched down in the shrubbery. I could see Domenic's car parked next to mine, but he was no longer standing by the door to my apartment.

I crab-walked along the old house, trying to pinpoint his whereabouts. Maybe he had moved to the front of the school, anticipating my alternate escape. The servants' exit wasn't well-known. I had a clear shot to my Cadillac. If I got there in time I could probably get a head start, and he might never be able to catch me even with the V-8 engine in that truck of his.

I've made split-second decisions my whole life. I can't comment on the quality of any of them since I can't go back and see where the alternate route would have taken me. What I can say is that standing in the shrubbery of John Allen Campbell Primary School all night wasn't going to do me any good. So I made a run for it. I ran straight for my car. Got inside, gunned the engine, burned rubber as I backed out of the space and pulled out of the lot. I drove down Recluse to Greenborough, then pulled onto Moorcroft. When I saw the signs for the interstate I thought I was free, or free in the way I'd come to know freedom, which isn't exactly freedom at all.

Just as I'd caught up on my breath, I lost it again. My passenger leaned over the backseat and whispered in my ear, “Where are we headed, Debra?”

I swerved like a snake on meth over the double yellow line. Horns blared and high beams flashed in warning as I steadied the car and slammed on my brakes.

“Hardly seems like the right vehicle for a road trip. But it is a beauty. I'll give you that,” said Domenic. “What kind of mileage does this thing get?”

“Not good,” I said.

“Do you mind if I ask you where the blood came from?”

For a second I blanked and had no idea what he was talking about, which seemed like a bad sign.

“What blood?”

“I noticed a fair amount of blood under and near your Cadillac. Do you know anything about that?”

“I do not,” I said.

“Why is the front seat all wet?”

I could feel Domenic's hands sliding down the seat along my back.

“I spilled coffee,” I said.

“Over your shoulder?”

We ended up on a country road that I hadn't studied on any of my maps. I didn't know where it would take us, but we wouldn't be going far.

“I know you're not Debra, so who are you?”

“Nobody,” I said.

“Who is Debra Maze?” Domenic asked.

“She's just a woman I met along the way.”

“A woman who's been missing for over a year. It's a bit convenient, isn't it?”

“More inconvenient, if you think about it,” I said.

Domenic sighed deeply. “What am I gonna do with you, teach?” he said. He said it the way a grown-up might say it to a delinquent teenager. But I knew he saw the situation as a bit more sinister.

“What am I going to do with you?” I said, although I had already decided.

We were traveling about fifty miles an hour. I was buckled up; Domenic wasn't. He was still leaning over that front seat, oblivious to all of the health risks involved in automobile travel. I slammed on the brakes and aimed the car at the cement guardrail. The front right fender of that classic beauty crumpled like an aluminum can.

Domenic went flying over the front seat and hit his head on the dashboard, then bounced back and wedged himself on the floor. His feet got caught in the steering wheel. He moaned, which I considered a good sign. I had hoped to keep his injuries minor. I'm not exactly a stunt driver, but I did my best. I shoved his feet out of the way, backed out of the wreckage, and pulled off the road about a mile away. I found a side street with solid tree cover and parked on the shoulder.

I got out of the car, opened the passenger door, helped Domenic onto a gravelly patch of dirt. Blood trickled down his forehead, but I figured if he got medical attention soon enough, he'd be just fine. I put an old blanket under his head and found his cell phone in his pocket. I dialed 911 with my knuckle and gave his coordinates and condition as best I could. I was about to leave when Domenic started muttering something. I leaned in and asked him what he needed.

“Thirsty,” he said.

I found a bottle of water in the car and left it for him.

“I'm sorry about this, Domenic. Nothing personal. Survival makes you do things you never thought you were capable of.”

“Don't leave.”

“The ambulance should be here soon. Try to stay awake.”

As I started to get up, Domenic grabbed my wrist in a vise grip. “Who are you? Who are you really?”

“I don't know anymore.”

March 30, 2014

To: Jo

From: Ryan

Where are you? Are you still alive?

July 19, 2014

To: Jo

From: Ryan

I know you're on the run. I'll still check this e-mail on occasion, as long as I can. If you need something that I can give you, I'll try.

I'm sorry.

R

T
O
my best calculations, I gave Domenic just over an hour to be found by paramedics and recover his senses enough to provide them with my license plate number or other identifying information. I figured that gave me two or so hours before I'd have to lose the car. I took Highway 16 West and drove for fifty minutes, barely cracking the speed limit. I watched enviously as other cars left me in the dust. Then I exited onto I-25 toward Casper, Wyoming. I had one hundred and ten miles, one hundred and ten minutes to contemplate my next destination. Since I didn't have a solid identity in my back pocket, I'd have to live off the grid; I also knew I should put as much distance as I could between myself, the body of the real Jack Reed, Domenic, and all of the people who had come to know me as Debra Maze.

I found the Greyhound station in Casper, drove a mile away, parked in a strip mall, and walked back to the bus depot. I went to the kiosk and bought a ticket to Denver, Colorado.

I boarded the bus at 1:05 a.m. I was awake for every single jostle, vibration, pothole, pit stop, toilet flush, and destination callout of the entire six-hour journey. At 10:00 a.m., I gazed bleary-eyed at the black-and-white departure board in the Denver Amtrak station. There are only two routes out of Denver. If you head west, your final destination is either Los Angeles or San Francisco; east, you end up in Chicago. I had a simple choice to make. East or west?

I had a strict policy against the West Coast, so the choice was simple. Unfortunately, the California Zephyr brought me into the vicinity of Wisconsin, Tanya Dubois's old stomping grounds. I'd have to tread carefully during my layover.

The Zephyr didn't depart for another four hours, which gave me ample time to find a fellow passenger with a credit card I could borrow. I had a few options—all women with their handbags on display. I chose the one with the nicest shoes. They were a strappy pump that dangled off of her heel as she napped on a bench. She didn't stir as I strolled past. Her purse was wide open; I could pluck the wallet right out. I took inventory of my surroundings and everyone was minding their business. I shrugged off my jacket and threw it over my right arm. I walked past the woman again, dropped my phone in front of her bench, and as I retrieved it, I plucked her wallet right out of her handbag. Once I was out of sight, I took her credit card and purchased a ticket to Chicago, splurging on a roomette. I needed the rest, and the fewer people who saw me while I still looked like the second Debra Maze, the better. My benefactress, Virginia White, also had $182 in her purse. I kept one credit card and the cash, but I didn't want to leave her stranded without any ID.

As I breezed back in her direction, I had planned to drop the wallet back in her bag. But she was already scavenging through her purse in a panic. I strolled to the other end of the train station and dropped her wallet on the ground. Maybe a good Samaritan would find it and return it to her.

During the four hours I had before I boarded the train, I found a thrift store, where I bought a small backpack and a change of clothes. Then I stopped in a drugstore, where I purchased water, energy bars, and a disposable cell phone.

I
BOARDED
the train without incident and slept for the first ten hours, waking here and there to guzzle water and reemerge into the nightmare that had become my life. When I had finally slept long enough to recover some from the last forty-eight hours, I woke to a hunger so incapacitating that the stroll down the train to the café car felt like a two-day journey through the desert. I wove through the narrow aisle like a drunk frat boy, steadying myself on the backs of the seats. When I finally arrived in the car and sat down at the bar, the menu appeared to be written in a foreign language.

The café car attendant—I think she said her name was Grace, or maybe I was just playing with names in my head—asked if I needed assistance. That was how in need of assistance I must have looked. It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't be behaving in any suspicious manner since people recall suspiciously behaving people better than normally behaving ones. I made a very strong mental note to start behaving normally.

“What's good?” I said.

“Everything,” she said.

I admired her sense of pride in her product, but I had made so many complex, arduous, and life-altering decisions over the last two days that I needed to have one taken off my plate.

“Let me rephrase that,” I said. “What would you have if you were sitting down for a meal?”

“A burger. I always order a burger,” said Maybe Grace.

“I'll have a burger,” I said.

The burger was adequate but not excellent. The speed with which I consumed it would only reinforce Maybe Grace's opinion of her favorite dish.

As she cleared my plate, she asked me where I was heading. Since I hadn't yet chosen a final destination, I said, “Chicago.”

“Got family there?”

“Around there.”

I bought a bag of potato chips, almonds, an apple, and water to hold me through the rest of the journey. Innocuous questions always lead to more personal ones, and I didn't have any answers at the moment. I returned to my roomette. There I sat by the picture window and watched the landscape dash by so fast I felt like I was in a perpetual state of just missing something important.

By the time we got to Nebraska, tedium had set in. Everything started to look the same, and I lost that nostalgic feeling I had for the landscape we'd left behind. I began checking my watch with a ticlike frequency as the first leg of my journey was coming to an end. Roomettes are a nice idea, but they're smaller than a prison cell and unless you're accustomed to that minimalist lifestyle, it gets old fast.

Detraining in Chicago gave me a fleeting sense of exultant freedom, until I came to the honest conclusion that I probably ought to get out of the Midwest with haste. If I hopped into a post office in Chicago, I'd likely find a grainy photocopy of my face thumbtacked to a bulletin board right next to the FBI's most wanted.

Chicago's Union Station was more populous than the entirety of Recluse, Wyoming. Fellow passengers, commuters, and lingerers jostled past me. I felt like I was in the middle of a swarm of bees, the movements so alarmed my quieted senses. It had been a long time since I'd experienced the bustle of city life. I have to admit, I'd longed for it. I missed being invisible in a room full of people, getting lost in a crowd.

Just as that hopeful vision cropped up, I stamped it down. Big cities require pricey apartments, which require well-paying legitimate jobs, and both of those require references and work history and, far more importantly, a goddamn ID, which I was currently lacking.

I contemplated the departure board. The one clear decision I had already made was that I should put more miles between myself and the Midwest. It was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive to Waterloo, Wisconsin, most of that along I-94 if I remembered correctly.

Virginia White's cash bought me a ticket on the Lake Shore Limited to Albany, New York. The train didn't depart for another six hours, so I stuffed my bag in a locker, bought a couple of local newspapers, and hoped I wouldn't find a police sketch of myself inside those pages. I found a poorly lit and poorly populated bar that wasn't blasting sports on the television, and sat down four bar stools away from the other solo customer.

“What'll it be?” the bartender asked.

I ordered a beer, opened the newspaper, and realized the light was all wrong for reading. Still, if you're a woman sitting alone in a bar, it's always best to look occupied, even if you're faking it. Most men think they're doing you a favor, keeping you company, curing you of the shame of being alone in public.

It didn't take long for a fellow traveler to take a seat next to mine. I tensed my shoulders and raised the newspaper in a defensive posture. Some men would have read my body language for what it was—an indisputable
DO NOT DISTURB
sign. But some men can only read their internal weather report and have no concept that another human might not want the same things they want.