by Dan Lawton
The woman next to him was an enigma. For as welcoming and charming as she was when they met, a shroud of uncertainty surrounded her. It could have been a personality quirk, but if that were the case, he must decide if that was something he could live with. Yet, she seemed to enjoy his company. And for someone with her rousing cachet, that was no unimpressive feat. He wondered about that. What was it about him that attracted her? Then he wondered further if he was fair to assume she was—again, the only evidence she might have been was alcohol-driven, so it could have meant nothing. He offered her an escape from whatever troubles life had brought her—O’Reilly, for one—so maybe that was enough for her.
Was she using him?
The way she kissed him—aided by alcohol or not—was not a hoax. It felt so genuine, so real. And the way she looked into his eyes with an inferno of passion told him what he felt then was not faux. Not to mention how disappointed she acted—or embarrassed, he wondered—at his subtle rejection when he paid for two rooms instead of one. None of that was bogus. There was a spark between them. He felt it.
He looked over at her while he drove. The vulnerability in which she peacefully slept, the trust she had in him to bring her safely to their next destination—even the destination itself, which was entirely his decision—said something. When he considered all she had been through with the ex-boyfriend who still tracked her, he thought differently about the situation. Despite her downplaying it, stalking was not something to be taken lightly. Maybe the man had not done anything to harm her yet, but that did not mean he could not do so. Randolph admitted he hardly knew anything about the situation and would likely never gain a full understanding—and that was okay. The past was the past. But still, he had a pressing desire to protect her from this man.
Then this hit him: Maybe she was the one who needed him. She trusted him enough to go with him—that had to have meant something. He boasted at the idea. He longed for not only someone to care about him but also to need him. It was not about control—quite the opposite. To need someone was to be vulnerable, and to be vulnerable was to expose emotions that led to powerful connections. And that opened the door for a new love to blossom.
But it was too early for that. Much too early.
He reached across the seat and pulled the arm of his jacket over her forearm, which was uncovered. She repositioned herself and groaned but remained asleep.
He thought sexual thoughts about her as he drove, one hand in control of the wheel while the other wandered. A small bulge formed in his pants, but not enough for him to reposition himself—which was the same problem he had become accustomed to. The emotional aspect had not dissolved, nor the desires, but his body was not aligned. His prostate ached sometimes, desperate to cleanse itself. The daily struggle challenged his masculinity, made him feel like less of a man.
He would have to tell Sheila about it before long because she deserved an explanation for his behavior last night. It pained him to consider the hurt he caused her. His only hope was that her memory was foggy because of the inebriation she had experienced. Being rejected was the worst kind of pain—he knew it well. It was not that she was not desirable, because she certainly was. Far more desirable than any woman he had ever been with, frankly. He had to explain that to her, wanted to, when the right moment arose.
A single buzz interrupted his thoughts, brought him back. Then another one pulsed. He recognized it as coming from a mobile phone, but his was in the cup holder in the center console and powered off, the screen as black as midnight. Another buzz.
Sheila’s phone was in her hand, her fingers wrapped around it as if it were her lifeblood. The screen lit up. Her grip was just loose enough for Randolph to pinch the leathery case around it and pull it up, which he did, enough to see the screen. His eyes darted between the flashing white lines on the pavement and the phone that dangled between his fingertips.
Guilt set it. It was unlike him to invade someone’s private life this way, but his curiosity got the best of him. He tried to think of a way to justify his actions but could not. But he did not stop, either. If Sheila woke up and questioned him, he did not know what he would say to her. The name on the screen: Griff. A nickname, Randolph gathered. Unique.
The call screen disappeared and the phone turned to black, and he was relieved. He slid it back into Sheila’s hand without waking her. Another buzz quickly followed and the phone lit up again. Still Griff. Who was Griff? A friend, maybe, or a family member. Women had male friends, right? The call stopped and a new voicemail symbol popped up. Whatever Griff wanted—this acquaintance of Sheila’s—must have been important. Young people did not leave voicemails these days, or so he heard.
Randolph left the phone. He did not use his much, but he knew enough to know messages often required a password or a scanned fingerprint to access. So even if he wanted to listen to the message, he would be unable to. It was better if he did not, anyhow; nothing positive could come from it. Boundaries.
He turned his attention back to the freeway, peeked at his mirrors. He heard it and felt it before he saw it—the thundering roar of the exhaust, then the rumble under his feet. Before long, the speck in his rearview grew larger and became clearly visible. It was a pickup, black and with enormous tires, and it made up ground quickly.
Randolph switched lanes to let the truck pass, except it did not. It rode his tail as if the two trucks were connected. Its horn blasted. It looked similar to the one he saw in the parking lot of the motel this morning, but he could not be certain. It could have been a coincidence—those lifted trucks were not unusual. But if it was the same, that meant one thing, and it was not good.
O’Reilly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The neighbor’s wi-fi password was freebyrd44—like the song, just with a y. Benji did not know what the 44 stood for. He used the network in exchange for weed. He thought it was a fair barter.
Some nights he would not sleep. The insomnia he acquired as a teenager manifested itself in times of crisis. The current situation could be described as just that—a crisis. While Shay’s text offered comfort that she was all right, it still left him unsettled. The job was not done and he did not know why, and he was concerned. She refused to answer his phone calls still, or respond to his texts.
Being an insomniac was not always a burden. His body required less sleep than most, which was a gift. The amount he could accomplish in twenty-four consecutive waking hours was remarkable. Through countless hours unwrapping the depths of the dark web and reading books from the library most people would be shocked to know even existed, the skills he acquired were in abundance.
He was a techie at heart. The capabilities of a computer, if you knew how to use it, were beyond what any user’s manual would ever say. He was self-taught on how to write code and disassemble and reassemble the guts of a machine, and how to use batteries and static electricity to never be without power, and how to get access to information the general public was not privy to. The capacity of one’s brain was far more than short- and long-term memories.
Benji was not a genius, though his IQ was higher than average. He could not apply his skill of retaining much of the information he chose to learn to the real world and instead chose to apply it to personal endeavors. He could have gone to college if he wanted, but that did not interest him. He preferred to learn on his own accord rather than through a lecture based on an outdated textbook by a person who knew next to nothing about the topic he or she lectured about. He lacked tolerance for a classroom setting.
His workstation was his classroom. His laptop was equipped with the fastest processor on the market and storage and memory that exceeded industry standards. The retina scanner was top- notch. The fingerprint sensor was precise and foolproof. The passwords he kept were at least fifteen digits long and completely randomiz
ed—he knew them all by muscle memory. He always protected himself.
He did not trust cloud services. The wi-fi network he accessed was far from impenetrable, but it helped he used someone else’s rather than his own so to stay off the radar. He wrote custom software to detect possible intruders and external threats before the off-the-shelf software could. And while he had not ever planned to use it, he installed a kill switch that would wipe all his data in minutes if the situation ever arose where that was necessary—though the time required to rebuild everything again would be devastating. But he had to be prepared for the unexpected.
His latest project was put into action—field-tested, so to speak. The design worked, as proven by the results. But the execution was flawed somehow, and he wanted to know why. He waited long enough for answers without any, so it was time he proactively investigated himself as best he could from a safe distance.
He flipped open the laptop and pressed the circle in the corner, and the machine booted up. He kept his eyes open wide and did not blink until the lens on the machine authorized entry. The command prompt popped on the screen, the cursor blinking, and Benji used the trace-route command to find the IP address he was after. Most surveillance systems used standard HTTP port numbers, and this one was no different. He knew the WAN IP address from prior research. After that, all he needed was login credentials, which was not as difficult to guess as one might imagine. The username was one of the standard administrator ones and while the password was trickier, it did not take long. It was why his passwords were so long and randomized; you never knew who was watching.
He was in.
It sounded simple, but it was not. He spent countless hours researching and had spent years honing his skills. More often than not, he was not successful. The more advanced the setup, the less likely it was he could access the network. Which was why the plan had been perfect—this system was far from technologically advanced. Which he knew.
Yet, somehow, the plan did not work.
And now, behind the security of his laptop, Benji could find out what happened.
The security footage was grainy, but the wide angle of the camera showed everything. Shay was there, in position. An exchange happened. She seemed cool. Everything appeared to be in place, the execution flawless. So what happened? He kept watching. Two minutes passed. Then the footage flashed and went to black. The rest of the video was the same.
Benji rewound the file and watched it again. Same thing. Then again. This time, he stopped the reel and clicked frame by frame and adjusted the degree of zoom. He slid close to the screen and squinted at it, the heat of which warmed his face.
It seemed unfathomable. As closely as he looked, as many angles as he tried, he could not tell what happened. The flash appeared out of nowhere as if a brilliant LED was flipped on then off. Shay was on the screen then she was not, and that was that. Vanished.
He signed out and closed the laptop and groaned. The information was not helpful. What went wrong? Cheyenne would ask again, and he would have to tell her what he knew. Which was nothing. Unless Shay reached out again or answered his calls so they could chat, he would not have any answers. Frustration came. He had the sense Shay was up to no good by straying from the plan, but he did not know how or why. Was the flash her doing?
There was only one way to find out.
He made a call.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Randolph gripped both hands on the steering wheel and clenched hard. The truck was still on his tail. Headlights flashed in his rearview and paralyzed his vision. He was temporarily blinded while his eyes adjusted, but he tried to remain calm—though, on the inside, he was near panic. The seat vibrated under him as the tires rattled against the rumble strips, and he worried he was too close to the guardrail. His hands and wrists and forearms shook as he struggled to regain his composure and pull the truck back onto the freeway, back to safety.
A horn blasted. Randolph leaped, blindly swung the wheel left then right. When his vision returned, he realized he was closer to the rail on the shoulder than he thought—close enough to touch it if the passenger window was cracked—and he eased back into the lane. The truck was still behind him, practically on top of them. His heart pummeled his ribcage.
Sheila stirred next to him, grunted as consciousness returned. He felt her look at him, tasted the sweat that formed on his upper lip.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “You’re drenched.”
Was he?
He looked down at his armpit and saw the stain. “Some asshole is on my ass.”
Sheila spun in her seat. “Let him pass.”
“I tried.”
She spun back around and looked at him. “What?”
“What, what?”
“What’s wrong?”
He peeked in the rearview at the pickup which was still close but not quite as. “The truck.”
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it before.”
“Okay.” She spun again, then back.
“This morning. At the motel.”
She unbuckled and spun fully this time, faced the rear window.
“Is it O’Reilly?” he asked. His eyes quickly shifted between the road and the mirror. He felt somewhat in control of the situation finally now that he had control of the vehicle. He was glad Sheila was awake.
Sheila turned back and re-clipped the lap belt. “No, it’s not him.”
“Are you sure? How do you know?”
“Positive.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know, okay? Let him pass.”
Randolph shook it off. A pull-off was up ahead. He pushed harder on the pedal, felt the roar of the acceleration rush through his toes. Getting to the pull-off felt urgent. He flicked his directional to the right and yanked the wheel in that direction. The rapid clicks seemed louder than usual, like the way the hands of a grandfather clock sang as they landed on noon in an empty house. They drowned his thoughts.
He decelerated and coasted off the road, allowed himself a second to breathe. On the freeway, the pickup flew past, its exhaust rumbling. A vocalist screamed through the speakers as though it hurt to do so. The truck disappeared into the horizon before long and took the rumble with it, the pained voice too. Randolph exhaled.
What is wrong with me?
He jammed the transmission into park, unbuckled, and slid out. He needed air. He shook himself out through the mist and ran his hand through his hair. It was not misty enough to need wipers, but still enough to dampen his fingers. He was rattled and he did not know why. Paranoid. It was clear he was out of his element.
A hand landed on his shoulder and startled him. He whipped his head around and felt the joints in his knees tense.
“Are you okay?” It was Sheila. She kept her hand on him as she stepped closer.
His shoulders dipped and his head fell.
“Do you want me to drive for a while? You look exhausted.”
Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just overtired. It was a long night after all, and he was awoken earlier than he would have liked. Her driving for a while was not the worst idea he ever heard.
“I’ll drive,” she said.
As he walked around the truck and climbed into the passenger seat, he was touched by Sheila’s tenderness. She saw something in him that he failed to himself and took control of the situation to ensure he was all right. It had been a long time since someone had done something like that for him. It was the little things that mattered the most.
“Thanks,” he said as he climbed in and closed the door. The seat was warm.
“For what?”
>
“For noticing.”
She leaned toward him and placed a hand on his forearm. She smiled at him through a yawn. No words were needed.
Back on the freeway and steadily cruising, Randolph’s eyes were heavy. The lids felt weighted, and the balls behind them ached. But then he remembered something and said, “Griff called.”
“Excuse me?”
“Griff. That’s what your phone said.”
She looked at him but kept two hands on the lower half of the wheel.
“It rang when you were asleep. I saw the name on the screen.”
She nodded, moved her attention back to the road.
“A friend?”
“Something like that.”
“Do you need to call him back? I think he left a message.”
“It’s not that important.”
“Are you sure? He left a message.”
“It’s fine,” she said. “Why don’t you rest? You drove for a while. Relax.”
That sounded nice. His body would not argue, he knew that. It needed more time to recover from the adventure from the night before, which felt like an eternity ago. He closed his eyes. Exhaustion suffocated him. Where they were headed, he did not care, not at the moment. He trusted Sheila to make the decision, just as she had done with him. Whatever would happen would happen, and he would adapt. Together, they would figure it out. Everything would be fine.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
He slept for a while. When he awoke, it was to the smooth rhythms of Dan Fogelberg’s mellow harmonies. Dan told a story about the time he ran into an old girlfriend and she spilled her purse and they shared a few beers and laughed about old times. The girlfriend was warm and safe and dry, but unhappy still. It felt like a story based on reality—the harsh reality of mundane life. Dan’s calmness made it seem more manageable, though. Randolph admired that.
