Meg was incensed. “What am I supposed to do — twiddle my thumbs when I could be helping out?”
“You’ve got the most important job of all,” Aiden argued. “It’s up to you to find a hotel we can afford.”
By this time it was daylight, and the streets were beginning to fill with early-bird commuters. Aiden and Meg split a bagel and juice and sat in a small outdoor café, watching Boston come alive around them.
Just after seven, a dusty landscaping truck, towing an equipment trailer, stopped at the curb. A group of four young men in work clothes hopped aboard the flatbed and tapped on the roof of the cab to signal that they were ready to go.
The driver stuck his head out. “Where’s Rankin?”
“Sick,” replied one of the crew.
The foreman was disgusted. “He gets conveniently sick on Fridays. We’ve got eleven houses to do in Brookline, and we’re shorthanded.”
The worker shrugged. “He said he’d try to send a replacement.”
“Oh, yeah, you can really depend on Rankin. How long are we supposed to wait for this replacement? All day?”
Aiden jumped up. “Meet me here at five,” he whispered to Meg. Then he was over the wrought-iron railing, across the sidewalk, and onto the trailer.
“Sorry I’m late. Rankin sent me.”
The boss regarded him dubiously. “Where’d he find you — the day care center?”
“I start Harvard in the fall,” Aiden lied defensively.
“Okay, college boy. The pay’s twelve bucks an hour, cash. No dental plan. Got it?”
“Fine.” It sounded better than fine. It sounded like survival — at least for one more day.
Meg remained at the café for a long time. In a style that reminded her of her cautious, practical brother, she took microscopic bites of her half of the bagel, making it last. She wasn’t easily intimidated, but the thought of finding a hotel in this huge city was something she would have given much to avoid. What could they afford, after all? Some crumbling fleabag full of roaches and rats? And who knew what kind of sleazy business went on in places like that? There could be bullets flying through the paper-thin walls.
She built this line of thinking into a pretty sizable grudge against Aiden for deserting her here. But to be fair, it really wouldn’t have worked any other way. How was an eleven-year-old supposed to make money — by robbing a bank? On the other hand, would scouting out hotel rooms appear any less weird for a young girl? How many sixth-graders hung around seedy neighborhoods, strolling from flophouse to flophouse, comparison shopping?
There had to be a better way. If she was home and had her laptop, she could just go online and price every hotel in Boston in a matter of minutes. She grimaced. Her laptop, along with everything else she owned, was in the storage facility of the Department of Juvenile Corrections in Washington, DC. She’d probably never see it again.
Suddenly, she had the answer. Her laptop may have been gone forever, but the Internet was still open for business. All she had to do was find a way to get on the Web.
It was so simple — the library! They offered free Internet access to the public.
I’m the public!
Didn’t it figure — the cashier had no idea where the nearest library was. But a customer pointed her in the direction of the Cliffhaven branch, just a few blocks away, opening at nine.
The two-hundred-year-old building was spectacular, almost a miniature castle, built around a high stone turret. Inside, however, it could have been any library in the world — rows of beige metal shelving, faded carpeting, and well-worn oak tables and chairs.
The computers were behind the periodical section. Since it was early, she had no problem snagging a cubicle.
She searched keywords BOSTON and LODGING, and soon navigated her way onto a hotel site. She selected her price range — the lowest — and began to scroll through the possibilities.
They looked “scuzzy.” That was her mother’s word to describe hotels where the musty smell told the whole story. For Mom, mustiness implied a vast list of other failings — dirt, mildew, germs, infestation — all of them deal breakers.
I wonder if it’s musty in jail….
No. That line of thinking had to be cut off right away, before she ended up in tears.
She concentrated on the task at hand. The real problem was that even the inexpensive hotels were pretty expensive. After all, ninety bucks per night may have been a great bargain for Boston, but not if you didn’t have the ninety bucks.
She sighed glumly. There were probably plenty of places cheaper than that, but they weren’t the kind of establishments that advertised on the Web. Those hotels could be accessed only by walking down a garbage-strewn street to a front door reinforced with wire grating.
It was her first time online since the foster homes they’d lived in before Sunnydale. As if propelled by an irresistible force, her fingers began to meander around the keyboard, doing what she had promised herself she would never do. Back on the Google home page, she typed in the most infamous last name in America — Falconer.
The response was overwhelming: one-point-five-million hits. Each link held some special kind of torture. Pictures of the trial, that nightmare circus — the vengeful faces of the jurors; the angry bias in the judge’s eyes; the steely indifference of that towering FBI agent — Harris, the man who had ruined all their lives; Mom and Dad in prison jumpsuits …
Oh, Mom, you always hated orange!
But the news updates weren’t the worst of it. The letters — the postings on personal Web pages and blogs — were so vicious, they sent chills down her spine. “Hang ’em high,” “bring back the electric chair,” “burn that scum alive,” “killing’s too good for them.”
Why are you reading this? she demanded of herself. These morons don’t know our family. They have no idea what they’re talking about!
Yet, like a rubbernecker at an accident scene, she could not look away. She tried to convince herself that these opinions belonged to a few crackpots. But deep down she knew that the postings genuinely represented how people in the country felt about the Falconers.
Everybody believes they worked for terrorists! I’d hate them myself if I didn’t know the truth!
If you need any more evidence that our justice system is broken, consider the fact that John and Louise Falconer were not executed and are living at taxpayers’ expense in prison. Now it seems pretty obvious that their children, their teenage son at least, were their accomplices. Why else would two minors escape from their youth farm by burning the place to the ground, without giving so much as a thought to the many lives they put in danger?
Meg pulled up short. That’s us!
Of course, she and Aiden knew that their escape had been reported in the news. But they’d always assumed it was a local story — in Nebraska, where Sunnydale was; in Chicago, where they’d been chased by police; and in Vermont, where a terrifying stranger they’d nicknamed Hairless Joe had suddenly appeared and tried to kill them.
This was different. Now they were becoming part of their parents’ story, the desperado children of public enemies one and two.
That couldn’t be good. The key to surviving as a fugitive was staying invisible. Being kids made it hard enough — they were constantly explaining why they were on their own. But if this somehow turned into Falconers: The Sequel, they were going to be more famous than Bonnie and Clyde. They wouldn’t be able to walk down the street without half a dozen people dialing nine one one on their cell phones. There’d be zero chance of saving Mom and Dad then.
There’s a solution to all this, she reminded herself, scrolling farther down. Keep off the Internet. You’ll only drive yourself crazy.
Anyway, not all the one-point-five-million hits were about Mom and Dad. There were also some Web sites about falconry and falconry schools. There was a Falconer Center for the Performing Arts in Liverpool, England, and a luxury yacht called The Falconer that was available for rental … fascinating
stuff. Yeah, right.
Her eyes wandered from the links to the ads that dotted the screen: fad diets, dating services, Join Trans-Atlantica SkyPoints, America’s #1 Frequent Flyer Program …
She was amazed at the surge of warmth that took hold in her gut. Her parents used to travel extensively on the lecture circuit. Both of them had zillions of miles piled up with various airlines, including Trans-Atlantica. It was almost as if she had come upon a piece of her parents on the Web.
A thought occurred to her. After the trial, the government had padlocked the Falconers’ home and frozen their assets and bank accounts. But what about frequent-flyer programs? Had the FBI shut those down as well?
She clicked on the link to the Trans-Atlantica site and typed in her father’s name. A PIN was required, but that was easy. The password used by all the Falconers for everything was Mugsy, a tribute to an old family pet.
When the account information appeared on the screen, Meg had to hold herself back from cheering. In your face, Agent Harris. You didn’t think of everything!
The idea struck her so abruptly that she was almost swept off her chair: I wonder if there’s a way to use these miles to book us a hotel room in Boston.
The disappointment was instant. That would be really smart — checking in with a reservation booked in the name of a front-page traitor. That would be perfect for two kids trying not to be noticed.
Then it hit her. Mom! She had as many points as Dad. But she had always traveled under her maiden name, Louise Graham.
Excitedly, Meg called up her mother’s frequent-flyer account using the same PIN. She whistled admiringly. Mom had more than seven hundred thousand SkyPoints.
That’ll do, she thought to herself with a smile that was rare these days. That’ll do very nicely.
* * *
Aiden slunk through the crowded downtown sidewalks, the soles of his sneakers barely lifting off the concrete. He had never been so exhausted in his life. Even the escape from Sunnydale — countless hours of fleeing through cornfields — hadn’t left him in this much pain. The raking/pruning/lifting/hauling/pushing/bending of the landscaping work had strained muscles he hadn’t even known existed. The simple act of sidestepping a hot dog vendor’s cart required so much concentration that he thought he might pass out from the effort.
He hoped Meg had been able to arrange for a place to spend the night. If he didn’t find a bed to flop on soon, he was going to drop dead at any minute.
When he spotted her, perched on the wrought-iron railing of the café, the flood of relief that washed over him was astonishing. He’d been so wrapped up in his own misery, he’d given barely a thought to his little sister. There was nobody braver, stronger, and more capable, but she was still only eleven years old. Abandoning her in the middle of Boston with no food, no shelter, and a few lonely dollars would never have been his first choice. Seeing her there, safe and sound — and a little too relaxed, if you ask me — brought home just how worried he’d been about her.
“Sorry I’m late,” he greeted breathlessly. “They dropped us off in a different place, and I couldn’t find the café.”
She was fresh as a daisy, sipping on a Coke. “No offense, bro, but you look like they dragged you behind the truck.”
He was too weary to take offense. “Tell me we live somewhere.”
She smiled knowingly. “Follow me.”
Mercifully, it was only a ten-minute walk before they came to the elegant marquee of the Royal Bostonian Hotel. Aiden stared round-eyed as his sister marched in an elegant brassbound door held open by a liveried doorman.
“You’re kidding,” he whispered, awed by the gigantic crystal chandeliers in the opulent lobby.
“I got us a suite,” she announced smugly.
He pulled her behind a marble pillar. “Are you crazy? We can’t afford to breathe the air in this place, let alone stay here! You know what I earned today? Ninety-six bucks! That wouldn’t buy you a closet in this palace!”
“Relax,” she soothed. “It’s taken care of.”
“By whom?”
“By Mom.”
He gawked at her. What was the matter with Meg? Had the strain of their family tragedy pushed her over the edge? Was she starting to lose it?
She took his hand and pulled him into the paneled elevator. When the door closed and they were alone, she explained how she had used Louise Graham’s SkyPoints to book them a long weekend in a five-star hotel.
“I’m Belinda Graham, and you’re my brother, Gary,” she explained as the elevator opened onto the fourth-floor hall. “Louise is our mother, but she’s in meetings all day. Check it out.”
If Aiden had been surprised before, now he was thunderstruck. The Provincetown Suite looked like something out of a movie — a vast, elegantly appointed Victorian parlor and two luxurious bedrooms, featuring king-size canopy beds.
Aiden was overawed. “How many points did she have?”
“They upgraded me,” Meg confided. “I’m adorable. The king of Spain stayed here last year — probably not on frequent-flyer miles.”
Aiden regarded her with respect. “I can’t believe you pulled this off. But you have to know it’s risky. This suite can be traced to Mom.”
She shrugged. “If the FBI didn’t close down the frequent-flyer accounts during the trial, why would they remember them now?”
It made sense. Still — “But we’re supposed to be keeping a low profile, Meg. You’ve got to know this isn’t it.”
She looked him straight in the eye. “Are our lives so fantastic that we don’t deserve to catch a break once in a blue moon? We’re stuck until Monday. What does it hurt if we live a little?”
He looked behind her to the Jacuzzi tub in the gleaming marble bathroom. The soothing jets were on his aching muscles inside of five minutes.
Sleep.
There was no describing the depth and perfection of it. For days, the Falconers had been snatching catnaps in haylofts, boxcars, and buses. The nighttime was far too valuable to waste on rest. When all was dark and prying eyes were shut, that was the time to run, to flee.
But this, thought Meg through delicious dreams, nowhere to go, nothing to accomplish but sleep, sleep, sleep, on a feathery bed in the best hotel in Boston —
When the phone rang, she lifted several inches off the mattress and snatched up the receiver in hazy outrage. Still half asleep, she struggled to put together a stream of curses to howl at this inconsiderate —
A recorded voice came on the line: “This is your automated wake-up call. The time is now seven A.M.”
Wake-up call?
That was when she saw Aiden bustling around the palatial living room, pulling on his grass-stained T-shirt.
“What are you doing, bro? It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’m going to meet the crew,” he told her.
“On Saturday?”
“They work seven days a week in the summer,” he explained. “Tomorrow, too.”
“But” — she could barely think straight — “but the room’s already paid for. Why break your neck?”
“We still have to eat,” Aiden reminded her. “Money means survival. Survival means a chance to help Mom and Dad.” He paused at the door. “How do I look?”
“Disgusting,” she replied honestly. “And you look better than you smell. Don’t you think the crew’s going to notice that your clothes reek?”
He shrugged. “Five minutes in the hot sun, and we’ll all smell the same. But you’ve got a point.” His shirt was ripped and filthy. When Meg took stock of her own clothing, she noted that her shorts were starting to unravel at the cuffs.
He produced four twenty-dollar bills and handed them to his sister. “Buy us some clothes. Nothing expensive, but if we look too gross, we’ll attract attention.”
“We’ll attract flies,” Meg amended sourly. She wrinkled her nose. “You already do. Get out of here, Aiden. Go make us rich.”
* * *
The newspapers
seemed to call out to Meg. She had been staring at them for twenty minutes now — ever since the bundle had been heaved from the back of a truck to the sidewalk beside the shuttered newsstand.
I can sell these. She recalled Aiden’s words: Money means survival.
But as she stooped to grab the twine binding, an unpleasant voice declared, “You want a paper, you pay a buck like everybody else.”
The newsstand owner was glaring at her as he undid the padlock on his curbside booth.
“Just reading the stock market report,” she mumbled, and hurried away. That would be swell — to get arrested for swiping newspapers after coming so far. Aiden would kill her, and he’d be right to.
She stepped back through the polished brass entryway into the muted light of the elegant lobby. But was she any safer in here? Rich people had eyes, too, and so did snooty desk clerks and bellhops. After all, how many eleven-year-olds hung out in five-star hotels?
The thought had barely crossed her mind when the door to the coffee shop opened and out stepped a girl who looked exactly Meg’s age and size. She was accompanied by her father; at least he appeared to be her father — a youngish man in a well-tailored pin-striped suit. The daughter was beautifully dressed as well, in pink denim pants and matching jacket. It was obvious these people belonged at the Royal Bostonian. They looked like an ad for a swank country club — clear-eyed, handsome, and wealthy. It made Meg even more conscious of her tattered shorts and T-shirt. Aiden was right — she and her brother needed something decent to wear, especially in a place like this.
There was only one flaw in the father-and-daughter portrait. The man looked busy and slightly impatient. And the girl was the picture of misery.
“I’ll be in meetings all day, Chelsea,” Meg heard him say, “so you’re on your own until dinner. Don’t waste the whole day in front of the TV.”
Chelsea said something in an inaudible voice, never raising her eyes from the marble floor.
Her father frowned. “I have to go now. Use your time well.”
He went outside and allowed the doorman to hail him a taxi. The girl started for the elevators, head down, feet dragging.
The Fugitive Factor Page 3
